He was the son of Duke Frederick II and Agnes of Bar and succeeded his brother, Theobald I.

He immediately had to give away Nancy to his brother's widow, Gertrude of Dagsburg, who remarried to Theobald IV of Champagne, whose suzerainty Matthias had to recognize, due to the fruitless wars his brother had waged against an imperial coalition.

By this, he reinitiated the close alliance with the Holy Roman Emperors which his forefathers had had for over a century from the appointment of Adalbert until the war between his brother and Frederick, which had ruptured that long friendship.

That same year, the emperor was excommunicated for a third time and Matthias distanced himself from the Imperial camp before joining the papal party of Pope Innocent IV in 1247.

He died only a few years thence after having negotiated the profitable marriage of his son with the daughter of the Count of Champagne.