telynor's Full Review: Nancy Goldstone - The Lady Queen: The Notorious Re...
Inevitably, books on European history land in my shopping basket whenever I wander into a bookstore. I can't help it, it's one of the more interesting places for me, and I never do quite get bored reading about the lives of the famous and not-quite-so famous of the past.
This time, my choice of book was The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily, by Nancy Goldstone. I had read Ms. Goldstone's earlier book about the daughters of a count of Provence, who all married various princes and kings in thirteenth century Europe and enjoyed it very much. Now she has turned her attention to a descendant of the fourth sister, and her tumultuous reign in Italy during the fourteenth century.
Naples, during the medieval period, was an important crossroads for both armies and trade, and had always been a hotly contested prize for anyone strong enough to take it -- and hold onto it. One branch of Henry II of England's family, the Angevins, had taken over the city and carved out a kingdom in the early eleventh century, and the most recent monarch, Robert the Wise, had managed to rule wisely and well, with a network of alliances with various monarchs and the Pope. But by the time he died, he only had two granddaughters to inherit the crown of Naples and Jerusalem.
The elder, Joanna, was quickly married off to the son of a rival claimant to the throne, while her younger sister married the Duke of Durazzo. Her choice of a husband, the younger son of the king of Hungary, wasn't exactly the best of choices -- Andrew was immature, given to extravagance, and mercilessly egged on by his parents to insist on having equal rights with Joanna in ruling Naples. It wasn't something that Joanna wanted either -- she had no intentions of sharing her power with anyone. And eventually, Andrew would be murdered in a spectacular fashion by some Neapolitan aristocrats. The fallout from this would be serious for Joanna, barely twenty years of age, and facing immense odds from forces inside and outside of her kingdom.
And in the years of her reign, they would be many. Her first set of in-laws, the Hungarians, would ruthlessly persecute her, insisting that it was she who arranged for Andrew's murder, if not actually participating in it. There was her sister and her family, who constantly stirred up trouble and looked to replace Joanna as Queen. And then there was the constant turnover of Popes in Avignon, where the French had relocated the papacy, and who always had some sticky fingers in Naples' politics.
There were also troubles that no one could have predicted, most devastating being the Black Death that came through Naples on a regular basis. This depopulation not only wrecked a vibrant economy, it also left the country open to invasion. Warfare was something that Joanna would know on a regular basis, and more often than not she chose her next three husbands as much for their military prowess as for their ability to get her with an heir. But the ghost of her first husband and his death would always haunt Joanna, and she would come down in history as a woman who was deceitful, lustful, depraved and murderous -- a myth that the author, Ms. Goldstone, carefully picks apart in her history.
I found this to a very interesting read. I had never heard of Joanna of Naples before, and so this was new territory for me to discover. Along the way, I found out about papal politics, the use of mercenary companies, especially the 'White Company' and Sir John Hawkwood, why Hungary was such a big power player in the fourteenth century -- think gold, lots of it -- and a very unique woman who would fight for the rights not just of herself, but also to keep her country in prosperity and peace. The fact that she managed to do it for nearly thirty years is quite remarkable, and she was the first woman to rule in her own right in Europe, another accomplishment that most historians tend to forget.
Ms. Goldstone's writing style is very entertaining and lucid, and while the story did drag a bit for me, especially when it came to papal politics, I did manage to learn quite a bit about Italian history. The story itself is packed tidily in about three hundred pages, along with maps of Europe and Italy, genealogical tables that help to unscramble the various characters, and extensive notes. Along with this, there is an insert of colour plates, and one that I was very struck by was the painting of Naples in the fourteenth century and I was able to see that the modern city has changed very little from the past, which only increased my enjoyment of the story.
Nancy Goldstone did a wonderful job with this biography. It brought an unknown queen to very vivid life and breathed new vitality into place and time that I had known very little about. For anyone interested in Italian history, the role of the Catholic Church in medieval politics or enjoy reading about the strong women in a past where women were certainly the underdogs, this is a very good read. The story was presented well, the characters stayed with me, and the author has a writing style that flows well.
Overall, four stars. Happily recommended.
The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily
Nancy Goldstone
2009; Walker and Company, New York
ISBN 978-0-8027-1670-5
The Lady Queen weaves the story of one of the most extraordinary (and unjustly overlooked) rulers of the Middle Ages. . . . Goldstone has produced [on...More at Buy.com
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