CHAPTER 1: NAPLES-SICILY: HOLLOW CROWNS 1 « … comme on va le dire, la fin du XIVe verra les femmes faire l’histoire …» Any study of the Houses of Anjou and France during the Hundred Years War must include an examination of the kingdom of Naples-Sicily. In our examination of the Italian Angevins we will allude to their powerful Angevin cousins in Hungary so that the full context of Angevin action and interaction may be seen. As our analysis progresses, the sequence of victory, loss, diplomacy, adoption and marital alliances will arise repeatedly, particularly in relation to Naples. This too will set the pattern for Angevin involvement in the recovery of France and the consolidation of Angevin territories. Naples, Sicily, Provence, the kingdoms of France and Aragon are entwined in this vast epic and must be discussed if we are to attempt to understand the motivations and activities of Yolande d’Aragon. The purpose of this chapter is to offer an enriched perspective so that the gestes as well as the animus of the Houses of Anjou are presented in the context of how the various members of this family acted and reacted in their lives and times. It seemed that to simply commence our study of Yolande d’Aragon with either her birth, marriage or her widowhood would have been to isolate ourselves from both her situation and her challenging responsibilities. Christine de Pizan in her Le livre de trois vertus insists that the Baron’s wife must “avoir cuer d’omme” in order to fulfil her obligations in the absence of her lord, to administer his property, defend his territory and guard his fortresses.2 Christine’s ideas in this regard are of particular interest as she was a close contemporary of Yolande and had been in residence at the Court of Charles V when Yolande’s mother Violant spent time 1 This observation is made by Emile-Guillaume Léonard in Les Angevins de Naples, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1954, p. 469. We will extend this to encompass the first half of the fifteenth century and include France as well as Naples-Sicily. 2 Laigle, Mathilde. Le Livre de trois vertus de Christine de Pisan et son milieu historique et littéraire, Paris, Champion, 1912, p. 151. 1 there as a young girl.3 Yolande’s grandson Louis XI echoed Christine’s reflections when describing Yolande d’Aragon at her funerary rites, saying that she had been possessed of a man’s heart in a woman’s body.4 Joanna I of Naples perhaps had an even greater burden to carry than either Yolande or her mother‐in‐law Marie of Brittany as she was Queen of Naples and Jerusalem in her own right. In this chapter, while examining the political situation in Naples‐Sicily immediately prior to the second House of Anjou’s direct involvement in the peninsular kingdom, we will shall consider Joanna’s successes and failures and witness the extreme impediments she faced in the exercise of her regal authority. Philippe Contamine’s method has been appropriated for the purposes of this first chapter: «Cet exposé, résultat de recherches attentives mais souvent de seconde main, ne prétend pas renouveler la question … mais simplement faire le point et poser en passant quelques questions …».5 We must acknowledge two fundamental perspectives if we are to comprehend the huge canvas of almost three centuries of Angevin enterprise in European political and religious affairs. It is essential that we recognize both the chronological and dynastic implications, as well as the geographical and territorial imperatives of the Angevin princes that will form the second perspective of our examination.6 Christof Ohnesorge, in his examination of the second House of Anjou, expresses the difficulties under which the princes of Anjou toiled in these terms: «Les ambitions et l’échec de cette seconde maison d’Anjou s’expliquent partiellement par l’ampleur et la diversité des territoires qu’elle contrôlait ou sur lesquels elle avait hérité ou acquis des droits.»7 The 3 Violant of Aragon, originally Yolande of Bar was the granddaughter of Charles V. 4 See below, p. 383. 5 Contamine, Philippe, « À l’ombre des fleurs de lis. Les rapports entre les rois de France Valois et les Angevins de Naples et de Provence (1320-1382) », p. 117, in Les Princes Angevins du XIIIe au XVe siecle, Un Destin Européen, actes des journées d’étude des 15 & 16 juin 2001, organisées par l’Université d’Angers et les Archives départementales de Maine-et-Loire, Tonnere, Noël-Yves & Verry, Elisabeth, (eds.), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2003, to be referred to subsequently as Les Princes Angevins. 6 A point well made by Elisabeth Verry in her introduction to Les Princes Angevins, p. 20 7 Ohnesorge, Christof, « Les ambitions et l’échec de la seconde maison d’Anjou », in Les Princes Angevins, p. 265. 2 importance of the geographical dispersal of Angevin holdings, their size, the political and cultural diversity of these territories as well as the early deaths of successive male heirs, so characteristic of this period of Angevin enterprise, cannot be underestimated, particularly when assessing the ultimate non-fulfilment of early Angevin promise. While the first House of Anjou was not so greatly disadvantaged by distance in relation to its domains, the other difficulties listed above did weigh heavily upon its enterprise. The Great Schism played an enormous rôle in the outcome of the efforts of the first House to consolidate and retain its authority. The rôle of the Church and the Schism will be examined in discussion of the closing stages of Joanna I’s reign, for the Angevins used the phenomenon of the Schism to considerable effect. Nevertheless, from time to time they found themselves on the wrong side of the divide. It was a pope who offered Joanna a chance to succeed and the favourable circumstances in which to develop her personal authority. Paradoxically, a subsequent pope allowed a situation to evolve that ensured she would be forced to fight for her authority, while a third pope condemned her to the ambitions of her closest blood relative. The succession of the two Houses of Anjou had distinct identities: the first originated with Charles I d’Anjou, brother of St. Louis (Louis IX of France). In 1246, Charles received the rights or prerogative over Anjou and Maine. 1246 was also the year he married Béatrice, heiress of Provence, and acquired rights over the county of Provence. The second succession arose from the line of Louis I, son of Jean le Bon, invested with Anjou and Maine in 1356. In spite of their distinct identities, both Houses had much in common: it was Charles II, son of Charles I, who eventually returned Anjou-Maine to the Crown of France as part of his daughter Marguerite’s dowry when she married Charles of Valois, the king’s brother. Their son, Philippe VI, was the father of Jean le Bon, himself the father of Louis I, to whom would be restored the privilege of Anjou and Maine.8 While the Angevins put much energy into asserting their independence from the French Crown, they also needed the political and financial backing they would periodically receive from it. For its part, the Crown sometimes chose to leave them short of resources and political support, and from time to time went so far as to cast covetous eyes over 8 Les Princes Angevins, Verry, E., p. 20. See our Appendix 2, genealogical tables, p. XLVIII 3 Angevin holdings. Notwithstanding these complexities, Anjou-Sicily, originating from Charles I, and Anjou-Valois, originating from Louis I, could claim indisputable blood ties to one another and both benefited from an unequalled propinquity to the French Crown.9 To complicate further the ties that bound these two Houses, we must add the facts of election and legal right. In two instances at least adoption, because of a lack of male heirs and protectors or the workings of multiple allegiances and loyalties, muddied the waters of succession. Joanna I of Naples, the granddaughter-heiress of Robert the Wise, (grandson of Charles I), was compelled by the fact that her hold on her kingdom was evaporating to choose a protector from a pool of likely yet sometimes slippery princely contenders. Her gaze eventually fell upon Louis I d’Anjou, a prince who for some ten years had demonstrated his valour in the defence of Languedoc (as its governor) against English invasion. Decades later, Joanna II of Naples (Joanna I’s niece), descended from the secondary branch of the Duras or Durazzo dynasty, it too an issue of Charles I’s line, would replicate her aunt’s choice in electing Louis III, grandson of Louis I d’Anjou, as her anointed champion and heir. When this Louis unexpectedly died in 1434, his brother René was adopted in his place, in keeping with Louis’s statement in his will10 that Joanna II consider adopting his brother in the event that he, Louis III, predecease her. In 1266, the first House of Anjou moved to establish its independence from the French Crown. Charles I sought to be a king in his own right and needed a kingdom to fulfil his ambition. Charles’s Sicilian conquest was a first sally designed to separate his House from the fortunes of the senior branch of royalty. Louis IX had the crusades to occupy his attention, and their mother Blanche of Castile to oversee the family firm. Sicily was just 9 Ibid. 10 In the document of investure established by Pope Martin V on 4th December 1419, Louis III and his younger brothers René d’Anjou and Charles d’Anjou are all named as successors to the kingdom should Louis III leave no surviving male heirs, A.N., J.