Robert, King of Naples

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"Robert the Wise" redirects here. For the
king of France sometimes known by this nickname, see Robert II of France
.
Robert
Mary of Hungary

Robert of Anjou (

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

Biography

Robert was born around 1276, the third son of the future Charles II of Naples (then heir apparent) and his wife Mary of Hungary.

Charles of Anjou, who had established an Italian realm a decade earlier in 1266. During the Sicilian Vespers directed against his grandfather Charles, Robert was the hostage of Peter III of Aragon, his grandfather's enemy. In 1285, Robert's grandfather died at Foggia in Italy, leading to his father (then a hostage) becoming King of Naples as Charles II, with Robert's elder brother, Charles Martel of Anjou
as heir apparent.

After the death of his elder brother, Charles Martel of Anjou in 1295, Robert, became heir to the crown of Naples, passing over his child-nephew Charles; to obtain the crown of neighbouring Sicily, he married King James of Sicily's sister Yolanda, in exchange for James's renunciation of Sicily. However, the Sicilian barons refused him and elected James' brother, Frederick II. The war continued, and with the Peace of Caltabellotta (1302) Robert and the Angevin dynasty lost Sicily forever, their rule limited to the south of peninsular Italy.

Robert inherited the position of papal champion in Italy; his reign being blessed from the papal enclave within Robert's Provence, by the French Pope Clement V, who made him papal vicar in Romagna and Tuscany, where Robert intervened in the war of factions in Florence, accepted the offered signiory of that city, but had to abandon it due to Clement's opposition.

The leader of the

Senator of Rome,[5] and when he became Lord of Genoa (1318–34) and Brescia (1319) and from 1314 onwards held the resounding papal title of imperial vicar of all Italy, during the absence in Italy of the Holy Roman Emperor, vacante imperio.[6]

In 1328 he fought another emperor who had ventured into Italy, Louis IV of Bavaria, and in 1330 forced John of Bohemia to quit northern Italy. Robert's hegemony in Italy was diminished only by the constant menace of Aragonese Sicily.

Silver gigliato of Robert I of Anjou King of Naples, 1309-1343.

When the succession to the

Spiritual Franciscans.[7]

At Robert's death in 1343, he was succeeded by his 16-year-old granddaughter,

prince of Salerno and specified that Joanna alone assume the crown in her own right, to be succeeded by her legitimate offspring. If she were to die without heir, her younger sister Maria, newly named the duchess of Calabria, and her legitimate offspring would inherit the throne. There is no mention in the will that Andrew be crowned king; and this historiographical tradition is largely the result of later historians' accepting without examination the assertions of Hungarian royal propaganda following Andrew's murder at Aversa in 1345. This propaganda, the Hungarian assault on Joanna following the murder of Andrew, and the invasion of the Regno by Louis I of Hungary eventually led to the end of Angevin rule in Naples.[8]

Legacy

King Robert was nicknamed "the peace-maker of Italy" due to the years of significant changes he brought to

Dante as a re di sermone, "king of words", attracting students from all parts of Italy.[2]
There was virtually no middle class in the South to balance the local interests and centripetal power of the entrenched aristocracy, who retained the feudal independence that had been their bargain with the Angevins' Norman predecessors.

Unusually, Robert preached sermons throughout his reign, at universities, religious houses, and on other ceremonial occasions, making use of an authoritative form of oratory ordinarily reserved for clerics. Records of hundreds of these sermons survive in extant manuscripts, providing an important case study in the history of medieval lay preaching.[9]

He was remembered by

Latin epic Africa
is dedicated to Robert, though it was not made available to readers until 1397, long after both Petrarch and Robert were dead.

Family

By his first wife, Yolanda,[11] daughter of King Peter III of Aragon, Robert had two sons:

  • Charles (1298–1328), Duke of Calabria (1309), Viceroy of Naples (1318), who was the father of Queen Joanna I
  • Louis (1301–10)

Robert's second marriage, to Sancia,[11] daughter of King James II of Majorca, was childless. He had the following extramarital children:

  • Charles d'Artois, member of the regency council and grand chamberlain for Queen Joanna I, executed for murder of King Andrew
  • Louis de Bethanie, Prince of Bétha, representative of the court of Louis I of Hungary, managed Polish lands on behalf of the dynasty.
  • Maria d'Aquino (Boccaccio's Fiammetta)
  • Hélène of Anjou, who fell in love with and married Andrea I Thopia, Count of Matia, without her father's consent. Hélène was possibly due to marry Philip, son of Baldwin II[clarification needed], when this happened. Thopia's emblem contains three lilies separated by a dotted line, indicating an illegitimate child. Andrea and Hélène had Charles (named after his famous grand grandparent), Georges and Helena together. The marriage was not accepted by Robert, therefore he invited the couple to Naples with the pretext of reconciliation where he had them secretly executed at night.[12][13][14][15][dubious – discuss]

King Robert's last descendant through a legitimate line was Queen Joanna II of Naples.

Ancestry

Other sources

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert of Naples.
  1. ^ Musto 2003, p. 78.
  2. ^ a b Hearder & Waley 1963, p. 60.
  3. ^ Hoch 1995, p. 22.
  4. ^ Abulafia 2000, p. 488.
  5. ^ Fleck 2016, p. 129.
  6. ^ Abulafia 2000, p. 491.
  7. ^ Kelly 2003, p. 83-85.
  8. ^ Ronald G. Musto, Medieval Naples: A Documentary History, 400-1400. A Documentary History of Naples. [1]. New York: Italica Press, 2013, "The Angevins: Robert of Anjou, Giovanna I," pp. 192-298
  9. ISBN 90-04-47482-X
    .
  10. ^ Kelly, Samantha, The New Solomon: Robert of Naples (1309-1343) and Fourteenth-Century Kingship, page 2 Google Books
  11. ^ a b O'Connell & Dursteler 2016, p. 158.
  12. ISBN 978-84-340-2506-6
    .
  13. ^ "1515 John Musachi:Brief Chronicle on the Descendants of our Musachi Dynasty". Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  14. ^ Carl Hermann Friedrich Johann Hopf (1960). Geschichte Griechenlands vom Beginn des Mittelalters bis auf unsere Zeit. B. Franklin. … da deren Besitzungen bald darauf in der Hand jenes Tanussio Thopia (1328–1338) waren, dem König Robert von Neapel 1338 den Besitz der Grafschaft Mat bestätigte. Des letztern Sohn oder Bruder Andreas war es, der sich mit dem Hause Capet verschwägerte. König Robert, so erzählt Musachi, hatte seine natürliche Tochter dem Bailli von Morea – vielleicht dem Bertrand de Baux – zur Gattin bestimmt und sie nach Durazzo gesandt, wo damals Thopia weilte. Er verliebte sich in sie, entführte und heirathete sie. Zwei Söhne, Karl und Georg, entsprossen dieser Ehe. Aber schwer traf die Gatten bald die Rache des erzürnten Vaters; unter dem Scheine der Versöhnung lud er beide zu sich nach Neapel ein und ließ sie dort hinrichten; die Kinder aber, in denen somit wirklich das Blut der Angiovinen floß, wurden gerettet; in der festen Burg Kroja , die er später ausbaute, nicht, wie die Sage meldet , erst gründete "), wuchs Karl auf, entschlossen, den Mord des vaters zu rächen
  15. ^ Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse (in German). Gerold. 1869. p. 106-107.

Sources

  • Abulafia, David (2000). "The Italian south". In Jones, Michael (ed.). The New Cambridge Medieval History: c.1300-1415. Vol. VI. Cambridge University Press.
  • Fleck, Cathleen A. (2016). The Clement Bible at the Medieval Courts of Naples and Avignon. Routledge.
  • Hearder, H.; Waley, D.P., eds. (1963). A Short History of Italy. Cambridge University Press.
  • Hoch, Adrian S. (1995). "The Franciscan Provenance of Simone Martini's Angevin St. Louis in Naples". Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte. 58. Bd., H. 1.
  • Kelly, Samantha (2003). The new Solomon: Robert of Naples (1309-1343) and Fourteenth-Century Kingship. Brill.
  • Musto, Ronald G. (2003). Apocalypse in Rome: Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New Age. University of California Press.
  • O'Connell, Monique; Dursteler, Eric R (2016). The Mediterranean World: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Napoleon. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Pryds, Darleen N. (2000). The King Embodies the Word : Robert d'Anjou and the Politics of Preaching. Leiden: Brill.
    ISBN 90-04-47482-X
    .
Robert, King of Naples
Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty
Born: 1276 Died: 20 January 1343
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Count of Provence and Forcalquier

1309–1343 		Succeeded by
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