It was at the Battle of Benevento that the Guelph Capetians gained the Sicilian kingdom from the Ghibelline Swabians, this was cemented after victory at Tagliacozzo. In keeping with the political landscape of the period, Charles is described by scholars as shrewd, energetic and highly ambitious. He signed the Treaty of Viterbo in 1267 with Baldwin II of Courtenay and William II of Villehardouin,[1] the political alliance gave many of the rights of the Latin Empire to Charles and a marriage alliance for his daughter Beatrice of Sicily.[2] The Byzantines had taken back the city of Constantinople in 1261 and this was a plan to take it back from Michael VIII Palaiologos.[2] It also recognised Charles' possession of Corfu and cities in the Balkans such as Durazzo, as well as giving him suzerainty over the Principality of Achaea and sovereignty of the Aegean islands aside from those already held by the Republic of Venice.[3][4] For a while Charles was preoccupied helping his French brother in the unsuccessful Eighth Crusade on Tunis. After this he once again focused on Constantinople, but his fleet was wrecked in a freak storm off the coast of Trapani.[5] With the elevation of Pope Gregory X, there was a truce between Charles and Michael in the form of the Council of Lyons, as Christians focused on improving ecumenical relations, with hopes of regaining the Kingdom of Jerusalem back from the Muslims.[5]
Charles had fully solidified his rule over Durazzo by 1272, creating a small Kingdom of Albania for himself, out of previously Despotate of Epirus territory; he was well received by local chiefs.[6]
A map of the lands ruled by Louis
Charles was driven out of Sicily in 1282, but his successors ruled Naples until 1435.[citation needed]
Charles II and division of the inheritance
This House of Anjou included the branches of Anjou-Hungary, which ruled Hungary (1308–1385, 1386–1395) and Poland (1370–1399), Anjou-Taranto, which ruled the remnants of the Latin Empire (1313–1374) and Anjou-Durazzo, which ruled Naples (1382–1435) and Hungary (1385–1386).
The senior line of the House of Anjou-Durazzo became extinct in the male line with the death of King Ladislaus of Naples in 1414, and totally extinct with the death of his sister Joanna II in 1435.
The childless Ladislaus IV of Hungary (1262–1290), was succeeded by Andrew III as King of Hungary. He was the son of Stephen the Posthumous, considered by Stephen's much older half-brothers (Béla IV of Hungary, Coloman of Halych, Andrew II of Halych) a bastard son of infidelity. For this reason, after the death of Ladislaus IV. some of the Árpád dynasty's cognates sought the family as extinct. In Naples, Charles Martel of Anjou, the eldest son of Mary of Hungary announced his claim to the Hungarian crown, backed by his mother, and the Pope. He started to style himself King of Hungary, but he never managed to gain enough support from the Hungarian magnates to realize his claim.
With Andrew III's childless death (1301), the "last golden branch" of the tree of King Saint Stephen's family ended. The Hungarian diet was determined to keep the blood of Saint Stephen (first king of Hungary) on the throne in the maternal line at least. In the upcoming years, a civil war followed between various claimants to the throne. After the short period of rule of Wenceslaus of Bohemia (1301–1305), and Otto of Bavaria (1305–1307) the civil war ended with Charles Robert's (1308–1342) victory, the son of Charles Martel of Anjou, but he was forced to continue fighting against the powerful Hungarian lords up to the early 1320s.
In 1333, the six years old second son of Charles Robert, Andrew (1327–1345) was taken to the court of Naples by his father for dynastic purposes, who put him under guardianship of Robert the Wise. Andrew was betrothed in 1334 to his cousin Joanna, granddaughter and heiress apparent of King Robert of Naples; Andrew's father was a fraternal nephew of King Robert. At the age of 15 he married Joanna I of Naples. After the death of Robert (1343), the King of Naples, Andrew became a victim of power clashes in the court of Naples.
Robert's claim to the throne was rather tenuous and did not follow primogeniture. Andrew's grandfather, Charles Martel of Anjou, had died young; therefore, the throne should have passed to Andrew's father. However, due to fears of impending invasion from Sicily, it was felt that a seven-year-old heir was too risky and would not be able to hold off invasions. The throne was offered to the next son of Charles II of Naples, Louis, but he refused on religious grounds, and it thus passed to Robert. To recompensate Andrew's father, Charles II decided to assign him the claim to Hungary.
When King Robert died in 1343, in his last will and testament, he formally bequeathed his kingdom to his granddaughter Joanna, making no mention of Andrew and thus denying him the right to reign along with Joanna. With the approval of Pope Clement VI, Joanna was crowned sole monarch of Naples in August 1344. Fearing for his life, Andrew wrote to his mother Elizabeth that he would soon flee the kingdom. She intervened, and made a state visit, before she returned to Hungary allegedly bribing Pope Clement to reverse himself and permit the coronation of Andrew.
Hearing of the Pope's reversal, a group of noble conspirators (the involvement of Queen Joanna is unproved) determined to forestall Andrew's coronation. During a hunting trip at Aversa, Andrew left his room in the middle of the night and was set upon by the conspirators. A treacherous servant barred the door behind him, and, as Joanna cowered in their bed, a terrible struggle ensued, Andrew defending himself furiously and shrieking for aid. He was finally overpowered, strangled with a cord, and flung from a window. Isolde, Andrew's Hungarian nurse took the Prince's corpse to the church of the monks, and remained with it until next morning mourning it. When the Hungarian knights arrived she told them everything in their mother tongue so no one else would learn about the truth, and soon they left Naples reporting everything to the Hungarian King.[7]
The deed would taint the rest of Joanna's reign, although she was twice acquitted of any charge in the trials that followed. Andrew's elder brother Louis I of Hungaryseveral times invaded the Kingdom of Naples and drove out Joanna, only to meet with reverses.
In November 1347, Louis set out for Naples with some 1,000 soldiers (Hungarians and Germans), mostly mercenaries. When he reached the border of Joanna's kingdom, he had 2,000 Hungarian knights, 2,000 mercenary heavy cavalry, 2,000 Cuman horse archers and 6000 mercenary heavy infantry. Joanna in the meantime had married her cousin Louis of Taranto and had signed a peace with Naples' traditional enemy, the Kingdom of Sicily. The army of Naples, 2,700 knights and 5,000 infantrymen, was led by Louis of Taranto. On 11 January 1348, in the Battle of Capua, the king of Hungary defeated the army of Louis of Taranto. Four days later the queen repaired to Provence, while her husband followed soon afterwards. All the kingdom's barons swore loyalty to the new ruler as he marched to Naples from Benevento. While visiting Aversa, where his brother had been murdered, Louis had Charles of Durazzo assassinated in revenge by his condottiero. The Neapolitans, who had quickly grown unhappy with the severe Hungarian rule, called back Joan, who paid for her return expedition by selling her rights on Avignon to the popes. She landed near Naples and easily captured it, but the Hungarian commander Ulrich von Wolfart commanded a strong resistance in Apulia. Joanna and Louis would await a new trial on Andrew's assassination, to be held in Avignon. The verdict was Joanna's acquittal from any charge in January 1352, and a peace was signed with Hungary on 23 March 1352. Ultimately, 37 years later, Louis' kinsman Charles III of Naples conquered Naples with Hungarian aid and put Joanna to death.
Stephen of Anjou (1332–1354), Duke of Slavonia, the third surviving son of Charles Robert, died before his older brother. For this reason, he (and his son) had no chance to take over the rule neither in Hungary, nor in Poland. In 1350, he married Margaret of Bavaria. His marriage with a German princess made him unpopular in Poland. The Polish noblemen acknowledged Louis as Casimir III's sole heir in July 1351 only after he had promised that he would not allow Stephen to participate in the government of Poland. Margaret gave birth to a daughter Elizabeth (in 1370 she married Philip of Taranto), and a son John, who inherited Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia from his father, but he was still a child when he died in 1360.
On the death of Louis I of Hungary, Charles III of Naples, son of Louis of Durazzo (1324–1362), the great-grandson of Charles II of Naples and Mary of Hungary, claimed the Hungarian throne as the senior Angevin male, and ousted Louis' daughter Mary of Hungary in December 1385. It was not difficult for him to reach the power, as he counted with the support of several Croatian lords, and many contacts which he made during his period as Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia. However, Elizabeth of Bosnia, widow of Louis and mother of Mary, arranged to have Charles assassinated on 7 February 1386. He died of wounds at Visegrád on 24 February. His son, Ladislaus of Naples would try to obtain the crown of Hungary in the future, but never reached his goal.
Poland
In 1355, the last Piast king of Poland, Casimir III, designated his sororal nephew, the Angevin king Louis I of Hungary, as his heir presumptive by the Privilege of Buda. Upon the death of Casimir (5 November 1370), who left no legitimate sons, Louis ascended the Polish throne virtually unopposed. The Polish nobility welcomed his accession, rightly believing that Louis would be an absentee king who would not take much interest in Polish affairs. He sent his mother Elizabeth, sister of Casimir III, to govern Poland as regent.[8][pageneeded] Louis probably considered himself first and foremost king of Hungary; he visited his northern kingdom three times and spent there a couple of months altogether. Negotiations with the Polish nobility frequently took place in Hungary. Hungarians themselves were unpopular in Poland, as was the king's Polish mother who governed the kingdom. In 1376, circa 160 Hungarians in her retinue were massacred in Kraków and the queen returned to Hungary disgraced.[9] Louis replaced her with their relative, Vladislaus II of Opole.[9]
The Hungarian-Polish union fell apart after Louis died in 1382. The dissatisfied Polish nobles demanded that his successor in Hungary, Mary, move to Kraków and reign over Hungary and Poland from there. Mary's mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia (widow of Louis and grandniece of Casimir III's father, Vladislaus I), knew that the lack of supporters would render her influence at least as restricted as that of her mother-in-law and refused to move.[9] She abandoned the idea of attempting to subdue the Polish nobility by force and agreed to send her younger surviving daughter, Hedwig, to be crowned as Louis' successor in Poland.
Hedvig (known as Jadwiga in Poland) was crowned "king" in Poland's capital, Kraków, on 16 October 1384. Her coronation either reflected the Polish nobility's opposition to her intended husband, William, becoming king without further negotiation, or simply emphasized her status as queen regnant. With her mother's consent, Jadwiga's advisors opened negotiations with Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, who was still a pagan, concerning his potential marriage to Jadwiga. Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo, pledging to convert to Roman Catholicism and to promote his pagan subjects' conversion. Jogaila, who took the baptismal name Władysław, married Jadwiga on 15 February 1386. Jogaila, now in Polish styled Władysław Jagiełło, was crowned King of Poland on 4 March 1386. As Jadwiga's co-ruler, Jagiełło worked closely with his wife. Hedvig (or Jadwiga) was childless for over a decade. She became pregnant in late 1398 or early 1399. A newborn princess named Elizabeth Bonifacia was delivered on 22 June 1399 at Wawel Castle. However, the infant died after only three weeks, on 13 July 1399.[153] Jadwiga, too, was on her deathbed. She died on 17 July 1399, four days after her newborn daughter. Thus, the Polish throne went over to the Jagiellonian dynasty of Lithuanian origin. The union of Poland and Lithuania was a decisive moment in the histories of both countries; it marked a beginning of the four centuries of shared history. By 1569, the Polish–Lithuanian union grew into a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and lasted until the Third Partition in 1795.
Naples
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Taranto
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Albania
The Kingdom of Albania, or Regnum Albaniae, was established by Charles of Anjou in the Albanian territory he acquired from the Despotate of Epirus in the year 1271. He took the title of "King of Albania" in February 1272. The kingdom briefly extended from the region of Dyrrhachium (present-day Durrës in Albania) south along the coast to Butrint. A major attempt to advance further in direction of Constantinople, failed at the Siege of Berat (1280–1281). A Byzantine counteroffensive soon ensued, which drove the Angevins out of the interior by 1282. The Sicilian Vespers further weakened the position of Charles, and the kingdom was soon reduced by the albanians to a small area centered around Durrës. The Angevins held Durrës until 1368, when Karl Thopia who was the great great grandson of Charles I of Naples captured the city.
Awarded to Charles I by his brother. Remained under direct control of the Capetian House of Anjou until passing to another Capetian branch the House of Valois by marriage.
Awarded to Charles I by his brother. Remained under direct control of the Capetian House of Anjou until passing to another Capetian branch the House of Valois-Anjou by creation of John II of France.
Year 1382 (MCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Robert of Anjou, known as Robert the Wise, was King of Naples, titular King of Jerusalem and Count of Provence and Forcalquier from 1309 to 1343, the central figure of Italian politics of his time. He was the third son of King Charles II of Naples and Mary of Hungary, and during his father's lifetime he was styled Duke of Calabria (1296–1309).
Joanna I, also known as Johanna I, was Queen of Naples, and Countess of Provence and Forcalquier from 1343 to 1382; she was also Princess of Achaea from 1373 to 1381.
Charles of Durazzo, also called Charles the Small, was King of Naples and the titular King of Jerusalem from 1382 to 1386 as Charles III, and King of Hungary from 1385 to 1386 as Charles II. In 1381, Charles created the chivalric Order of the Ship. In 1383, he succeeded to the Principality of Achaea on the death of James of Baux.
Ladislaus the Magnanimous was King of Naples from 1386 until his death and an unsuccessful claimant to the kingdoms of Hungary and Croatia. Ladislaus was a skilled political and military leader, protector and controller of Pope Innocent VII; however, he earned a bad reputation concerning his personal life. He profited from disorder throughout Italy to greatly expand his kingdom and his power, appropriating much of the Papal States to his own use. He was the last male of the Capetian House of Anjou.
Louis II was Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence from 1384 to 1417; he claimed the Kingdom of Naples, but only ruled parts of the kingdom from 1390 to 1399. His father, Louis I of Anjou—the founder of the House of Valois-Anjou—was a younger son of King John II of France and the adopted son of Queen Joanna I of Naples. When his father died during a military campaign in Naples in 1384, Louis II was still a child. He inherited Anjou from his father, but his mother, Marie of Blois, could not convince his uncles, John, Duke of Berry and Philip II, Duke of Burgundy, to continue her husband's war for Naples. The Provençal nobles and towns refused to acknowledge Louis II as their lawful ruler, but Marie of Blois persuaded them one after another to swear fealty to him between 1385 and 1387.
Joanna II was reigning Queen of Naples from 1414 to her death, when the Capetian House of Anjou became extinct. As a mere formality, she used the title of Queen of Jerusalem, Sicily, and Hungary.
William, known as William the Courteous, a member of the House of Habsburg and Wilhelm, was Duke of Austria from 1386. As head of the Leopoldian line, he ruled over the Inner Austrian duchies of Carinthia, Styria and Carniola as well as the County of Tyrol and Further Austria from 1396 until his death.
Louis I, also known as Louis of Taranto, was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou who reigned as King of Naples, Count of Provence and Forcalquier, and Prince of Taranto.
The Principality of Taranto was a state in southern Italy created in 1088 for Bohemond I, eldest son of Robert Guiscard, as part of the peace between him and his younger brother Roger Borsa after a dispute over the succession to the Duchy of Apulia.
Raimondo Orsini del Balzo was a nobleman from the Kingdom of Naples. He was Count of Soleto (1382), Prince of Taranto (1399–1406), Duke of Bari, Grand Constable of the Kingdom of Naples, Gonfalonier of the Holy Roman Church. He was a member of the influential Orsini family of Rome. Although he is considered one of the most important people in the history of southern Italy, relatively little is known about his life.
Andrew, Duke of Calabria was the first husband of Joanna I of Naples, and a son of Charles I of Hungary and brother of Louis I of Hungary.
Duke of Calabria was the traditional title of the heir apparent of the Kingdom of Naples after the accession of Robert of Naples. It was also adopted by the heads of certain Houses that had once claimed the Kingdom of Naples in lieu of the royal title.
Margaret of Durazzo was Queen of Naples and Hungary and Princess of Achaea as the spouse of Charles III of Naples. She was regent of Naples from 1386 until 1393 during the minority of her son Ladislaus of Naples.
Maria of Calabria, Countess of Alba, was a Neapolitan princess of the Capetian House of Anjou whose descendants inherited the crown of Naples following the death of her older sister, Queen Joanna I.
Stephen was a Hungarian royal prince of the Capetian House of Anjou. He was the youngest son of Charles I of Hungary and Elizabeth of Poland to survive childhood. He was styled as duke of Slavonia from 1339 to 1346, but he had no role in the government of the province. Stephen's separate household was set up in 1349. In this year, he received the counties of Szepes and Sáros from his brother, Louis I of Hungary. Louis made him duke of Transylvania in late 1349, but soon appointed him to administer Slavonia.
Charles Martel, Duke of Calabria is a name and title shared by two short-lived heirs to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples.
References
↑ Abulafia, 148. "He reached an agreement with the dispossessed Latin Emperor Baldwin, his son and heir Philip of Courtenay and William of Villehardouin ... The resultant treaties ... signed in the papal palace at Viterbo in May 1267, would have made Charles of Anjou the effective controller of a restored Latin emperor ..."
1 2 Hazzard, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 35.
↑ Abulafia, 533. "The principality of Morea and its dependencies should be transferred to [Charles of Anjou] ... granted to Charles suzerainty over the islands of the Aegean, Corfu and all Latin possession in Epiros."
↑ Abulafia, 793. "[Charles of Anjou] took charge of Durazzo ..."
1 2 Hazzard, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 37.
↑ Van Antwerp Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans, 184.
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