The Trials of Joanna of Naples

Joanna of Naples is one of the most infamous figures of the 14th century, a woman who ruled in her own right who faced treachery and betrayal by her own family and nearly everyone around her but still managed to persevere.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankie Listener discretion advised.
Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Naples, there
lived a king named Robert the Wise. Whether or not

(00:24):
he was particularly wise is contested, but he did know Latin,
had a large library and served as a patron for
a number of scholars, which counted for a lot in
the fourteenth century. As the third son of King Charles
of Naples, Robert had not been destined for the throne,

(00:45):
but a strange series of events had catapulted him into power.
In twelve ninety five, when Robert was nineteen, his oldest brother,
Charles Martel, the heir apparent, died. Rightfully, Charles Martel's place
in line should have been passed to his own son, Caroberts. However,

(01:06):
King Charles decided that young Carobert, at only seven years old,
was too young for the job, especially the military duties,
which included things like reconquering Sicily. The king's second son, Louis,
might have been next, except Louis had become extremely religious

(01:26):
and wouldn't even wear fancy clothes, let alone take any
part in royal life, so King Charles settled on his
third son, Robert. The young Carobert's presence made Robert's position
as heir awkward, so King Charles decided to send the
young boy off to rule another one of his territories, Hungary.

(01:49):
That might seem like a promotion for the seven year old.
I know it's confusing, but at this point the Kingdom
of Naples included not just the city of Naples, but
it also much of southern Italy, as well as parts
of present day France, Albania, Greece, and Hungry. King of
just Hungry was a downgrade. So with Carobert and Hungry,

(02:13):
it seemed like Robert's succession was assured. It was certainly
unorthodox for a thirdborn son to become heir to the throne,
but even the Pope gave his approval to King Charles's plan,
so everything was settled. Of course, as you can guess,
everything was not really settled. And while a contested succession

(02:36):
isn't an unusual occurrence in the Royal Annals, what happened
in Naples nearly half a century after Robert became air
was shocking, mainly because of this episode's real protagonist Robert's granddaughter,
a glamorous, beautiful, intelligent, and relentless queen named Joanna. And

(03:02):
what she stood accused of murder? I'm Dani Schwartz and
this is noble blood. Joanna, future Queen of Naples, was

(03:24):
born in thirteen twenty six. She was the eldest daughter
of the Crown Prince, but she would barely know her parents.
Her dad died when she was two and her mom
when she was five, so Joanna and her younger sister
Maria would be raised by their grandfather, King Robert the Wise,
the third born, who rose to power, and his second wife, Sancha.

(03:47):
Robert and Sancha were a study in contrasts Robert delighted
in earthly pleasures. He collected books, commissioned works from musicians
and playwrights, hosted elaborate banquet, and spoiled his court with
all the luxuries money could buy. Sancha, on the other hand,
was so devout that she had actually petitioned the Pope

(04:10):
to let her live as a nun after her marriage
to Robert. The Pope denied her, but Sancha didn't let
that get in the way of her religious aspirations. She
lived simply and piously and refused to let Robert enter
her bed chamber. This was a problem because Robert had

(04:31):
only ever had two sons by his first wife. One
of the sons had died very young. His surviving son,
Joanna's father, died in thirteen twenty eight, and when that happened,
Robert had no living legitimate male heirs, but he did
have Joanna. Robert officially designated Joanna as his heir in

(04:56):
thirteen thirty, when she was only four years old. This
decision did not sit well with other members of the
royal family, including Robert's younger brothers, Philip of Taranto and
John of Gazzo, both of whom thought they were more
deserving of the title. The decision was also questioned by

(05:16):
political and religious leaders throughout Europe on the basis of
Joanna's sex. Robert and Joanna were part of the Compecian
House of Anjou, a cadet branch of the Compecian dynasty
that ruled France. In France, the royal family had recently
declared that women could not succeed to the throne. You

(05:38):
can hear more about that in our episode The Bewitched.
Events at the tordonell All. That is to say, a
female air was certainly unusual, despite Joanna's unique status, though
her childhood was fairly typical, typical for an extraordinarily wealthy princess.

(05:58):
Of course, Joanna scared rooms in the Castel Nuovo with
her younger sister Maria and their enormous retinue of household staff,
including twenty four ladies in waiting, kitchen staff, and a
valet specifically tasked with getting quince's for Joanna's favorite jam.

(06:18):
The girl's grandmother, Queen Sancha, made sure that they attended
Mass every morning, while King Robert exposed them to the
greatest artists and performers of the day at banquets every night.
In between, the two girls road hunted, strolled the palace gardens,
and sailed to nearby beaches for picnics. One other thing

(06:41):
besides her succession status, set Joanna apart from the other
young girls at the palace. She was married. On September
thirty three, when Joanna was seven years old, She had
married six year old and Drew of Hungary, her first

(07:01):
cousin once removed. Andrew was the son of Carobert remember him.
The young boy who King Charles had shipped off to
Hungary forty years earlier to make way for Robert's succession.
Caroberts had thrived in Hungary, winning a claim for his
military prowess and accumulating vast wealth thanks to the discovery

(07:25):
of gold in Slovakia in the thirteen twenties. As the
historian Nancy Goldstone notes, quote, having been deprived of his
birthright because it was feared he could not take sicily,
Carobert's controlled an area approximately three times the size of
the Kingdom of Naples by the thirteen thirties. I say

(07:48):
good for him. Carobert, though never forgot the injustice done
to him by the Neapolitan royal family and his desire
to regain his birthright only with time. As Hungary grew
in both size and power, people started to take more
notice of Carobert's fairly legitimate claim to the Neapolitan throne.

(08:13):
One of those people taking notice was Pope John the
twenty second. Although a previous Pope had supported King Charles's
succession plan to put Robert the Wise on the throne,
Pope John was not convinced. On December thirteen, thirty two
weeks after Joanna had officially been announced as King Robert's successor.

(08:38):
The Pope wrote to Queen Sancha suggesting a path to reconciliation.
What if, the Pope wrote, Joanna were married to one
of Carobert's sons, and then their children descended from the
Neopolitan royal family on both sides could inherit the throne.
It was a neat albeit somewhat in say to a solution.

(09:02):
The Neapolitans were skeptical. Robert's younger brothers, Philip and John,
wanted Joanna to marry one of their sons, and Robert
wasn't interested in diluding Joanna's power. But it's hard to
argue with a pope, and when John issued a decree
in June thirty two that Joanna and her younger sister

(09:24):
Maria were to marry the sons of the King of Hungary,
there was no turning back. Carobert and Robert negotiated the
terms of the marriage, but they left one important term vague,
whether or not Joanna's husband would be King of Naples
in his own right or only Joanna's consort without any

(09:45):
real power. A year later, in September thirteen thirty three,
King Carobert arrived in Naples alongside his second son Andrew.
Although Carobert had been born and raised in Naples, he
had spent decade in Hungary, which was in those days
a sparsely populated, largely rural, and heavily forested kingdom. Naples,

(10:09):
on the other hand, was one of only four cities
in Europe at the time to boast more than one
hundred thousand citizens. Traders from all over the world brought spices, fabrics,
and rare materials to the Naples marketplaces. The streets buzzed
with activity. It must have been a shocking site for

(10:29):
all of the Hungarians, especially young Prince Andrew. After a
week of festivities, Andrew and Joanna were married at the
Castel Nuovo. Since both bride and groom were no older
than seven, they would not live together for some years,
but it was decided that Andrew would stay in Naples

(10:51):
so that he could become accustomed to his new home
and way of life. It was not an easy transition
for the young Prince and Drew. He didn't speak the
two most common languages of the court, Italian and Provincial.
He also faced ethnic prejudice. Though Andrew was literally the
great nephew of their current king. Many Neapolitans saw him

(11:15):
as inherently foreign. They called Andrew a barbarian. Nonetheless, like Joanna,
Andrew was raised in luxury, with a full set of
apartments in the castle and a large staff of his own.
He didn't interact with his wife much growing up, although
they occasionally played marbles together. Sweet Despite the strangeness of

(11:39):
the arrangement, it seems to have been a pleasant childhood
for both Joanna and Andrew, with days spent amongst splendor
and the luxury of court. But the Golden Age would
not last because in thirteen forty three, King Robert the
Wise died, which meant Joanna was queen and then all

(12:03):
Hell broke loose. Hell had actually started plotting its escape
a year earlier, in thirteen forty two. In July of
that year, Carobert died in Hungary, and his eldest son, Louis,
only sixteen, became king of Hungary. Per the Papal Bull

(12:25):
of thirteen thirty two, which had decreed the marriage of
Andrew and Joanna, Louis was supposed to marry Maria, Joanna's
younger sister, but that wedding had never taken place, and
now that Louis was king, his mother, Elizabeth of Poland,
wanted a more prestigious and strategic match for her son.

(12:48):
That fall, Louis wed Margaret of Bohemia. Robert was furious,
seeing the wedding as a betrayal, and he wanted to
punish the Hungarians. He rewrote his will, making it clear
that Joanna was his sole inheritor and explicitly excluding Andrew

(13:08):
from any formal power. To ensure that Joanna's power would
not be challenged on account of her youth, Robert declared
that a council of advisers led by Sancha would rule
for her until she reached the age of twenty five.
It was a provocative document, one that resolved the question
of Andrew's unofficial role in a way that decidedly favored Joanna.

(13:34):
And then, only four days after dictating his new will,
Robert died. He left Joanna with a little bit of
a mess on her hands. First, there was the matter
of her marriage. Though Joanna was by this point seventeen
older than many medieval royal brides, her marriage had yet

(13:57):
to be consummated due to some scholars believe Andrew's emotional
immaturity that would be the final step in formalizing her marriage,
and Robert had made it clear that the couple could
no longer wait. Just two days after the King's death,
Andrew was knighted, which signified his transition into manhood. He

(14:20):
was then immediately taken to Joanna's bed chamber, where they
consummated the marriage once and for all. Though this act
would solidify the marriage and the eyes of the public,
it likely didn't do much to satisfy the Hungarians once
they learned the terms of Robert's will. Besides the issue
of her husband and her soon to be very unhappy

(14:43):
in laws, Joanna also faced a naples in decline. Robert,
wise as he was possibly, had also accrued massive debts
while trying to retake Sicily, and the taxes that he
had levied left any citizens of all classes entire straits.

(15:04):
Gangs of noblemen roved the countryside, fighting one another and
sparking decades long feuds, while crime rates in the cities
were exploding. Even inside the walls of the Castel Nuovo,
trouble was brewing. Two of Joanna's aunts, Agnes of Gazzo,

(15:24):
and Catherine of Toronto were engaged in a power struggle,
which culminated in the scandalous Lee executed marriage of Joanna's
younger sister Maria to Agnes his son Charles, which nearly
led to outright war between the two families. Joanna barely
had a moment to breathe between the domestic and international

(15:48):
troubles she faced in her first year as queen. She
faced scrutiny from her subjects, from the Hungarians, and from
now Pope Clement, who, in trying to appease both the
Neapolitans and the Hungarians, succeeded only in frustrating everyone. Joanna
even faced the indignity of being temporarily replaced by a

(16:12):
papal legate, a representative of the Pope who assumed control
of the government for several months in thirty four, who
unsurprisingly just made everything worse. As part of her lobbying
to get Pope Clement to remove the Leggate, Joanna tried
to reconcile with her husband Andrew. By this point, the

(16:34):
couple were on bad terms. Andrew was openly belittled by
Joanna's courtiers, and in response he tried to assert his
power in increasingly ridiculous ways, like releasing controversial convicts from
prison and raising military forces to threaten his enemies. However,

(16:55):
the reconciliation seemed to work at least enough that by April,
Joanna was pregnant. Like most royal pregnancies, Joanna's had enormous
political implications. The original terms of the deal between Carobert

(17:16):
and Robert had stated that Joanna and Andrew's child would
inherit Naples, so hopefully the birth of such a child
would calm down the Hungarians now that their bloodline would
be firmly established in the ruling family. The pregnancy also
cemented Joanna's queenly status in the eyes of the Neapolitans,

(17:37):
because it proved that she could provide airs and maintain
the royal line. However, the queen's pregnancy alone could not
quell the power struggles of the court, especially after the dowager,
Queen Sancha, died in July. Sancha had led the Regency
Council that had guided Joanna through the years of her reign.

(18:01):
The council had already been weakened by the papal legged,
and upon Sancha's death it was dissolved completely. At nineteen,
Joanna was now the sole ruler of Naples. As her
political life got even more complicated, so too did her
personal life. Around this time, despite her quasi reconciliation with Andrew,

(18:27):
rumors began to swirl that Joanna was having affairs. The
allegations focused on two men, Robert de Cabani, a member
of her government and a longtime friend, and Louis of Taranto.
Her first cousin. Louis was, for lack of a better phrase,
a notorious hattie. He had silky blonde hair, a graceful

(18:51):
athletic build, and golden skin. He was matched in beauty
only by Joanna herself, who was cut from the same
genetic cloth and whose good looks were remarked upon by
numerous observers. The two were drawn to each other, two
golden birds of a feather, and as the distance between

(19:12):
Joanna and her husband Andrew once again grew after Sancha's death,
the closeness between Joanna and her cousin Louis increased. Aware
of the growing troubles in Naples, Pope Clement wrote to
Joanna that she and Andrew ought to be coronated together.

(19:33):
Not to give Andrew any real power, but as a
symbolic gesture of unity. Joanna was not pleased at the suggestion.
She feared that a coronation would inevitably give Andrew some
sort of power, and would also position him to seize
the throne should she die in childbirth. Throughout thirteen forty

(19:57):
four and thirteen forty five, she had to aided with
Pope Clement over the roles she and Andrew should play.
Though Clement had once written to Joanna that she was
the rightful inheritor of the kingdom quote just as if
she were a man end quote, he reminded her in
a later letter that quote the husband is the head

(20:21):
of the wife end quote, and that Andrew's involvement could
only serve both Naples and Joanna herself. As the historian
Elizabeth Castine notes, Joanna would later turn this argument on
its head, telling Pope Clement that it was she who
could promote Andrew's best interests, not the other way around, revealing,

(20:45):
as Castine says, quote, an interesting inversion in Joanna's understanding
of gender roles within her marriage unquote. Throughout the early
fall of Pope Clement made staunch in his position that
both Andrew and Joanna should be crowned together, but in September,

(21:07):
his papal legate, Andrew Americ, returned to Avignon. While in Naples,
Americ had witnessed Andrew's emotional and political immaturity, and he
made it clear to Pope Clement that putting Andrew in
power would be a disaster. So on September twenty and

(21:28):
twenty one, the Pope wrote letters to both Joanna and Andrew,
chastising Andrew for his bad behavior and making it clear
that Andrew would only be coronated if he swore not
to interfere in government affairs. But before those letters could
reach Naples, before those letters were even written, in fact,

(21:50):
a shocking event changed the royal dynamic between the couple forever.
That September, the court was at Aversa, a castle surrounded
by lush gardens and a large forest perfect for hunting.
At a Versa, Joanna and Andrew shared an apartment, but

(22:12):
they had separate bedrooms, and on the evening of September,
the royal couple each retired to their respective rooms. Sometime
after he got to his room, after he began to undress,
Andrew was summoned by his chamberlain, Tomaso Mambricio, who said

(22:33):
that there were important papers that Andrew needed to see.
Exiting his bedroom for the outer chamber, Andrew was suddenly
set upon by a group of men who viciously beat him.
Official reports of the crime reveal the brutality of the attack.
Clumps of Andrew's hair were missing, his genitals were mutilated,

(22:58):
and iron gauntlet gloves worn by soldiers had been pressed
so firmly over his mouth that their outlines could be
seen in bruises. The men wrapped a cord around Andrew's
neck and dangled him from the window, strangling him. As
he slowly died, his assailants saw a light coming down

(23:21):
the corridor. This was Isabel, Andrew's nurse from childhood, who
had come looking for him. Panicked, the men threw the
now dead Andrew into the garden and fled. Isabel, arriving
only minutes later, looked out of the window saw the
body of the young man she had known since childhood,

(23:44):
and she screamed. Andrew was only seventeen years old. As
news of the murder spread, people began to speculate on
who the guilty party might be Andrew's acts had left
him with no shortage of enemies, but one name stood out, Joanna.

(24:10):
Sensing an opportunity, Joanna's cousin, Charles of Dorazzo, decided to
do an investigation of his own. He declared that the
crime had been committed by a group of nobles, which
included a woman named Philippa of Catania, who was Joanna's
childhood nurse turned political adviser, and that she was acting

(24:32):
along with two of her grandchildren. Many of the accused
were subjected to torture, much of it in public, until
they confessed, after which they were imprisoned or executed. For
the most part, the investigation brought closure to the Neapolitans
who had suspected the queen because they now had new

(24:53):
people who pin their blame to, But others thought that
the investigation was a little dubious. Many of those who
were convicted were conveniently enough, political rivals of Charles of Durazzo.
Another suspicious piece of gossip, Tomasso Mambriccio, Andrew's chamberlain, was

(25:13):
implicated in the plot, and the rumor was that before
his execution, he had his tongue cut out so that
he couldn't reveal his true co conspirators. As all of
this was occurring, Joanna was holed up in a fortress,
safe from the crowd, who called her the Horror Queen.

(25:33):
She was also very, very pregnant. On December, she gave
birth to a healthy baby boy, who she named Charles
Martel in a clever political move to appease the Hungarians.
Charles Martel, remember, was Roberts older brother, the father of

(25:55):
Carobert and grandfather of Andrew, whose untimely death had sparked
the whole succession drama. In the prologue of this episode,
Joanna sent diplomat to Hungary, tasked with revealing the birth
of the baby and his symbolic name. She also sent
them with another mission. Now that she had given birth

(26:17):
to this child, she felt that she had fulfilled the
terms of the thirteen thirty three deal struck by Carobert
and her grandfather Robert. She had united the Neapolitan and
Hungarian lines in the form of a healthy male baby
who could inherit the kingdom. Since she had done so,
she argued she should be released from the terms of

(26:40):
the treaty and allowed to remarry. After all, her husband
was dead. This wasn't a frivolous request on her part.
Joanna was deeply vulnerable in this moment, and as a
young female royal, marriage was the fastest way to secure
her position. But the Hungarians were outraged. How dare this woman,

(27:03):
they spat wished to marry again so quickly after the
death of her husband, a death which they believed she
was probably responsible for. King Louis wrote to Pope Clement,
calling Joanna quote husband killer and widow of my brother
end quote, and suggesting that Pope Clement hand control of

(27:24):
Naples over to him Louis until young baby Charles Martel
came of age. Interestingly, the Hungarians had never publicly accused
Joanna of Andrew's murder until the moment she proposed to remarry.
At the same time Joanna faced this renewed assault from

(27:45):
the Hungarians, she was also dealing with one of her cousins,
Robert of Toronto, who declared his intention to marry her
and forcibly occupied the castle in a bizarre half coup
half marriage proposal. Rob Bert's brother, Louis of Toronto, Joanna's
alleged lover. You remember her cousin lover allegedly took up

(28:08):
arms against his brother. As the war of these brothers
ravaged the country, the Hungarians ramped up their threats, writing
to the Pope that they saw the delay of justice
as acceptable grounds for an invasion. Pope Clement knew that
action had to be taken publicly and dramatically to reassure

(28:29):
the Hungarians. He let it be known to his envoys
in Naples that justice needed to be done. The bloodier
the better, and so on December twenty nine, Philippa of Catania,
the woman who had been like a mother to Joanna,
and Philippa's granddaughter were paraded through the streets of Naples

(28:49):
naked and then tortured to death. It must have been
a deeply wretching day for Joanna. Worst of all, their
deaths were for nothing. They did not appease the Hungarians,
because on March twenty seven, Louis of Hungary declared war unnapled.

(29:11):
Joanna had prepared for this moment. She had spent much
of early thirteen forty seven working on uniting her kingdom.
She had successfully maneuvered Robert of Taranto out of the
castle and helped arrange an advantageous marriage for him often Grace,
and she had convinced Charles of Grazzo to back the

(29:32):
Neapolitans by arranging for a betrothal between her son, Charles Martel,
and one of Charles of Girazzo's daughters. And then, knowing
that she needed another military leader, and aware that it
no longer mattered whether or not the Hungarians or even
the Pope approved, she married Louis of Taranto, the cousin

(29:54):
that she had allegedly been in love with the entire time. Finally,
Joanna had brought together three of the leading military men
of her kingdom and yoked them to her cause. The
next few months were spent rallying an army and preparing
for war. The generals decided that the best place to
make a stand was in Capua, twenty miles outside of Naples,

(30:18):
and set out in December to establish their defenses. Joanna,
now pregnant again with Louie's child, stayed in Naples. Unfortunately,
Robert of Tarento and Charles of Gazzo had been better
enemies of the state than allies to it. As news
of multiple Hungarian victories reached the men, they decided to

(30:41):
turn trader and they abandoned Louis, taking many of their
troops with them. Upon hearing of her cousin's betrayal, Joanna
knew that all hope was lost. The only chance she
had of saving her life was to flee. The decision
to run to Provence, territory under her control, was an

(31:02):
easy one. The decision to leave behind her infant son,
Charles Martell, was not. But the boy was barely two
years old and the trip was going to be arduous.
She knew King Louis, her husband, wouldn't hurt Charles Martell,
who was his stepson and also nephew and the Hungarian's

(31:24):
best shot at the throne. Her mind was made up.
Joanna gathered a small group of trusted advisers, took as
much from the royal treasury as she could, and snuck
out of Naples on January, shortly after Louis of Toronto
made his own escape. Hearing of Joanna's flight, he knew

(31:47):
that he could not stay, and he decided to go
to Florence to request military aid. On January, King Louis
of Hungary took Naples. He took Charles Artell, the toddler prince,
into his custody and declared that he was to be
sent to Hungary for safe keeping. As Joanna had predicted,

(32:09):
the rough travel conditions of winter were too hard on
a young boy. He died shortly after his arrival in Hungary.
Ignorant of that, Joanna was hard at work in Provence.
She wanted to raise funds and an army to reclaim
Naples from Louis. Getting the support she needed, Joanna knew

(32:31):
required rehabilitating her reputation. The best and most effective way
to do this would be a judgment of innocence by
the Pope. As she lobbied the Pope for an audience,
Joanna was strengthened by the arrival of her husband. He
had been rebuffed in Florence, and so Louis of Toronto

(32:51):
had decided to seek aid from the Pope as well,
and so he traveled to France. For much of February.
The couple and their advisers beseeched Clement to meet with them,
but the Pope resisted. As an aside, you might be
wondering what the Pope was doing in France in Avignon

(33:11):
instead of Rome for much of the fourteenth century. In fact,
the popes resided in Avignon. Why they did so is
a very long, complicated tale involving politics, popes anti popes.
It's fascinating, but it isn't particularly relevant to Joanna's story
and this episode is long enough, so back to Joanna. Surprisingly,

(33:34):
it was the Hungarians who finally convinced Clement in Avignon
to meet with Joanna, although they didn't intend that. In
early March, Joanna's younger sister, Maria, came to France and
brought with her a shocking story. In January, Maria said
King Louis had welcomed her husband, Charles of Dirazzo, who

(33:56):
had recently pledged allegiance to the Hungarians, to a banquet,
but instead of being thanked for his support, Charles had
been arrested and summarily executed by King Louis of Hungary,
who accused him of being involved in Andrew's murder. Pope
Clement was appalled by this news and decided that the

(34:17):
Hungarian had gone too far. Soon, Joanna received a summons.
She was to appear at the papal court in Avignon
and plead her case. On the fifteenth of March thirteen
forty eight. Queen Joanna of Naples and her husband Louis
of Taranto, rode into Avignon, despite the literal war she

(34:39):
had just escaped. This might have been the most dangerous
moment of Joanna's life, because Avignon, like ports all across
southern Europe, was in the grips of a mysterious and
devastating illness which would soon come to be known as
the Black Death. The plague had hit Auverignon hard, and

(35:03):
the city would eventually lose half its population to the disease.
Bodies filled the streets and the rivers, The sick and
dying moaned from their beds, and chaos reigned. Into this
hellscape came Joanna and Louis, infamous for their alleged crimes,

(35:24):
and resplendent. As they arrived in their royal regalia, hundreds
of townsfolk crowded the roads for a glimpse of the
glamorous couple, whose shimmering robes and golden locks must have
practically glowed in the death stricken streets. Soon Joanna and

(35:45):
Louis arrived at the papal Palace. Joanna was offered refreshments
and then escorted to the Great Hall At the opposite
end of the long haul sat Pope Clement, wearing a
crown and white robes, presiding over the room from his throne.
On either side of the narrow aisle that led from

(36:06):
the entrant to the Pope's throne stood hundreds of spectators
representing the governments of dozens of European kingdoms. As Joanna
walked down the aisle, her long mantle held up by
two aids, all eyes were following her. When she reached
the Pope, she knelt and kissed his slipper. The Pope

(36:29):
bade her to stand, kissed her on the mouth, and
told her to sit on the throne beside him. Then
the charges were read. As Joanna and the Pope, along
with a council of cardinals sat listening, a delegation sent
by King Louis of Hungary, presented their case against the queen.

(36:50):
Once they had finished, it was Joanna's turn to give
a defense. Instead of relying on spokesman, Joanna spoke on
her own behalf, using the Latin she had learned at
the knee of her famous grandfather. We have no record
of what she said. Unfortunately, Pope Clement kept the meeting
out of official church annals so that he could have

(37:13):
plausible deniability with the Hungarians, but whatever she said seems
to have worked. After conferring, Pope Clement and the cardinals
declared that Joanna was completely innocent of all charges against her.
Whether this decision was entirely impartial is impossible to know,

(37:36):
and the fact that the Pope soon broke heard a
sweetheart deal with Joanna in which she pawned him the
city of Avignon for a relatively small sum hadn't helped
the queen's cause. Modern historians remain ambivalent about Joanna's involvement
in her first husband, Andrew's death, although they do point

(37:57):
out that his death did more to hurt her then
help her, an outcome which would have been clear to
this queen, who, throughout the subsequent decades she held power,
proved that she was a strategic thinker. After Joanna's appearance
in Avignon, the tide began to turn in her favor.
Pope Clement denied King Louis of Hungary's request to be

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crowned King of Naples, a desire which by this point
the Hungarians had begun to have second thoughts about. Anyways,
given the trouble the king was having in winning over
the Neapolitan nobility, not to mention the challenges faced by
the arrival of the plague. In late May, Louis of
Hungary left Naples. Joanna and her husband quickly began planning

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for their return, funding their efforts through the aforementioned pawning
of Avignon to the papacy. In August thirteen forty eight,
Joanna and Louis arrived in Naples along with their new
born otter, and they began beating back the Hungarian forces. Unfortunately,

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it would not be completely smooth sailing for the embattled queen.
As she fought off the Hungarians, she faced a new
enemy inside her home, her husband, Louis of Taranto, who,
upon their return to Naples became physically abusive, domineering, and

(39:26):
power hungry. He had forced Joanna to make him king.
He had taken complete control of the military, and he
kept her all but imprisoned in their home. The Hungarians
finally retreated from Naples in thirteen fifty two on the
condition that Joanna be retried for Andrew's murder. Once again.

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She was acquitted, but she would not be free of
her second husband, Louis of Taranto, for another ten years.
On May thirteen sixty two, the man who had once
been Joanna's military savior and then became her abuser, died
after catching a cold in the bath. He had been

(40:10):
predeceased by the couple's daughters, none of whom lived to adulthood.
Seven months later, Joanna wed James, the fourth of Mayorka,
but this marriage was not a happy one either. James
had some problems. To put it lightly, he had spent
fourteen years imprisoned in an iron cage by his uncle,

(40:35):
and unshockingly, had never mentally recovered from the ordeal. Incidentally,
sometimes when I talk about this podcast, people ask me
if I'm ever worried that I'll run out of interesting
noble stories, and the answer honestly is no. But back
to Joanna. After her third husband, James's death in thirty

(41:00):
Joanna married again Otto of Brunswick. This marriage, fortunately seems
to have been a good one. After Louis of Taranto's
death back in thirteen sixty two, Joanna had become once
again the sole ruler of Naples, and it was a
position that she would hold for the rest of her life.

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The Archbishop of Naples, writing to the pope shortly after
Louise's death, wrote of Joanna, quote, the Queen delights in governing.
She wants to do everything because she has waited for
so long for this moment end quote. Despite her joy,
though ruling would not be easy, Joanna was nearly always

(41:42):
involved in one war or another, either as the aggressor
or the defender. She had to navigate constant political turmoil
inside her own country, and she ran into the wrath
of the church when she chose to support one pope
over another in the midst of western chisholm of It

(42:03):
was the latter event that would lead to her downfall.
Because Joanna had no surviving children, she decided to designate
Charles of Drazzo. These names are incredibly confusing. No, not
her cousin who had once been married to her sister
and then executed by the King of Hungary for his betrayal,
but his son in law as her heir. Unfortunately, this

(42:28):
Charles disagreed with Joanna's choice to support Pope Clement. No,
not that Pope Clement who had judged her trial, but
a later Pope Clement over Pope Urban In the Western schism,
and he began to scheme against her. In November, this
new Charles of Drazzo invaded Naples, leading an army comprised

(42:51):
of Joanna's old enemies, the Hungarians. In July his forces
reached the Castel Nuovo, and after more than a month
under siege, Joanna was forced to surrender. She spent nearly
a year in captivity before dying on July two. The

(43:12):
queen was fifty six years old. Charles claimed she died
of natural causes, but nearly every other source says that
she was murdered, strangled by a chord, or smothered by pillows.
It was a violent end to a difficult life, a
life marked by tragedy, warfare, and betrayal, but above all

(43:37):
by resiliency that hasn't stopped observers passed and present from
calling Joanna a murderer and adulteress, a pawn and a sinner.
But I'll leave you with this description of her from
the famous writer Giovanni Boccaccio, who wrote of Joanna in
the year of Louis of Toronto's death, the year that

(43:57):
she reclaimed her full power. Quote, if we examine her
domain closely, our amazement will equal its fame, for it
is a mighty realm of the sort not usually ruled
by women. Yet far more admirable is the fact that
Joanna's spirit is equal to its governance. So well has

(44:18):
she preserved the luminous character of her ancestors. That's the
story of Joanna of Naples. But keep listening after a
brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her.

(44:47):
Where and how one is buried often has great significance,
especially for royals. Joanna's parents were buried in Santa Ciara,
a magnificent church that had taken Robert the wa Eyes
nearly twenty years to complete. When Robert himself died, Joanna
had commissioned Florentine sculptors to build a three story tomb

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for him in Santa Ciara, complete with a sculpted representation
of their entire family. Joanna also made sure that her
first husband, Andrew, was given a dignified resting place. He
was buried in the Grand Cathedral of Naples in the
Chapel of St. Louis, where many members of the royal
family were interred, including his paternal grandfather Charles Martel, the

(45:34):
First but Joanna herself, despite her achievements and her fame,
was not so lucky. After her murder, her body was
displayed in Santa Ciara, where onlookers barely recognized their queen,
so changed was her appearance after her year in captivity.
And then it came time to bury her. Because of

(45:57):
her choice to support Pope Clement in the Western Schism,
the other Pope Urban had excommunicated Joanna, which meant that
she couldn't be buried in consecrated ground, and she had
died as a hostile prisoner of the new ruler of Naples,
who didn't feel particularly inclined to give the dead queen

(46:19):
the same royal treatment that she had given her own family. Eventually,
a solution was found. The remains of Joanna, former Queen
of Naples, one of the most powerful, recognizable, infamous figures
of medieval history, were tossed in a well often used

(46:39):
for the bones of the unknown dead, just behind the
church of Santa Ciara, where her bones still likely lie
unmarked today. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart

(47:06):
Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood
is hosted by me Danish Wortz, Additional writing and researching
done by Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick, Miura Hayward, Courtney Sunder,
and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by rema Il Kali,
with supervising producer Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Mankey,

(47:28):
Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.