Vulgar History - Women Leaders, part 9： The Murderous Medieval Queen

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to the Vulgar History Podcast. My name is Anne Foster, and this is a feminist 1.00

00:00:17.400 women's history comedy podcast. And today is the season two finale. So this is the ninth

00:00:24.640 episode in our series looking at women leaders in history and the men who whined about them.

00:00:30.300 And there has been a lot of leading. There's been a lot of whining. There's been a lot of

00:00:35.020 patriarchy getting in the way. There's been a lot of just women who probably could have done 1.00

00:00:39.440 a lot more stuff if they hadn't had to spend so much time swatting away all these 1.00

00:00:44.400 people who kept bothering them. So last week's episode on Queen Anne, I had been sort of like,

00:00:51.680 it was a moving target what was going to be the last episode of this season which like to clarify

00:00:57.300 not the last episode forever just the last episode of this little pocket of things and I had been

00:01:03.100 going chronologically and then just as I was working on the Queen Anne one then uh you know

00:01:09.100 you might not know but um there's a pandemic going on in the world and that got me looking at all

00:01:16.260 the stuff about pandemics in general. And then that got me thinking about, so I was doing the

00:01:22.520 pandemic special episodes of this podcast. And so I was thinking about the different pandemic

00:01:28.200 stories that I wanted to share on those short podcasts. And one of them involves Joanna of

00:01:32.560 Naples. So I was like, oh, let me just like, because I remember there's this thing and we're

00:01:36.020 going to get to it in this podcast, obviously, where some interesting plague related things

00:01:40.420 happen around her. And that got me, so I was like looking back to see like, okay,

00:01:45.360 what was her deal just so I could sort of get a grip on it for myself so that I could explain it

00:01:49.440 to other people and then as I was sort of making up a little document script of like what you need

00:01:56.480 to know to understand the plague part of her story I realized like oh this is going to be

00:01:59.780 much longer than a little 15 minute mini episode because there's so much stuff even just to get

00:02:06.200 you to the point where the plague stuff happens and then so much stuff happens after the plague

00:02:10.020 stuff. So here we are with this sort of extra non-chronological story of Joanna of Naples here

00:02:19.100 at the tail end of this season of Vulgar History. So Joanna, I'm just thinking if you want to do

00:02:25.100 like a Fast and the Furious slash Star Wars thing to listen to the podcasts in order, I believe

00:02:32.720 Joanna of Naples sequentially comes between Empress Matilda and Isabella the first so you

00:02:40.260 could just like if you're not listening to these as they come out you could slot that back slot

00:02:45.560 Joanna back in in between those two people so I also wanted to mention there's so many wonderful

00:02:51.700 other podcasts that I've been listening to and I've been doing a lot of podcast listening

00:02:56.000 lately what with pandemic etc and there's a really there's so much support and lifting each

00:03:03.400 other up and wonderfulness in the history podcast online community and one of the the most welcoming

00:03:09.300 and nicest podcasts is the what's her name podcast which you should all subscribe to as well they've

00:03:15.060 got so many episodes i listen to them for research and also for fun and so they tweeted a couple of

00:03:21.940 days ago on april 20th so they were sharing this article that's basically about like why are women 0.61

00:03:28.200 such good leaders during covet 19 which is the same sort of stuff that people are like wow you 0.90

00:03:32.720 know look at these countries that are doing well with this pandemic they have female leaders female

00:03:36.300 leaders are better than men leaders and there's so much about that that's just um overly simplistic

00:03:42.700 and also whatever anyway what's your name podcast succinctly um explain this the best that i saw

00:03:49.080 So what they said is in their tweet. So when leadership is accessible to more people, you have a better chance at finding good leaders. And there have been impressive women leaders for millennia. We just don't talk about them. Maybe we should start. See, number one, hashtag learn history.

00:04:06.760 And this is really what I was thinking about when I was preparing this season of this podcast as well, which is sort of the overly simplistic sort of paternalizing thing of being like, oh, women are inherently nicer or kinder or better or whatever.

00:04:20.460 It's like so much is just how people are socialized and what they've been allowed to do.

00:04:25.220 And there have been more male leaders than not male leaders in most of world history, to the point that when there are women leaders, their gender often becomes an issue, as we have looked at in these past eight episodes.

00:04:41.560 So if there was parody, if there was an equal amount of leaders of every gender throughout all of history, there would be, I think, I can't say why there wouldn't be, an equal amount of good and bad people of all different genders.

00:04:53.280 But women have more pressure put on them to be amazing when they get to these leadership roles. 0.87

00:04:59.400 And every single woman we've looked at this season ascended to a leadership role basically by either being born into it or marrying into it. 1.00

00:05:07.400 It's not a meritocracy. 0.81

00:05:09.580 They're sort of women who, even if that annoyed people around them, they were the heirs to whatever kingdom. 1.00

00:05:16.080 And so they ended up being in charge and some of them did amazing things and some of them weren't able to do amazing things.

00:05:20.360 And it's not it's not that women are better leaders than men.

00:05:24.380 It's just they haven't had as much chance to be good or to be terrible or whatever.

00:05:29.680 Anyway, so today we're looking at the story of Joanna of Naples, who reigned for 30 years.

00:05:34.260 One of the longest reigns we've looked at of anyone this season.

00:05:37.340 and it's a story based around a lot of geographical history that with which I am

00:05:43.200 much more familiar now than I was a week ago but which I don't know nearly as well as I know the

00:05:49.240 history of Britain or Scotland or England or anyway so but Joanna so she was the queen of

00:05:56.820 Naples Jerusalem and Sicily which if you're like wait are those three places next to each other

00:06:03.320 on a map and they're not really, but don't worry about it because we're not going to be getting

00:06:08.100 into the geography that much. You just need to kind of know, basically we're looking at like

00:06:12.260 Italy before Italy was Italy when it was just a bunch of sort of city states slash kingdoms.

00:06:18.280 That's sort of where she was based out of, sort of between Italy and France. So Naples, 1326.

00:06:25.260 Joanna was born and she was the eldest daughter of Charles, the Duke of Calabria and Marie of 0.72

00:06:30.560 Valois. They had had other daughters as well, but she was the first to survive infancy. She had an

00:06:36.360 older sister, Louise, who died that same year, and a brother, Charles, who was born one year

00:06:40.980 later, but he only lived for eight days. She wound up having one surviving sibling, who was

00:06:45.920 younger sister, called Maria, who was actually born just after her father had died. So her father

00:06:51.220 died when Joanna was two. Maria was then born, and she was a baby, and she's going to be sort of

00:06:55.920 like a best supporting actress queen in the story, because Maria's life was also pretty volatile.

00:07:03.000 So what this meant, though, is that Joanna being the granddaughter of a king who's called

00:07:08.180 Robert the Wise. So Robert the Wise is her grandfather. Because Joanna's father had died,

00:07:14.120 that means Joanna is now the heir to inherit Naples. So basically, the agreement said that

00:07:22.100 his female ancestors or female descendants would be who would inherit the throne if there weren't

00:07:27.200 any men around. And also the rule said that a female monarch had to marry and she should allow 0.97

00:07:33.620 her husband to rule. So although there are male relatives here and there, Robert was really 0.63

00:07:40.560 wanted to stay with that plan. So to have Joanna and then after her, Maria as his heir. So he had

00:07:46.820 even a public ceremony when Joanna was four years old and Maria was two years old, I guess,

00:07:52.900 where he just publicly said, like, hey, guess what? This is what's happening. My heir is going

00:07:57.060 to be Joanna and then her children. And if for some reason she has no children, then my heir

00:08:01.360 will be Maria and then her children. Some relatives weren't super excited about this,

00:08:06.020 i.e. the relatives who thought that they should be his heirs instead of these little baby girls.

00:08:10.320 some of the relatives include philip of toronto not toronto like ontario canada but i think it's

00:08:18.920 pronounced taranto it's like toronto but with a's this word's going to come up i should really

00:08:23.980 decide on a pronunciation and his wife catherine of valois refused to support the whole joanna

00:08:29.680 being the heir thing so they refused to even go to this ceremony the pope tried to intercede

00:08:35.740 There's a lot of Pope action in the story. And the Pope was like, Philip and Catherine, you need to go and go to this thing.

00:08:43.160 Philip refused, and he only sent a deputy to pay homage to Joanna on his behalf, because he just really didn't think that she should be the heir.

00:08:51.940 Not just because she was a girl, but because he thought that he should be the heir, I guess.

00:08:56.780 So one year later, Joanna, age five, Maria, age three, Joanna's, their mother died.

00:09:03.820 Joanna and Maria now orphans, parents, all dead.

00:09:07.980 But their grandfather, Robert the Wise, is who's been sort of raising them.

00:09:12.180 And so his wife, Joanna and Maria's step-grandmother, is called Sancia of Mallorca, and she assumed responsibility for their education.

00:09:20.660 And Queen Sancia lived like a nun, although the Pope had refused to annul her marriage to King Robert.

00:09:26.120 just so you kind of know what kind of religious thing is happening here and she became a huge

00:09:32.940 influence on joanna and maria's life she really took charge of their education and raising them

00:09:37.960 and she did a great job from what we see what they're able to do when they grow up later even

00:09:42.520 the things were going pretty well in terms of like medieval naples so there was this um robert

00:09:50.960 the wise the grandfather he had this long time enemy which was hungary the country of hungary

00:09:59.260 it all has to do with like who is going to be king and who's going to inherit from where

00:10:03.320 um robert was actually the younger brother so in terms of like hungary what happened is that

00:10:11.380 there's three sons no there's two sons so robert's father died um robert's older brother died so

00:10:19.940 technically his older brother's son should have become the next king of hungary but instead

00:10:24.600 robert no king of naples oh my god i'm so sorry this is just like what you need to know is that

00:10:32.720 hungary and naples were at war and everyone was related to everyone let's just like leave it at

00:10:39.040 that for now because that's not what we're talking about we're talking about joanna but what happened

00:10:42.840 is that so joanna little tiny girl to try and stave off a possible hungarian invasion it was

00:10:49.580 decided that she would get married to one of these Hungarian princes, who's also maybe her cousin or

00:10:54.540 something. I'm not sure. So the one who was chosen was Andrew. So her cousin, Andrew, the Hungarian.

00:11:03.080 And then the stipulation of their betrothal was that Andrew's heirs would rule Naples,

00:11:08.240 but he himself would only ever serve as Joanna's consort. So he wouldn't be king,

00:11:12.920 even though he was going to be married to her and she was going to one day become

00:11:15.660 the queen. And then Andrew, who's also just like a little baby at the time, was sent to Naples to

00:11:21.460 grow up there. But people were very xenophobic against the Hungarians because of the whole

00:11:28.340 being at war with each other situation. So he was never really accepted. So he remained in Naples

00:11:34.740 after this little baby wedding when they were like six and four years old or something like that.

00:11:39.820 But what it meant is that even though they were married, like they were little baby children,

00:11:42.680 and it's not like okay no act like husband and wife but it just meant like they're married so

00:11:46.640 like no question about that but like they're waiting until Joanna gets to be 12 or whatever

00:11:51.160 for them to consummate and to start like living like men and wives so effectively Andrew just

00:11:55.680 came to live with Joanna and Maria and their other cousins and he was just like this sort of like 1.00

00:11:59.440 pesky annoying Hungarian new sibling on the scene so they're just like all children growing up 0.91

00:12:06.040 together two of them happened to be married to each other whatever so king robert died in 1343 0.99

00:12:13.400 age 67 after ruling for 34 years as king of naples joanna age 16 was now officially his heir

00:12:20.680 and it was not a great time to be taking over as queen of naples because um there had been a series

00:12:29.400 of famines due to the weather got really bad and then crop yields were bad so like things have been

00:12:35.560 pretty great when king robert was around partially because he was called robert the wise like he made

00:12:39.360 some good decisions but also because just like he lucked into some good weather and trade situations

00:12:44.300 so joanna is a teenager the country's like not doing great also a lot of people are like she's

00:12:50.440 female that's gross we don't like that and also she's 16 so it's just kind of like not it was

00:12:57.680 precarious not the best of times for her to be taking over um two days after so he died she

00:13:04.760 becomes queen two days later and then her husband andrew who is now 15 was knighted officially and

00:13:11.380 the marriage was consummated in accordance with the late king's witches so the king he had wished

00:13:17.680 in his will i don't know that they would consummate their marriage upon his death whatever so they

00:13:22.380 hated each other like joanna hated andrew andrew hated her slash everybody um they basically lived

00:13:29.320 apart they only met with each other if there's like an important dinner where they both had to

00:13:32.700 be but otherwise they went to separate churches they visited separate places and joanna forbade

00:13:38.060 him from entering her bedroom without her permission um andrew there's the whole thing

00:13:43.520 where she's the queen but he's just like her guy um he doesn't get to be the king and so that

00:13:48.800 extended to um she controlled his allowance and his spendings andrew was not happy with any of

00:13:57.200 this he thought that he should be king he was mad that everybody was mean to him for being hungarian

00:14:02.000 which is like fair enough shitty uh joanna eventually became pregnant and that made andrew

00:14:08.060 even more want to become king and it's totally if you know this story i haven't done on the podcast

00:14:12.160 but i bet a lot of you know the story it's very mary queen of scots slash darnley about it where

00:14:17.660 like she's having the baby with this guy that she hates he wants to be the king she won't let him 0.98

00:14:22.860 that makes him mad so he started making threats towards her um she just mocked him openly in front 0.96

00:14:29.080 of everybody. He bullied and insulted everybody and was just sort of sucky husband to her. And 0.97

00:14:35.940 she was, you know, not a great wife to him, but that wasn't the point of her life to be a great

00:14:41.260 wife to him. She was a queen. So screw him, basically. So September 18th, 1345, Andrew

00:14:46.980 comes home after partying with his guys. Joanna is asleep in bed. And then a servant came to the

00:14:54.280 door saying like oh my god we have there's these papers you need to sign out here not in your room

00:15:00.020 so he ran out of the room and then he was seized by a group of men who uh strung a rope around his

00:15:06.140 neck uh dangled him over the railing and some men down below were like pulling on his ankles from

00:15:12.760 below and he basically was murdered and the thing about it is that joanna was in the bedroom and i

00:15:21.860 guess he when andrew tried to like run back in the bedroom he found that the bedroom was locked

00:15:26.040 from the inside so like was joanna complicit in this murder plot did she just see like oh man

00:15:32.060 someone's killing andrew i'm just gonna like lock my door now or was she like a bunch of men yelling

00:15:36.720 i'm just gonna lock my door now but so she didn't help him not that she should have i don't know

00:15:43.780 so at this point she's six months pregnant 19 years old and queen of naples and also a widow

00:15:50.100 slash the prime suspect in her husband's murder so people like they do now with everybody and 0.97

00:15:58.300 it's just bullshit they're just like oh she's like not sad enough or not in the right way 0.98

00:16:04.240 or whatever but she uh people were already prone to not want to like her because she was 0.98

00:16:10.760 a young queen and the whole like who is an ally of who the whole like hungarian question they're

00:16:17.180 just like oh this is great like this she looks bad in all of this so let's just like spread some 0.99

00:16:21.320 rumors like that she was having affairs like that she was responsible for killing him and then the 0.99

00:16:26.820 thing is that also she had spent ever since she knew him um she had been like openly mocking him 0.89

00:16:32.760 hating him so it's like would she kill her husband it's like you know she she probably would have

00:16:37.660 killed her husband um sorry um things were not in terms of like public relations not looking great

00:16:44.740 for her a man was arrested in connection to the murders um but they cut out his tongue so then he

00:16:52.740 couldn't say if anyone had put him up to it or whatever and had he even been involved at all i

00:16:57.860 don't know it's all pretty sketchy um the hungarians aka andrew's family were like uh who

00:17:04.640 killed him so they demanded the pope do a an inquiry into it because the pope used to do

00:17:09.700 stuff like that i guess and the pope was like i'm on it but then he was like some other pope things

00:17:14.940 to do and he sort of like didn't take it on right away andrew the dead teenage husband so he had an

00:17:22.040 older brother called louis who louis who is now the king of hungary and he's called louis the

00:17:27.920 hungarian and he's a supporting actor in the story he's gonna show up a lot he began to talk about

00:17:33.620 invading naples because the whole thing where the hungarians thought that they should be the king of

00:17:37.680 naples etc so things were doing pretty bad internationally um between all these different

00:17:44.580 places joanna's still pregnant um so she gave birth on christmas day december 25th 1345 to a son

00:17:52.200 which was like great excellent news for all the usual like everyone's just like okay there's a boy

00:17:58.400 like it's not just this teenage queen girl like we've got a boy there's going to be a man king

00:18:03.820 everything's great she named the child charles martel and started thinking about getting a new

00:18:11.580 husband for herself for both just like protection reasons because she had been educated really well

00:18:17.180 but she was not like a warrior she needed somebody who had like an army and knew how to do stuff um 0.99

00:18:22.700 she just did all the reasons that she needed to find a new husband for her and her little baby

00:18:27.840 so the guy that she wanted to marry was her cousin called luis of taranto so um there's luis the

00:18:37.600 hungarian who is her enemy and then now there's her new husband luis of taranto um there had been

00:18:45.860 speculation that the two of them were involved for a while he's like super hot attractive looking

00:18:50.660 gorgeous and he was also a cousin who hung out with them when they were kids and they were all

00:18:54.740 making fun of andrew back then he was sort of like the big the cool guy who was there with them

00:18:59.920 she got married to him really quickly which also sort of like is this like a mary queen of scots

00:19:05.900 scenario where you're just like is she or her emotions getting away with her was she forced 0.90

00:19:10.680 into this but also she's forced into it in the sense of like the hungarians were going to invade

00:19:15.160 and she needed this alliance pretty much so they got married but they didn't get the papal

00:19:23.660 dispensation because again the pope at this time one of his other jobs when he's not infestating

00:19:27.340 murders is giving people permission to get married because they are cousins but whatever

00:19:32.940 everyone gets married when they're cousins but anyway the thing here is that they didn't even

00:19:36.020 wait for him to give the dispensation they just like got married and this whole sequence of events

00:19:40.760 the whole like did she kill andrew she got quickie married to this guy didn't get the pope's

00:19:45.080 permission made everybody in her kingdom just suddenly not like her very much at all meanwhile

00:19:51.940 in our B plot, Joanna's younger sister, Maria's life was a nightmare. So shortly after the

00:20:00.320 grandfather had died and Joanna became the queen, Maria was abducted by a woman named Agnes of

00:20:07.040 Perigord, who is the widow of John Duke of Dorazzo because she wanted Maria to marry her son,

00:20:15.200 charles of durazzo and that is what happened so maria was 14 years old or almost 14 she's like

00:20:22.240 13 almost 14 charles of durazzo was 20 and they were forced into marriage and the marriage was

00:20:29.300 consummated by force and so it's like this it's happened they've got married the end uh this

00:20:35.840 the secret marriage which maria doesn't seem to have been consenting to but this infuriated joanna 0.71

00:20:42.440 she didn't like that Maria got married without her permission. Joanna sent letters to the Pope 0.84

00:20:45.820 demanding the annulment of the marriage. Again, she and her BFF, the Pope, just like, Pope is busy

00:20:50.820 doing stuff. The Pope, who is called Clement VI, refused to annul the marriage. And at this point,

00:20:57.960 Joanna was just like, okay, you are dead to me. Like, my sister no longer. And slash, you're now

00:21:04.640 my enemies the Durazzo entire family and then years go by I believe we so five years later 0.98

00:21:13.400 it's a little montage moment so her enemy Louis of Hungary is just like hacking and slashing his

00:21:20.480 way across the Italian countryside conquering towns and villages and Joanna and her squad need

00:21:26.260 to figure out what to do side note people from Naples are called Neapolitans that is what they

00:21:32.380 are called and the word neapolitan to me and perhaps to you makes me think of ice cream so

00:21:38.460 i'm going to not use the word neapolitan very much because i i'm just going to say the people

00:21:44.160 of naples because the neapolitan it just i just picture little ice cream cones and it just is

00:21:49.580 distracting so people are just like making alliances breaking lenses and by people i mean

00:21:55.460 like all these dudes the durazos the taranto brothers so at one point joanna is in a castle

00:22:03.820 under siege she's by now pregnant with her husband's baby she fled her castle in the middle

00:22:09.520 of the night to try and get to avignon avignon avignon which is where the pope lived to just

00:22:17.080 like have a sit down with the pope and like hash things out so she fled the castle under darkest

00:22:21.960 night um pregnant in medieval times just like this is like empress matilda level like there 0.80

00:22:28.000 wasn't like she wore white and also a snowy but just like this is this gets her high score points

00:22:33.880 in terms of just like bravery uh her husband lewis of toronto um heard that she had fled and so he

00:22:40.660 decided to go to avignon as well unfortunately in order to escape she had to leave her son charles

00:22:46.240 martel behind because she couldn't escape with him it was too dangerous and she didn't think he

00:22:49.900 would survive a journey so his uncle the hungarians sent charles martel off to hungary to be raised

00:22:59.020 by those relatives but charles martel unfortunately died age two um while joanna and her husband lewis

00:23:07.420 of toronto were off headed to the pope to just like straighten things out her sister maria and

00:23:13.380 her husband charles of durazzo were like oh they're out of town amazing um why don't we just

00:23:18.620 like seize power so charles maria's husband seized power but he was captured and beheaded by the

00:23:24.740 hungarians only days later his period of power lasted less than a week and now maria was a 19

00:23:30.860 year old widow just like her older sister had been before so joanna is headed towards avignon after

00:23:36.920 this great escape um and coming just like parallel with her if you picture like on america's next

00:23:43.340 top model they have the airplane with the little faces so here we've got like joanna heading one

00:23:46.800 way of a little face and the other way it's just like a death skeleton because the black death

00:23:51.200 um the bubonic plague was also headed parallel to her to avignon um so the black plague which

00:23:58.140 we discussed in some of the pandemic special episodes um which you can listen to if you want

00:24:03.780 to hear about how that all progresses it's a pretty awful disease and it kills you really

00:24:08.740 quickly and horrifically so the black death had arrived in sicily the previous fall in a fleet of

00:24:17.640 genoese vessels so just like how it happened in that little english town where it's just like

00:24:22.960 trade is how it was spreading anyway um so what happened is this ship went into port in sicily

00:24:30.100 sailors were like all they all had plague and they like stumbled down the gangplank and into

00:24:35.060 the city and then they like spread they between them the fleas and the rats just the plague

00:24:39.880 toppled this whole city by the spring of 1348 which is when the story takes place currently

00:24:45.120 it had spread to the rest of italy and beyond so everybody if you remember there was the whole

00:24:50.800 famine scenario where people were the crops weren't growing so there's already famine

00:24:55.000 their bodies were weak so they're even more susceptible to die of plague

00:24:58.840 some cities like Florence the death rate was like 90 percent so small villages just like

00:25:06.120 ended like there's no one left of them they're like not a village anymore because people were

00:25:10.940 dying and or fleeing so people died super quickly like apparently you could be healthy at sunrise

00:25:18.820 and dead by sunset but sometimes it was longer and it was incredibly painful and debilitating

00:25:24.120 so there were so many dead bodies that the cities didn't have enough room to bury them

00:25:30.820 in avignon where the pope lived he consecrated the river because the whole thing about like you want

00:25:36.500 to be buried and like consecrated ground but there wasn't enough ground to consecrate it and there

00:25:40.400 wasn't time to like bury everybody so he just consecrated the river so every day hundreds of

00:25:45.660 stinging corpses choked the river and slowly floated downstream to the open sea um so it's

00:25:51.540 just like a river of dead bodies so then so this is pretty gruesome um joanna comes to avon y'all

00:26:02.820 everything's pretty awful and gross but that's where the pope is and she needs to talk to the

00:26:07.480 pope so that's what she's doing so on march 15 1348 she arrived with great fanfare so she had

00:26:15.200 the whole squad with her she had the bishop of florence the chancellor of provence 18 cardinals

00:26:21.340 Next came Joanna, dressed in a golden crimson robe, her blonde hair gleaming in the morning sun.

00:26:26.020 She's just like gorgeous.

00:26:27.760 Her robe had sort of like fleur-de-lis on it because that was to remind everybody that she's descended from the king of France, which she was. 0.99

00:26:35.020 Presumably, she would have been riding sidesaddle.

00:26:37.800 So just sort of like this gorgeous moment of her just like coming through town.

00:26:41.220 Her husband Louis was there looking super hot.

00:26:44.380 The colorful parade was the first bright spot Avignon had seen in months.

00:26:48.760 And so people came out.

00:26:49.680 everybody it's just like they've all been dying of the plague for like a long time and there's

00:26:53.540 like oh something to see and so they're watching this gorgeous young queen making her way through

00:26:57.640 town in this parade of luxury but it wasn't just like hey i'm here to hang out or whatever she was

00:27:07.040 there to talk to the pope about a couple things and the more important one of those things was

00:27:11.440 like hey can you forgive me for getting married with the papal dispensation thanks and the other

00:27:15.920 thing was the whole papal investigation finally vis-a-vis had she killed her husband this is where

00:27:21.380 they're going to decide like did she kill her husband or not um and if they decided that she

00:27:25.420 had killed her husband then she probably would be executed so it's stakes could not be higher

00:27:31.700 and so she went in to see the pope and she had like the best lawyers in the world talking for

00:27:38.260 her but then she's also like and i would like to speak now as well and this was rare because she

00:27:43.780 was a woman um and also because she was a queen and also because she had to speak in latin but 0.99

00:27:48.920 guess what she spoke latin and so she had this like amazing speech where she just sort of explained 0.96

00:27:55.700 how she's innocent of everything like clearly she was just the charisma she had this great speech

00:28:02.000 delivered it perfectly and part of what she said was just like look i just walked through your

00:28:06.400 plague ridden city like i just rode through your plague ridden country down the street past the

00:28:12.560 people with the plague and guess who didn't get the plague me i did not get the plague and this

00:28:16.780 was the sort of thing where everybody had sort of assumed that the plague was religious based or

00:28:21.200 sort of like the people who were getting it they were like they must be the bad people they must be

00:28:25.140 the sinners so people would like go to the pope and to the bishops and try and get blessings and

00:28:30.940 stuff so they wouldn't get the plague they all still did she was basically working with the

00:28:34.820 understanding of if you're a bad person you get the plague so she was like but look i just walked

00:28:38.920 through this whole city and i didn't get the plague so guess what i didn't kill my husband

00:28:42.820 andrew and the pope was like yeah great point and you are not only innocent but you're completely

00:28:49.460 above suspicion and p.s i'm also going to issue this document saying that your marriage to lewis

00:28:56.820 of toronto is valid even though you didn't ask my permission beforehand so just like win win win

00:29:02.940 for joanna everything's amazing so she hung out in avignon surrounded by plague but not catching

00:29:08.720 plague um she gave birth to a daughter who she named catherine and at around the same time so

00:29:19.040 maria you remember was 19 year old widow at this time and the whole thing is like well who's gonna

00:29:24.740 marry maria she's like a super born person so um louis the hungarian the enemy had captured some

00:29:32.500 princess from naples and they were like anyway basically louis the hungarian was like i want to

00:29:38.920 marry maria and then we can like ally hungary naples everything will be great but before that

00:29:44.580 marriage could take place maria was abducted again this is the second time um this time by

00:29:50.660 hugh lord of bow and count of evelino who forced maria to marry with his eldest son and heir

00:29:57.060 robert so this is again she's kidnapped by parents who forced her to marry their child

00:30:02.860 twice in a row and now for a quick advertising break the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms

00:30:12.800 were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust now the survivors claw

00:30:19.860 to what's left of a broken world praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight but in

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00:33:02.540 And we're back.

00:33:04.260 But Maria, not having this, and Joanna and her husband were like, we're not having this either.

00:33:11.020 So what happened is, so when the ship was coming into port with Maria and this new, oh, sorry, and this marriage had also been consummated by force. 0.69

00:33:20.000 So this poor woman.

00:33:21.640 Anyway, so came into dock.

00:33:23.080 Louis, Joanna's husband, armed himself and accompanied by a small party of warriors, boarded the vessel and stabbed Hugh repeatedly with his sword before throwing the corpse of the victim into the sea.

00:33:34.680 He was the one who kidnapped Maria, the father of the husband.

00:33:38.780 Robert was arrested.

00:33:41.020 maria came ashore and spent the winter with her sister and her brother-in-law robert was

00:33:47.880 eventually transported to a dungeon um and even though the pope had said like please don't kill

00:33:52.540 him it was his father who who kidnapped maria it wasn't him uh robert was executed and the whole

00:34:00.080 the execution of robert the son who was married to maria basically he was executed when joanna

00:34:06.440 and her husband and the rest of the court were away on a holiday while they were away maria

00:34:10.480 stolen to the castle with four armed men she had hired for the purpose and had him hacked to pieces 0.86

00:34:15.980 in her presence as a warning to those who would presume upon the dignity of a royal princess of 0.83

00:34:20.540 the house and anju in the future so it's a very like sansa stark feeding ramsey to the dogs moment

00:34:25.460 where i love this like i just told that confusingly so just to recap maria was kidnapped her brother

00:34:32.500 in law rescued her and then she hung out with them in the castle the guy who she was forced to marry

00:34:36.880 was put in jail and then while joanna and her husband were out of town maria hired some dudes

00:34:41.960 went into the castle and hacked this guy to pieces in front of her so just like yes maria yes so

00:34:50.540 meanwhile joanna and lewis so from early 1349 onwards all documents in the kingdom were issued

00:34:57.340 in the names of both husband and wife so lewis louis was it was a very much like king and queen

00:35:03.120 situation where it wasn't like with andrew where he didn't have as much power like lewis was her

00:35:07.100 equal here as happened so much in this season of this podcast there was some coin coin moments um

00:35:14.940 the coins were issued and lewis's name always preceded joanna's kind of like he's the more

00:35:20.860 important one but guess what he was terrible so the hungarians attacked again and lewis took

00:35:27.480 advantage of that to wrest complete royal authority from his wife he purged the court of her supporters

00:35:32.700 and accused her favorite, who's a guy called Enrico Caracciolo. He accused him of adultery

00:35:39.760 and had him executed. And then two months later, Joanna and Lewis's daughter, Catherine, died

00:35:45.380 aged one. So he's a terrible husband. Two years later, Joanna gave birth to her second child

00:35:53.440 with Lewis, another daughter, Francoise. And then that spring, they received the Pope's

00:36:00.580 formal recognition that lewis was the co-ruler of joanna that they were literally equal the pope

00:36:06.320 said so and so they had a elaborate procession through the streets of naples to celebrate this

00:36:11.400 fact and when they came home from the procession their daughter had suddenly taken ill and had died

00:36:16.160 aged eight months so if you're keeping track joanna has had three children who all died

00:36:23.300 very young she has no heirs which means maria is still in play here because if she has like

00:36:30.120 she had some children from her first husband um charles of durazzo so she's her children are

00:36:35.340 maybe going to be theirs but spoiler they're all daughters so maria was again imprisoned so she

00:36:43.900 maybe for arranging the murder of the guy unclear didn't write down that detail in my notes anyway

00:36:50.800 she eventually was married to lewis of toronto's younger brother philip so she's she's been married

00:36:58.420 now three times um joanna twice thus far um so lewis is awful um but then he died after so 1362

00:37:09.380 so they'd been married for 12 years he died of the black plague so sayonara and with that so joanna

00:37:18.920 finally had the opportunity to take all the power for herself she was no longer a teenager she was

00:37:23.340 a woman she'd been she's an adult she'd been queen now for quite some time um and she's just

00:37:29.120 like guess what i'm the queen deal with it um and she just started doing a bunch of things that were

00:37:33.500 great and they made her popular again with everybody we'll get into what those things were

00:37:38.940 in a bit and then at age 36 she decided to marry again because it's just like a safe thing to do

00:37:45.080 this one hopes just to have like a man around potentially with armies to ally countries

00:37:51.620 together, etc. So her husband this time, this is going to be her third husband, and his name is

00:37:59.780 James IV of Mallorca. And it seemed okay. He was the king of Mallorca. So hopefully he wouldn't

00:38:06.620 try and like usurp her power because he's already the king of somewhere else. He wasn't her cousins.

00:38:11.460 They didn't have to get like the Pope's permission. And also, hopefully that would mean that maybe

00:38:15.720 that have an easier time conceiving children. But the thing is that James had been taken captive

00:38:22.340 when he was a teenager and had only recently been released after spending 14 years as a prisoner in

00:38:28.500 a small iron cage. So he had psychological problems, as well as numerous physical illnesses.

00:38:37.240 So he was prone to outbursts. He was physically violent with Joanna, sometimes in front of other

00:38:44.240 people things became so bad that well joanna she kept sleeping in the same room as him because she

00:38:51.540 needed to have an heir but she would have other people in the room with him so that he wouldn't

00:38:54.720 like kill her it was a short-lived marriage i mean good if you have to i guess but basically

00:39:01.120 he ran off to go fight some wars with some other kings and he died in of either his like illnesses 0.90

00:39:09.200 that he had his like chronic illnesses or of poisoning so that was just like a little detour

00:39:14.300 so Joanna was again single but still no children she'd had a miscarriage during her marriage with

00:39:20.740 him but no no living children and then we are in 1366 and Maria sadly died age 37 from

00:39:28.480 complications due to childbirth so still Joanna didn't have any surviving children

00:39:35.140 So the heirs continued to be Maria's three surviving daughters, no sons.

00:39:41.680 So after all this chaos, all of this chaos, things sort of settled down a bit in the sense of Joanna.

00:39:51.560 Her relationship with the Pope was good.

00:39:54.960 It continued to be good.

00:39:56.280 The period after James IV's death is considered by most historians to be the most stable and prosperous part of Joanna's rule.

00:40:02.900 So some of the things she did.

00:40:04.140 She helped finance the Pope's return to Rome.

00:40:07.540 She hosted the Byzantine Emperor.

00:40:09.920 And she involved herself in even the most minute aspects of governing.

00:40:13.680 She was really, really enjoyed being queen. 0.97

00:40:16.820 That's what people wrote about her. 1.00

00:40:17.980 Like, she really likes ruling. 1.00

00:40:20.100 She was a fair and judicious ruler. 0.98

00:40:22.640 And no law or edict, however minor, was ever carried out without her personal approval and seal.

00:40:28.640 She supported and protected local businesses, created new industry.

00:40:31.920 crime was greatly reduced and she was an ardent promoter of peace within the realm she also 0.53

00:40:38.700 there's something where like she let women become doctors or something like that um i have the 0.84

00:40:45.540 details on that later on but she was just like doing good things things were good and then she

00:40:52.000 married again um this time her husband was called otto of brunswick so she was by this point 48 years

00:40:57.640 old he was 58 um he was not a king she wildly outranked him and so he was like he knew he had

00:41:04.440 no chance to like try and be king or whatever so he was good with that she was good with the fact

00:41:08.560 he wasn't going to threaten her he hadn't spent 14 years in an iron cage um and he was also a 0.99

00:41:13.580 seasoned warrior which was helpful because the hungarians guess what still kept invading

00:41:18.980 someone else who got mad about this was charles of durazzo who is the father of maria's first

00:41:27.900 husband everyone has a lot of the same names basically the durazzo's continues to be a family

00:41:33.480 who didn't like joanna louis the hungarian didn't like joanna and then the durazzo's and lewis teamed

00:41:38.240 up and that's what happens next um so joanna at this point she's like okay clearly like i'm 48

00:41:43.640 years old chances are i'm not going to have any surviving children at this point so she tried to 0.51

00:41:48.360 figure out a solution to the whole succession thing by arranging a marriage between her youngest

00:41:53.200 niece, Margaret of Durazzo, who was Maria's youngest daughter, to, oh no, this is where

00:41:59.040 Charles of Durazzo comes from. So there's like literally three people in the story called

00:42:02.560 Charles of Durazzo. Okay, so that's who this one is. So there's Charles of Durazzo, the father,

00:42:08.120 Charles of Durazzo, Maria's husband, and now this is Charles of Durazzo, a younger one,

00:42:12.560 who's going to marry Maria's daughter, Margaret. And so Joanna thought like, if we just marry these

00:42:17.680 people together then like that will be who the heirs will be everything's great the wedding was

00:42:22.780 opposed by her former brother-in-law margaret's stepfather aka maria's third husband philip prince

00:42:29.480 of taranto uh and then the pope thing happened so what happened is the pope died and everything went

00:42:38.600 crazy so i mentioned one of the things that joanna had done was return the papal court

00:42:43.380 to rome which was a popular thing at the time to some people so the last few popes had been french

00:42:49.480 because the court had been avignon remember the plague city where she went to talk to the pope

00:42:53.580 most of the cardinals are french as well so the romans wanted the next pope to be a roman person

00:42:59.920 because that's where the papacy pape whatever the pope pope house was so in the spirit of

00:43:07.820 compromise who was elected was a person from naples a neapolitan man who took the name urban

00:43:13.880 the six and it turns out he was chaotic evil he was not good at being pope so then there was

00:43:23.680 another rival pope who was clement the seventh and joanna decided to back clement the seventh

00:43:30.500 um so urban the bad pope um sort of got all of joanna's enemies together so the lewis the

00:43:39.700 hungarian charles of durazzo all the enemies all sort of teamed up in the sort of like evil

00:43:44.340 avengers thing against joanna uh they declared urban the bad pope who is still technically the

00:43:50.720 pope but there's two popes so there's clement who is the pope not in rome urban is the pope

00:43:56.540 in rome two popes um it's called the schism it's a big thing um if you want to know about more pope

00:44:02.720 history there's another podcast i'll recommend to you called pontifact which i don't think they've

00:44:07.580 gotten to this point in history yet i could be wrong but anyway it's a podcast where every

00:44:11.820 episode they talk about a different pope very exciting but urban the bad pope um declared

00:44:17.880 joanna a heretic and he declared that her kingdom which was sort of controlled by the pope was now

00:44:25.600 forfeit and he bestowed it upon Charles of Durazzo, who is Maria's, dead Maria's daughter's

00:44:32.960 husband. So Joanna's just like, okay, what are we going to do? So she agreed to adopt Louis I of

00:44:41.540 Anjou as her heir, replacing Charles of Durazzo to try and make this all be not happening, I guess.

00:44:50.220 But then because of this, Charles of Durazzo invaded Naples in November 1380 at the head of 0.60

00:44:54.960 an army mainly composed by hungarians so joanna's husband at this point otto of brunswick um she

00:45:02.740 mustered as many troops as she could but otto is unable to stop the forces of charles of durazzo

00:45:07.980 um so he was defeated and charles entered naples on july 16th 1381 at 7 p.m that's very specific

00:45:17.340 and besieged joanna in the castle so without any help because her husband the troops everyone had

00:45:24.560 been defeated Joanna was forced to surrender on August 25th oh well but she held for a month so

00:45:30.880 good job and then she was imprisoned and Charles of Gerazzo went on to name himself the king I do

00:45:39.980 believe but Louis of Anjou Joanna's chosen heir decided to go to Avignon at the head of a powerful

00:45:49.140 army to try and rescue joanna but by the time he got there turns out she was already dead so what

00:45:56.940 had happened was that charles of doradso knew the louis of anju was coming and he knew like as long

00:46:02.660 and we've seen this before in other stories like as long as joanna was alive she was a threat to

00:46:07.620 charles to take back being queen again so charles of doradso had ordered the execution slash

00:46:15.020 assassination of joanna so she was murdered on july 27th 1382 aged about 55 or 56 charles of

00:46:24.160 course was like she died of natural causes but other people were there too and knew what happened

00:46:29.820 and so she was probably strangled or suffocated or something else very sad so she died and then

00:46:39.260 to sort of like prove to everybody like oh guess what she's dead so I Charles of Dorazo am the

00:46:44.380 king so don't worry about it her body was brought to Naples and was put on display to the public as

00:46:49.920 proof of her death but the thing was that she had suffered during the months of her captivity

00:46:54.780 she'd been brutally murdered and so evidently that greatly altered her appearance where 0.58

00:47:00.160 people were just like this is clearly a dead body of a woman but this isn't the like glamorous queen 0.99

00:47:05.280 who we all knew and loved so people went to see her body and they were like they didn't recognize 1.00

00:47:10.500 her like she didn't look like her so some people thought she's dead some other people thought she

00:47:14.060 wasn't so then of course it was like gossip conspiracy theories like is she still alive

00:47:18.200 and charles trying to cover that up because of the confusion her death will not be officially

00:47:23.560 recognized for nearly two years um in documents and then after the viewing there fell the problem

00:47:30.000 of what to do with her remains so urban the bad pope had excommunicated her so she couldn't be

00:47:35.640 buried in consecrated church property and trails of gerazzo who had just killed her didn't want to

00:47:43.220 like honor her so there was no great funeral statue erected for her to memorialize her many

00:47:49.480 achievements as there had been for her good grandfather robert the wise she was not buried

00:47:55.580 next to her sister or her mother or her father because they're all on consecrated ground

00:47:59.460 so in the end the compromise that they decided on at the initiative of some nuns who she had been

00:48:06.720 generous to throughout her reign so just outside the edge of the nave so i think just outside of

00:48:12.260 the church um in the lowly space that lead occupies the entranceway to a back door that

00:48:16.980 leads from the main body of the church to the cloister behind so just this like little bit of

00:48:21.960 dirt um was a deep well covered with a snow stone slab into which the bones of the dead were often

00:48:27.280 discarded into this well, went to the remains of Joanna to lie unmarked and forgotten through the

00:48:33.180 centuries. So I honestly first came across her as an interesting historical person in the Queens of

00:48:42.800 Infamy essay by Anne Theriault, which I'm a thousand percent going to link to in the show

00:48:46.980 notes to this episode because it was one of my main sources. I also read, there's a really good

00:48:54.000 biography by nancy gladstone um it's called the lady queen the notorious reign of joanna the first

00:48:58.620 queen of naples jerusalem and sicily by nancy goldstone which i again will link to but i'm

00:49:03.260 saying all that because like i guess she's been like in history a notorious person i just had not

00:49:08.320 come across her i didn't know about that so as per nancy gladstone's book she says her story when it

00:49:14.300 is recounted at all focuses entirely on her notoriety as the queen who murdered her husband

00:49:18.360 and not on the many impressive accomplishments of her reign so during her long eventful reign

00:49:24.480 Joanna held together a large and far-flung dominion which included Provence and all of

00:49:28.620 southern Italy and even expanded her rule however briefly into Sicily and Piedmont she was the last

00:49:33.300 medieval ruler to do so after her death Provence broke away from the kingdom and was ruled by Louis

00:49:37.740 of Algiers heirs who eventually incorporated the county into France while Naples came for a short

00:49:42.340 time under the sway of Charles of Durazzo's son and then his daughter before falling in the next

00:49:46.000 century to the crown of aragon for more than 30 years this queen fed the poor and cared for the

00:49:50.660 sick built churches and hospitals reduced crime and promoted peace protected trade and introduced

00:49:55.500 new industry within her borders she guided her subjects to recovery from the many instances of

00:50:00.420 plague war famine and depression endemic to the second half of the 14th century the odds against 0.85

00:50:06.400 her securing her reign were enormous that she would survive to rule for 30 years impossible 1.00

00:50:10.260 and yet she did she's earned the right to be remembered for what she was the last great

00:50:14.620 sovereign in the Angevin tradition, a worthy successor to Charles of Anjou and Robert the

00:50:18.820 Wise. To this day, like Asterix when this book was written, but still to now, there is still

00:50:24.580 no monument or funeral statuary commemorating Joanna at the church of Santa Chiara, where her

00:50:29.200 bones were dumped in a well and the ban of excommunication remains in force. She's still

00:50:34.320 excommunicated from the church because of bad pope. That's the biography. So it's time to do

00:50:42.120 the scoring for joanna of naples as per always i have the uh there's four categories to which

00:50:50.200 which we apply to all the all the women talked about on this podcast uh not because any of them

00:50:56.220 are better or worse than any of the other ones but it's just like on the scale of four different 1.00

00:51:00.740 things where it is each of them land and so the first category is scandalousness so it's not just

00:51:07.720 like did this person become involved and or instigate scandalous events but like how

00:51:15.040 scandalous were these scandals so with joanna i think we've got the whole like death of her

00:51:21.540 husband and her shutting the door and how everybody was like oh did she do it and then it's like was

00:51:26.740 she having an affair with lewis of toronto the whole like parade down the street like okay murder 1.00

00:51:33.380 as per other episodes of this podcast tends to rate pretty high on scandalousness did she kill

00:51:38.800 him i don't know i mean personally i think so and good for her but she might not have but the fact

00:51:44.620 that she is apparently widely remembered as like that lady that killed her husband maybe that's 0.75

00:51:52.000 worth at least a seven or an eight for scandalousness like there wasn't a lot of little 0.99

00:51:56.360 scandals like she was actually very religious throughout all of her life multiple marriages 1.00

00:52:01.060 shitty marriages that's sort of i'm gonna give her 7.5 scandalousness the next category is

00:52:09.340 scheminess so for some people that means like what were their schemes like that they did against

00:52:14.900 their like rivals and for some people like her where she's a queen it's like well what were

00:52:18.640 their schemes like vis-a-vis being the queen and like invading other places and she did a lot of 0.96

00:52:24.340 if we're going to classify everything as a scheme like her scheme to like go to see the pope and

00:52:29.060 explain herself and then she convinced him and he was like not only did you not kill him but no one

00:52:33.320 should ever suspect you of having killed him again p.s you didn't you got married without asking my

00:52:37.440 permission but that's fine like her scheminess like just in terms of planning she also did lots 0.57

00:52:42.040 of cool stuff as i own in the podcast like for her people scheminess i'm gonna say 9 9.5 9.5

00:52:49.840 scheminess for her significance is one that's always sometimes it's straightforward and sometimes

00:52:56.440 and it's just like not at all so she was queen for 30 years which is a significant amount of time

00:53:03.820 while she was there she did significant things um some people greatly benefited from the stuff she

00:53:10.380 did whilst being their queen in terms of like the grand scheme of like world history i don't know

00:53:17.580 how much the stuff that she did like if someone else had been there instead of her naples could

00:53:21.120 have been taken over by somebody else or subsumed into a different kingdom earlier like it eventually

00:53:26.680 was but that doesn't mean the fact that she kept it from happening doesn't make her significant

00:53:30.580 this is like this is tricky but frankly i think and this is my skill that i get to decide she's

00:53:37.840 queen for 30 years she did a lot of stuff as queen that is significant i'm going to give her

00:53:43.480 and eight for significance and the fourth category is the sexism bonus which is the 0.99

00:53:50.280 how much did being a woman and dealing with a bunch of awful men get in the way of her just

00:53:57.040 like being amazing and a self-actualized person and for her this is another one sort of like

00:54:03.360 queen anne where it's kind of like when she became queen when she's named air like people

00:54:08.400 were against it already like she's a girl whatever like everybody was so schemey already

00:54:12.860 it's like people are scheming against her not just because she was a woman but like

00:54:16.220 for all different reasons like if we were scoring her sister Maria that's like a 10

00:54:20.420 like Maria suffered a lot because of being a woman in the time and place that she was in

00:54:26.900 Joanna did as well I don't know if she was if it was a king if this all had been like a king

00:54:33.120 who had like multiple wives it would just been it would have been different and so much of her life

00:54:36.540 was was dominated by like who was her husband and like is she gonna have an heir or whatever 0.96

00:54:40.440 and that's all related to the sexism bonus i'm gonna give her sure not uh yeah so what if we

00:54:46.960 give her an eight for this sexism bonus i'm just gonna do a little quick math don't mind me can

00:54:53.440 you do math in your head good for you i can't um so 7.5 plus i messed this up for myself but with

00:55:00.560 the 0.5 so usually i can just do this out of my fingers but um oh shit um 33 is her score if i

00:55:09.480 just add that up correctly which i assume i did 33 that's the highest score of all ever um i'm

00:55:17.840 gonna post the whole everybody's score somewhere so you can see it because i always find it

00:55:21.380 interesting to look at it as well but like not just is this the highest score of this season two

00:55:26.280 33 but this is the highest score of ever seasons one or two or anything the closest person just

00:55:33.560 below her like second place right now agrippina the younger has a 31 empress matilda has a 30

00:55:38.980 tied with juana of castile with 30 queen anne 29.5 cleopatra 28 um i mean a lot of this is i was

00:55:48.280 doing this season of women leaders so a lot of them they made those points in significance um

00:55:52.900 because they were they just had more significance they were queens um isabel of castile had a 27

00:55:57.880 ethel flood lady of the mercians 26 bodica 23 and that's where this season's queens landed but even

00:56:04.960 like last season season one's winner quote-unquote was elizabeth bathory who got a 29 and here's

00:56:10.820 one of naples with a 33 well done well deserved what a wild story do you see now why because the

00:56:18.440 story i was going to tell you is just a pandemic like 15 minutes special was going to be her going

00:56:23.020 to see the pope and there being plague in the city and her being like i don't have the plague

00:56:27.300 therefore i didn't kill my husband but there's so much you need to understand to even get to that

00:56:31.680 point that it just became quite obvious that this needed to be a full-length episode so that's season

00:56:38.840 two season two of vulgar history um the things i have to tell you as well are first of all if you're

00:56:46.460 looking for books to read about cool or interesting or whatever women from history weird things that

00:56:53.960 happened um i have a curated list on bookshop.org the link will be in the show notes but it's at

00:56:59.260 bookshop.org slash lists slash vulgar history recommends with dashes in between vulgar history

00:57:04.440 and recommends and that's where i'm listing the non-fiction books that i have read that i find

00:57:09.200 interesting but also the ones that i have been using to help plan these podcast episodes um we

00:57:15.100 have our little merch store which is at teespring.com slash store slash vulgar history i have

00:57:19.800 a new item in there every week that i'm doing the podcast so there's a different different design

00:57:25.460 you get a shirt or a bag or a mug or whatever and it's inspired by the women who we talked

00:57:30.060 about that week when you look there guess what there's going to be joanna of naples merch so

00:57:34.540 teespring.com slash stores slash vulgar history um if you want to support me and my writing you

00:57:40.780 can do that at patreon.com slash ann foster writer uh one of the perks that you get there

00:57:46.520 um at one of the donation levels is that i've been doing some patreon only mini episodes

00:57:52.360 about uh the gross men from these stories um and just sort of what i do in them so those they're

00:57:59.800 called so this asshole they're sort of a mini episode looking at some of the men who just like 0.98

00:58:04.360 fucked up the lives of these women who we love and i score them on the scandalousness scheming 0.98

00:58:09.120 significance and sexism but it's like a sexism minus bonus so all their scores are like minus 0.70

00:58:14.460 like their scheming gets a minus points and so we see how they all do so that's all on the patreon

00:58:19.560 but of course there's all these episodes here on the not patreon everybody can listen to

00:58:23.120 no paywall or whatever um i'm going to continue doing more pandemic super specials between the

00:58:28.300 seasons because i've been reading a lot about disease history and i need someone to talk to

00:58:33.760 about it uh you can follow me as well on instagram at vulgar history pod on twitter at vulgar history

00:58:39.960 and if you feel like you want to email me for some reason like sure lean into that that's cool 0.93

00:58:45.840 do you have thoughts with some of these women do you like suggestions of who you think would be

00:58:49.020 another cool person for another podcast or for like another theme i don't know what the theme

00:58:53.680 is yet for season three i have some ideas but let me know so it's at vulgar history pod at gmail.com

00:58:58.960 oh also on the patreon um i'm going to be posting a poll soon about ideas for new seasons and who i

00:59:04.960 should talk about and patrons get to vote on that stuff so anyway i hope you're all keeping well

00:59:09.660 washing your hands etc and i'll see you next time

00:59:15.140 vulgar history is researched written and hosted by ann foster that's me the editor is christina

00:59:23.720 lumagi theme music is by the severn duo the vulgar history show image is by deborah wong

00:59:30.060 transcripts are written by avilene malik find transcripts of recent episodes at vulgarhistory.com

00:59:36.240 To be continued...

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01:01:14.220 Do you love Disney?

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Vulgar History - April 22, 2020

Women Leaders, part 9： The Murderous Medieval Queen

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