Louis I, Duke of Anjou

Louis I
Louis I
	15th-century portrait of Louis
Duke of Anjou
Reign	1360–1384
Successor	Louis II
Born	23 July 1339; Château de Vincennes
Died	20 September 1384 (aged 45); Bisceglie
Spouse	Marie of Blois
Issue	Louis II of Naples ; Charles, Prince of Taranto
House	Valois-Anjou
Father	John II of France
Mother	Bonne of Bohemia

Last updated April 20, 2019

Louis I of Naples. Louis III of Naples.PNG — Louis I of Naples.

Louis I (23 July 1339 – 20 September 1384) was the second son of John II of France and Bonne of Bohemia.^[1] Born at the Château de Vincennes, Louis was the founder of the Angevin branch of the French royal house. His father appointed him Count of Anjou and Count of Maine in 1356, and then raised him to the title Duke of Anjou in 1360 and Duke of Touraine in 1370.

John II of France monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1350 until his death

John II, called John the Good, was King of France from 1350 until his death. He was the second monarch from the House of Valois.

The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal fortress in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis.

The House of Valois-Anjou was a noble French family, deriving from the royal family, the House of Valois. They were monarchs of Naples, as well as various other territories.

In 1382, as the adopted son of Joanna I of Naples, he succeeded to the counties of Provence and Forcalquier. He also inherited from her a claim to the kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem. He was already a veteran of the Hundred Years' War against the English when he led an army into Italy to claim his Neapolitan inheritance. He died on the march and his claims and titles fell to his son and namesake, Louis II, who succeeded in ruling Naples for a time.

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. Joanna was the eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Calabria and Marie of Valois to survive infancy. Her father was the son of Robert the Wise, King of Naples, but he died before his father in 1328. Three years later, King Robert appointed Joanna as his heir and ordered his vassals to swear fealty to her. To strengthen Joanna's position, he concluded an agreement with his nephew, King Charles I of Hungary, about the marriage of Charles's younger son, Andrew, and Joanna. Charles I also wanted to secure his uncle's inheritance to Andrew, but King Robert named Joanna as his sole heir on his deathbed in 1343. He also appointed a regency council to govern his realms until Joanna's 21st birthday, but the regents could not actually take control of state administration after the King's death.

The County of Forcalquier was a large medieval county in the region of Provence in the Kingdom of Arles, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was named after the fortress around which it grew, Forcalquier.

The Kingdom of Naples comprised that part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was created as a result of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302), when the island of Sicily revolted and was conquered by the Crown of Aragon, becoming a separate Kingdom of Sicily. Naples continued to be officially known as the Kingdom of Sicily, the name of the formerly unified kingdom. For much of its existence, the realm was contested between French and Spanish dynasties. In 1816, it was reunified with the island kingdom of Sicily once again to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Hundred Years' War

Louis was present at the Battle of Poitiers (1356), in the battalion commanded by his brother Charles, the Dauphin. They hardly fought and the whole group escaped in the middle of the confrontation. Although humiliating, their flight allowed them to avoid capture by the English, who won the battle decisively. King John II and Louis' younger brother Philip were not so fortunate and were captured by the English, commanded by Edward, the Black Prince. Their ransom and peace conditions between France and England were agreed in the Treaty of Brétigny, signed in 1360. Amongst the complicated items of the treaty was a clause that determined the surrender of 40 high-born hostages as guarantee for the payment of the king's ransom. Louis, already Duke of Anjou, was in this group and sailed to England in October 1360. However, France was not in good economic condition and further installments of the debt were delayed. As consequence, Louis was in English custody for much more than the expected six months. He tried to negotiate his freedom in a private negotiation with Edward III of England and, when this failed, decided to escape. On his return to France, he met his father's disapproval for his unknightly behavior. John II considered himself dishonored and this, combined with the fact that his ransom payments agreed to in the Treaty of Brétigny were in arrears, caused John to return to captivity in England to redeem his honor.

Charles V, called "the Wise", was King of France from 1364 to his death, the third from the House of Valois. His reign marked a high point for France during the Hundred Years' War, with his armies recovering much of the territory held by the English, and successfully reversed the military losses of his predecessors.

The Kingdom of France in the Middle Ages was marked by the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and West Francia (843–987); the expansion of royal control by the House of Capet (987–1328), including their struggles with the virtually independent principalities that had developed following the Viking invasions and through the piecemeal dismantling of the Carolingian Empire and the creation and extension of administrative/state control in the 13th century; and the rise of the House of Valois (1328–1589), including the protracted dynastic crisis of the Hundred Years' War with the Kingdom of England (1337–1453) compounded by the catastrophic Black Death epidemic (1348), which laid the seeds for a more centralized and expanded state in the early modern period and the creation of a sense of French identity.

England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the economy was in tatters and many of the towns abandoned. After several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities and cultures began to emerge, developing into kingdoms that competed for power. A rich artistic culture flourished under the Anglo-Saxons, producing epic poems such as Beowulf and sophisticated metalwork. The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th century and a network of monasteries and convents was built across England. In the 8th and 9th centuries England faced fierce Viking attacks, and the fighting lasted for many decades, eventually establishing Wessex as the most powerful kingdom and promoting the growth of an English identity. Despite repeated crises of succession and a Danish seizure of power at the start of the 11th century it can also be argued that by the 1060s England was a powerful, centralised state with a strong military and successful economy.

From 1380 to 1382 Louis served as regent for his nephew, King Charles VI of France.

A regent is a person appointed to govern a state because the monarch is a minor, is absent or is incapacitated. The rule of a regent or regents is called a regency. A regent or regency council may be formed ad hoc or in accordance with a constitutional rule. "Regent" is sometimes a formal title. If the regent is holding his position due to his position in the line of succession, the compound term prince regent is often used; if the regent of a minor is his mother, she is often referred to as "queen regent".

Charles VI, called the Beloved and the Mad, was King of France for 42 years from 1380 to his death in 1422, the fourth from the House of Valois.

King of Naples

In 1382 Louis left France in the latter year to claim the throne of Naples following the death of Queen Joanna I. She had adopted him to succeed her, as she was childless and did not wish to leave her inheritance to any of her close relatives, whom she considered enemies. He was also able to succeed her as count of Provence and Forcalquier. Despite his coronation at Avignon as King of Naples by Antipope Clement VII, Louis was forced to remain in France and Joan's troops were defeated by Charles of Durazzo, her second cousin and previous heir. Joanna was killed in her prison in San Fele in 1382; Louis, with support of the Antipope, France, Bernabò Visconti of Milan and Amadeus VI of Savoy, and using the money he had been able to obtain during the regency, launched an expedition to regain the Kingdom of Naples from Charles.

Avignon is a commune in south-eastern France in the department of Vaucluse on the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 90,194 inhabitants of the city, about 12,000 live in the ancient town centre enclosed by its medieval ramparts.

Robert of Geneva was elected to the papacy as Clement VII by the French cardinals who opposed Urban VI, and was the first antipope residing in Avignon, France. His election led to the Western Schism.

Charles the Short or Charles of Durazzo was King of Naples and 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.

The expedition, counting to some 40,000 troops,^[2] was however unsuccessful. Charles, who counted on the mercenary companies under John Hawkwood for a total of some 14,000 men, was able to divert the French from Naples to other regions of the kingdom and to harass them with guerrilla tactics. Amadeus fell ill and died in Molise on 1 March 1383 and his troops abandoned the field. Louis asked for help from his king nephew in France, who sent him an army under Enguerrand of Coucy. The latter was able to conquer Arezzo and then invade the Kingdom of Naples, but midway was reached by the news that Louis had suddenly died at Bisceglie on 20 September 1384. He soon sold Arezzo to Florence and returned to France.

Sir John Hawkwood was an English soldier and condottiero. As his name was claimed to be hard to pronounce by non-English contemporaries, there are many variations of it in the historical record. As a result, he often referred to himself as "Haukevvod", and others called him "Giovanni Acuto" meaning "John the Astute" or "John Sharp" referring to his "cleverness or cunning". His legacy has made him a man shrouded in myth in both England and Italy.

Molise is a region of Southern Italy. Until 1963, it formed part of the region of Abruzzi e Molise, alongside the region of Abruzzo. The split, which did not become effective until 1970, makes Molise the youngest region in Italy. The region covers 4,438 square kilometres (1,714 sq mi) and has a population of 313,348

Enguerrand VII de Coucy,, also known as Ingelram de Coucy, was a medieval French nobleman, and the last Lord of Coucy. He became son-in-law of King Edward III of England following his marriage to the king's daughter, Isabella of England, and the couple was subsequently granted by the king several English estates, among them the title Earl of Bedford. Coucy fought in the Battle of Nicopolis (1396) as part of a failed crusade against the Ottoman Empire, and was taken prisoner. Having contracted the bubonic plague, he died in captivity at Bursa, Ottoman Empire.

Marriage and children

On 9 July 1360, he married Marie of Blois,^[3] Lady of Guise, daughter of Charles, Duke of Brittany and Joanna of Dreux. They had the following children:

Marie (1370 – after 1383)
Louis II of Anjou (1377 – 1417)^[3]
Charles (1380 – 1404, Angers), Prince of Taranto, Count of Roucy, Étampes, and Gien

Apocalypse Tapestry

In the late 1370s, Louis commissioned the creation of the Apocalypse Tapestry, a set of tapestries depicting the story of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation.

Related Research Articles

Philip the Bold was Duke of Burgundy and jure uxoris Count of Flanders, Artois and Burgundy. The fourth and youngest son of King John II of France and his wife, Bonne of Luxembourg, Philip was the founder of the Burgundian branch of the House of Valois. His vast collection of territories made him the undisputed premier peer of the kingdom of France and made his successors formidable subjects, and sometimes rivals, of the kings of France.

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 Maria of Hungary, and during his father's lifetime he was styled Duke of Calabria (1296–1309).

The Treaty of Brétigny was a treaty, drafted on 8 May 1360 and ratified on 24 October 1360, between King Edward III of England and King John II of France. In retrospect it is seen as having marked the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453)—as well as the height of English power on the Continent.

John of Berry or John the Magnificent was Duke of Berry and Auvergne and Count of Poitiers and Montpensier. He was the third son of King John II of France and Bonne of Luxemburg; his brothers were King Charles V of France, Duke Louis I of Anjou and Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy. He is primarily remembered as a collector of the important illuminated manuscripts and other works of art commissioned by him, such as the Très Riches Heures.

Louis II was King of Naples from 1389 until 1399, and Duke of Anjou from 1384 until 1417. He was a member of the House of Valois-Anjou.

Yolande of Aragon was a throne claimant and titular queen regnant of Aragon, titular queen consort of Naples, Duchess of Anjou, Countess of Provence, and regent of Provence during the minority of her son. She was a daughter of John I of Aragon and his wife Yolande of Bar . Yolande played a crucial role in the struggles between France and England, influencing events such as the financing of Joan of Arc's army in 1429 that helped tip the balance in favour of the French. She was also known as Yolanda de Aragón and Violant d'Aragó. Tradition holds that she commissioned the famous Rohan Hours.

Charles du Maine (1414–1472) was a French prince of blood and an advisor to Charles VII of France, his brother-in-law, during the Hundred Years' War. He was the third son of Louis II, Duke of Anjou and King of Naples, and Yolande of Aragon.

Guy II of Châtillon, Count of Blois, the youngest son of Louis I of Châtillon and Joan of Avesnes, was Count of Blois and Soissons, and lord of Avesnes, Schoonhoven, and Gouda 1381–1397, and lord of Beaumont and Chimay.

Otto, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen was the fourth and last husband of Joanna I of Naples. He also held the title of Prince of Taranto. His nickname was Otto the Tarantine.

The Capetian House of Anjou was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct French House of Capet, part of the Capetian dynasty. It is one of three separate royal houses referred to as Angevin, meaning "from Anjou" in France. Founded by Charles I of Naples, the youngest son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century. Later the War of the Sicilian Vespers forced him out of the island of Sicily, leaving him with the southern half of the Italian Peninsula — the Kingdom of Naples. The house and its various branches would go on to influence much of the history of Southern and Central Europe during the Middle Ages, until becoming defunct in 1435.

Maria of Calabria 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.

Louis of Anjou may refer to:

Joan of Armagnac was a French noblewoman of the Armagnac family, being the eldest daughter of Count John I of Armagnac and his wife Beatrice of Clermont. She became Duchess of Berry by her marriage to John, Duke of Berry in 1360.

Peter was the fourth of five sons of Count Amadeus III of Geneva and succeeded his brother John I as Count of Geneva in 1370. When he died without a son to succeed him in 1392, the county passed to the fifth of the brothers, then Antipope Clement VII.

Marie of Blois (1345-1404) was a daughter of Joanna, Duchess of Brittany and Charles, Duke of Brittany. Through marriage to Louis I, Duke of Anjou, she became Duchess of Anjou, Countess of Maine, Duchess of Touraine, titular Queen of Naples and Jerusalem and Countess of Provence.

References

↑ Keane 2016, p. 17.
↑ "Papa Urbano VI e il Regno di Napoli". Cronologia (in Italian). Retrieved November 7, 2011.
1 2 Rohr 2016, p. 30.

Sources

Keane, Marguerite (2016). Material Culture and Queenship in 14th-century France: The Testament of Blanche of Navarre (1331-1398). Brill.
Rohr, Zita Eva (2016). Yolande of Aragon (1381-1442) Family and Power: The Reverse of the Tapestry. Palgrave Macmillan.

Regnal titles
Louis I, Duke of Anjou House of Valois-Anjou Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty
Vacant Title last held by Charles II	Count of Maine 1356 – 1384	Succeeded by Louis II
New title	Duke of Anjou 1360 – 1384
Preceded by Joanna I	Count of Provence and Forcalquier 1382 – 1384
Preceded by Joanna I	— TITULAR — King of Naples 1382 – 1384
Preceded by Louis I	Count of Étampes 1381 – 1384	Vacant Title next held by John I

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[FOOTNOTEKeane201617-1] Keane 2016, p. 17.

[2] "Papa Urbano VI e il Regno di Napoli". Cronologia (in Italian). Retrieved November 7, 2011.

[FOOTNOTERohr201630-3] 1 2 Rohr 2016, p. 30.

v t e Dukes of Anjou
Hereditary Dukes	Louis I Louis II Louis III René I Charles IV
Appanage of Anjou	Louise Henri François Gaston Philippe Philippe Charles Louis François Philippe Louis Philippe Louis
Courtesy title	Jaime Alfonso Carlos Jaime Alfonso
Current claimants	Charles Philippe Louis