The Kings Consort of Navarre: 1284–1512

Examples of well-known biographies of these two men include Joseph R. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton NJ, 1980);Google Scholar

and Jaime Vicens Vives, Juan II de Aragon (1398–1479): Monarquia y revolución en la España del siglo XV (Barcelona, 1953).Google Scholar

Theresa Earenfight, “Without the Persona of the Prince: Kings, Queens and the Idea of Monarchy in Late Medieval Europe,” Gender and History, 19.1 (2007), 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

The Bible (Latin Vulgate version), I Peter 3:1. For Paul see Colossians 3:18, “mulieres subditae estote viris sicut oportet in Domino” or “wives be subject to your husbands as it behoveth in the Lord.” Also Ephesians 5:22–3 “mulieres viris suis subditae sint sicut Domino quoniam vir caput est mulieris sicut Christus caput est ecclesiae ipse salvator corporis” or “let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of the body.” Margaret R. Sommerville, Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early Modern Society (London, 1995), 57.Google Scholar

Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton NJ, 1957).Google Scholar

Jerónimo Zurita, Anales de la Corona de Aragon, ed. Ángel Canellas Lopez, 9 vols., (Zaragoza, 1980–90), vol. 8, 74. Original text is “aunque la sucesión del reino recayese en mujer, el gobierno siempre fue del marido.” Note: all translations in the text are my own unless otherwise stated.Google Scholar

Georges Duby, “Women and Power” in Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status and Process in Twelfth Century Europe, ed. by Thomas N. Bisson (Philadelphia, 1995), 74.Google Scholar

For further discussion of the military role of consort kings, see Elena Woodacre, “Questionable Authority: Female Sovereigns and Their Consorts in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles” in Juliana Dresvina and Nicholas Sparks (eds.), Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2012), 379–80.Google Scholar

Full text of this letter included as Pieces Justificatives IX in Emile G. Léonard, La jeunesse de Jeanne I: Reine de Naples, Comtesse de Provence (Paris: Librarie Auguste, 1932), 409–10. See also page 265 for more discussion of the letter’s contents.Google Scholar

Juana’s engagement to Philip III’s son and his designation as her guardian is contained in the Treaty of Orleans (1275). Translated text of the treaty printed in Theodore Evergates, “Aristocratic Women in the County of Champagne,” in Aristocratic Women in Medieval France, ed. by Theodore Evergates (Philadelphia, 1999), 87.Google Scholar

It is important to note that Philip’s overall style of government was intensely bureaucratic, see Joseph R. Strayer, “Philip the Fair-A ‘Constitutional’ King,” American Historical Review, 62.1 (Oct 1956), 18–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero, “Los resortes del poder en la Navarra bajomedieval (siglos XII–XV),” Anuario de Estudios Medievales, 25.2 (1995), 430–40.Google Scholar

Alfonso Espinet and Juan Manuel Gouzá lez-Cremona, Diccionario de los Reyes de España (Barcelona, 1989), 222–3;Google Scholar

and Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero, Historia de Navarra: La Baja Edad Media, Colección Temas de Navarra, vol. II (Pamplona, 1993), 39.Google Scholar

Félix Segura Urra, Fazer Justicia; Fuero, poder público y delito en Navarra (siglos XIII-XIV) (Pamplona, 2005), 266. The episode is documented in AGN Reg. 8, fol. 10v. (1304).Google Scholar

John F Benton, “Philip the Fair and the Jours de Troyes,” in Culture, Power and Personality in Medieval France, ed. by Thomas N. Bisson (London, 1991), 196;Google Scholar

and Robert Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation (987–1328) (London, 1960), 128–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Elisabeth Lalou, “Le gouvernement de la reine Jeanne 1285–1305,” Cahiers Haut-Marnais 167 (1986), 16–30.Google Scholar

A portion of the original document reprinted in Javier Zabalo Zabalegui, La administración del Reino de Navarra en el siglo XIV (Pamplona, 1973), 53. The provenance of the document is AGN Comptos, Caj. 6, no. 60. Original text is “assi como marido et cabeça deve aver de los bienes de su muyller et comaynnera.” Note that Sully is clearly drawing on biblical authority, the assertion of Paul that “the head of woman is man” (1 Corinthians, 11.3). Further evidence of the ongoing negotiation between the Cortes and Henri de Sully as the Evreux’s representative can be found in AGN Comptos, Caj. 31, no. 7, 7 (2) dated January 12, 1329 at Estella.Google Scholar

The coronation documents are AGN Comptos, Caj. 6, no. 60 dated March 5, 1329 at Pamplona. See also Jose Maria Lacarra, El juramento de los reyes de Navarra (1234–1329) (Madrid, 1972), 62.Google Scholar

Béatice Leroy comments that “progressively, Navarre was governed by the Navarrese” (progressivement, la Navarre est gouvernée par les Navarrais); Béatrice Leroy, “Les débuts de la dynastie d’Evreux en Navarre: des experiences mutuelles, de nouvelles situations,” En la España Medieval 17 (1994), 23. Miranda Garcia also noted the “exquisite respect and tact” (exquisito respeto y tacto) shown to the Navarrese by Jeanne and Philip; Fermín Miranda García, Felipe III y Juana II de Evreux (Pamplona, 2003), 52.Google Scholar

Marianne Mahn-Lot, “Philip d’Evreux, Roi de Navarre et un projet de Croisade contre le Royaume de Grenade (1329–1331),” Bulletin Hispanique 46 (1944), 227. Original text is “aucune ambition personnelle, aucun goût de gouverner.” On the amejoramiento of the Fueros see Miranda Garcia, Felipe III y Juana II, 102–07.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

For their architectural legacy an excellent source is Javier Martinez de Aguirre, Arte y Monarquia en Navarra (1328–1425) (Pamplona, 1987).Google Scholar

For the anti-Semitic violence see Nadia Marin, “La matanza de 1328, témoin des solidarités de la Navarre chrétienne,” Principe de Viana 59.213 (1998), 147–70. For a more wider examination of their exercise of justice see Marcelino Beroiz Lazcano, Crimen y castigo en Navarra bajo el reinado de los primeros Evreux (1328–1349), Colección Historia (Pamplona, 2005);Google Scholar

and Félix Segura Urra, Fazer Justicia. Fuero, poder público y delito en Navarra (siglos XIII–XIV) (Pamplona, 2005).Google Scholar

Maria Isabel Ostolaza Elizondo, “El tribunal de la Cort de Navarra durante el siglo XIV (1329–1387),” Principe de Viana 47.178 (1986), 504.Google Scholar

Garci Lopez de Roncevalles, Cronica de Garci Lopez de Roncevalles, ed. Carmen Orcastequi Gros and Ángel J. Martin Duque (Pamplona, 1977), 76.Google Scholar

Carlos, Principe de Viana, Cronica de los Reyes de Navarra, ed. by Jose Yanguas y Miranda and Antonio Ubieto Arteta (Pamplona, 1843), 168.Google Scholar

Joseph O’Callaghan aptly summed up Juan’s attitude to the Navarrese crown, “While pleased to have the royal title, Juan was little interested in Navarre and was content to leave its administration to the queen.” Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca, NY, 1975), 554.Google Scholar

Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero, “La reina Blanca y Navarra,” Principe de Viana 60 (1999), 323–40. Ramírez Vaquero notes Blanca had “considerable experience on her shoulders.”Google Scholar

See also Maria Isabel Ostolaza Elizando, “D. Juan de Aragón y Navarra, un verdadero príncipe Trastámara,” Aragón en la Edad Media 16 (2000), 596. Ostolaza Elizando also notes that Navarra continued to be under the adminstration of the queen during Juan’s lieutenancy in Aragon.Google Scholar

Pierre Boissonade, Histoire de la Réunion de la Navarre a la Castille (Essai sur les Relations de prince de Foix-Albret avec la France et l’Espagne) (Geneva, 1975), 8. Original text is “Un état ruiné par la guerre civile, affaibli par l’anarchie, viola l’heritage que Juan II laissa.” Google Scholar

J. Reglá Campistol, “La cuestion de los Pirineos a commienzos de la edad moderna: El intento imperialista de Gaston de Foix,” in Relaciones Internacionales de España con Francia e Italia, ed. Jaime Vicens Vives, Estudios de Historia Moderna (Barcelona, 1951), 30. Gaston died on July 10, 1472 in the Pyrenean town of Roncevalles.Google Scholar

From the excerpt in Álvaro Adot Lerga, Juan d’Albret y Catalina de Foix o la Defensa del Estado Navarro (Pamplona, 2005), 335. Original text is “otros le menospreciauan, estimandole en poco, por su excessiua blandura, la qual eredó en Francia, donde los Principes son muy manuales y agenos de la sobrada altiuez de algunos caualleros d’España, aunque la honesta grauedad, mesura y templança, antes se deue aprobar y parece muy bien en todos los hombres, especialmente Principes, y sobre todo en los Reyes, que en justo sean reuerenciados y acatados como personas constituydas por la mano de Dios en tan altro trono y magestad, para juzgar y gouernar al mundo.” Note: the word I would like to suggest for manuales is “hands on” or “touchy feely”; although both words are arguably slang, I believe they convey Garibay’s sentiment that the French princes are excessively tactile with or physically close to their subjects.Google Scholar

Jose de Moret, Anales del Reino de Navarra, vols. 5–7 (Tolosa, 1891), vol. 7, 157–8. Original text is “Aún era más insoportable su inconsecuencia en el decoro de su Real persona; porque gastaba tanta llaneza, que desdecia mucho la autoridad, conversando con sus vasallos y con otros extraños familiarmente como si no fuera rey sino un caballero particular, tanto, que no reparaba en ir á los festines vulgares y su regocijo era danzar con las damas y las doncellas... Y á la verdad: desgradaban mucho á los hombres cuerdos y de punto estos aires de Francia, donde sus reyes solian familiarizarse demasiado con los vasallos.” Google Scholar

For further discussion of their personal partnership, see Elena Woodacre, The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics and Partnership 1274–1512 (New York, 2013), 43–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Álvaro Adot Lerga, “Itinerario de los reyes privativos de Navarra: Juan III de Albret-Catalina I de Foix,” Principe de Viana 60.217 (1999), 401–58.Google Scholar

César González Mínguez, “La Minoria de Ferdinando IV de Castilla (1295–1301),” Revista da Faculdade de Letras. História (Porto) Ser. 2, Bd. 15 (1998), 1073 (68) and Histoire Genealogique et Chronologique de la Maison Royale de France, 91. González Mínguez only mentions the bethrothal of Blanche, not her substitution for her elder sister, Marguerite.Google Scholar

Juana I’s presence is specifically noted in a betrothal ceremony in Paris in “Sponsalia inter Edvardum filium Regis & Isabellam Regis Franciae fil-iam” dated May 20, 1303 in Thomas Rymer, Foedera, conventiones, literae, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, inter reges Angliae et alios quosvis imperatores, reges, pontifices, principes, vel communitates, ab ineunte saeculo duodecimo, viz. ab anno 1101, ad nostra usque tempora, habita aut tractata: ex autographis, infra secretiores archivorum regiorum thesaurarias per multa saecula reconditis, fideliter exscripta: in lucem missa de mandato Reginae. Tomus II (London, 1705), 928. Ironically perhaps, Juana had originally been contracted to marry Henry, another son of Edward I of England in 1273; see AGN Comptos, Caj. 3, no. 65 dated November 30, 1273 at Bonloc. Also printed in Rymer (ed.), Foedera, “Conventio Cyrographata inter Regem Angliae, and H. Regem Navarrrae, Super matrimonio contrabendo inter Henr. Filium Regis Angliae, and Johannam filiam Regis Navarrae,” 18. On the pope’s role in promoting this alliances see Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “The Political Repercussions of Family Ties in the Early Fourteenth Century: The Marriage of Edward II of England and Isabelle of France,” Speculum 63.3 (1988), 574.Google Scholar

C. A. J. Armstrong, “La politique matrimoniale des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois,” in England, France and Burgundy in the Fifteenth Century, ed. C. A. J. Armstrong (London, 1983), 252. Armstrong does note however, that this pledge of succession went against the Treaty of Arras of 1435, which limited the succession to male heirs. Agnes’ dowry is listed as 200,000 francs, 32 gros monnaie de Flandre (331).Google Scholar

W. D. J. Phillips, Enrique IV and the Crisis of Fifteenth Century Castile (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 35.Google Scholar

Joseph Calmette, La question des Pyrénées et la marche d’Espagne au moyen-âge (Paris, 1947), 75.Google Scholar

AGN Comptos, Caj. 7, no. 35. Other related documents are AGN Comptos, Caj. 7, no. 36–7 and 47 dated between April 28, 1332 and April 29, 1333. The text of the agreement is also printed in full in José Ramón Castro Alava, “El Matrimonio de Pedro IV de Aragon y María de Navarra,” in Estudios de Edad Media de la Corona de Aragon III (Zaragoza, 1947), 121–44. Castro Alava discusses the fates of the two sisters, Juana and Maria, in “El Matrimonio,” 61–2. He notes Zurita’s suggestion that Maria pleased Pedro better and cites the stories of the Early Modern chroniclers Moret and Arnaldo de Oyenhart who confirm Juana’s decision to take the veil with evidence of her burial at Longchamps.Google Scholar

Marie-Laure Surget, “Mariage et pouvoir: réflexion sur le rôle de l’alliance dans les relations entre les Evreux-Navarre et les Valois au XIV siècle (1325–1376)” Annales de Normandie, 2008, 58.1–2, 37. It is worth noting that later Navarrese sovereigns continued to persue alliances with Brittany, resulting in the marriages of Juana of Navarre (daughter of Carlos II) and Jean V in 1386 and Marguerite of Navarre (daughter of Leonor and Gaston of Foix) and François II in 1474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Paris, Sainte Geneviève ms 898, f. 3–5 dated March 15, 1340, cited in Surget, “Mariage et pouvoir,” 37. See also Jose Maria Lacarra, Historia Politica del Reino de Navarra: desde sus orígenes hasta su incorporación a Castilla, vol.3 (Pamplona, 1972), 46. The Foundation for Medieval Geneaology suggests that an earlier betrothal was made for Blanche in 1335 with Andre de Viennois, heir to Humbert, Dauphin of Viennois. However, there appears to be no surviving documentary evidence of this match in the AGN to support this claim. Andre also died in 1335, so even if the betrothal was made this would account for Blanche’s freedom to contract another marriage.Google Scholar

More background on Blanche’s period as queen and queen dowager of France can be found in Brigitte Buettner, “Le Système des Objets dans le Testament de Blanche de Navarre,” Clio 19 (2004), 37–62.Google Scholar

For the Neopolitan marriage see Nancy Goldstone, The Lady Queen: The Notorious Reign of Joanna I, Queen of Naples, Jerusalem and Sicily (New York, 2009), 228–9 and 233. See also a discussion of how this marriage enabled Juana’s son to organize an expedition to Greece; Ramirez Vaquero, Historia de Navarra, 71.Google Scholar

Attempts were made to marry Catalina’s daughters into the great Italian houses of Medici, Sforza and Este, however none of these negotiations were successful. See Amada Lopez de Meneses, “Magdalena y Catalina de Albret-Foix, Infantas de Navarra,” Hispania 97 (1965), 5–42.Google Scholar