Joanna of Flanders

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Not to be confused with Joan, Countess of Flanders.
Joanna
Duchess consort of Brittany
Tenure 30 April 1341–16 September 1345
Spouse John IV
Issue
John V, Duke of Brittany
Joan of Brittany, Baroness of Drayton
House House of Montfort
Father Louis I, Count of Nevers
Mother Joan, Countess of Rethel
Born c. 1295
Died September 1374 (aged 78-9)
Religion Roman Catholicism

Joanna of Flanders (c. 1295 – September 1374), also known as Countess Jeanne, Jehanne de Montfort, and Jeanne la Flamme (Fiery Joan), was consort Duchess of Brittany by her marriage to John de Montfort. Much of her life was taken up in defence of the rights of her husband and, later, son to the dukedom, which was challenged by the House of Blois during the Breton War of Succession. Known for her fiery personality, Joanna led the Montfortist cause after her husband had been captured, and began the fight-back, showing considerable skill as a military leader.

In her later life, after the war had entered a stalemate, Joan became mentally ill. She lived to see the final victory of her cause, but most of her last years she was cared for in England, confined at Tickhill Castle.

Joanna was highly praised by the chronicler Jean Froissart for her courage and energy. Because of her feats of leadership David Hume described her as "the most extraordinary woman of the age".

Life

She was the daughter of Louis I, Count of Nevers and Joan, Countess of Rethel, and the sister of Louis I, Count of Flanders. She married Jean de Monfort (John of Monfort) in March 1329. Jean de Monfort claimed the title of Duke of Brittany, although his claim was contested by the House of Blois led by Charles of Blois. They had two children:[1]

Breton War of Succession

When John's half-brother died in 1341, his niece Joanna of Penthièvre and her husband, the afore-mentioned Charles of Blois claimed Brittany. John went to Paris to be heard by King Philip VI of France. Philip was an uncle of Charles, and he imprisoned John, despite having given him a promise of safe conduct. Philip and the French courts then declared Charles and his wife to be the true heirs to the Duchy.

Joanna then announced her infant son leader. She mustered an army and captured Redon. From there she went to Hennebont, to prepare it for a siege. Charles of Blois duly arrived in 1342 and besieged the town. She then sent Amaury de Clisson to ask King Edward III of England for aid. This, Edward was eager to give, since he had been claiming the French crown for himself, and he was therefore at odds with Philip. If he could get Brittany as an ally, this would be of great advantage for future campaigns. He prepared ships under the command of Sir Walter Manny to relieve the siege.[2]

Siege of Hennebont

Joanna of Flanders spots the English fleet arriving to relieve Hennebont, 1342
Illus. from François Guizot's, History of France, 1869

In the siege of Hennebont, she took up arms and, dressed in armour, conducted the defence of the town, encouraging the people to fight, and urging the women to "cut their skirts and take their safety in their own hands". When she took a look from a tower and saw that the enemy camp was almost unguarded, she led three hundred men on a charge, burned down his supplies and destroyed his tents. After this she became known as "Jeanne la Flamme". When the Blois faction realised what was happening, they cut off her retreat to the town, but she and her knights rode to Brest, drawing a portion of the Blois force with them. Having secured Brest, she gathered together extra supporters and secretly returned to Hennebont, evading the Blois forces and re-entering the town with her reinforcements.[2]

Charles of Blois tried to starve the people in Hennebont. During a long meeting the bishop of Leon tried to persuade Joanna to surrender, but from the window she saw Walter Manny's fleet from England sailing up. Hennebont was strengthened with English forces and held out.[3] Charles was forced to retreat, but tried to isolate Joanna by taking other towns in Brittany. On his return he again failed to capture Hennebont.[2]

Fight back

Joanna sailed to England to seek further reinforcements from King Edward, which he provided, but the English fleet was intercepted on its way to Brittany by Charles of Blois' ally, Louis of Spain. In a hard-fought battle, the sailors and knights grappled in hand-to-hand combat as Louis' men attempted to board Joanna's ship. According to Froissart, Joanna fought in person "with the heart of a lion, and in her hand she wielded a sharp glaive, wherewith she fought fiercely."[2] Eventually the English forces beat off Louis's ships and made harbour near Vannes. Her forces then captured Vannes, besieged Rennes and sought to break the siege of Hennebont.

From this point Joanna played little direct part in the fighting, as her faction was now being led by English warlords. With neither side able to achieve a decisive victory, by the treaty of Malestroit in 1343, her husband John was released and hostilities ceased for a period. He was later imprisoned once again, but escaped and resumed the conflict. When her husband died in 1345 in the midst of the war, she again became the leader of the Montfort party to protect the rights of her son John V against the House of Blois. In 1347, English forces acting on her behalf captured Charles of Blois in battle.

Confinement

By this time Joanna and her son were living in England. In England, she succumbed to a mental illness, and spent the rest of her life in confinement at Tickhill Castle. King Edward III entrusted her to the care of Sir William Frank until 1346, Haukeston Thomas (1346-1357), John Delves (d. 1370) and finally to his widow Isabella and Godfrei Foljambe.

She lived long enough to have experienced the final victory of her son John V, Duke of Brittany over the House of Blois in 1364, but she never returned to the duchy. The last mention made of the duchess and her guardian is the 14 February 1374. It seems she died that year.

Legacy

"Jeanne la Flamme", illustration to Histoire de Notre Bretagne by Jeanne Malivel.

Joanna was later known as a prototype of the martial woman in Brittany, and a possible influence on Joan of Arc of France.[4] Jean Froissart said she "had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion".[2] David Hume described her as "the most extraordinary woman of the age".[2] Victorian feminists also cited her as a role-model. Harriet Taylor Mill mentions her as one of the "heroic chatelaines" of the Middle Ages in her essay "The Enfranchisement of Women".[5] Amelia Bloomer also cites her as one of the "heroic women" of the era.[6] Pierce Butler said that she is "known to us, through the enthusiastic record of Froissart, as an amazon, but hardly known at all as a woman." He concluded,

In those qualities admired by chivalry she was unquestionably an extraordinary woman: courageous and personally valiant, with a head to plan daring exploits and a heart to conduct her through the thick of the danger; impulsive and generous, a free-handed ruler and an admirer of those deeds of chivalrous daring in others which she was so willing to share in herself...One cannot read her story without enthusiasm, yet one would like to know more of the woman before bestowing unreserved praise on the countess "who was worth a man in a fight" and "who had the heart of a lion".[2]

Joanna was later celebrated for her fiery exploits in Breton folklore, in particular in a ballad collected in Barzaz Breiz, which relates her attack on the camp at Hennebont. In Jeanne Coroller-Danio's Breton nationalist book Histoire de Notre Bretagne (1922) Joanna is depicted as a heroine of Breton resistance to French occupation.

Ancestry

References

  1. ↑ Jones, Michael, The Creation of Brittany, (The Hambledon Press, 1988), 210.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Butler, Pierce, Women of Medieval France, Chapter IX, Barrie, London 1907.
  3. ↑ Mortimer, Ian (2008). The Perfect King The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation. Vintage. pp. 204–205. 
  4. ↑ Stephen Wesley Richey, Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint, Greenwood, 2003, p.116.
  5. ↑ John Stuart Mill, Alice S. Rossi, Harriet Taylor Mill, Essays on Sex Equality, University of Chicago Press, 1970, p.102.
  6. ↑ Anne C. Coon (ed) Hear Me Patiently:The Reform Speeches of Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1994, p.158/

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joanna of Flanders.
Preceded by
Joan of Savoy		 Duchess consort of Brittany
1341–1345 		Succeeded by
Mary of Waltham
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