Jeanne de Laval

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Jeanne de Laval (10 November 1433 – 19 December 1498), was the second wife and titular

Jeanne was born on 10 November 1433 at

Her father Guy fought with Joan of Arc. His eldest son Francis de Laval, a Grand Master of France, would succeed him as Guy XV, Count of Laval. He had another two sons by his first wife Isabelle, Pierre de Laval and Jean de Laval. Including Jeanne, he had a total of seven daughters, two of them died in early infancy. By his second wife, Françoise de Dinan, he had three sons.

Marriage

A marriage contract was drawn up on 3 September 1454 between Jeanne's father and King René of Naples and Sicily. The wedding was celebrated on 10 September 1454, at the Abbey of St. Nicholas in

After living three years in the surrounding mansions of Angers and Saumur, the king and queen lived in Provence in 1457 to 1462, in Anjou from 1462 to 1469. In Aix-en-Provence, Angers, she participated with her husband in literary and scholarly pursuits at his court.

René composed a 10,000 verse ode to Jeanne entitled, "The Idyl of Regnault and Jeanneton". The poem was a debate on love between a shepherd and shepherdess with a pilgrim as arbiter. However, it sometimes seems to contain a good dose of conventional fiction. During his stay at Tarascon in Provence, René granted Jeanne the barony of

René died on 10 July 1480. In his will, he bequeathed his wife a very large income in Anjou, Provence, and the Barrois. She also retained the County of Beaufort and the lordship of Mirebeau (exchanged with the baronies of Aubagne and Provence). After her husband's death, she sometimes lived in Beaufort and sometimes in Saumur. She was popular for her kindness and generosity. The people of Beaufort were grateful to her when she regulated the use of common pastures. Jeanne died on 19 December 1498 at the Chateau de Beaufort-en-Vallée, Maine-et-Loire. She was sixty-five years of age. A street still bears her name, "Queen of Sicily." By her will, she wished to be buried simply, without any monument, in the cathedral of Angers. Her heart was placed in the Cordeliers d'Angers, alongside that of her husband.

Jeanne and the arts

Jeanne and her husband René appears in the triptych of the Burning Bush of the cathedral of

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jeanne de Laval (1498).

• Accounts of John Legay, fundraiser for the Queen of Sicily, the manuscript of the library of Angers, published in the History Anjou in 1900.
• King Lecoy by René de la Marche.
• Conduct of King René J. Levron.
• Histoire de Charles VII by Vallet of Viriville.
• Queen Jeanne. Jeanne de Laval. Second wife of King René.Pierre Le Roy. Regional editions of the West.

References