Between the complaints against Aimeric emanating from Naples, the withholding of the tribute, the continued pressure by Cardinal Talleyrand and Louis of Durazzo to limit the intervention to six months, and the legate’s own increasingly demanding, heartfelt supplications to be recalled, Clement began to think that he might have made a mistake. When Philip VI of France added his objections to those of the Neapolitans, the decision was made. On November 19, 1344, the pope wrote a letter to Joanna in which he announced that, because she had demonstrated the proper humility and had by her obedience profited and matured greatly under Aimeric’s instruction, the young queen no longer required the services of the legate, whose talents were, in any event, required elsewhere. Accordingly, the pontiff was returning the rule of the kingdom of Naples to its eighteen-year-old sovereign. In place of the legate, Clement decided to send Joanna a nuncio, but in an advisory position only; this new papal representative could neither make law nor interfere in her government.
The recall of the legate promised Joanna complete freedom of action for the first time. Ironically, by his interference, initially justified by her youth and inexperience, Clement had released Joanna from the moderating influence of the ruling council, which had been established by Robert’s will and anchored by Sancia, an experienced monarch. Where the old king had tried to shelter his granddaughter from the heavy responsibility of absolute rule until she had reached the more mature age of twenty-five, the pope now handed it to her while she was still in her teens. The only detail marring this serendipity was that Aimeric, in the absence of specific orders, stubbornly refused to leave his post until his replacement, the nuncio, had arrived. Since the nuncio was held up until the following May, the legate remained in Naples for another six months. During this time Aimeric gradually relinquished his legislative activities but did not officially return complete control of the government to the queen until just before he left.
Once in receipt of Clement’s letter of November 19, however, Joanna no longer felt herself constrained by the cardinal’s stern admonitions and pronouncements or the absence of an official ceremony, duly recorded in writing and forwarded to the pope, denoting the transference of power. The court of Naples had degenerated dangerously into warring factions during Aimeric’s short tenure, and the queen moved quickly to protect herself. The pope had legally affirmed her sole right to rule, but this was not enough to secure her office in the present unstable political environment. The alliance between Andrew and the Pipini brothers, in particular, had damaged her position. She recognized that, now that he had such potent support within the kingdom, her husband’s promised coronation presented a real threat to her sovereignty. Once Andrew was crowned in a public ceremony, he would be unlikely to adhere to the restrictions imposed by the pontiff. Her subjects could not be expected to distinguish between the niceties of an honorary title and genuine authority; if Andrew gave orders, he would be obeyed. Moreover, she foresaw that, now that Andrew was maturing, it would be increasingly difficult for her to control him as she had in the past. The best way to stop her husband from acquiring power, then, would be to prevent the investiture ceremony from occurring in the first place. So she refused to set a date and asked Louis of Durazzo and Cardinal Talleyrand to focus their efforts on persuading Clement to rescind the promise of a double coronation to Andrew.
At the same time, she moved to build up her own power base within the kingdom. Recognizing that she needed to surround herself with counselors and barons who could be counted on to remain loyal to her and to resist the slightest incursion into her authority by her husband’s party, Joanna issued a series of edicts granting monies, property, and promotion to certain key members of the aristocracy who were already disposed to distrust and oppose Andrew and the Pipini brothers. These included, among others, the extended family of her adopted mother, Philippa the Catanian; Robert the Wise’s illegitimate son, Charles of Artois; and the house of Taranto. In particular, she showed marked favor to one of Philippa’s sons, Robert of Cabannis, bestowing on him the countship of Eboli and raising him to grand seneschal of the kingdom.
Since Joanna and Andrew were known to be quarreling—to use the pope’s term—not surprisingly, the chroniclers began reporting around this time certain rumors regarding Joanna’s sexual behavior. (Like any euphemism, “quarreling” does not do justice to the young couple’s relationship; apparently, he was threatening her and she was taunting him.) Domenico da Gravina accused Catherine of arranging for her second son, Louis of Taranto, to slip into Joanna’s bed, while Boccaccio suggested that in fact the queen’s lover was Robert of Cabannis, whom Joanna had just promoted to a position of power. “For Joanna was given in marriage to Andrew… and when King Robert died, Sancia, the queen, went into a convent,” Boccaccio wrote in his biography of Philippa the Catanian.
Disputes arose between Joanna and Andrew by the wicked urging of certain persons. Andrew was despised, for the nobles of the kingdom had sworn oaths to Joanna when Robert was alive. By Joanna, Robert [of Cabannis] from being the Seneschal of the Court, was made Great Seneschal of the Kingdom, and Sancia, his niece [Philippa’s granddaughter] was married to Charles, Count of Marcone.
These extraordinary successes came to these Africans, however, not without some spots on their honor. Though it may not be right to believe it, it was said that the pandering of Philippa was responsible for putting Joanna into Robert’s embraces. This crime requires a lot of faith for… no others except these [Philippa, Joanna and Robert] must have known Joanna’s secret.
There is no way to tell if any or all of this was true. Certainly, Joanna was never caught in the act of engaging in an extramarital affair. The existence of two distinct paramours, rather than a single lover, and the differing stories would seem to cast doubt on the chroniclers’ knowledge. (Giovanni Villani claimed that Joanna also took as her lover Charles of Artois’ son, Bertrand, and several other nobles including Louis’ older brother, Robert of Taranto. But Villani, imprisoned at the time for his participation in one of the failed Florentine banking concerns whose assets Joanna and Sancia had seized, was perhaps not the most reliable observer.) As Boccaccio himself admitted, “When there is the least familiarity of any sort with a man, disgrace easily stains the most honorable woman.”
Reports of Joanna’s licentious nature must also be balanced against her deep spirituality and commitment to religion, an eyewitness account of which Petrarch recorded in a letter to Cardinal Colonna after a particularly violent storm the year before. “Good God! When was anything like this ever heard of?… The entire shore line was covered with torn and still living bodies: someone’s brains floated by here, someone else’s bowels floated there. In the midst of such sights the yelling of men and wailing of women were so loud that they overcame the sounds of the seas and the heavens… Meanwhile the younger queen [Joanna], bare-footed and uncombed, and accompanied by a large group of women, departed from the royal palace unconcerned about modesty in the face of great danger, and they all hastened to the Church of the Virgin Queen praying for her grace amidst such dangers.” To leave the relative safety of the castle and brave a frightening storm in order to pray for her people is entirely reflective of Sancia’s training and renders the reports of easy adultery somewhat less credible. Still, Joanna would not have been the first eighteen-year-old to flirt with other suitors, particularly when her own husband was so difficult.
Aimeric made haste to transmit Joanna’s activities to the pope, dwelling particularly on the queen’s generous grants of property and income to her favorites, which profligacy the cardinal warned, not without justification, was in danger of draining the royal treasury. The church’s interests and income in Naples were threatened by her extravagance, Aimeric continued. (There was no little hypocrisy in this, as, between them, Joanna and the Neapolitan clergy were ultimately forced to pay the legate nineteen thousand gold florins for services rendered during his brief tenure.) Also, the courtiers surrounding the queen were openly hostile to Andre
w and were encouraging the rift between husband and wife, Aimeric noted.
Clement might have vacillated on awarding power and privileges, but when it came to protecting church income, he acted quickly and decisively. On January 30, 1345, he dashed off a bull striking down every grant of money and property made by either Joanna or Sancia since Robert the Wise’s death on the grounds that they constituted alienation of the realm. “Since all power over these States belongs to the Holy See, including goods, rights and honors pertaining to the estate, we order you to revoke all handovers, gifts, and relinquishments of land, towns, fiefdoms, privileges and income granted by her for whichever reason, since the death of the late King,” Clement wrote to Aimeric. “The beneficiaries of these gifts will have to return them without delay, or face excommunication.” This proclamation was followed on February 5 with another decree in which the pope published a list of twelve persons who were cited for provoking mischief between Joanna and her lord and master, and were consequently forbidden from social intercourse with the queen. Chief among this group were Philippa the Catanian and her family, including her two sons, Robert of Cabannis and Raymond of Catania, and her granddaughter Sancia of Cabannis, in addition to “certain others whom we do not at present name,” by which the pope almost assuredly meant Charles of Artois and Catherine of Valois and her sons.
The boldness of Clement’s action—after all, he was challenging gifts of land and lordships made to persons of very high birth, including members of the empress of Constantinople’s family, who were likely to react with violence to their invalidation—was somewhat compromised by the surreptitious note to Aimeric that accompanied these documents. “If you deem either untimely or unwise the publication of these minutes while still inside the Kingdom,” the pope wrote confidentially to his legate, “do so upon your departure, in a sufficiently sizable township close to the border.” Consequently, although the papal bull revoking the queen’s grants of property was issued in January, the queen and her court remained in ignorance of the repeal until Aimeric’s departure in May. It must have been a great relief to Aimeric not to have to bear the responsibility of breaking this unpleasant news until his replacement, the nuncio, had arrived and the legate could honor his instructions while well on his way out of the kingdom.
The reprimand prohibiting Joanna from the society of Philippa’s family and other of the queen’s intimates was made public in February, however, and the courtiers judged it politic to appear to be conforming to the pope’s wishes. Joanna herself felt pressure in the aftermath of these injunctions to conciliate her husband and his party, at least nominally, for fear of further reprisals. Aimeric was still in Naples and the queen was aware that the cardinal was spying on her. Not wishing to give the pope an excuse to extend the legate’s stay, she resumed an attitude of conjugal normalcy with Andrew. This domestic détente between husband and wife in turn gave rise to an event that once again shattered the fragile equilibrium at court. For in April, it became generally known that the queen of Naples was pregnant.
The expectation of an heir to the throne abruptly introduced a new and disruptive element to the political status quo. Its immediate effect was to reshuffle the hierarchy of those close to the seat of power. Despite the rumors of infidelity, there seems to have been no question that the child was Andrew’s, and so the primary beneficiary of the political re-ranking was the prospective father. Andrew was now more than simply Joanna’s liege lord; he was sire to the future heir to the throne, with responsibility for the infant’s welfare and upbringing. Overnight, it became much more difficult to deny him the coronation previously promised by the pope. Similarly, the great losers in these altered circumstances were unquestionably Charles of Durazzo and his mother, Agnes of Périgord. The existence of Joanna’s unborn child all but extinguished any hope harbored by the duke of Durazzo to one day rule Naples through his wife, since Maria could only inherit if Joanna died childless. Even if this baby died, Joanna was young; there would be others. Already excluded from the queen’s inner circle—for, although Joanna worked with the Durazzos because of their connection to Cardinal Talleyrand, she had never forgiven either Charles or Agnes for the shameful seduction of her sister—Charles and Agnes found their access to the halls of power further diminished by this event.
As for Joanna, the pregnancy legitimized her position within the kingdom far more effectively than could any declaration by the pope. She had proved she was not barren, an issue of paramount importance to the realm. More than this, once she gave birth, she would establish a hereditary line of succession that would put to rest forever the destructive whispers of her grandfather’s, and by extension her own, usurpation. The unborn child was both a rebuke to the Durazzos and a vindication of her marriage to her in-laws. Andrew’s child would inherit the kingdom as had been stipulated in the original contract between Naples and Hungary, and that should by rights put an end to the complaints of her husband’s mother and elder brother.
But the expectation of an heir only served to incite Elizabeth and Louis of Hungary to intensify their efforts to propel Andrew into power. Louis dispatched a series of bishops and lawyers to Naples to advise his younger brother on ways to undermine his wife’s authority and encroach on her sovereignty. Elizabeth’s ambassadors at Avignon renewed their appeals to Clement, arguing that it was unseemly for the father of the future sovereign of Naples to be of lower rank than his child. Andrew must not only be crowned, the Hungarians again insisted, but also must share power with his wife. To demonstrate the seriousness with which the crown of Hungary regarded this issue, King Louis instituted a special tax, the proceeds of which found their way to the papal court.
There is no reliable record of the magnitude of the sum the Hungarians used to cajole the pope this time. One chronicler estimated the bribe to be eighty thousand gold florins; another, forty-four thousand marks; later historians put it as high as one hundred thousand florins. Whatever the amount, Clement judged it sufficiently munificent to prompt an immediate reassessment of Andrew’s future role in the government of Naples. On June 10, 1345, the pope wrote to Joanna, chastising her for trying to delay the double coronation and, in a complete reversal of his former position, ordered her to give her husband “an honorable role” in the administration of the realm.
This new papal imperative turned out to be one directive too many. Joanna had only just rid herself and her kingdom of Aimeric. Clement’s nuncio had finally arrived in mid-May, and on May 19 the legate had formally returned the rule of Naples to its queen. Five days later the cardinal had departed the capital. But no sooner had the legate left than Joanna discovered that, before he had entirely quitted the kingdom, Aimeric had stopped at a town near the border to post a papal bull revoking all gifts of money, property, and title that had been granted since the death of Robert the Wise and ordering their return on pain of excommunication. Exasperated by the disclosure of this first bull, kept secret by Aimeric since January, Joanna was in no mood to entertain additional papal interference, particularly as she was well aware that her husband’s family was behind it. She was nineteen, pregnant with the heir to the throne, and had already been officially anointed by the church (as represented by Aimeric, standing in for the pope) as the sole sovereign of Naples. The nuncio Clement had sent her was only a bishop and, as such, was not of sufficient rank to challenge a member of royalty in full possession of her government. In response, Joanna asserted her prerogative in a letter to Clement in which she reminded him sharply that he was exceeding the limits to his authority as outlined in the original contract between the papacy and Charles of Anjou. She and the rest of her court then proceeded to ignore the pope’s instructions.
But word of Clement’s espousal of the Hungarian cause won Andrew an influential new partisan within the kingdom. According to Domenico da Gravina, Charles, duke of Durazzo, began openly supporting the Hungarian’s right to be crowned and share power. This assured the duke of a measure of influence within the government should Joann
a’s husband succeed. Emboldened by the pope’s decree, and seeking to put pressure on Joanna and her advisers, Andrew conducted himself as though his coronation and rule were now assured. Domenico da Gravina reported that around this time Andrew began carrying a new banner, expressly made to his specifications, depicting not the Hungarian coat of arms, but an ax and a stake, a grim indication of what those who opposed the king might expect upon his ascension to power. The existence of the banner goes far toward explaining the stubborn resistance in Naples to Andrew’s rule.
The issue was still unresolved when Sancia, who had been in failing health for some time, died on July 28. Her body was laid to rest behind the altar at Santa Croce, the same position her husband’s corpse occupied at the church of Santa Chiara. Joanna was at her summer palace at Castellamare when she was given the news of her grandmother’s passing, and she ordered the construction of a prominent carved tomb commemorating Sancia’s life, as she had for Robert the Wise.
Even so poignant an event as the old queen’s demise was sacrificed to the harsh political realities of Naples that summer. Although in her will Sancia had left a large portion of her estate to a number of monasteries, including her cherished Santa Croce and Santa Chiara, Joanna, hoping to subdue tensions and appease the warring factions within her family, distributed this property instead to Charles of Durazzo and Robert of Taranto. This caused fresh controversy at the Curia, which subjected Joanna to renewed accusations of profligacy and pillage, followed again by demands that she revoke the bequests. Annoyed at the recalcitrance of the queen, Clement ordered his nuncio in an August 21 letter to arrange for a double coronation over Joanna’s objections. But even this announcement, as inflammatory as it was, was eclipsed by the news of the sudden death, under what were deemed to be highly suspicious circumstances, of Agnes of Périgord.
The Lady Queen Page 13
