Elizabeth Casteen. From She-Wolf to Martyr: The Reign and Disputed Reputation of Johanna I of . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015. 312 pp. $49.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8014-5386-1.

Reviewed by Tracy Adams

Published on H- (May, 2017)

Commissioned by Matt Vester (West Virginia University)

As its title indicates, Elizabeth Casteen’s histo‐ known are confusing. Johanna’s realm, referred ry of Johanna of Naples (ca. 1326-82) is a double to as the by modern historians narrative, the story of this queen’s tumultuous and the Kingdom of (even when it no longer reign but also that of the development of her rep‐ included Sicily) and also the Regno by contempo‐ utation, during her life and after her death. Both raries, comprised the Italian peninsula’s southern are fascinating. The Countess Jeanne of Provence half. The Regno had its roots in the twelfth-centu‐ and Forcalquier was “pious, beautiful, courtly, ry Norman conquest of , including wise, and committed to her subjects” (p. 1); Queen Sicily. Under the Sicilian Frederick II (1194-1250) Giovanna of Sicily and Jerusalem was “debauched the entire area was attached to the and voraciously lustful,” “squander[ing] her king‐ Empire, becoming the jewel in its crown. The Reg‐ dom’s resources until she met a ftting end, mur‐ no came under the rule of Johanna’s ancestors af‐ dered by her heir to avenge decades of misrule” ter the deposed Frederick. Frederick did not (p. 1). What accounted for such a disconnect? In go quietly, and his illegitimate son Conrad kept up this richly detailed and carefully documented the struggle as did Conrad’s son , who study, Casteen lays out the relationship between was executed in 1268. Charles of (Johanna’s the events of Johanna’s reign and the stories that great-great-grandfather) then assumed the circulated about it, highlighting the extent to throne. Under Charles, the Regno was forced to which the queen managed to shape her own repu‐ give up Sicily following the rebellion known as tation, her fama, during periods of calm but fell the of 1282 to Peter III of . victim to the discourses of her enemies during However, Charles’s Angevin successors refused to turbulent times. In other words, the queen’s abandon their claim to the island, setting up a mixed afterlife is less a function of her actions centuries-long dispute between France and Spain than her opponents’ capacity to control how her for it. A further complication, particularly for Jo‐ actions were recounted at certain points during hanna, was that the senior branch of the House of her reign. Anjou, which controlled Hungary, cast its eye on In the introduction, Casteen situates Johanna the Regno when she ascended the throne. The suc‐ historically and dynastically. The history of the cession of Johanna’s own grandfather, Robert, had territory over which she reigned is particularly been disputed: the heir of his older brother, complicated and the names by which she was Charles Martel of the Hungarian Angevins, had H-Net Reviews been just a child when Charles Martel died, and, Taranto, whom many claimed had been her lover. for the sake of stability, the decision had been Andrew’s older brother, Louis of Hungary, invad‐ made to remove the boy from succession. When ed and seized the Regno, while the newly married Johanna’s own father died prematurely, her couple fed to Avignon. Casteen sees Andrew’s grandfather named her his successor. Outraged at murder, which put a cloud over the early years of what they perceived as a usurpation, the Hungari‐ the queen’s reign, as one of the reign’s bookends: an Angevins sought to take control of the Regno stories of the queen would focus on this opening throughout Johanna’s reign. When she decided in murder and the queen’s own assassination, tele‐ 1378 to support the Avignon pope Clement VII scoping the intervening years. This pattern would against the Roman pope Urban VI, Urban excom‐ prevail from shortly after the queen’s death into municated and deposed her, supporting, along the present. with the Hungarian Angevins, Johanna’s cousin Chapter 2, “From She-Wolf to Radiant Queen: Charles of Durazzo as king. Childless, Johanna The Reign of Louis of Taranto and the Rehabilita‐ adopted Louis I, Duke of Anjou, as her heir, to tion of Johanna of Naples,” traces how Johanna convince him to come to her aid. This in turn mo‐ recovered her positive fama between 1345 and tivated Charles of Durazzo to have Johanna mur‐ 1362. This was partly a result of Louis of Hun‐ dered in 1382 and seize the throne. As Casteen gary’s vendetta against the queen. Although makes clear, Johanna’s gender rendered her espe‐ viewed as a righteous avenger when he frst took cially vulnerable, and it accounts for much of the power, Louis showed himself to be so cruel that scurrilous writing against her, but her situation he soon turned Johanna’s former subjects against was also extremely fraught, indeed, her reign so him. When Johanna returned to Naples with contested, that it is not clear that she would have Louis of Taranto in 1348, they were greeted with been left to govern in peace even had she been a joy. But once back in power, Johanna vanished man. from view for several years, which modern histo‐ Johanna married four times. Chapter 1, “The rians have often taken as a sign of her marital Murder of Andrew of Hungary and the Making of bliss. As Casteen’s careful analysis of the contem‐ a Neapolitan She-Wolf,” deals with her frst hus‐ porary documents reveals, however, Louis man‐ band, Andrew of Hungary, whose murder was the aged to erode Johanna’s authority to the point that reason for her early bad reputation. The brutality she was a prisoner in her own kingdom. The of this young prince’s death--he was only seven‐ pope, alerted to the fact, supported an invasion teen--magnifed the horror of the crime: he was under Hugh des Baux, who rescued the queen and “sufocated and strangled, mutilated, and defenes‐ helped her reassert power. The triumph was trated (p. 29). Although Johanna was never of‐ short-lived: Louis had Hugh stabbed. Louis him‐ cially found guilty of the crime, which was attrib‐ self died in 1362, freeing Johanna to reign on her uted instead to members of her inner circle who own. Casteen devotes the second half of the chap‐ were tried, tortured, and executed, the majority of ter to an analysis of contemporary chronicles, fol‐ her contemporaries believed that she had instigat‐ lowing the transformation of the queen’s fama. ed it. The marriage between Johanna and the Her reputation rehabilitated, Joanna re-en‐ younger of the Hungarian Angevins had been ar‐ tered the stage of European politics after Louis of ranged by Robert specifcally to reconcile the op‐ Taranto’s death, Casteen observes in chapter 3, “A posing houses. But the queen, supported by the Most Loving Daughter: Filial Piety and the Apogee pope, refused to cede any power to her husband, of Johanna’s Reign.” True, she notes, the apparent and the court dissolved into factions. Shortly after success of this portion of the reign must be under‐ the murder, Johanna married her cousin, Louis of

2 H-Net Reviews stood to some extent as historical accident, as a son, allowing him to confess and then die, safe lucky lull in the midst of a troubled century. Still, from eternal damnation. The story actually origi‐ by working closelyfrst with Pope Urban V and nates with Margareta, Casteen demonstrates. then Gregory XI and then Urban, Johanna helped The fnal chapter, “The Schism of the Western to create peace between Naples and Sicily, reinte‐ Church and the Division of Johanna of Naples,” re‐ grating the two at least to some extent, and re‐ veals the fragility of Johanna’s carefully restored turning the latter to papal obedience. Perceived as reputation. When Johanna became the frst a humble servant of the pope, Johanna, the very monarch in Europe to recognize anti-pope image of female power, was less threatening to Clement VII as legitimate, Catherine of and her contemporaries than earlier. Even though she Birgitta turned ferociously against her, as did marginalized her third husband, James of Major‐ much of the Regno. Casteen writes that the schism ca, a man prone to furious outbursts and inappro‐ “was nothing short of catastrophic for Johanna’s priate behavior, many chroniclers describe her realm and reputation … dividing them as it divid‐ subjects as flled with reverence for their queen. ed Western Christendom, leaving them splintered In her reading of the visual program of Johanna’s even after the reconciliation of the Church” (p. book of hours, Casteen lays out how Johanna 197). Although Johannah had initially accepted sought to articulate her sovereignty. Urban VI, after the defection of the cardinals and Chapter 4, “An ‘Especially Good Friend’ to election of Clement VII, she fnally declared for Saints: Friendship, Politics and the Performance Clement. Urban reacted by replacing Johanna of Sovereignty,” revises perceptions about Johan‐ with Charles Durazzo, summoning him from Buda na’s relationship with Saint Birgitta of Sweden. to Rome. , , and Siena all sided Using the ffteenth-century biography of the saint with the pope in urging Charles to take the by Swedish abbess Margareta Clausdotter as a throne. Johanna named Louis of Anjou her heir in point of entry, Casteen explains that Margareta’s response and waited desperately for his arrival assertion that “through her lust and willfulness” with troops. On July 16, 1381, Charles took Naples. (p. 157) Johanna was responsible for the death of Louis of Anjou gathered men and funds, but failed Birgitta’s son requires reinterpretation. Birgitta to arrive in Naples in time. Almost exactly one and her daughter Katherine visited Naples on year after the taking of her throne, Johanna was their way to Jerusalem in the early 1370s. When murdered in prison. Louis of Anjou himself died Margareta described the visit one hundred years in 1384 and Charles of Durazzo was assassinated later, she had to explain how the saint could have in 1386. Although the struggle for control of the been friends with a queen of Johanna’s reputa‐ Regno was continued by the wives of the Louis tion. Casteen points out that abundant evidence of and Charles on behalf of their minor sons, with the women’s mutual regard exists and that Johan‐ Johanna’s death, Provence, under the Angevins, na was an early proponent of Birgitta’s canoniza‐ was permanently divided from the Regno, which tion. True, Birgitta pronounced on the depravity would fall to Aragon in 1442. of Naples and preached to Johanna on the danger‐ Casteen concludes with an epilogue refecting ous condition of her soul. However, it was com‐ on the invention of Johanna’s positive reputation mon practice for spiritual advisers to push their in Provence, due in large part to the romanticiz‐ charges to repent. Most interesting, Casteen revis‐ ing of nineteenth-century Provençal literature. es a popular story that Birgitta’s son fell into an But it was also a product of Marie of Blois, wife of adulterous relationship with Johanna, which so Louis of Anjou, who found in Johanna’s story a frightened the pious mother that she prayed for and thereby brought about the fatal illness of her

3 H-Net Reviews way of validating her own claims on behalf of her young son. This study, with its attentive analysis of con‐ temporary documents, ofcial and literary, is an important addition to the ever-increasing corpus of revisions of the lives of powerful women of the medieval and early modern periods. It lucidly de‐ scribes a reign that is even more complicated than most and, although Casteen of course makes no claim to bring the subject of her attention to life, Johanna emerges at times from the readings ofered here. If I were to ofer just a couple of mi‐ nor critiques I would note that on the frst page of the study Casteen refers to an eighteenth-century historian, who, when we follow the footnote, turns out to be Brantôme. This is a bit of shock, Brantôme being neither of the eighteenth century nor much of a historian. Second, I would note that it would have been useful to see this study contex‐ tualized with reference to recent scholarship on the fama of medieval and early queens. But nei‐ ther of these points diminishes the importance of this thorough and well-researched history of a maligned queen’s reign and reputation.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-italy

Citation: Tracy Adams. Review of Casteen, Elizabeth. From She-Wolf to Martyr: The Reign and Disputed Reputation of Johanna I of Naples. H-Italy, H-Net Reviews. May, 2017.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=47840

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

4