CHAPTER 11 – THE SECOND HOUSE OF ANJOU AND THE ANGEVINS OF NAPLES/HUNGARY
NAPLES HAD SURVIVED THE turmoil of Andrew’s murder and the Hungarian invasions, and after the death of Louis of Taranto in 1362 Johanna regained control of her kingdom. Neither of Johanna’s two subsequent husbands was considered king, and from 1362–1380 she reigned alone. Tangible evidence of this is that after 1362 Johanna issued all her coins with only her own image. Although numismatics is not always the most thrilling topic, Johanna’s representations on her coins are revealing. After Louis’s death, Johanna’s coins bestow on her all the attributes of sovereignty, including defending the kingdom. From 1370 her coins portrayed her holding a sword as well as a sceptre, and after 1372 she was also shown wearing a coat of mail.1
Unfortunately, at the time of Louis of Taranto’s death Johanna was still only in her mid-30s, and she needed to remarry. It would have been very difficult for any reigning queen to resist societal pressure to marry, but Johanna also faced a succession crisis. As we saw, Charles Martel had died young and her daughters Françoise and Catherine had both also died by 1362, and the lack of a direct heir exposed Johanna to continued pressure from the Taranto, Durazzo and Hungarian branches of the family that might ease if she had a child.
Naturally the Pope Urban V became involved, and he advocated a marriage to Philip of Touraine, youngest son of Jean II of France, which Jean himself was keen to promote as a means of taking control of Naples. Johanna cordially refused, and stated in a letter to Jean that she had learned from bitter experience not to marry anyone so nearly related to her, as this was one reason for the early death of her children. Even if this were an excuse, it shows an awareness of how dangerous the Angevin policy of intermarriage was.
Johanna’s Third Husband: James of Majorca
Instead, Johanna chose to marry James IV of Majorca, a great-nephew of Robert the Wise’s wife Sancia (who was Robert’s second wife, and thus not a direct ancestor of Johanna). James is a tragic figure, since he spent his younger years as a captive at the court of his uncle Pedro IV the Ceremonious of Aragon, and rumour said that he had been kept in an iron cage, with consequences for his mental health that we will see. In 1362 James had escaped from Barcelona and fled to Naples, where he arrived just in time for Louis of Taranto’s death and Johanna’s availability for marriage. The union was agreed in December 1362 and the marriage took place early in 1363.2
James was an unthreatening choice since he was only titular king of Majorca, which was ruled by Pedro IV, and he was younger than Johanna, being only around twenty-seven at the time of their marriage. The terms of the marriage were clear: he was excluded from the succession and defined as Johanna’s consort, and although he was granted the title Duke of Calabria to make him the highest-ranking nobleman in the Regno, he held no other titles. Although Urban V hadn’t given his consent and had still been pressing for the French marriage when Johanna chose James, he accepted her decision without complaint since he too felt James was a good choice. Urban’s view of arrangements at the court are clear, since his correspondence to Naples was addressed to Johanna alone or referred to James as ‘King of Majorca’. More pertinently, in April 1363 the pope wrote to Louis the Great of Hungary informing him that he was expected to respect the marriage.
If there was some hope that Johanna’s third marriage would prove lucky for her, this was quickly dashed. She became pregnant, but miscarried in 1365 and had no more children. Worse, James proved to be in a similar mould to Andrew, finding his subordinate position at court a humiliation, and insisting on participating in the Regno’s government and attending councils and private meetings. This in itself is not surprising, but James’s behaviour went beyond dissatisfaction at not being Johanna’s equal and seemed more like insanity. James exhibited violent behaviour (which Johanna said was connected to the cycles of the moon), blasphemed and had temper tantrums. When Johanna dared to oppose him he was publicly violent to her, and she described in letters to the pope that he physically attacked her and publicly accused her of murdering Andrew and having many lovers. Twenty years later, the slurs about Johanna’s supposed adultery and murder of Andrew were still used to attack her.3
We have abundant correspondence from Johanna to the pope describing James’s actions, and lest this be seen as propaganda from Johanna to force James into a subordinate position, her statements are corroborated by the letters of the Archbishop of Naples, Pierre d’Ameil. Regardless of the degree of James’s mental instability, it is also a sad fact that his use of physical violence against his wife was only notable because he was attacking a reigning queen in public: domestic violence by husbands against wives was accepted as a fact of life, even if the church condemned it.
Johanna’s response demonstrates her character, as she defended herself from James’s physical violence in Naples and methodically elaborated her legal position in letters to the pope, the clergy and the nobles to reinforce James’s subordinate position. Her success is demonstrated by the fact that James soon left the kingdom, presumably to everyone’s relief. He had an interesting subsequent career, joining the English side in the Hundred Years War, and as we saw he fought with the Black Prince in Spain. In 1368 James was captured at Burgos by Enrique of Trastamara, the French candidate in the Spanish war, and Johanna paid a large ransom to release him, though no doubt she would have preferred him to remain a captive. He finally died in 1375.
The succession was now the most pressing issue, and Johanna’s sister Maria and her daughters were next in line. Maria’s children were known as Johanna, Agnes, Clementia and Margaret ‘of Durazzo’, as they were the children of her first husband, Charles of Durazzo. After Maria ordered the execution of her second husband and rapist Robert des Baux, she had married Philip of Taranto, younger brother of Johanna’s husband Louis. Philip of Taranto, together with the courtiers and papal agents in Naples, was keen to resolve the succession, and was hoping to arrange a marriage for Johanna, eldest daughter of Maria.
When it became known that Frederick III of Sicily’s wife had died, Queen Johanna, supported by the pope, began negotiations for Frederick to marry the younger Johanna and resolve the interminable war between Naples and Sicily. This led to disputes between the Queen and Young Johanna, complicated by the involvement of the pope, Maria, Philip of Taranto, Frederick of Sicily and others. The episode finally ended when Young Johanna concluded a different marriage without papal dispensation for consanguinity, leading the pope to bar her formally from the succession to Naples in 1370, and putting her cousin, the younger Charles of Durazzo, another step closer to the throne. Not coincidentally, in January 1370 Charles had married Young Johanna’s sister Margaret, potentially uniting the two lines. Charles’s prospects were looking better all the time, since at this point he was also the heir presumptive to the throne of Hungary.4
This period of struggle to secure the succession coincided with Johanna’s personal rule and a period where her previous reputation as the ‘Harlot Queen’ began to improve. Most striking were her relationships with the saints Birgitta of Sweden and Catherine of Siena, which were seen by many contemporaries as bizarrely out of step with her reputation as a murderess and harlot.
The ‘Black Legend’ that swirls around Johanna even rears its head in this case, because there is a story that Johanna had an affair with Birgitta’s son Karl during their visit to Naples. Karl had left his wife in Sweden, and once in Naples he is said to have formed a liaison with Johanna. Karl then died in Naples, and a lurid detail of the story is that Birgitta prayed for his death because she couldn’t stand to see him living in sinful adultery with Johanna. This is another horribly damning account of the harlot queen and her insatiable lust.
Yet the story comes from Margareta Clausdotter, from the life of Birgitta she wrote 100 years later. It comes in the context of showing how Birgitta was so holy that she preferred to see her children die rather than sin.5 Thus the story is not about Johanna, but about Birgitta and Karl. The fact
that Margareta chose the ‘harlot queen of Naples’ to illustrate Karl’s sin and Birgitta’s holiness is based purely on Johanna’s later reputation, and possibly confusion with Queen Johanna II, rather than any evidence. Whatever the truth about this relationship, after Birgitta died in 1373 Johanna actively promoted her canonization, which came in 1391.
After Birgitta’s death, Johanna began to correspond with a new saint, Catherine of Siena. Their relationship had a different tone, in that Birgitta had seen herself – and been accepted by Johanna – as a spiritual adviser, and Birgitta frequently rebuked Johanna in harsh terms for her perceived sins. Catherine, who was younger than Johanna, corresponded with her on more equal terms, and was primarily interested in enlisting Johanna’s support for a Crusade. Catherine and Johanna’s relationship was intimately bound up with their relationships with the pope, and in this sense was not as exclusively spiritual as Johanna’s relationship with Birgitta had been. The pope was interested in supporting Constantinople against the Ottomans, as he had a clear sense of the future of the eastern Mediterranean, and Johanna, as Queen of Jerusalem, was active in the campaign, as was St Catherine.6
Although it seemed that the age of the Crusades had passed, and the kingdoms of the West were busy fighting amongst themselves, those in the east were aware that the Ottoman Turks were a powerful new enemy interested in expanding their territory at the expense of neighbouring kingdoms. Hungary was on the front line of this threat, and when finally in 1396 a Crusade was launched against the Ottomans, Hungary was instrumental in organizing it. By then Hungary had passed from Angevin control, and we must examine how this happened.
King Louis the Great of Hungary
Louis the Great succeeded Carobert as king of Hungary in 1342 at the age of sixteen, and perhaps his youth explains the extremity of his response to his brother’s murder three years later. Although our encounters with Louis so far have shown only his savagery in Italy, if we try to look at events objectively and not favour either the Neapolitan or Hungarian Angevins, the Hungarian Angevins were justified in their claim to the Neapolitan throne, and Louis certainly had a right to be outraged by Andrew’s brutal murder. In the early days after Andrew’s death, it is not surprising that Louis and Andrew’s mother Elisabeth took the lead in negotiations with the papacy, since she had gone to Naples in 1343 after Robert the Wise’s death to monitor the transfer of power from Robert to Johanna and – if she had her way – Andrew. We should also remember the youth of the parties involved, as at the time of Andrew’s murder Louis was still no more than nineteen, Johanna was eighteen and Andrew was seventeen.
Although the pope remained committed to Johanna’s right to rule and never seems to have considered deposing her in favour of Louis, the crises that Johanna faced, her uncanonical marriage to Louis of Taranto and the power and influence of the Hungarian court might have begun to tell if Louis had tried further diplomacy. Instead he invaded, summarily executed Charles of Durazzo in January 1348 and claimed the throne for himself. Within three months the Black Death had driven him away, which was not something he could have prepared for, but by September 1348 Johanna had returned on a wave of popular outrage against the brutality shown by the Hungarian troops. Despite Johanna’s return, Hungarian forces still occupied parts of the Regno, and Louis himself returned in May 1350 and reoccupied Naples, forcing Johanna to flee to Gaeta. Yet Louis’s reputation in the Regno never recovered, and by the end of 1350 he had been forced to withdraw once again.
If his Italian campaigns do him no credit, Louis’s activity in Croatia and Dalmatia was much more successful. Louis was already at war with Venice at the time of Andrew’s murder, because Zara had overthrown the Venetians and returned to Hungarian control. The Venetians besieged the city and Louis’s rescue attempt was repulsed in July 1346. Venice ultimately took Zara in 1348, but Louis was now focused on invading the Regno, so he agreed an eight-year treaty with the Venetians. As we have seen, his relations with the Venetians improved remarkably, to the point where Venetian ships carried Hungarian troops across the Adriatic for the invasion.
This peace was not renewed, and Louis had used the time to prepare an altogether more ambitious plan. In 1356, with the support of Pope Innocent VI, the Emperor Charles IV and the city of Padua, Louis invaded the Venetian mainland provinces and attempted to force the Republic to terms. Louis was defeated, and again had to seek peace, but events now moved quickly. Throughout 1357 the cities of the Dalmatian coast, including Zara, expelled the Venetians and placed themselves under Louis’s protection. In 1358 Venice was forced to cede the entirety of Dalmatia to Hungary, and the doge officially resigned the titles Duke of Dalmatia and Croatia that the Venetians had held for more than 300 years.
To some in Hungary, Louis’s Mediterranean ambitions were a distraction that drew him away from his proper duties in his kingdom. Certainly Louis’s invasion of the Regno and his repeated attacks on Venice drew him away from Hungary, but the Hungarian kings considered Croatia part of their kingdom, and Louis was no more wrong to focus on this part of his domains than Richard the Lionheart had been to spend most of his reign in his French territories.
Louis’s victory over Venice particularly benefited trade for Venetian rivals. Louis granted Dubrovnik (or Ragusa, as it was known at the time) autonomy, and it began its development as an independent city-state. Furthermore, Louis’s amalgamation of all the territory from the Adriatic coast, through Hungary and into Poland, once he became its king, united the area from the Baltic to the Adriatic as a single trading block, protected by royal fortresses and under a central administration. The economic possibilities were enormous, and the merchants of Florence – always closely connected to Angevins whether in Naples or Hungary – exploited this potential to the full.7
Although he was now supreme on the Dalmatian coast, Louis remained committed to limiting Venetian power. In 1373 he sent assistance to Padua in a war with Venice, and although this expedition failed, in 1378 he joined Genoa in what was an outright attempt to destroy Venice. The Republic was besieged by the Genoese, and after several naval defeats and a land-based attack by Louis, seemed likely to be conquered. A Venetian fleet that had been campaigning in the eastern Mediterranean returned in the nick of time and defeated the Genoese, relieving the city, but Venice had to pay an indemnity to Genoa and in the Treaty of Zara in 1381 confirmed Hungarian rule of Dalmatia.
The wealth and luxury of the Hungarian court left a tangible mark on Zara, and the silver reliquary chest donated by Louis’s wife Elisabeth to the church of San Simeon is an outstanding example of 14th-century metalwork. The chest is decorated with plaques showing historical events, such as the entry of Louis the Great into Zara when he finally took the city; the death of Elisabeth’s father, Stjepan Kotromanic, the ban of Bosnia who gave considerable support to Louis; and the life of St Simeon himself.
Louis’s court was known as an intellectual centre, and despite Petrarch’s waspish suggestion that Louis should pay more attention to his Latin style than his greyhounds, Louis clearly did like books, and he seized Robert the Wise’s library when he captured Naples, and took it back to Hungary. Louis’s copy of the Secretum Secretorum is now in the Bodleian Library, and he commissioned the Illuminated Chronicle, one of the best and most beautiful sources for Hungarian history. He also founded the first Hungarian university, at Pécs in 1367.
We have no portrait of Louis, but John Kukullei described him in 1390 – after his death, and not particularly helpfully – as being of medium stature with fleshy lips, and a ‘proud regard’ that was a sign of his authority.8 It was also shortly after his death that a foreign chronicler referred to him as ‘the Great’, which given the vicissitudes of Hungarian history in the 13th century seems fair for someone who presided over such significant territorial expansion.
Louis maintained Carobert’s relationships with his central European neighbours, but his closest relationship was with King Casimir of Poland, also known as ‘the Great’, and early in his r
eign he was acknowledged as Casimir’s heir. When Casimir died on 5 November 1370, Louis was crowned king of Poland twelve days later and initiated the Angevin period in Polish history.9
The Angevin Succession in Hungary and Naples
Like so many others, Louis failed in the primary responsibility of a ruler and was unable to secure the succession. Louis and Elisabeth had no children for seventeen years, and Louis recognized his younger brother Stephen as his heir until Stephen’s death in 1354. Stephen’s son John was then recognized as the heir to both Hungary and Poland, but he too died in 1360. This prompted the arrival in the Hungarian court in 1364 of Charles of Durazzo, nephew of Charles of Durazzo whom Louis had murdered in 1348.
Because Johanna also had no surviving children and her sister Maria died in 1366, the succession in Naples should naturally have passed to Maria’s children. Maria had four daughters, but as we saw the eldest (Johanna) was disqualified after her unsanctioned marriage, Clementia had died in 1363 and Agnes had renounced her rights to the throne, leaving only Margaret, the youngest. In 1370, Louis the Great and Johanna agreed that Charles of Durazzo should marry Margaret, once again looking towards a union of the Hungarian and Neapolitan thrones. As Louis also inherited the throne of Poland in 1370, there was the potential for a new ‘Angevin Empire’ stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic, and including Italy and Provence.
These plans were disrupted when Louis and Elisabeth were suddenly blessed with three children: Catherine in 1370, Maria in 1371 and Hedwig in 1374.10 Despite his renunciation of the crowns of Sicily and Jerusalem when his war with the Neapolitan Angevins ended, now that he had children of his own Louis remembered his claim, and chose to forget about Charles of Durazzo. He betrothed his eldest daughter Catherine to Louis of Orleans, second son of Charles V of France, and offered the kingdom of Naples and the county of Provence as her dowry despite the fact that Johanna was very much alive and the ruler of both territories.
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 43