Johanna I (Naples)

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Queen Joan I of Naples, picture from the 15th / 16th centuries. Century

Johanna I of Anjou ( Italian Giovanna d'Angiò ; * around 1326 ; † May 12, 1382 in Muro Lucano , Province of Potenza ) was Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence from the House of Anjou from 1343 until her death . In addition she carried the title of Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily.

Life

Johanna was the eldest daughter of Duke Charles of Calabria and Maria of Valois. Her father was the designated heir to the Neapolitan throne, but he died in 1328 before his father, King Robert the Wise . In 1330 he determined his granddaughter to be his heir in his will and appointed her Duchess of Calabria in 1333. This inheritance regulation was not without controversy, as King Charles I Robert of Hungary made claims for a successor in Naples for his family. The King of Hungary also came from the House of Anjou and was the son of an older brother of King Roberts, which is why the Hungarian Anjous felt they had been left out of succession in Naples. King Robert had only succeeded to the throne in Naples with the support of the Pope , since Karl Robert was in Hungary and was then still a child. In order to defuse the emerging conflict, Johanna was married on September 28, 1333 to Prince Andreas of Hungary , a son of King Karl Roberts and her cousin. Another controversial point of the will was the government to be provided for Johanna, which was to rule for her until she came of age at the age of 25. King Robert excluded all other members of the House of Anjou, which were Johanna's cousins ​​from the Anjou-Taranto and Anjou-Durazzo lines.

After King Robert's death in 1343, Johanna succeeded her grandfather and in 1344 paid homage to a legate of the Pope, who was the overlord of the Kingdom of Naples. Contrary to the testamentary provisions, the Pope installed his own guardian for Joan and thus ousted the Regency Council appointed by Robert. The court in Naples was nevertheless dominated by the Anjou-Taranto and Anjou-Durazzo, all of whom aspired to the throne. Duke Karl von Durazzo married Johanna's younger sister as early as 1343 . Her own marriage was unhappy, her husband demanded to be crowned king as well, which Johanna refused, and she also developed an affection for her cousin Ludwig von Taranto . Pope Clement VI however, determined the coronation of Andreas in 1345, to whom the entire government should be transferred at the same time. Before this happened, Andreas was murdered in Aversa on the night of September 18, 1345 . At Christmas of the same year Johanna gave birth to her son Karl Martell, whom she immediately appointed Duke of Calabria .

Johanna married against the will of her grandfather on August 22, 1347 Ludwig von Taranto, whose confidante Niccolò Acciaiuoli received high posts at the court. A little later, King Ludwig I of Hungary invaded Italy on the pretext of wanting to avenge his murdered brother. Ludwig von Taranto opposed him at Benevento , but was defeated. Johanna and her husband then fled to Provence , but they left their son Karl Martell behind. The King of Hungary entered Aversa in January 1348 and a little later in Naples, where he was recognized by the rest of the Anjous as the new ruler of the empire. But he immediately had Johanna's brother-in-law, Karl von Durazzo, beheaded and took all the other cousins ​​to Hungary in captivity. Meanwhile, Johanna was able to justify the death of her first husband in a sham trial before cardinals in Provence and obtained a pardon from the Pope by selling him the city of Avignon , which had previously been part of her lands, on June 12, 1348 . In the same year she was able to return to Naples after Ludwig von Hungary had returned to his homeland with her son, whom she never saw again. In 1349 Johanna bought peace with Hungary by paying 300,000 gold florins.

The coat of arms of Queen Joan I

In the same year Johanna came of age, but the actual rule was in the hands of her husband, who was crowned in 1351, and his favorites. 1354 was with the support of Pope Innocent VI. a war started against King Louis of Sicily , whose aim was to conquer the island of Sicily , which the Anjous had lost in the Sicilian Vespers (1282). Almost the entire island including Palermo was taken by the summer of that year . Messina followed in September 1356 , where Johanna and her husband solemnly moved in. Still, the power of Joan and her husband deteriorated. The country was ravaged by countless bands of mercenaries and their cousins ​​from Anjou-Durazzo were in open revolt against them. They had Count Ludwig von Durazzo-Gravina thrown into a dungeon, in which he died a little later. In 1355 they were even excommunicated by the Pope after they were no longer able to make the usual annual payments to their liege lord. In Sicily, too, the situation worsened after Frederick III. with the support of Aragon started a counter-offensive and in 1361 recaptured Messina. The following year, Louis of Taranto died († May 26, 1362) and his almighty minister Niccolo Acciaiuoli died in 1365, with which not only Sicily was lost again, but the kingdom also fell into a state of anarchy. On March 31, 1373 Johanna signed with Friedrich III. the Peace of Aversa, in which they gave up Sicily and only had to come to terms with an overlordship over the island.

Already in 1363 Johanna had married the Mallorcan pretender Jakob through the mediation of Pope Urban V. However, the marriage did not bring the hoped-for political stability, as Jacob pushed for a greater share in power, which Johanna did not grant him. Jacob soon left Naples and died in Castile in 1375 . Johanna was with St. Birgitta became friends from Sweden and absolutely wanted to marry her son Karl Ulfsson, whom she met in the company of Birgitta and with whom she had fallen in love, although he was still married in Sweden. Birgitta could not dissuade her, but the problem was solved with the death of Charles on February 27, 1372.

On September 25, 1376, she finally entered into a fourth marriage with the mercenary leader Duke Otto IV of Braunschweig-Grubenhagen , known as Prince of Taranto and the Tarentines . In the following years she succeeded in pacifying the kingdom and in 1377 she supported the return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome .

After Pope Gregory XI. but died the following year, the occidental schism was triggered in a double election . Johanna initially supported Urban VI. , but soon approached the antipope Clement VII . In 1380 it was by Urban VI. declared a heretic, schismatic and deposed. Urban VI. then offered the crown to Charles of Durazzo . After the death of his father, he was brought up in prison under the special protection of Joan, who married him to her niece (and his cousin) Margarethe von Durazzo . But when Johanna married the pretender of Mallorca, Karl moved to the court of King Ludwig I of Hungary in 1365 and was her opponent from then on. After Philip II of Taranto, the last representative of the Anjou-Taranto, died in 1374 , Karl von Durazzo, the closest male relative, was considered the most promising candidate for the successor to Joanna. But the latter tried to forestall him in June 1380 by adopting Duke Ludwig I of Anjou , a younger brother of the French king, and thus making him her heir. But on June 24, 1381 Karl von Durazzo triumphed at Anagni over Otto von Braunschweig and moved into Naples on July 16, where he called himself Karl III. proclaimed king.

Johanna was captured in Castel dell'Ovo in September of the same year and strangled or suffocated in Castello di Muro Lucano on May 12, 1382. She was buried in the Church of Santa Chiara in Naples. Her adopted son did not appear in Italy until 1384, but died in Bari before he could reach Naples.

literature

  • Domenico Crivelli: Della prima e della seconda Giovanna, regine di Napoli. Brano curioso ed importante della storia Italiana della media età. Tipi Della Minerva, Padua 1832, ( digitized version ).
  • Giacinto Battaglia: Giovanna Prima, regina di Napoli. Storia del secolo XIV. 1835, ( digitized version ).
  • Welbore St Clair Baddeley: Queen Joanna I. of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, Countess of Provence, Forcalquier and Piedmont. An Essay on Her Times. William Heinemann, London 1893, ( digitized version ).
  • Domenico Scarpetta: Giovanna I di Napoli. Monografia storica con note del prof. Taddeo Ricciardi e prefazione di Gaetano Miranda. Gennaro Cioffi, Naples 1903, ( digitized version ).
  • Francesca M. Steele: The Beautiful Queen Joanna I. of Naples. Dodd, Mead and Company, New York NY 1910, ( digitized ).
  • Émile-G. Léonard: Histoire de Jeanne Ire, pure de Naples, comtesse de Provence (1343-1382). 3 volumes. Imprimerie de Monaco, Monaco 1932–1936.
  • Andreas Kiesewetter:  Giovanna I d'Angiò. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 55:  Ginammi – Giovanni da Crema. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2000, pp. 455-477.
  • Ciro Raia: Giovanna I d'Angiò regina di Napoli. T. Pironti, Naples 2000, ISBN 88-7937-238-6 .
  • Sabine Korsukéwitz: Queen Giovanna. Krüger, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-8105-1058-0 .
  • Nancy Goldstone: Queen Among Kings. The unique life of Joan of Naples. Bloomsbury Berlin, Berlin, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8270-0977-7 .
  • Elizabeth Casteen: From she-wolf to martyr. The reign and disputed reputation of Johanna I of Naples. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2015, ISBN 978-0-8014-5386-1

Individual evidence

  1. Henrik Cornell: The heliga Birgitta. In: Jan Cornell (Ed.): Den svenska historien. Volume 2: Henning Stålhane (Ed.): Medeltid. 1319-1520. Bonniers, Stockholm 1966, pp. 30–41, here p. 37.
  2. Wiki in Italian, article "Giovanna I di Napoli"
  3. Nancy Goldstone: Queen Among Kings. 2012, p. 395 f.

Web links

Commons : Johanna I.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Robert the Wise Queen of Naples
1343–1382
Charles III from Durazzo
Robert the Wise Countess of Provence
1343–1382
Ludwig I of Anjou
Philip II of Taranto Princess of Achaia
1373-1381
Jacques des Baux