Ancestral Trails 2016 » Joanna I of NAPLES (1328-1382)

Persoonlijke gegevens Joanna I of NAPLES 

• Zij is geboren maart 1328 in Naples, Napoli, Campania, Italy.
• Titel: Queen of Naples, Countess of Provence and Forcalquier
• (Ancestry) : House of Anjou.
• Zij is overleden op 27 juli 1382 in San Fele, Potenza, Basilicata, Italy, zij was toen 54 jaar oud.

  Assassinated

• Een kind van Charles of CALABRIA

Gezin van Joanna I of NAPLES

Zij is getrouwd met Otto von BRAUNSCHWEIG-GRUBENHAGEN.

Zij zijn getrouwd op 25 maart 1376 te Castel Nuovo, Italy, zij was toen 48 jaar oud.

Notities over Joanna I of NAPLES

Joanna I (Italian: Giovanna I; March 1328 - 27 July 1382) was Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence and Forcalquier from 1343 until her death. She also reigned as Princess of Achaea and claimed the crowns of Jerusalem and Sicily. During her long reign she was involved in numerous conflicts both internal and external. She was married four times.

Most sources indicate that she was born in March 1328, although some indicate 1326 as the year of her birth. Joanna was the fourth but eldest surviving child of Charles, Duke of Calabria (eldest son of King Robert the Wise of Naples), and Marie of Valois (sister of King Philip VI of France). Her two older sisters: Eloisa (January or February 1325 - 27 December 1325) and Maria (April 1326 - 1328), and only brother: Charles Martel (13 April 1327 - 21 April 1327) had predeceased her, so at birth Joanna was the second in line to the throne after her father, who died on 9 November 1328, leaving his wife pregnant with their fifth child, a daughter named Maria, who was born in May 1329. Two years later, on 23 October 1331, Marie of Valois died during a pilgrimage to Bari.

With the death of the Duke of Calabria, King Robert faced the serious problem of his succession (his second son Louis, was already dead in 1310): he had to choose between his eldest granddaughter or his nephews. Because the descendants of his older brother Charles had already been bypassed in favour of himself, Robert appointed Joanna as his successor. As heir presumptive to the throne of Naples, she received homage on 4 November 1330, and was proclaimed Duchess of Calabria on 26 September 1333 and Princess of Salerno on 26 June 1334.

In order to reconcile his bloodline with the descendants of his older brother, King Robert arranged the marriage of Joanna with her six-year-old kinsman Andrew, the younger son of Robert's nephew Charles I of Hungary. Through his father he had a claim to Naples, which could be argued to be superior to that of Robert and consequently also to that of Joanna. The marriage contract between Joanna and Andrew was signed on 8 November 1332, and they were formally married at Santa Chiara Basilica on 26 September 1333, despite being both underage (Joanna was around five-years-old and Andrew six). In the ceremony, Andrew was created Duke of Calabria and began to live in Naples.

When King Robert of Naples died on 20 January 1343, in his last will and testament, he formally bequeathed his kingdom to Joanna, and made no mention of Andrew, even as a consort, and tried to exclude him from rule. In the event of Joanna's death without children, the crown would fall to her younger sister Maria and not to him.

Poorly prepared for her role, Joanna was placed (following her grandfather's will, who wanted to end the Papal influence over Naples) under regency council led by her stepgrandmother, the queen dowager Sancha of Majorca; the Vice-Chancellor Philippe de Cabassoles, Bishop of Cavaillon; Fillipo di Sanginetto, Great Seneschal of Provence; and Admiral Giffredo di Marzano. Faced with the ineffectiveness of the Council, the Pope, in his capacity as overlord, decided to impose his direct rule by sending a Legate, Cardinal Aimery de Châtelus.

Second Marriage
When she made public her plans to marry one of her Taranto cousins and not Andrew's younger brother Stephen, the Hungarians openly accused her of the murder.

Louis of Taranto was a seasoned warrior, who understood Neapolitan politics from his lifetime experiences, raised at the court of Catherine of Valois, Joanna's aunt. After Joanna stated her intention to marry him, his brother Robert banded together with his cousin (and erstwhile rival) Charles of Durazzo against them. Some of Joanna's courtiers and servants were tortured and later executed, including her Sicilian governess Philippa the Catanian and the latter's family. Louis was successful in driving his brother's forces back, but just as he reached Naples, it became known that the Hungarians planned to invade. Joanna made a pact with the Kingdom of Sicily, preventing them from invading at the same time. She married Louis on 22 August 1347, without seeking the necessary Papal dispensation, because of their being closely related.

In anticipation of his marriage, Louis was made Joint-Protector and Defender of the Kingdom (1 May 1347), jointly with Charles of Durazzo. One month later (20 June), Louis was made Vicar-General of the Kingdom. The marriage caused the Queen's popularity within her own Kingdom to fall.

Third Marriage
James IV of Majorca.
The death of Louis of Taranto, a brutal and authoritarian husband, finally gave Joanna the opportunity to take back the power she had been denied. During the next three years, the Queen would take a series of measures that made her popular: she granted a pardon to Raymond des Baux on 20 March 1363, replaced Roger of San Severino by Fouques d'Agoult as Seneschal of Provence, and promulged various edicts to prevent internal disorders.

On 14 December 1362, Joanna contracted by proxy her third marriage, with James IV, titular King of Majorca and Prince of Achaea, who was ten years her junior. The wedding took place in person five months later, in May 1363 at Castel Nuovo. Unfortunately, this marriage was also turbulent: her new husband had been imprisoned for almost 14 years by his uncle King Peter IV of Aragon in an iron cage, an experience which left him mentally deranged. In addition to his poor mental state, another bone of contention between the couple was James IV's efforts to be involved in the government, although he was excluded from any role in the government of Naples in his marriage contract. Without hope of being King of Naples, James IV left Naples for Spain by the end of January 1366 and made an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Majorca. He was captured by King Henry II of Castile, who transferred him to Bertrand du Guesclin, who held him captive in Montpellier. He was ransomed by Joanna in 1370 and returned to her briefly, only to depart again, this time for good. He failed in an attempt to recapture Roussillon and Cerdanya in 1375, and fled to Castile where he died of illness or poison at Soria in February 1375.

Fourth Marriage
Without surviving children, Joanna sought a solution to her succession by arranging the marriage in January 1369 between her niece Margaret of Durazzo (youngest daughter of her sister Maria and her first husband Charles, Duke of Durazzo), and her first-cousin Charles of Durazzo (in turn Joanna's second cousin; son of Louis, Count of Gravina). This wedding was opposed by her former brother-in-law and Margaret's stepfather Philip II, Prince of Taranto. During a near fatal illness in November 1373, he bequeathed his claims to his brother-in-law Francis of Baux, Duke of Andria, and his son James. Francis laid claim by force to the rights of Philip II, which Joanna had reverted to the crown. Joanna then confiscated his property by grounds of lèse-majesté on 8 April 1374.

Joanna was now determined to undermine the position of Charles of Durazzo as potential heir. Indeed, with the approval of Pope Gregory XI, on 25 December 1375 she signed her fourth marriage contract, with Otto, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, who valiantly defended her rights in Piedmont. The wedding in person took place three months later, on 25 March 1376 at Castel Nuovo. Although the new husband was reduced to the status of Prince consort, Charles of Durazzo was irritated by this union and approached Louis the Great of Hungary, Joanna's enemy.

Assassination
Louis I of Anjou finally decided to act and went to Avignon at the head of a powerful army on 31 May 1382 in order to rescue Joanna. He passed through Turin and Milan. Towards the beginning of September, he was in Amatrice, near Rome. But by that time the Queen was already dead. Charles of Durazzo, thinking that he couldn't resist Louis I of Anjou, had transferred Joanna at the fortress of San Fele, near Muro Lucano, where she was killed on 27 July 1382, aged 54.

In his official statement, Charles claimed Joanna died of natural causes, however other documentary sources unanimously claim she was murdered. Because of the nature of the remote and clandestine act, the accounts of the manner in which Joanna was slain vary. The two most authentic sources:

Thomas of Niem, secretary to Urban VI, states Joanna was strangled with a silken chord whilst kneeling in prayer in the private chapel at Muro castle by Hungarian soldiers. Marie of Blois, wife of Louis I of Anjou, states Joanna was killed by four men, presumably Hungarian, with her hands and feet tied and then smothered between two feather mattresses. Since there were no witnesses present at the time of her murder, it is impossible to say definitively which of the reports is accurate. Another account states she was smothered with pillows.

Her body was brought to Naples where for several days it was put on display to the public as proof of her death. As Urban VI had excommunicated Joanna, the Queen could not be consecrated in church property and was therefore tossed into a deep well on the grounds of Santa Chiara Church. The Neapolitan Kingdom was left to decades of recurring wars of succession. Louis I 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.
SOURCE: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_I_of_Naples

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