Joan I of Naples

Joan I (1328 – 12 May 1382), born Joanna of Anjou, was Queen of Naples from 1343 until her death. She was also Countess of Provence and Forcalquier, Queen consort of Majorca and titular Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily 1343–82, and Princess of Achaea 1373/5–81.

Early family and political life

Born in Naples, Joan was the daughter of Charles, Duke of Calabria (eldest son of King Robert of Naples) and Marie of Valois (a sister of King Philip VI of France). At the age of seven years (1334), she was betrothed to her six-year-old second cousin Prince Andrew (Hungarian: Endre) of the Hungarian branch of the House of Anjou, the son of Charles I of Hungary and younger brother of Louis I.

When the King died in 1343, in his last will and testament, he formally bequeathed his kingdom to Joan I of Naples, and made no mention of Andrew, even as a consort and tried to exclude him from rule.

With the approval of Pope Clement VI, Joan was crowned as sole monarch of Naples in August 1344. Fearing for his life, Andrew wrote to his mother Elizabeth that he would soon flee the kingdom. She intervened, and made a state visit; before she returned to Hungary, she bribed Pope Clement to reverse himself and permit the coronation of Andrew. She also gave a ring to Andrew, which was supposed to protect him from death by blade or poison, and returned with a false sense of security to Hungary.

Hearing of the Pope's reversal, a group of noble conspirators (the involvement of Queen Joan remaining unproved) determined to forestall Andrew's coronation. During a hunting trip at Aversa, Andrew left his room in the middle of the night and was set upon by the conspirators. A treacherous servant barred the door behind him; and as Joan cowered in their bed, a terrible struggle ensued, Andrew defending himself furiously and shrieking for aid. He was finally overpowered, strangled with a cord, and flung from a window. Isolde, Andrew's Hungarian nurse saw the whole conflict, and took the Prince's corpse to the church of the monks, and remained with it until next morning in mourning. When the Hungarian knights arrived she told them everything in their mother tongue so no one else would learn about the truth, and soon they left Naples informing everything to the Hungarian King.

After the assassination of Andrew in 1345, Joan married three more times: to Louis of Taranto, James IV of Majorca and Prince of Achaea and Otto, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. Her one son by Andrew died at a young age, as did her two daughters by Louis.

Political intrigues

Her reign was marked by violent political struggles among the members of the Angevin house. The assassination of Andrew brought about the enmity of King Louis I of Hungary and his invasion of Naples. Joan was forced for a period to flee to Avignon and to pay for her return to her kingdom by selling her rights over that city to Pope Clement VI; after several reverses of fortune, both Joan and Louis agreed to the papal request for a truce. The matter was to be solved by a new trial over Andrew's assassination, to be held in Avignon. Joan was acquitted of all charges, and she could return.

Her second husband, Louis of Taranto, was crowned as co-king in 1353, the only one of her husbands to whom she willingly accorded that status. In 1373, her cousin and former brother-in-law Philip II of Taranto resigned to her his rights to the Principality of Achaea, as did her third husband, James, before his death in 1375.

Troubles with the Papacy

In addition, Joan supported the Avignon Papacy during the Western Schism and allied herself with France, adopting Louis I of Anjou, a younger son of John II of France as her heir. France and antipope Clement VII counted on Naples to give them a foothold in Italy, if it came to resolving the schism by force. In retaliation, in April 1380, Pope Urban VI declared her a heretic and her kingdom, a papal fief, to be forfeit and bestowed it upon Charles of Durazzo, her niece's husband and heir. She reacted by switching the inheritance to Louis I of Naples, brother of King Charles V of France. This move, however, favoured Charles of Durazzo, as Louis was forced to remain in France after his brother's death. Charles was recognized King of Naples by Urban VI on 1 June 1381 and, with Hungarian support, advanced on Naples, where Joan had entrusted her new husband Otto (whom she had married in 1376) with the few troops she could muster. After Otto's defeat at Anagni, and bypassing the Neapolitan defences at Aversa, Charles entered Naples on 26 July and besieged Joan in the Castel dell'Ovo. In late August, Otto again attempted to free his wife but was crushed and made prisoner. She was forced to surrender, and was imprisoned in the fortress of San Fele, (near Muro Lucano).

The end

Preoccupied by the coronation of Louis at the hands of Pope Urban VI, and by Louis' military power, Charles had Joan killed on 12 May 1382; she was smothered with pillows, in revenge for the method of assassination inflicted upon Duke Andrew .^[1] The Neapolitan kingdom was left to decades of recurring wars of succession. Louis of Anjou was able to retain the mainland counties of Provence and Forcalquier. James of Baux, the nephew of Philip II of Taranto, claimed the Principality of Achaea after her deposition in 1381.

Issue

In total, Joan had three children from her first two marriages:

From her first marriage to Andrew, Duke of Calabria, Joan had one son:

• Charles Martel of Naples (Naples, 25 December 1345 – Hungary aft. 10 May 1348)

From her second marriage to Louis, Prince of Taranto, Joan had two daughters:

• Catherine of Naples (1347–aft. 1362)
• Francesca of Naples (1349–1352)

Joan's final two marriages were childless.

Role in literature

• Alexandre Dumas, père wrote a romance, Joan of Naples, part of his eight-volume series Celebrated Crimes (1839–40).
• A fictionalised account of her life can also be found in the novel Queen of the Night by Alan Savage.

Ancestry

References

General

• Vittorio Zaccaria's translation of Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris, second edition (Milan) 1970, biography number 106
• Virginia Brown's translation of Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris, Harvard University Press, 2001; ISBN 0-674-01130-9
• Guido Guarino's translation of Boccaccio's Concerning Famous Women, Rutgers University, (New Brunswick), 1963.
• Elizabeth Casteen, "Sex and Politics in Naples: The Regnant Queenship of Johanna I," Journal of the Historical Society, 11,2 (2011), 183–210.

Specific

External links

• A. Dumas, Joan of Naples: e-text
• (French) Coat of arms of the House of Anjou-Sicily
• (French) House of Anjou-Sicily