The Reign of Carobert
Now that he was secure, Carobert needed an heir, but this proved surprisingly difficult. Carobert’s political outlook was illustrated by his marriage alliances, particularly his close alliance with Poland, which began as early as 1306 when he sent military assistance to the Polish king even before his own uncontested rule. The sources vary considerably on whom Carobert married and when, but he seems to have married Mary of Galicia in 1305 or 1306; Mary of Bytom from Poland in around 1311; Beatrice of Luxembourg, daughter of the Emperor Henry VII and sister of John of Bohemia, before February 1319; and finally Elisabeth of Poland on 6 July 1320. Carobert had no children with his first two wives and Beatrice died in childbirth in November 1319, but he had five sons with Elisabeth: Charles and Ladislas who died young, followed by the future Louis the Great, Andrew and Stephen. The sources are less interested in his daughters, but there seem to have been two, Anne and Catherine.33
It was in the reign of Carobert, despite his abundance of sons, that a custom arose for the benefit of those who had only daughters: ‘masculinization’. In Hungary, in many cases women were excluded from inheritance. Under Carobert, when there were no male heirs, it was established that the king could use his plenitude of powers to declare a female to be male, and allow her to inherit. This practice would become very important in the generation after Carobert, when Louis the Great had only two daughters: when they inherited the throne they would become ‘kings’ rather than ‘queens’.34
As in Italy, Angevin rule introduced French chivalric culture to Hungary. Carobert welcomed foreign knights into his household, which he modelled on French lines. He also founded the Order of Saint George in 1326, which seems to be the first chivalric order anywhere in Europe. These knightly orders first appeared in the 14th century and ranged from confraternities like Carobert’s, which seems to have been simply a group of knights organized to hold jousts, to political organizations like the Garter in England, the Golden Fleece in Burgundy, and the Angevin orders of the Knot, the Ship and the Crescent, which explicitly formed connections between a monarch and potential supporters.
The statutes of Carobert’s order are still in the National Archives of Hungary, and emphasize the brotherhood of the members as exemplified by their participation in tournaments. Carobert held the first tournament in Hungary in 1318 and regularly hosted tournaments throughout his reign, under the aegis of the Order of St George. Since Hungary did not have a history of chivalry and tournaments, Carobert was able to avoid the disruptive effects of the early tournaments in France and England, instead forming a ‘team’ of knights who accompanied him to tournaments and jousts, which created a loyal nucleus of supporters. In Hungary, tournaments have none of the negative connotations they sometimes had in other countries, instead forming a mechanism for introducing chivalric culture into Hungary to provide coherence for its military class and vital support for a new dynasty. Carobert recognized the importance of this, and at his funeral in 1342 his body was accompanied by three knights bearing his arms for war, tournaments and jousts.35
Carobert was able to entertain on a lavish scale because gold mines were discovered in Hungary in the 1320s. The profits of these mines allowed Carobert to become the first ruler north of the Alps to issue a gold coin, the florin, which was based on the coin produced in Florence and in circulation by 1326. Like his Italian cousins, Carobert also invested in imagery to demonstrate his legitimate rule. A mural in the church of Szepeshely in Slovakia shows the Virgin crowning Carobert, an image strikingly similar to Simone Martini’s painting of Robert the Wise being crowned by Louis of Toulouse. Carobert also commissioned the beautiful golden orb marked with his arms, now in the National Museum in Budapest, as part of his royal regalia.36 Hungary now became the largest producer of gold in Europe, and the role of this wealth in the impending struggles between the Hungarian and Neapolitan Angevins would be vital.37
Carobert was no less ambitious than any other Angevin, and as soon as he was secure in the Hungarian heartland he immediately turned to securing his wider possessions and becoming a regional powerbroker. This was desperately needed, since Hungarian territory faced aggressors on all sides, but he was not particularly successful. Although Bosnia always remained loyal to the Angevins, Carobert launched several expeditions against Serbia in an attempt to make good his title ‘King of Serbia’, without success. The cities of Croatia and the Dalmatian coast that had been so vital to him obtaining the throne, and that had remained loyal to him under the Šubićs, who kept the region stable throughout the civil wars and instability of his early reign, were now lost to Venice.
As we know, Zara had been seized from Hungary by the Fourth Crusade, and although Innocent III excommunicated the Venetians over this and made them pay reparations, the city had been formally ceded to Venice shortly after. Zara’s strategic position as the best port on the Croatian coast and also the logical termination of trading routes into central Europe and to Constantinople gave it an economic importance that made it the lynchpin of Adriatic policy for any power that wished to control the region. Although controlled by Venice since the Fourth Crusade, in 1310 Pope Clement V placed Venice under an interdict for the sack of Ferrara, and the people of Zara took this opportunity to revolt and beg for help from the Šubićs. Pavao took Zara in 1311, but died the following year and his son Mladen II was chosen count of Zara in 1312.
Over the next decade Mladen increased his control over the coastline, but his growing power alienated some, even of his own family. Initially Carobert was in no position to intervene, but by the early 1320s his position in Hungary was secure enough for him to consider the Adriatic coast. He supported a coalition against Mladen led by the ban of Slavonia, and in 1322 Mladen was defeated. Carobert then generously called to mind the services rendered to him by Mladen’s father Pavao, and welcomed Mladen to his court in Visegrad. Unfortunately for Hungary, in the absence of a Šubić overlord, most of the Croatian and Dalmatian coast quickly fell to Venice. Wallachia, although it had recognized Carobert as king, also transferred its allegiance to Bulgaria.38
Carobert was unwilling to accept any losses to his territory, and launched a punitive expedition against Wallachia in 1330. After achieving nothing, Carobert began a retreat only to be ambushed and trapped in the valley of Posada on 9 November. The Wallachians spent four days slaughtering the Hungarian army, and Carobert himself only escaped by exchanging clothes with the loyal knight Dezső Hédervári. Dezső’s self-sacrifice passed into legend and became one of the great romantic events of Carobert’s reign that has often been retold and depicted. It was equally famous at the time, and a processional cross in the British Museum that must date from shortly after the event depicts Dezső’s heroism.39
We are notably short of such episodes for Carobert and indeed for his son Louis the Great, because there is a dearth of chronicles in 14th-century Hungary. Although there is archival material to provide a chronology, we lack the anecdotal evidence that brings characters to life, aside from such vital romantic episodes. The tale of Dezső Hédervári is uplifting and heroic, but the other dramatic story of Carobert’s reign is much darker.
After his marriage to Elisabeth of Poland, Carobert remained close to his father-in-law, Władysław Łokietek (Władysław the Short or ‘Elbow-High’). After being defeated by the Teutonic Knights, in 1329 Władysław sent his heir Casimir to request help from Carobert. Whilst in Visegrad, the nineteen-year-old Casimir allegedly seduced one of Queen Elisabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, Claire Záh. On 17 April 1330, Claire’s father Felician Záh was welcomed into the dining room where the royal family were eating, but drew his sword and attacked the king and queen, wounding them both before being killed by the guards. Carobert took a terrible vengeance, which the Italian Franciscan who chronicled his reign made the centrepiece of his chronicle. Felician Záh’s children were tortured to death, except for Claire, whose lips and fingers were cut off, then she was dragged through various cities of the realm by a horse
. All other members of the Záh family to the third degree were executed, and those to the seventh degree were condemned to lose their property and become serfs. The pursuit of the Záh clan continued for many years.40
This event is shocking and overshadows everything else we know about Carobert. However, although it is documented elsewhere that Carobert executed the entire Záh clan, we do only have one source that provides any motive for the killings, and this is openly hostile to Carobert. The Franciscan chronicle is the only source attributing Záh’s attack on the king and queen to the dishonouring of his daughter by Casimir, and given that Felician had initially opposed Carobert’s bid for the throne there may have been another explanation for the pursuit of the Záh family. Regardless of the motive, the ferocity of the persecution of the Záhis is well attested and, fairly or not, allows us to judge Carobert’s character.
The cruelty of Carobert’s actions against the Záhis foreshadows the behaviour of Louis the Great when he avenged his brother Andrew’s death, part of a catastrophic war between the Hungarian and Neapolitan Angevins that blighted the kingdom of Naples for decades. These events involved Robert the Wise’s successor Johanna, and we must first see how Robert’s plan to unite the Hungarian and Neapolitan branches proved a complete disaster.
Queen Johanna I of Naples
When discussing Richard the Lionheart, it can be difficult to make a sober analysis of his reign because we are frequently in the realm of breathless adventure. Sadly for Queen Johanna, the situation is similar, but for her any objective analysis of her reign is superseded by the numerous slanders about her and her tragic end. Even the strongest ruler might fade into the background behind the cataclysmic events that occurred during Johanna’s reign: the Black Death, the first major battles of the Hundred Years War and the invasion of Italy by the mercenary companies it spawned, and the Great Western Schism when rival popes in Avignon and Rome tore Christendom apart, bringing Johanna down with them. Yet this does not happen, because Johanna was a strong character who, although sometimes acted upon by events, usually maintained her own agency and was always bolstered by an unshakeable belief in her right to rule.
Johanna’s reign is overshadowed and – for contemporary and many modern historians – completely defined by one event, the murder of her first husband Andrew of Hungary. This happened only two years after her accession to the throne, when she was still a teenager, and rapidly brought about her exile, loss of her kingdom to a Hungarian invasion and remarriage to an Angevin cousin. The story of Andrew’s murder kicks off and illuminates the dynastic struggles that would last until the end of Angevin rule in Naples, and would be worth examining in detail even if it weren’t so fascinatingly lurid.
The background to the story was the question of Robert the Wise’s right to the throne. Carobert’s successor Louis the Great firmly believed his, elder, line of Angevins should rule Naples. Robert’s heirs were his granddaughters Johanna and Maria, and his plan to address the problem was to have Maria marry Louis, and Louis’s younger brother Andrew marry Johanna. Robert proposed the marriage between Johanna and Andrew in 1333, and Carobert was delighted to accept. Carobert personally brought Andrew to Naples in 1333 and the two children (Joanna was seven and Andrew five) were betrothed in September.
Contemporaries endlessly stress that Andrew and his Hungarian attendants were outsiders in Naples, and were perceived as gauche and uncultured. Although this may have been due to Andrew’s personality, it also seems to show that within two generations the Angevins of Hungary had become quite different from their Neapolitan cousins. Considering Andrew lived in Naples from the age of five, it seems unlikely that he would have been too linguistically or culturally isolated, unless this was by choice. This is precisely what some historians do claim, and Petrarch noticed that Andrew was marginalized and taunted by others at court.
Johanna and Andrew were married before Carobert’s death, which occurred on 16 July 1342. On the accession of Louis the Great to the throne of Hungary, relations between the kingdoms deteriorated when Louis began marriage negotiations with the King of Bohemia’s daughter despite his engagement to Johanna’s sister Maria. Robert seems to have responded to this by emphasizing Andrew’s role as Johanna’s consort rather than king of Sicily in his own right.
Robert died in 1343 when Johanna was seventeen and Andrew fifteen. The succession in one sense went smoothly, as Johanna was clearly Robert’s heir, but her sex and youth meant a struggle for control of the kingdom began at once. There were numerous people who believed they had a right to the throne itself, or at least a say in who held it: the pope, the Hungarians and the Taranto and Durazzo branches of the royal family. Robert had also confused matters by stipulating that neither Johanna nor Andrew would come into their inheritance until the age of twenty-five, not the usual age of majority at eighteen, and appointing a ruling council led by his widow Sancia of Majorca and consisting of his trusted advisers.
None of the factions was happy with this arrangement. The pope felt it usurped his rights as overlord of the kingdom, and corresponded directly with Johanna as queen instead of with the council. Johanna’s cousin Charles of Durazzo acted more decisively by secretly marrying – perhaps by force – Johanna’s sister Maria, who was only thirteen and engaged to King Louis of Hungary, as well as being second in line to the throne.
It was clear to all that there was great instability in Naples and that factions were vying for control of the kingdom. No less a source than Petrarch wrote to one of Robert’s former secretaries expressing great concern over Johanna and Andrew, fearing that their positions – for he viewed Andrew as king – would be usurped.41
Petrarch’s comments reflect the tension in Andrew’s position: as Johanna’s husband he was in some sense king, and to many there was no such thing as a king-consort; if Andrew was king then he was entitled to rule. This was antithetical to the position set out in Robert’s will, which was that Andrew should always retain the title of king, but political power belonged solely to Johanna. This is borne out by Johanna’s correspondence with the pope, in which she sets out her views quite clearly and makes it plain that Andrew is not to be treated as her co-ruler.
By 1344, the disorder in Naples’s government was such that the pope sent a legate to govern the kingdom. He also began to press for Andrew’s coronation and recognition as king, a position Johanna rejected in the strongest terms. She neatly countered Clement’s arguments about Andrew’s right to rule by stating that she, as the rightful queen and Andrew’s wife, as well as having attained her majority while Andrew was still a child, was best placed to look after Andrew’s interests.
This argument seems to have worked, and by summer 1345 things seemed to be improving and, more importantly, Johanna was known to be pregnant. However, on 28 July Sancia died, and with her any notion of the royal council having any control of the kingdom. Factional strife in the court burst out anew, with rumours that Johanna was having numerous adulterous affairs, including with her cousin Louis of Taranto. Contemporaries such as Donato degli Albanzani, a friend of Boccaccio, also reported that Johanna’s retinue mocked Andrew and treated him cruelly.42
Against this backdrop – and after having received 100,000 gold florins from the Hungarians – the pope again demanded that Andrew be crowned, anointed and recognized as co-ruler, and he sent a legate from Avignon for this purpose. In Naples, this was clearly not wanted, and all the clergy and nobility swore that if Johanna died in childbirth, they would not recognize Andrew as king.
The Murder of Andrew
Even as the papal legate made his way to Naples, Johanna and Andrew went to Aversa, where they and the rest of the court stayed at the royal hunting lodge, and matters came to a horrifying conclusion. The story is minutely recorded by many contemporary sources, and we know every detail of the murder except who was actually responsible. The events were as follows.
On the night of 18 September 1345, as Andrew went to bed, he was informed that a messenger had arriv
ed from Naples who wanted to speak to him urgently. Lured out of his room, Andrew was then seized by assassins who brutally gagged him, mutilated and murdered him, then threw his body from a balcony into the garden, where it was immediately discovered by his Hungarian nurse who raised the alarm. So sensational a murder was quickly embroidered by many sources, but there is good contemporary evidence for what happened. Pope Clement himself wrote to a cardinal and described the murder like this, based on ‘the reports of many’:
Immediately he was summoned by them, he went into the gallery or promenade which is before the chamber. (Then) certain ones placed their hands over his mouth, so that he could not cry out, and in this act they so pressed the iron gauntlets that their print and character were manifest after death. Others placed a rope round his neck, in order to strangle him, and this likewise left its mark; others (I must leave this sentence to the Latin) …
This is Welbore St Clair Baddeley’s translation from 1897, and he then coyly reverts to Latin and consigns the next sentence to a footnote. The unprintable detail is that others seized Andrew and dragged him by his genitals in a way that left clear marks, and Clement says he had this from people who said they saw it themselves. The rest of Clement’s report is scarcely less horrifying. After mutilating Andrew’s genitals:
… others tore out his hair, dragged him, and threw him into the garden. Some say that with the rope with which they had strangled him they swung him, as if hanging, over the garden. Some (also) got him under their knees … and we heard that this likewise left external traces. It was further related to us that they intended to throw him into a deep well (even as St. Jeremy was thrown into a pit), and thereafter to give it out he had left the kingdom…. And this they would have carried out had not his nurse quickly come upon the scene.43
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 38
