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

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast 0.87

00:00:14.760 my name is ann foster and today today we're throwing it back to 2020 remember that it was

00:00:21.200 it was a it was a time i was gonna say it was a simpler time was it i don't know it was

00:00:27.080 maybe it was. It was a different time. It was a pandemic-era time. And I wanted to mention that

00:00:33.420 because I mentioned the pandemic several times in this episode that you're about to hear.

00:00:37.700 So this episode is about Joanna of Naples, who for quite a while was the highest ranking person

00:00:44.500 on the Fredrigan Memorial Scandaliciousness scale. She's still up like anyone above 30 is kind of in

00:00:50.320 the upper echelon of scores. She has since been, you know, other people have popped in,

00:00:55.120 taken over a higher score from her. But for a while, she just like came out of truly nowhere.

00:00:59.780 One of the least known people that I had covered on the podcast to that date. And her story is

00:01:05.280 really exciting. I was looking back at the episode, you know, to prepare to do this new

00:01:08.860 introduction, this 2025 introduction of a 2020 episode. And I was like, fuck, yeah, 0.90

00:01:13.740 this is a great story. I remember why I got excited about it. I remember why I now, 0.99

00:01:19.880 why I had planned that whole season and then suddenly threw this episode on at the end,

00:01:23.700 because I got so excited about the story. It's great. It's a classic vulgar history

00:01:28.420 situation. You know, you've got plague, you've got people being thrown out of windows,

00:01:36.500 aka defenestration is the word for that. You've got accused murder, you've got a dramatic courtroom

00:01:41.880 appearance, you've got coin minting moments. It really establishes a lot of the things that come

00:01:48.060 up again and again on this podcast. And so I also know that this podcast started with me doing

00:01:55.240 episodes, just me talking. It was just me. I didn't start having guests for like the first

00:01:59.140 two years of the show when I realized that authors are happy to come on the show and they can explain

00:02:05.380 things to me live in front of all of you. And that just kind of works out really well for me

00:02:09.060 because I learned something and you learn something and we're able to have episodes every

00:02:11.920 week. And so I know that people miss having just episodes. It's just me talking. So this is going

00:02:17.840 to be one of them. It's me from 2020 talking, but it's still me. And I do want to reassure you that

00:02:22.920 there's going to be some episodes coming up this spring that are just going to be classic vocal

00:02:28.440 history, just me talking. The only guest is my beautiful cat Hepburn, who makes appearances when

00:02:34.500 she decides to grace us all with her presence. So that's coming up. And thank you for hanging

00:02:39.380 in here. It's been quite a time. I mean, it is quite a time for everyone in the world,

00:02:43.760 especially in north america right now and you know in other places as well i live in north america

00:02:49.640 so there's a lot going on here anyway i've been busy working on my book which is why i haven't

00:02:57.240 done um solo episodes for a while because those take a lot more research time for me and all my

00:03:02.360 research time is being spent getting my book ready but that is going to be i'm going to have news so

00:03:07.260 soon about when you can start placing pre-orders, the exciting pre-order treats that I will be

00:03:14.160 using to entice you to order the book months before it's even published, because that is a

00:03:20.380 thing that all authors do. And so I'll be doing that as well. Anyway, also a special shout out to

00:03:25.440 Tits Up Brigade member Maya, who I met when I was in Minneapolis in March, who mentioned that she

00:03:31.040 likes these throwback episodes. So here's another one for you, Maya. Hope you enjoy.

00:03:34.400 the saga of Joanna of Nipples.

00:03:43.360 Hello and welcome to the Vulgar History Podcast. My name is Anne Foster and this is a feminist

00:03:48.380 women's history comedy podcast. And today is the season two finale. So this is the ninth

00:03:55.620 episode in our series looking at women leaders in history and the men who whined about them.

00:04:01.200 And there has been a lot of leading, there's been a lot of whining, there's been a lot

00:04:05.680 of patriarchy getting in the way, there's been a lot of just women who probably could 1.00

00:04:09.980 have done a lot more stuff if they hadn't had to spend so much time swatting away all 1.00

00:04:15.020 these people who kept bothering them.

00:04:18.700 So last week's episode on Queen Anne, I had been sort of like, it was a moving target

00:04:23.480 what was going to be the last episode of this season, which like, to clarify, not the last

00:04:29.120 episode forever, just the last episode of this little pocket of things. And I had been going

00:04:34.360 chronologically. And then just as I was working on the Queen Anne one, then, you know, you might

00:04:40.880 not know, but there's a pandemic going on in the world. And that got me looking at all this stuff

00:04:47.540 about pandemics in general. And then that got me thinking about, so I was doing the pandemic

00:04:53.940 special episodes of this podcast and so I was thinking about the different different pandemic

00:04:59.260 stories that I wanted to share on those short podcasts and one of them involves Joanna of

00:05:03.540 Naples so I was like oh let me just like because I remember there's this thing and we're going to

00:05:07.140 get to it in this podcast obviously where some interesting plague related things happen around

00:05:13.080 her and that got me so I was like looking back to see like okay what was her deal just so I could

00:05:17.380 sort of get a grip on it for myself so that I could explain it to other people and then as I

00:05:22.820 was sort of making up a little document script of like what you need to know to understand the

00:05:28.320 plague part of her story. I realized like, oh, this is going to be much longer than a little

00:05:34.240 15 minute mini episode because there's so much stuff even just to get you to the point where

00:05:37.880 the plague stuff happens. And then so much stuff happens after the plague stuff. So here we are

00:05:42.440 with this sort of extra non chronological story of Joanna of Naples here at the tail end of this

00:05:52.320 season of vulgar history so joanna i'm just thinking if you want to do like a fast and the

00:05:57.040 furious slash star wars thing to listen to the podcasts in order i believe joanna of naples

00:06:04.460 sequentially comes between empress matilda and isabella the first so you could just like if

00:06:11.840 you're not listening to these as they come out um you could slap that back slap joanna back in

00:06:17.220 in between those two people. So I also wanted to mention there's so many wonderful other podcasts

00:06:24.560 that I've been listening to. And I've been doing a lot of podcast listening lately, what with

00:06:28.500 Handemic, etc. And there's a really, there's so much support and lifting each other up and

00:06:34.860 wonderfulness in the history podcast online community. And one of the most welcoming and

00:06:40.800 nicest podcasts is the What's Her Name podcast, which you should all subscribe to as well.

00:06:45.880 They've got so many episodes. I listen to them for research and also for fun. And so they tweeted a couple of days ago on April 20th. So they were sharing this article that's basically about like, why are women such good leaders during COVID-19, which is the same sort of stuff that people are like, wow, you know, look at these countries that are doing well with this pandemic.

00:07:05.980 they have female leaders female leaders are better than men leaders and there's so much

00:07:10.580 about that that's just um overly simplistic and also whatever anyway what's a name podcast

00:07:16.960 succinctly um explain this the best that i saw so what they said is um in their tweet um so when

00:07:24.260 leadership is accessible to more people you have a better chance at finding good leaders and there

00:07:29.920 have been impressive women leaders for millennia we just don't talk about them maybe we should

00:07:34.020 start. See, number one, hashtag learn history. And this is really what I was thinking about 1.00

00:07:40.100 when I was preparing the season of this podcast as well, which is sort of the overly simplistic

00:07:45.440 sort of paternalizing thing of being like, oh, women are inherently nicer or kinder or better

00:07:50.920 or whatever. It's like so much is just how people are socialized and what they've been allowed to do.

00:07:55.860 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.

00:08:12.300 So if there was parity, 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.

00:08:24.200 But women have more pressure put on them to be amazing when they get to these leadership roles. 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. It's not a meritocracy. 0.80

00:08:40.580 they're sort of women who, even if that annoyed people around them, they were the heirs to 1.00

00:08:46.320 whatever kingdom. And so they ended up being in charge and some of them did amazing things and 0.80

00:08:49.480 some of them weren't able to do amazing things. And it's not that women are better leaders than 0.99

00:08:55.060 men. It's just they haven't had as much chance to be good or to be terrible or whatever. Anyway,

00:09:01.040 so today we're looking at the story of Joanna of Naples, who reigned for 30 years, one of the

00:09:05.620 longest reigns we've looked at of NUN this season. And it's a story based around a lot of

00:09:11.880 geographical history that with which I am much more familiar now than I was a week ago, but

00:09:17.500 which I don't know nearly as well as I know the history of Britain or Scotland or England or

00:09:23.900 anyway. So, but Joanna, so she was the queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily, which if you're

00:09:30.980 like, wait, are those three places next to each other on a map? And they're not really. But don't

00:09:37.040 worry about it, because we're not going to be getting into the geography that much. You just

00:09:41.320 need to kind of know, basically, we're looking at like, Italy before Italy was Italy, when it was

00:09:46.000 just a bunch of sort of city states, slash kingdoms. That's sort of where she was based out

00:09:50.620 of, sort of between Italy and France. So Naples, 1326. Joanna was born and she was the eldest

00:09:57.940 daughter of Charles, the Duke of Calabria, and Marie of Valois. They had had other daughters as

00:10:03.860 well, but she was the first to survive infancy. She had an older sister, Louise, who died that

00:10:08.900 same year, and a brother, Charles, who lived, who was born one year later, but he only lived for

00:10:12.800 eight days. She wound up having one surviving sibling, who was the younger sister, called

00:10:17.700 Maria, who was actually born just after her father had died. So her father died when Joanna was two.

00:10:23.380 Maria was then born and she was a baby and she's going to be sort of like a best supporting actress queen in the story because Maria's life was also pretty volatile.

00:10:33.980 So what this meant, though, is that Joanna being the granddaughter of a king who's called Robert the Wise.

00:10:40.460 So Robert the Wise is her grandfather because Joanna's father had died.

00:10:45.220 That means Joanna is now the heir to inherit Naples.

00:10:49.980 So basically the agreement said that his female ancestors or female descendants would be who

00:10:57.000 would inherit the throne if there weren't any men around. And also the rule said that a female monarch

00:11:01.800 had to marry and she should allow her husband to rule. So although there are male relatives here 0.90

00:11:08.900 and there, Robert was really wanted to stay with that plan. So to have Joanna and then after her

00:11:16.120 Maria as his heir. So he had even a public ceremony when Joanna was four years old and Maria was two

00:11:22.360 years old, I guess, where he just publicly said, like, hey, guess what? This is what's happening.

00:11:27.240 My heir is going to be Joanna and then her children. And if for some reason she has no

00:11:31.360 children, then my heir will be Maria and then her children. Some relatives weren't super excited

00:11:36.380 about this, i.e. the relatives who thought that they should be his heirs instead of these little

00:11:40.640 baby girls some of the relatives include philip of toronto not toronto like ontario canada but i

00:11:49.640 think it's pronounced taranto it's like toronto but with a's this word's going to come up i should

00:11:54.680 really decide on a pronunciation and his wife catherine of valois refused to support the whole

00:12:00.280 joanna being the heir thing so they refused to even go to this ceremony the pope tried to intercede

00:12:06.720 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.

00:12:14.140 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.

00:12:22.900 Not just because she was a girl, but because he thought that he should be the heir, I guess.

00:12:27.760 So one year later, Joanna, age five, Maria, age three, Joanna's, their mother died.

00:12:34.800 Joanna and Maria now orphans, parents, all dead.

00:12:38.940 But their grandfather, Robert the Wise, is who's been sort of raising them.

00:12:43.160 And so his wife, Joanna and Maria's step-grandmother, is called Sancia of Mallorca, and she assumed responsibility for their education.

00:12:51.640 And Queen Sancia lived like a nun, although the Pope had refused to annul her marriage to King Robert.

00:12:57.080 just so you kind of know what kind of religious thing is happening here and she became a huge

00:13:03.920 influence on joanna and maria's life she really took charge of their education and raising them

00:13:08.940 and she did a great job from what we see what they're able to do when they grow up later even

00:13:13.500 the things were going pretty well in terms of like medieval naples so there was this um robert

00:13:21.940 the wise the grandfather he had this long time enemy which was hungary the country of hungary

00:13:30.240 it all has to do with like who is going to be king and who's going to inherit from where

00:13:34.300 um robert was actually the younger brother so in terms of like hungary what happened is that

00:13:42.360 there's three sons no there's two sons so robert's father died um robert's older brother died so

00:13:50.920 technically his older brother's son should have become the next king of hungary but instead

00:13:55.580 robert no king of naples oh my god i'm so sorry this is just like what you need to know is that

00:14:03.680 hungary and naples were at war and everyone was related to everyone let's just like leave it at

00:14:10.020 that for now because that's not what we're talking about we're talking about joanna but what happened

00:14:13.820 is that so joanna little tiny girl to try and stave off a possible hungarian invasion it was

00:14:20.560 decided that she would get married to one of these Hungarian princes, who's also maybe her cousin or

00:14:25.520 something. I'm not sure. So the one who was chosen was Andrew. So her cousin, Andrew, the Hungarian.

00:14:34.060 And then the stipulation of their betrothal was that Andrew's heirs would rule Naples,

00:14:39.220 but he himself would only ever serve as Joanna's consort. So he wouldn't be king,

00:14:43.900 even though he was going to be married to her and she was going to one day become

00:14:46.640 the queen and then andrew who's also just like a little baby at the time was sent to naples to grow

00:14:52.620 up there but people were very um xenophobic against the hungarians because of the whole

00:14:59.320 being at war with each other situation so he was never really accepted so he remained in naples

00:15:05.740 after this little baby wedding when they were like six and four years old or something like that

00:15:10.540 but what it meant is that even though they were married like they were little baby children

00:15:13.660 and it's not like okay no act like husband and wife but it just meant like they're married so

00:15:17.620 like no question about that but like they're waiting until Joanna gets to be 12 or whatever

00:15:22.140 for them to consummate and to start like living like men and wives so effectively Andrew just

00:15:26.660 came to live with Joanna and Maria and their other cousins and he was just like this sort of like 1.00

00:15:30.420 pesky annoying Hungarian new sibling on the scene so they're just like all children growing up 1.00

00:15:37.020 together two of them happen to be married to each other and whatever to the vulgar history King 1.00

00:15:40.840 Robert died in 1343, age 67, after ruling for 34 years as King of Naples. Joanna, age

00:15:49.420 16, was now officially his heir. And it was not a great time to be taking over as Queen

00:15:56.180 of Naples because there had been a series of famines due to the weather got really bad

00:16:03.980 and the crop yields were bad. So things have been pretty great when King Robert was around

00:16:07.940 partially because he was called robert the wise like he made some good decisions but also because

00:16:11.820 just like he lucked into some good weather and trade situations so joanna is a teenager the 0.98

00:16:17.580 country's like not doing great also a lot of people are like she's female that's gross we don't like

00:16:23.560 that and also she's 16 so it's just kind of like not it was precarious not the best of times for 0.77

00:16:30.940 her to be taking over um two days after so he died she becomes queen two days later and then her

00:16:37.840 husband, Andrew, who is now 15, was knighted officially and the marriage was consummated

00:16:44.220 in accordance with the late king's witches. So the king, he had wished in his will, I don't know,

00:16:49.520 that they would consummate their marriage upon his death, whatever. So they hated each other.

00:16:54.000 Like Joanna hated Andrew, Andrew hated her slash everybody. They basically lived apart. They only

00:17:01.060 met with each other if there's like an important dinner where they both had to be. But otherwise,

00:17:04.820 they went to separate churches and they visited separate places and Joanna forbade him from

00:17:09.600 entering her bedroom without her permission. Um, Andrew, there's the whole thing where she's the

00:17:15.040 queen, but he's just like her guy. Um, he doesn't get to be the king. And so that extended to,

00:17:21.660 um, she controlled his allowance and his spendings. Andrew was not happy with any of this.

00:17:28.460 He thought that he should be king. He was mad that everybody was mean to him for being Hungarian,

00:17:32.920 which is like fair enough shitty uh joanna eventually became pregnant and that made andrew

00:17:39.040 even more want to become king and it's totally if you know this story i haven't done on the podcast

00:17:43.140 but i bet a lot of you know the story it's very mary queen of scots slash darnley about it where

00:17:48.640 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

00:17:53.840 that makes him mad so he started making threats towards her um she just mocked him openly in front 0.96

00:18:00.040 of everybody. He bullied and insulted everybody and was just sort of sucky husband to her. And 0.97

00:18:06.900 she was, you know, not a great wife to him, but that wasn't the point of her life to be a great

00:18:12.240 wife to him. She was a queen. So screw him, basically. So September 18th, 1345, Andrew

00:18:17.960 comes home after partying with his guys. Joanna is asleep in bed. And then a servant came to the

00:18:25.260 door saying like oh my god we have there's these papers you need to sign out here not in your room

00:18:31.000 so he ran out of the room and then he was seized by a group of men who uh strung a rope around his

00:18:37.120 neck uh dangled him over the railing and some men down below were like pulling on his ankles from

00:18:43.740 below and he basically was murdered and the thing about it is that joanna was in the bedroom and i

00:18:52.840 guess he when andrew tried to like run back in the bedroom he found that the bedroom was locked

00:18:57.020 from the inside so like was joanna complicit in this murder plot did she just see like oh man

00:19:03.040 someone's killing andrew i'm just gonna like lock my door now or was she like a bunch of men yelling

00:19:07.700 i'm just gonna lock my door now but so she didn't help him not that she should have i don't know

00:19:14.760 so at this point she's six months pregnant 19 years old and queen of naples and also a widow

00:19:21.080 slash the prime suspect in her husband's murder so people like they do now with everybody and 0.97

00:19:29.280 it's just bullshit they're just like oh she's like not sad enough or not in the right way 0.98

00:19:35.220 or whatever but she uh people were already prone to not want to like her because she was 0.98

00:19:41.740 a young queen and the whole like who is an ally of who the whole like hungarian question they're

00:19:48.160 just like oh this is great like this she looks bad in all of this so let's just like spread some 0.99

00:19:52.300 rumors like that she was having affairs like that she was responsible for killing him and then the 0.99

00:19:57.800 thing is that also she had spent ever since she knew him um she had been like openly mocking him 0.89

00:20:03.740 hating him so it's like would she kill her husband it's like you know she she probably would have

00:20:08.640 killed her husband um sorry um things were not in terms of like public relations not looking great

00:20:15.720 for her a man was arrested in connection to the murders but they cut out his tongue so then he

00:20:23.700 couldn't say if anyone had put him up to it or whatever and had he even been involved at all i

00:20:28.840 don't know it's all pretty sketchy um the hungarians aka andrew's family were like uh who

00:20:35.620 killed him so they demanded the pope do a an inquiry into it because the pope used to do

00:20:40.680 stuff like that i guess and the pope was like i'm on it but then he was like some other pope things

00:20:45.920 to do and he sort of like didn't take it on right away andrew the dead teenage husband so he had an

00:20:53.000 older brother called louis who louis who is now the king of hungary and he's called louis the

00:20:58.900 hungarian and he's a supporting actor in the story he's gonna show up a lot he began to talk about

00:21:04.600 invading naples because the whole thing where the hungarians thought that they should be the king of

00:21:08.660 naples etc so things were doing pretty bad internationally um between all these different

00:21:15.560 places joanna's still pregnant um so she gave birth on christmas day december 25th 1345 to a son

00:21:23.180 which was like great excellent news for all the usual like everyone's just like okay there's a boy

00:21:29.380 like it's not just this teenage queen girl like we've got a boy there's going to be a man king

00:21:34.800 everything's great she named the child charles martel and started thinking about getting a new

00:21:42.560 husband for herself for both just like protection reasons because she had been educated really well

00:21:48.160 but she was not like a warrior she needed somebody who had like an army and knew how to do stuff um 0.99

00:21:53.680 she just did all the reasons that she needed to find a new husband for her and her little baby

00:21:58.820 so the guy that she wanted to marry was her cousin called luis of taranto so um there's luis the

00:22:08.580 hungarian who is her enemy and then now there's her new husband luis of taranto um there had been

00:22:16.840 speculation that the two of them were involved for a while he's like super hot attractive looking

00:22:21.640 gorgeous and he was also a cousin who hung out with them when they were kids and they were all

00:22:25.720 making fun of andrew back then he was sort of like the big the cool guy who was there with them

00:22:30.900 she got married to him really quickly which also sort of like is this like a mary queen of scots

00:22:36.880 scenario where you're just like is she or her emotions getting away with her was she forced 0.90

00:22:41.640 into this but also she's forced into it in the sense of like the hungarians were going to invade

00:22:46.140 and she needed this alliance pretty much so they got married but they didn't get the papal

00:22:54.640 dispensation because again the pope at this time one of his other jobs when he's not infestating

00:22:58.320 murders is giving people permission to get married because they are cousins but whatever

00:23:03.920 everyone gets married when they're cousins but anyway the thing here is that they didn't even

00:23:07.000 wait for him to give the dispensation they just like got married and this whole sequence of events

00:23:11.740 the whole like did she kill andrew she got quickie married to this guy didn't get the pope's

00:23:16.060 permission made everybody in her kingdom just suddenly not like her very much at all meanwhile

00:23:22.900 in our B plot, Joanna's younger sister, Maria's life was a nightmare. So shortly after the

00:23:31.300 grandfather had died and Joanna became the queen, Maria was abducted by a woman named Agnes of

00:23:38.000 Perigord, who is the widow of John Duke of Durazzo because she wanted Maria to marry her son,

00:23:46.180 charles of durazzo and that is what happened so maria was 14 years old or almost 14 she's like

00:23:53.220 13 almost 14 charles of durazzo was 20 and they were forced into marriage and the marriage was

00:24:00.280 consummated by force and so it's like this it's happened they've got married the end uh this

00:24:06.820 the secret marriage which maria doesn't seem to have been consenting to but this infuriated joanna 0.71

00:24:13.420 she didn't like that Maria got married without her permission. Joanna sent letters to the Pope 0.84

00:24:16.800 demanding the annulment of the marriage. Again, she and her BFF, the Pope, just like, Pope is busy

00:24:21.800 doing stuff. The Pope, who is called Clement VI, refused to annul the marriage. And at this point,

00:24:28.940 Joanna was just like, okay, you are dead to me. Like, my sister, no longer. And slash,

00:24:35.120 you're now my enemies the durazzo entire family and then years go by i believe we so five years 0.98

00:24:44.040 later it's a little montage moment so her enemy louis of hungary is just like hacking and slashing 0.85

00:24:51.300 his way across the italian countryside conquering towns and villages and joanna and her squad need

00:24:57.240 to figure out what to do side note people from naples are called neapolitans that is what they

00:25:03.360 are called and the word neapolitan to me and perhaps to you makes me think of ice cream so

00:25:09.440 i'm going to not use the word neapolitan very much because i i'm just going to say the people

00:25:15.140 of naples because the neapolitan it just i just picture little ice cream cones and it just is

00:25:20.560 distracting so people are just like making alliances breaking lenses and by people i mean

00:25:26.420 like all these dudes the durazos the taranto brothers so at one point joanna is in a castle

00:25:34.800 under siege she's by now pregnant with her husband's baby she fled her castle in the middle

00:25:40.500 of the night to try and get to evignon evignon evignon which is where the pope lived to just

00:25:48.060 like have a sit down with the pope and like hash things out so she fled the castle under darkest

00:25:52.940 night um pregnant in medieval times just like this is like empress matilda level like there 0.80

00:25:58.980 wasn't like she wore white and also a snowy but just like this is this gets her high score points

00:26:04.860 in terms of just like bravery uh her husband lewis of toronto um heard that she had fled and so he

00:26:11.640 decided to go to avignon as well unfortunately in order to escape she had to leave her son charles

00:26:17.220 martel behind because she couldn't escape with him it was too dangerous and she didn't think he

00:26:20.880 would survive a journey so his uncle the hungarians sent charles martel off to hungary to be raised

00:26:30.000 by those relatives but charles martel unfortunately died age two um while joanna and her husband lewis

00:26:38.400 of toronto were off headed to the pope to just like straighten things out her sister maria and

00:26:44.360 her husband charles of durazzo were like oh they're out of town amazing um why don't we just

00:26:49.600 like seize power so charles maria's husband seized power but he was captured and beheaded by the

00:26:55.720 hungarians only days later his period of power lasted less than a week and now maria was a 19

00:27:01.840 year old widow just like her older sister had been before so joanna is headed towards avignon after

00:27:07.900 this great escape um and coming just like parallel with her if you picture like on america's next

00:27:14.320 top model they have the airplane with the little faces so here we've got like joanna heading one

00:27:17.780 way with a little face and the other way it's just like a death skeleton because the black death

00:27:22.180 um the bubonic plague was also headed parallel to her to avignon um so the black plague which

00:27:29.120 we discussed in some of the pandemic special episodes um which you can listen to if you want

00:27:34.760 to hear about how that all progresses it's a pretty awful disease and it kills you really

00:27:39.720 quickly and horrifically so the black death had arrived in sicily the previous fall in a fleet of

00:27:48.620 genoese vessels so just like how it happened in that little english town where it's just like

00:27:53.940 trade is how it was spreading anyway um so what happened is this ship went into port in sicily

00:28:01.080 sailors were like all they all had plague and they like stumbled down the gangplank and into

00:28:06.040 the city and then they like spread they between them the fleas and the rats just the plague

00:28:10.860 toppled this whole city by the spring of 1348 which is when the story takes place currently

00:28:16.100 it had spread to the rest of italy and beyond so everybody if you remember there was the whole

00:28:21.780 famine scenario where people were the crops weren't growing so there's already famine

00:28:25.980 their bodies were weak so they're even more susceptible to die of plague

00:28:29.800 Like, some cities, like Florence, the death rate was, like, 90%.

00:28:35.080 So small villages just, like, ended.

00:28:38.040 Like, there's no one left of them.

00:28:39.000 They're, like, not a village anymore.

00:28:41.280 Because people were dying and or fleeing.

00:28:44.780 So people died super quickly.

00:28:47.760 Like, apparently you could be healthy at sunrise and dead by sunset.

00:28:50.820 But sometimes it was longer and it was incredibly painful and debilitating.

00:28:55.100 so there were so many dead bodies that the cities didn't have enough room to bury them

00:29:01.800 in avignon where the pope lived he consecrated the river because the whole thing about like you want

00:29:07.480 to be buried and like consecrated ground but there wasn't enough ground to consecrate it and there

00:29:11.380 wasn't time to like bury everybody so he just consecrated the river so every day hundreds of

00:29:16.640 stinging corpses choked the river and slowly floated downstream to the open sea um so it's

00:29:22.520 just like a river of dead bodies so then so this is pretty gruesome um joanna comes to avagnale

00:29:33.780 everything's pretty awful and gross but that's where the pope is and she needs to talk to the

00:29:38.460 pope so that's what she's doing so on march 15 1348 she arrived with great fanfare so she had

00:29:46.180 the whole squad with her she had the bishop of florence the chancellor of provence 18 cardinals

00:29:52.280 Next came Joanna, dressed in a golden crimson robe,

00:29:54.680 her blonde hair gleaming in the morning sun.

00:29:57.020 She's just, like, gorgeous.

00:29:58.740 Her robe had sort of, like, fleur-de-lis on it

00:30:00.980 because that was to remind everybody that she's descended from the king of France,

00:30:04.740 which she was. 0.60

00:30:06.000 Presumably, she would have been riding sidesaddle.

00:30:08.500 So just sort of, like, this gorgeous moment of her just, like, coming through town.

00:30:12.200 Her husband Louis was there looking super hot.

00:30:15.620 The colorful parade was the first bright spot Avignon had seen in months,

00:30:19.660 and so people came out.

00:30:20.640 everybody it's just like they've all been dying of the plague for like a long time and there's

00:30:24.520 like oh something to see and so they're watching this gorgeous young queen making her way through

00:30:28.620 town in this parade of luxury but it wasn't just like hey i'm here to hang out or whatever she was

00:30:38.020 there to talk to the pope about a couple things and the more important one of those things was

00:30:42.420 like hey can you forgive me for getting married without the papal dispensation thanks and the

00:30:46.760 other thing was the whole papal investigation finally vis-a-vis had she killed her husband

00:30:51.340 this is where they're going to decide like did she kill her husband or not um and if they decided

00:30:56.020 that she had killed her husband then she probably would be executed so it's stakes could not be

00:31:02.420 higher and so she went in to see the pope and she had like the best lawyers in the world talking for

00:31:09.240 her but then she's also like and i would like to speak now as well and this was rare because she 0.80

00:31:14.760 was a woman um and also because she was a queen and also because she had to speak in latin but 0.99

00:31:19.900 guess what she spoke latin and so she had this like amazing speech where she just sort of explained 0.96

00:31:26.680 how she's innocent of everything like clearly she was just the charisma she had this great speech

00:31:32.980 delivered it perfectly and part of what she said was just like look i just walked through your

00:31:37.380 plague-ridden city like i just rode through your plague-ridden country down the street past the

00:31:43.540 people with the plague and guess who didn't get the plague me I did not get the plague and this

00:31:47.760 was the sort of thing where everybody had sort of assumed that the plague was religious based or

00:31:52.180 sort of like the people who were getting it they were like they must be the bad people they must be

00:31:56.120 the sinners so people would like go to the pope and to the bishops and try and get blessings and

00:32:01.920 stuff so they wouldn't get the plague they all still did she was basically working with the

00:32:05.800 understanding of if you're a bad person you get the plague so she was like but look I just walked

00:32:09.900 through this whole city and I didn't get the plague. So guess what? I didn't kill my husband,

00:32:13.900 Andrew. And the Pope was like, yeah, great point. And you are not only innocent, but you're

00:32:19.900 completely above suspicion. And P.S. I'm also going to issue this document saying that your

00:32:26.880 marriage to Louis of Toronto is valid, even though he didn't ask my permission beforehand.

00:32:31.960 So just like win, win-win for Joanna. Everything's amazing. So she hung out in Avignon,

00:32:37.720 um surrounded by plague but not catching plague um she gave birth to a daughter who she named

00:32:44.260 katherine and at around the same time so maria you remember was 19 year old widow at this time

00:32:54.500 and the whole thing is like well who's gonna marry maria she's like a super born person

00:32:57.760 so um louis the hungarian the enemy had captured some princess from naples and they were like

00:33:06.260 anyway basically louis the hungarian was like i want to marry maria and then we can like ally

00:33:12.100 hungary naples everything will be great but before that marriage could take place maria was abducted

00:33:18.320 again this is the second time um this time by hugh lord of bow and count of evelino who forced

00:33:26.120 maria to marry with his eldest son and heir robert so this is again she's kidnapped by parents

00:33:31.440 who forced her to marry their child twice in a row.

00:33:36.020 And now for a quick advertising break.

00:33:40.160 Hungry now.

00:33:43.400 Now.

00:33:45.560 What about now?

00:33:47.780 Whenever it hits you, wherever you are,

00:33:50.620 grab an O'Henry bar to satisfy your hunger.

00:33:54.420 With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts

00:33:58.100 covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge

00:34:01.100 with a chocolatey coating. Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today.

00:34:05.860 Oh hungry, O'Henry.

00:34:09.020 Welcome to the realms of peril and glory. Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale,

00:34:17.560 the paranormal mysteries of liminal London, and the cyberpunk chaos of Cyborg.

00:34:26.660 Be awed by our incredible guests

00:34:29.860 From familiar shows like Oxventure and No Rolls Barred

00:34:34.560 Search realms of peril and glory to find out more

00:34:38.680 The war is over and both sides lost

00:34:45.720 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders

00:34:47.780 And armies scattered like bones in the dust

00:34:50.960 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world

00:34:55.420 praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

00:34:58.860 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

00:35:03.160 This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.

00:35:06.600 Your torch ticks down in real time,

00:35:08.960 and when that flame dies,

00:35:10.360 something else rises to finish the job.

00:35:12.540 This is a brutal rules light nightmare

00:35:14.880 with a story that emerges organically

00:35:17.780 based on the decisions that the characters make.

00:35:20.120 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s,

00:35:22.520 and man, it is so good to be back.

00:35:24.820 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:35:35.400 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:35:54.820 their courage, creativity, and big, bold ideas. Want to know how Taylor Swift became a superstar?

00:36:02.280 Or hear how Simone Biles became the greatest athlete of all time? From immersive stories,

00:36:07.820 to heartfelt interviews, to super smart advice, Rebel Girls brings you stories that will get you

00:36:13.820 fired up to become your best self. There are over 400 episodes for you to explore,

00:36:18.800 with new episodes every week. So check it out. Listen to Rebel Girls wherever you get your

00:36:24.000 podcasts and find us on youtube.com slash rebel girls and whatever you do stay rebel

00:36:31.500 and we're back but maria not having this and joanna and her husband were like we're not having

00:36:43.600 this either so what happened is so when the ship was coming into port with maria and this new oh

00:36:49.720 sorry and this marriage had also been consummated by force so this poor woman anyway so came into

00:36:55.440 dock lewis joanna's husband um armed himself and accompanied by a small party of warriors

00:37:00.860 boarded the vessel and stabbed hugh repeatedly with his sword before throwing the corpse of

00:37:06.320 victim into the sea he was the one who kidnapped maria the father of the husband um robert was

00:37:12.920 arrested maria came ashore and spent the winter with her sister and her brother-in-law robert

00:37:20.660 was eventually transported to a dungeon and even though the pope had said like please don't kill

00:37:25.560 him it was his father who who kidnapped maria it wasn't him robert was executed and the whole

00:37:33.100 the execution of robert the son who was married to maria basically he was executed when joanna

00:37:39.460 and her husband and the rest of the court were away on a holiday while they were away maria stole

00:37:43.940 into the castle with four armed men she had hired for the purpose and had him hacked to pieces in 0.79

00:37:49.300 her presence as a warning to those who would presume upon the dignity of a royal princess of 0.84

00:37:53.560 the house and anju in the future so it's a very like sansa stark feeding ramsey to the dogs moment

00:37:58.480 where i love this like i just told that confusingly so just to recap maria was kidnapped her brother

00:38:05.520 in law rescued her. And then she hung out with them in the castle. The guy who she was forced

00:38:09.560 to marry was put in jail. And then while Joanna and her husband were out of town, Maria hired 0.86

00:38:14.220 some dudes, went into the castle and hacked this guy to pieces in front of her. So just like, 0.87

00:38:20.700 yes, Maria. Yes. So meanwhile, Joanna and Lewis. So from early 1349 onwards, all documents in the

00:38:29.800 kingdom were issued in the names of both husband and wife. So Lewis, Louis was, it was a very much

00:38:35.280 like king and queen situation, where it wasn't like with Andrew, where he didn't have as much

00:38:38.740 power, like Louis was her equal here. As happened so much in this season of this podcast, there was

00:38:45.100 some coin moments. The coins were issued and Louis's name always preceded Joanna's, kind of

00:38:53.260 like he's the more important one. But guess what? He was terrible. So the Hungarians attacked again

00:38:59.760 and Louis took advantage of that to wrest complete royal authority from his wife. He purged the court

00:39:05.020 of her supporters and accused her favorite, who's a guy called Enrico Caracciolo. He accused him of

00:39:12.140 adultery and had him executed. And then two months later, Joanna and Lewis's daughter, Catherine,

00:39:17.960 died aged one. So he's a terrible husband. Two years later, Joanna gave birth to her second

00:39:26.220 child with Lewis, another daughter, Francoise. And then that spring, they received the Pope's

00:39:33.600 formal recognition that lewis was the co-ruler of joanna that they were literally equal the pope

00:39:39.340 said so and so they had a elaborate procession through the streets of naples to celebrate this

00:39:44.420 fact and when they came home from the procession their daughter had suddenly taken ill and had died

00:39:49.200 aged eight months so if you're keeping track joanna has had three children who all died

00:39:56.320 very young she has no heirs which means maria is still in play here because if she has like

00:40:03.140 she had some children from her first husband um charles of durazzo so she's her children are

00:40:08.340 maybe going to be theirs but spoiler they're all daughters so maria was again imprisoned so she

00:40:16.900 maybe for arranging the murder of the guy unclear didn't write down that detail in my notes anyway

00:40:23.820 she eventually was married to lewis of toronto's younger brother philip so she's she's been married

00:40:31.440 now three times um joanna twice thus far um so lewis is awful um but then he died after so 1362

00:40:42.400 so they'd been married for 12 years he died of the black plague so sayonara and with that so joanna

00:40:51.920 finally had the opportunity to take all the power for herself she was no longer a teenager she was

00:40:56.360 a woman she'd been she's an adult she'd been queen now for quite some time um and she's just

00:41:02.140 like guess what i'm the queen deal with it um and she just started doing a bunch of things that were

00:41:06.520 great and they made her popular again with everybody we'll get into what those things were

00:41:11.960 in a bit and then at age 36 she decided to marry again because it's just like a safe thing to do

00:41:18.100 this one hopes just to have like a man around potentially with armies to ally countries

00:41:24.640 together, etc. So her husband this time, this is going to be her third husband, and his name is

00:41:32.800 James IV of Mallorca. And it seemed okay. He was the king of Mallorca. So hopefully he wouldn't

00:41:39.640 try and like usurp her power because he's already the king of somewhere else. He wasn't her cousins.

00:41:44.480 They didn't have to get like the Pope's permission. And also, hopefully that would mean that maybe

00:41:48.740 that have an easier time conceiving children. But the thing is that James had been taken captive

00:41:55.360 when he was a teenager and had only recently been released after spending 14 years as a prisoner in

00:42:01.520 a small iron cage. So he had psychological problems, as well as numerous physical illnesses.

00:42:10.240 So he was prone to outbursts. He was physically violent with Joanna, sometimes in front of other

00:42:17.260 people things became so bad that well joanna she kept sleeping in the same room as him because she

00:42:24.560 needed to have an heir but she would have other people in the room with him so that he wouldn't

00:42:27.740 like kill her it was a short-lived marriage i mean good if you have to i guess but basically

00:42:34.140 he ran off to go fight some wars with some other kings and he died in of either his like illnesses 0.90

00:42:42.220 that he had his like chronic illnesses or of poisoning so that was just like a little detour

00:42:47.320 so joanna was again single but still no children she'd had a miscarriage during her marriage with

00:42:53.760 him but no no living children and then we are in 1366 and maria sadly died age 37 from

00:43:01.480 complications due to childbirth so still joanna didn't have any surviving children so the heirs

00:43:09.240 continued to be maria's three surviving daughters no sons so after all this chaos

00:43:16.500 all of this chaos um things sort of settled down a bit in the sense of joanna um her relationship

00:43:25.540 with the pope was good it continued to be good um the period after james the fourth's death

00:43:31.300 is considered by most historians to be the most stable and prosperous part of joanna's rule

00:43:35.980 So some of the things she did, she helped finance the Pope's return to Rome.

00:43:40.480 She hosted the Byzantine emperor and she involved herself in even the most minute aspects of

00:43:46.220 governing.

00:43:46.680 She was really, really enjoyed being queen. 1.00

00:43:49.820 That's what people wrote about her. 1.00

00:43:50.960 Like she really likes ruling. 1.00

00:43:52.660 She was a fair and judicious ruler and no law or edict, however minor, was ever carried 0.99

00:43:58.920 out without her personal approval and seal.

00:44:01.100 she supported and protected local businesses create a new industry crime was greatly reduced

00:44:06.860 and she was an ardent promoter of peace within the realm she also there's something where like 0.79

00:44:12.940 she let women become doctors or something like that um i have the details on that later on but

00:44:19.880 she was just like doing good things things were good and then she married again um this time

00:44:26.980 her husband was called Otto of Brunswick so she was by this point 48 years old he was 58 he was

00:44:33.020 not a king she wildly outranked him and so he was like he knew he had no chance to like try and be

00:44:38.700 king or whatever so he was good with that she was good with the fact he wasn't going to threaten her

00:44:42.600 he hadn't spent 14 years in an iron cage and he was also a seasoned warrior which was helpful 0.71

00:44:48.240 because the Hungarians guess what still kept invading someone else who got mad about this

00:44:54.220 was charles of durazzo who is the father of maria's first husband everyone has a lot of the

00:45:03.060 same names basically the durazzo's continues to be a family who didn't like joanna louis the

00:45:08.320 hungarian didn't like joanna and then the durazzo's and louis teamed up and that's what happens

00:45:12.420 next um so joanna at this point she's like okay clearly like i'm 48 years old chances are i'm not

00:45:18.280 going to have any surviving children at this point so she tried to figure out a solution to the whole 0.98

00:45:22.560 succession thing by arranging a marriage between her youngest niece, Margaret of Gerazzo, who was

00:45:28.300 Maria's youngest daughter, to, oh no, this is where Charles of Gerazzo comes from. So there's

00:45:33.800 like literally three people in the story called Charles of Gerazzo. Okay, so that's who this one

00:45:38.940 is. So there's Charles of Gerazzo, the father, Charles of Gerazzo, Maria's husband, and now this

00:45:43.760 is Charles of Gerazzo, a younger one who's going to marry Maria's daughter, Margaret. And so Joanna

00:45:49.640 thought like if we just marry these two people together then like that will be who the heirs 0.51

00:45:53.540 will be everything's great the wedding was opposed by her former brother-in-law margaret's stepfather

00:45:58.980 aka maria's third husband philip prince of taranto uh and then the pope thing happened so what

00:46:08.040 happened is the pope died and everything went crazy so i mentioned one of the things that joanna

00:46:14.460 had done was return the papal court to rome which was a popular thing at the time to some people

00:46:20.120 so the last few popes had been french because the court had been avignon remember the plague city

00:46:25.400 where she went to talk to the pope most of the cardinals are french as well so the romans wanted

00:46:30.940 the next pope to be a roman person because that's where the papacy pape whatever the pope pope house

00:46:38.080 was so in the spirit of compromise who was elected was a person from naples a neapolitan man who took

00:46:46.040 the name urban the six and it turns out he was chaotic evil he was not good at being pope so

00:46:56.000 then there was another rival pope who was clement the seventh and joanna decided to back clement

00:47:02.480 the seventh um so urban the bad pope um sort of got all of joanna's enemies together so the

00:47:11.680 louis the hungarian charles of durazzo all the enemies all sort of teamed up in the sort of like

00:47:16.920 evil avengers thing against joanna uh they declared urban the bad pope who is still technically the

00:47:23.740 pope but there's two popes so there's clement who is the pope not in rome urban is the pope

00:47:29.560 in rome two popes um it's called a schism it's a big thing um if you want to know about more pope

00:47:35.720 history there's another podcast i'll recommend to you called pontifact which i don't think they've

00:47:40.600 gotten to this point in history yet i could be wrong but anyway it's a podcast where every

00:47:44.840 episode they talk about a different pope very exciting but urban the bad pope um declared

00:47:50.900 joanna a heretic and he declared that her kingdom which was sort of controlled by the pope was now

00:47:58.620 forfeit and he bestowed it upon Charles of Durazzo, who is Maria's, dead Maria's daughter's

00:48:05.980 husband. So Joanna's just like, okay, what are we going to do? So she agreed to adopt Louis I of

00:48:14.540 Anjou as her heir, replacing Charles of Durazzo to try and make this all be not happening, I guess.

00:48:23.240 But then because of this, Charles of Durazzo invaded Naples in November 1380 at the head of 0.60

00:48:27.980 an army mainly composed by hungarians so joanna's husband at this point otto of brunswick um she

00:48:35.760 mustered as many troops as she could but otto is unable to stop the forces of charles of durazzo

00:48:41.000 um so he was defeated and charles entered naples on july 16th 1381 at 7 p.m that's very specific

00:48:50.360 and besieged joanna in the castle so without any help because her husband the troops everyone had

00:48:57.580 been defeated Joanna was forced to surrender on August 25th oh well but she held for a month so

00:49:03.900 good job and then she was imprisoned and Charles of Durazzo went on to name himself the king I do

00:49:13.000 believe but Louis of Anjou Joanna's chosen heir decided to go to Avignon at the head of a powerful

00:49:22.140 army to try and rescue Joanna. But by the time he got there, it turns out she was already

00:49:28.420 dead. So what had happened was that Charles of Durazzo knew that Louis of Anjou was coming

00:49:33.880 and he knew like as long, and we've seen this before in other stories, like as long as

00:49:37.920 Joanna was alive, she was a threat to Charles to take back being queen again. So Charles

00:49:45.280 of Durazzo had ordered the execution slash assassination of Joanna. So she was murdered

00:49:51.180 on July 27th, 1382, aged about 55 or 56. Charles, of course, was like, she died of natural causes.

00:50:00.140 But other people were there too and knew what happened. And so she was probably

00:50:03.980 strangled or suffocated or something else. Very sad. So she died. And then to sort of like prove

00:50:13.580 to everybody like, oh, guess what? She's dead. So I, Charles of Dorazo, am the king. So don't

00:50:18.620 worry about it her body was brought to naples and was put on display to the public as proof

00:50:23.260 of her death but the thing was that she had suffered during the months of her captivity

00:50:27.800 she'd been brutally murdered and so evidently that greatly altered her appearance where

00:50:33.180 people were just like this is clearly a dead body of a woman but this isn't the like glamorous queen 1.00

00:50:38.300 who we all knew and loved so people went to see her body and they were like uh they didn't 0.62

00:50:43.160 recognize her like she didn't look like her so some people thought she's dead some other people

00:50:46.660 thought she wasn't so then of course it was like gossip conspiracy theories like is she still alive

00:50:51.220 and charles trying to cover that up because of the confusion her death would not be officially

00:50:56.580 recognized for nearly two years um in documents and then after the viewing there fell the problem

00:51:03.000 of what to do with her remains so urban the bad pope had excommunicated her so she couldn't be

00:51:08.660 buried in consecrated church property and charles of gerazzo who had just killed her didn't want to

00:51:16.240 like honor her so there was no great funeral statue erected for her to memorialize her many

00:51:22.500 achievements as there had been for her good grandfather robert the wise she was not buried

00:51:28.600 next to her sister or her mother or her father because they're all on consecrated ground so in

00:51:33.180 the end the compromise that they decided on at the initiative of some nuns who she had been

00:51:39.740 generous to throughout her reign so just outside the edge of the nave so i think just outside of

00:51:45.280 the church and the lowly space that leads occupies the entranceway to a back door that leads from

00:51:50.360 the main body of the church to the cloister behind so just this like little bit of dirt

00:51:55.260 was a deep well covered with a stone slab into which the bones of the dead were often discarded

00:52:00.740 into this well went the remains of Joanna to lie unmarked and forgotten through the centuries

00:52:06.660 so i honestly first came across her as a interesting historical person in the queens

00:52:15.680 of infamy essay by ann terrio which i am a thousand percent going to link to in the show

00:52:20.000 notes to this episode because it was one of my main sources i also read there's a really good

00:52:27.020 biography by nancy gladstone um it's called the lady queen the notorious reign of joanna the first

00:52:31.640 queen of naples jerusalem and sicily by nancy goldstone which i again will link to but i'm

00:52:36.280 saying all that because like i guess she's been like in history a notorious person i just had not

00:52:41.340 come across her i didn't know about that so as per nancy gladstone's book she says her story when it

00:52:47.320 is recounted at all focuses entirely on her notoriety as the queen who murdered her husband

00:52:51.380 and not on the many impressive accomplishments of her reign so during her long eventful reign

00:52:57.500 joanna held together a large and far-flung dominion which included provence and all of southern italy 0.53

00:53:02.200 and even expanded her rule, however, briefly into Sicily and Piedmont.

00:53:05.760 She was the last medieval ruler to do so.

00:53:07.760 After her death, Provence broke away from the kingdom

00:53:09.700 and was ruled by Louis of Angus' heirs,

00:53:11.940 who eventually incorporated the county into France,

00:53:14.320 while Naples came for a short time under the sway of Charles of Durazzo's son

00:53:17.160 and then his daughter, before falling in the next century to the crown of Aragon.

00:53:20.780 For more than 30 years, this queen fed the poor and cared for the sick,

00:53:24.340 built churches and hospitals, reduced crime and promoted peace,

00:53:27.160 protected trade, and introduced new industry within her borders.

00:53:29.980 she guided her subjects to recovery from the many instances of plague war famine and depression 0.52

00:53:35.020 endemic to the second half of the 14th century the odds against her securing her reign were 0.98

00:53:40.420 enormous that she would survive to rule for 30 years impossible and yet she did she's earned

00:53:45.080 the right to be remembered for what she was the last great sovereign in the angevin tradition

00:53:49.120 a worthy successor to charles of anjou and robert the wise to this day like asterisks when this book

00:53:54.800 was written but still to now there is still no monument or funeral statuary commemorating joanna

00:54:00.380 at the church of santa chiara where her bones were dumped in a well and the ban of excommunication

00:54:05.900 remains in force she's still excommunicated from the church because of bad pope that's the biography

00:54:12.320 so it's time to do the scoring for joanna of naples as per always i have the uh there's four

00:54:21.680 categories to which which we apply to all the all the women talked about on this podcast uh not

00:54:28.180 because any of them are better or worse than any of the other ones but it's just like on the scale 1.00

00:54:33.120 of four different things where it is each of them land and so the first category is scandalousness

00:54:40.000 so it's not just like did this person become involved and or instigate scandalous events but

00:54:47.160 how scandalous were these scandals? So with Joanna, I think we've got the whole death of

00:54:54.340 her husband and her shutting the door and how everybody was like, ooh, did she do it? And then

00:54:59.380 it's like, was she having an affair with Louis of Toronto? The whole parade down the street?

00:55:05.480 Okay, murder, as per other episodes of this podcast, tends to rate pretty high on

00:55:10.140 scandalousness. Did she kill him? I don't know. I mean, personally, I think so and good for her,

00:55:14.880 but she might not have but the fact that she is apparently widely remembered as like that lady 1.00

00:55:21.500 that killed her husband maybe that's worth at least a seven or an eight for scandaliciousness 0.99

00:55:28.120 like there wasn't a lot of little scandals like she was actually very religious through it all 1.00

00:55:31.840 of her life multiple marriages shitty marriages that's sort of i'm gonna give her 7.5 scandalous

00:55:40.380 righteousness the next category is scheminess so for some people that means like what were their 0.67

00:55:46.500 schemes like that they did against their like rivals and for some people like her where she's

00:55:50.640 a queen it's like well what were their schemes like vis-a-vis being the queen and like invading 0.72

00:55:55.060 other places and she did a lot of if we're going to classify everything as a scheme like her scheme

00:55:59.800 to like go to see the pope and explain herself and then she convinced him and he was like not

00:56:04.520 only did you not kill him but no one should ever suspect you of having killed him again

00:56:08.100 P.S. you didn't you got married without asking my permission but that's fine like her scheminess 1.00

00:56:12.360 like just in terms of planning she also did lots of cool stuff as I own in the podcast like for her

00:56:17.640 people scheminess I'm gonna say 9.5 9.5 scheminess for her significance is one that's always 0.50

00:56:27.360 sometimes it's straightforward and sometimes it is just like not at all so she was queen for 30

00:56:33.860 years which is a significant amount of time while she was there she did significant things um some

00:56:41.200 people greatly benefited from the stuff she did whilst being their queen in terms of like the 0.69

00:56:47.100 grand scheme of like world history i don't know how much the stuff that she did like if someone

00:56:52.460 else had been there instead of her naples could have been taken over by somebody else or subsumed

00:56:56.680 into the kingdom earlier like it eventually was but that doesn't mean the fact that she kept it

00:57:01.620 for happening doesn't make her significant this is like this is tricky but frankly i think and

00:57:08.540 this is my skill that i get to decide she's queen for 30 years she did a lot of stuff as queen

00:57:13.620 that is significant i'm going to give her an eight for significance and the fourth category 1.00

00:57:20.760 is the sexism bonus which is the how much did being a woman and dealing with a bunch of awful

00:57:27.620 men get in the way of her just like being amazing and a self-actualized person and for her this is

00:57:34.940 another one sort of like queen anne where it's kind of like when she became queen when she's

00:57:40.500 named air like people were against it already like she's a girl whatever like everybody was

00:57:44.960 so schemey already it's like people are scheming against her not just because she was a woman but

00:57:49.000 like for all different reasons like if we were scoring her sister maria that's like a 10 like

00:57:53.960 maria suffered a lot because of being a woman in the time and place that she was in joanna

00:58:00.420 did as well i don't know if she was if it was a king if this all had been like a king who had

00:58:06.340 like multiple wives it would just been it would have been different and so much of her life was

00:58:09.780 was dominated by like who was her husband and like is she gonna have an heir or whatever and 1.00

00:58:13.660 that's all related to the sexism bonus i'm gonna give her show not uh yeah so what if we give her 0.62

00:58:20.360 an eight for this sexism bonus i'm just gonna do a little quick math don't mind me can you do math

00:58:26.920 in your head good for you i can't um so 7.5 plus i messed this up for myself but with the 0.5s

00:58:34.360 usually i can just do this out of my fingers but um oh shit um 33 is her score if i just add it up

00:58:43.040 correctly which i assume i did 33 that's the highest score of all ever um i'm gonna post the

00:58:51.420 whole everybody's score somewhere so you can see it because i always find it interesting to look

00:58:54.940 at it as well but like not just is this the highest score of this season two 33 but this is

00:59:00.780 the highest score of ever seasons one or two or anything the closest person just below her like

00:59:07.140 second place right now. Agrippina, the younger, has a 31. Empress Matilda has a 30. Tied with

00:59:12.640 Juana of Castile with 30. Queen Anne, 29.5. Cleopatra, 28. I mean, a lot of this is I was

00:59:21.300 doing this season of women leaders. So a lot of them, they may have those points in significance

00:59:25.340 because they were, they just had more significance. They were queens. Isabel of Castile had a 27.

00:59:31.660 Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, 26. 0.78

00:59:33.720 Boudicca, 23. 1.00

00:59:35.680 And that's where this season's queens landed. 1.00

00:59:37.700 But even like last season, season one's winner, quote unquote, was Elizabeth Bathory, who got a 29.

00:59:43.540 And here's to one of Naples with a 33.

00:59:45.760 Well done.

00:59:46.700 Well deserved.

00:59:48.660 What a wild story.

00:59:49.920 Do you see now why?

00:59:51.120 Because the story I was going to tell you is just a pandemic, like 15 minutes special was going to be her going to see the Pope and there being plague in the city and her being like, I don't have the plague.

01:00:00.300 therefore i didn't kill my husband but there's so much you need to understand to even get to that

01:00:04.700 point that it just became quite obvious that this needed to be a full-length episode so that's

01:00:11.680 season two season two of vulgar history um the things i have to tell you as well are first of

01:00:18.780 all if you're looking for books to read about cool or interesting or whatever women from history

01:00:26.380 weird things that happened um i have a curated list on bookshop.org the link will be in the

01:00:31.340 show notes but it's at bookshop.org slash lists slash vulgar history recommends with dashes in

01:00:36.540 between vulgar history and recommends and that's where i'm listing the non-fiction books that i

01:00:40.920 have read that i find interesting but also the ones that i have been using to help plan these

01:00:45.760 podcast episodes um we have our little merch store which is at teespring.com slash store

01:00:51.400 slash vulgar history i have a new item in there every week that i'm doing the podcast so there's

01:00:56.800 a different different design you get a shirt or a bag or a mug or whatever and it's inspired by

01:01:01.880 the women who we talked about that week when you look there guess what there's going to be

01:01:05.760 joanna of naples merch so teespring.com slash stores slash vulgar history um if you want to

01:01:11.120 support me and my writing you can do that at patreon.com slash ann foster writer uh one of

01:01:18.180 the perks that you get there um at one of the donation levels is that i've been doing some

01:01:23.780 patreon only mini episodes about uh the gross men from these stories um and just sort of what i do

01:01:31.900 in them so those they're called so this asshole they're sort of a mini episode looking at some of 0.67

01:01:36.560 the men who just like fucked up the lives of these women who we love and i score them on the 0.98

01:01:41.140 scandalousness scheming its significance and sexism but it's like a sexism minus bonus so 0.96

01:01:46.020 all of their scores are like minus like their scheminess gets a minus points. And so we see

01:01:49.860 how they all do. So that's all on the Patreon. But of course, there's all these episodes here

01:01:54.420 on the not Patreon. Everybody can listen to no paywall or whatever. I'm going to continue doing

01:01:59.360 more pandemic super specials between the seasons because I've been reading a lot about disease

01:02:04.320 history and I need someone to talk to about it. You can follow me as well on Instagram at vulgar

01:02:10.720 history pod on twitter at vulgar history and if you feel like you want to email me for some reason 0.99

01:02:16.460 like sure lean into that that's cool do you have thoughts with some of these women do you have

01:02:20.660 suggestions of who you think would be another cool person for another podcast or for like another

01:02:25.300 theme i don't know what the theme is yet for season three i have some ideas but let me know

01:02:29.680 so it's at vulgar history pod at gmail.com oh also on the patreon um i'm going to be posting

01:02:34.420 a poll soon about ideas for new seasons and who i should talk about and patreons get to vote on

01:02:39.640 that stuff. So anyway, I hope you're all keeping well, washing your hands, et cetera. And I'll see

01:02:46.700 you next time. So when I was getting ready to, to re-release this episode, I did remember that

01:02:58.240 she had gotten a really high score. I remembered she had gotten a high score and I thought,

01:03:01.680 did I score her too high? And I was ready to reconsider her score, but no, no, I think,

01:03:06.760 I think it's a suitable score. This is like a real scandalous saga. I love, I love a super

01:03:13.220 sexy scandalous saga. And this, this truly had everything. Um, I'm happy with her having her

01:03:19.020 score of, of 33. I will just let you know some other recent episodes. Like right now, the highest

01:03:25.760 score on the Fredigan Memorial Scandalousness Scale is Fredigan herself with a 38. Uh, Queen 0.95

01:03:31.620 Margot has a 37.5. Manuela Sands, 37. Njinga has, Queen Njinga has a 36. Harem Sultan, 36. Mary

01:03:41.440 Queen of Scots, 36. Like that's the upper, upper, upper echelon, but there's several people now

01:03:46.060 above Joanna, but she's in really great company there at her 33. Her next door neighbor is

01:03:53.280 Christina of Sweden, who is 33.5. And then Anna Mae Wong, who is 32.5. So if you want to see the 0.96

01:04:01.100 whole scandalousness scale. Actually, you can see that it is all available to see on my website,

01:04:07.240 vulgarhistory.com. There's a button there that says like scores. And then you can kind of scroll

01:04:11.520 down to see what scores, who fits in where. And if there's a high scoring person you haven't heard,

01:04:17.180 those, you know, those are going to be bangers. You know, those are going to be good episodes.

01:04:20.140 If someone gets a score above 30, like the story is going to be stellar. It's going to be excellent.

01:04:25.020 and I also wanted to let everybody know that I am doing these special bonus episodes so it's

01:04:32.060 interesting we were just listening to this Joanna of Naples episode and in that I was talking about

01:04:36.080 the like pandemic specials that I had been doing in 2020 and those if you scroll all the way back

01:04:40.200 on your podcast app you can find the pandemic mini-sodes that I was doing and now I'm doing

01:04:45.740 Canadian history mini-sodes because it's my podcast and I want to do that and the current

01:04:52.580 international political state of affairs is that Canada is having a surge of reactionary

01:05:03.760 patriotism that is kind of heartening and kind of all-encompassing. And I'm doing my part for

01:05:12.180 the cause by learning about women from Canadian history who I didn't know about before and then

01:05:17.280 talking to you about it. So there's always a Vulgar History episode every Wednesday. And then

01:05:20.980 And for the foreseeable future, every Friday, there's going to be what I call the Canadian Heritage Minutes, which are episodes that might be 20 minutes long, that might be an hour and a half long, just talking about women from Canadian history.

01:05:33.040 If you're in Canada, there is a federal election coming up. And I do want to say, I appreciate this about Canada, and I believe the United Kingdom is the same. It's like an election is called, and about one month later, then you campaign for a month, and then one month later, the election happens.

01:05:48.420 and then the person, the people take their new jobs right away, you know, America with your like

01:05:55.600 years long primary system could be quicker. You could get this all over with a lot faster.

01:06:02.620 Anyway, if you're in Canada, it's funny. I was like, I'm sure I've done episodes before when

01:06:07.180 there's been Canadian federal elections going on, but it's never felt so fraught before.

01:06:12.300 If you're in Canada, basically what I am advocating for is I don't want the Conservatives to win government here. And the way that we do that is by voting strategically, which in most parts of Canada means voting for the Liberal Party.

01:06:26.980 if you're in a riding where they have no chance like me in Saskatoon then you vote for the NDP

01:06:33.480 and I'll put a link in the show notes there's a website about how to find if like how your riding

01:06:39.780 is looking and what's the best way to strategically vote so that the conservatives don't win

01:06:43.560 a majority government um Canadians elbows up let's do this thing and in the meantime well I always

01:06:53.220 like to let you know what's coming up next week on the podcast and what's coming up next week on

01:06:56.700 the podcast is it's going to be another and plus guest episode and it's a guest i'm so excited

01:07:01.960 about it's someone i've always wanted to talk to i'm really excited that this author has a new book

01:07:07.400 coming out and i'm really excited to talk to them about it i'm just it'll be an episode of just like

01:07:12.940 ann foster colon fangirl talking to this person i'm really excited to talk to that's coming up

01:07:18.600 next week and the week after that we're going to get back into the season seven of it all how do

01:07:25.820 you still have a problem like Marie Antoinette, we're going to be doing the French Revolution,

01:07:29.480 women of the French Revolution that's going to be kicking off in two weeks, the next sort of

01:07:33.600 mini series part of season seven as a series. So thank you for hanging in here. Thanks for

01:07:38.440 listening to this podcast. I hope I'm providing you distraction and enjoyment. I know that in

01:07:43.400 some other episodes I've described myself as your emotional support Canadian. I'm rescinding that

01:07:48.040 because you know the thing that people say in therapy and also on airplanes where you need to

01:07:53.120 put your oxygen mask on yourself before you can help other people myself and all of Canada we're

01:07:58.560 putting our oxygen masks on ourselves right now so this podcast can can support you obviously but

01:08:04.540 myself I'm unavailable currently as an emotional support Canadian Americans I'm sure you can

01:08:11.500 support one another and if you want to support this show look at that segue there's so much

01:08:19.200 stuff going on that is going to be going on. Stuff like me writing a book, the book being

01:08:23.780 available for pre-order soon, me having live in-person events and stuff. And you can keep

01:08:28.620 up to date in the least annoying way. The least amount of messages from me is if you join my

01:08:34.620 mailing list, which just means once a month, I'll send you an email with like, here's the

01:08:38.280 highlights. Here's what you need to know about what's happening in the Vulgar History world,

01:08:43.840 in the Rebel of the Regency world, in the Ann Foster world. And you can sign up for that

01:08:48.220 newsletter at vulgarhistory.com slash news. And then I also have a Substack newsletter where

01:08:55.020 every other week I post essays about women from history. That's vulgarhistory.substack.com. And

01:09:01.120 if you want to get like all of the updates from me, everything I'm thinking and doing,

01:09:05.960 I post that stuff on my Patreon, which is at patreon.com slash annfosterwriters. You can

01:09:10.040 join the Patreon for free just to get the updates. And what's going on, including the

01:09:15.500 free podcast spinoff that I do. They're talking about the book I'm writing, Rebel of the Regency.

01:09:21.060 And if you want to support me financially, wherever you are in the world, you can support

01:09:26.160 this little Canadian podcast. So if you pledge $1, and I think that's $1 brackets US a month,

01:09:33.260 you get early ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History. And for $5 or more a month,

01:09:40.140 you get access to the early ad-free episodes,

01:09:42.800 but also bonus episodes of Vulgar Peace Theater

01:09:46.340 where I talk about costume dramas

01:09:47.700 with Alison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson, 0.97

01:09:50.200 as well as episodes of So This Asshole 0.99

01:09:52.100 where I talk about shitty men from history. 0.98

01:09:53.740 There's a vast archive of both of those.

01:09:55.740 And I hope to be back recording new spinoff episodes

01:09:58.840 once I finish writing my book and I have time again.

01:10:02.460 And then also if you join the Patreon

01:10:03.780 at $5 a month or more US,

01:10:06.380 you can join our Discord,

01:10:08.180 which is just like a big group chat.

01:10:10.140 for all of us to, you know what, that's maybe that's where we're emotionally supporting one

01:10:13.980 another. I also want to mention, if you want to support a small woman owned business, and also

01:10:20.540 me in the process, you can support our brand partner Common Era Jewelry. So Common Era Jewelry

01:10:25.800 is owned by a woman named Tori. She's originally from Australia. And now she lives in New York

01:10:30.280 State. And she designs beautiful jewelry. So it's a small business. It's a woman owned business. 0.79

01:10:37.620 If you want, if you're really trying to be like thoughtful and mindful about what you're

01:10:41.600 buying, this is a company that you can look towards.

01:10:45.140 So the pieces are entirely like Tori does all the designing herself.

01:10:48.040 The pieces are made, they're like crafted in New York City.

01:10:51.940 So everyone involved is healthcare and good wages.

01:10:54.440 Even the packaging, which is really cute, is made by a little family owned business

01:10:58.000 in Chicago.

01:10:59.800 And so they have beautiful designs inspired by women from history and myth.

01:11:03.180 And I'm excited to let you know, they also have a new collection of Zodiac jewelry.

01:11:07.620 Like you've never seen. So Tori was like, I think there's been requests to have Zodiac jewelry. And

01:11:13.480 she's like, there's so many Zodiac jewelry. And she didn't want to do it unless she could do it

01:11:17.400 like in a common era, new, interesting way. And by new, I mean old. I mean like classical.

01:11:24.160 So she found this 17th century alchemical manuscript. And this collection is inspired

01:11:29.460 by that. So reimagining Zodiac jewelry through the lens of ancient alchemical wisdom. Each

01:11:34.980 pendant features an ancient sigil crafted under precise astrological conditions once believed to

01:11:40.700 hold protective and transformative powers and if you i know so many people are into horoscopes

01:11:46.300 and astrology and everything and even people who aren't like the whole thing about the pluto and

01:11:54.520 aquarius like the the position of the stars that is the same now as it was in like the same time

01:12:00.720 is the french revolution it's like you can't deny that there are similarities going on so more than

01:12:06.780 adornment these pieces are modern talismans symbol of connection intention and timeless

01:12:10.960 magic of the stars actually speaking of zodiac and horoscope things we're in aries season

01:12:15.900 which is my time i am i'm an aries it's i did i don't know i've done like an online thing but

01:12:23.340 my chart is like aries sun aries moon aries rising i like could not be more aries so this

01:12:28.640 is my time. I'm excited about it. If you vibe with your horoscope like that, you know, common

01:12:34.340 ear jewelry. Your pieces are available in solid gold as well as a more affordable gold for May.

01:12:39.020 The Zodiac stuff in gold for May. Note, there's a waitlist for those right now, but you can go

01:12:43.660 on the waitlist. They'll be ready later this year. And Vulgar History listeners can always

01:12:48.100 get 15% off all items from Common Era by going to commonera.com slash vulgar or using code vulgar

01:12:55.900 at checkout. And if you just, wherever you're listening to this, just like scroll down

01:12:59.440 to like the episode description, there's a little link there that'll take you to either of those

01:13:03.020 links. If you want to support this little Canadian podcast by getting merch, merch is available.

01:13:09.680 If you're in America, you can go to vulgarhistory.com slash store, which takes you to our

01:13:14.460 TeePublic slash now it's called the Dashery shop. So you can see all the designs there and choose

01:13:19.860 to get it on a t-shirt or a mug or a sticker or whatever. If you're outside the US, the shipping

01:13:24.760 is better if you go to Redbubble and our Redbubble store is vulgarhistory.redbubble.com.

01:13:29.900 Same stuff available in both places. If you want to get in touch with me, you can by using the

01:13:36.260 form at vulgarhistory.com. It says like contact me or something. And that will send an email to

01:13:40.600 me as well. You can also send me a DM on Instagram where I am at vulgarhistorypod and I'm on Blue

01:13:46.520 sky and I'm on threads and um yeah you know what on Friday look in your little podcast thing and

01:13:56.920 there'll be a new episode where I'm gonna get more political talk more about Canada stuff but also 1.00

01:14:03.980 the amazing tits out women of Canadian history and until next time elbows up pants on tits out 1.00

01:14:11.820 Talk to you next time. 0.99

01:14:15.380 Vulgar History is researched, written, and hosted by Anne Foster. 0.67

01:14:19.440 That's me.

01:14:20.400 The editor is Christina Lumagi.

01:14:22.720 Theme music is by The Severn Duo.

01:14:25.400 The Vulgar History Show image is by Deborah Wong.

01:14:28.360 Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek.

01:14:30.420 Find transcripts of recent episodes at vulgarhistory.com.

01:14:34.160 Legendary stories, awe-inspiring sound, and endless adventure.

01:14:45.720 Welcome to the Realms of Peril and Glory.

01:14:51.920 Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale,

01:14:56.620 the paranormal mysteries of liminal London,

01:15:00.680 and the cyberpunk chaos of Cyborg.

01:15:08.860 Fall in love with our core cast

01:15:11.640 or be awed by our incredible guests

01:15:14.640 from familiar shows like Oxventure,

01:15:17.960 Three Black Halflings,

01:15:19.640 and No Rolls Barred. 1.00

01:15:23.000 Ignite your imagination

01:15:24.300 and discover the realms of peril and glory today.

01:15:28.240 Go to RealmsPod.com

01:15:30.240 or search Realms of Peril and Glory wherever you listen to podcasts.

01:15:38.520 Goodbye, Kyle!

01:15:40.140 Did the sound of those words call to you like Pavlov's dog?

01:15:43.200 Then you might enjoy our podcast, Turtle Time.

01:15:45.860 Every week, you can join me, Riley Hamilton, and my co-host, Amy Scarlotta,

01:15:50.260 as we cover the most pressing Bravo news and dig into the new episodes

01:15:54.080 to answer important questions like,

01:15:56.060 who the hell is Adrian Maloof in this world?

01:15:58.780 Listen to Turtle Time on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:16:03.880 New episodes every Wednesday and Friday.

01:16:06.900 Now, before you go hunting for something else to listen to, let me make it easy.

01:16:10.940 I'm Mike Carruthers, host of a podcast called Something You Should Know, and I speak with experts about fascinating things that affect your life, from human behavior, relationships, health, science, and everyday mysteries.

01:16:25.180 We've been downloaded millions of times because every episode teaches you something you'll be talking about later.

01:16:31.960 Open up Something You Should Know and give it one episode.

01:16:35.620 You might just find your new favorite podcast.

Vulgar History - April 02, 2025

Women Leaders, part 9： The Murderous Medieval Queen (Rerelease)

Episode Stats

Transcript