Consort: | yes |
Succession: | Queen consort of France |
Reign: | 8 April 1364 – 6 February 1378 |
Coronation: | 1 June 1364 |
Birth Date: | 3 February 1338 |
Birth Place: | Vincennes, France |
Death Place: | Paris, France |
Burial Place: | Basilique Saint-Denis |
House: | Bourbon |
Father: | Peter I, Duke of Bourbon |
Mother: | Isabella of Valois |
Joanna of Bourbon (Jeanne de Bourbon; 3 February 1338 - 6 February 1378) was Queen of France by marriage to King Charles V. She acted as his political adviser and was appointed potential regent in case of a minor regency.
Born in the Château de Vincennes, Joanna was a daughter of Peter I, Duke of Bourbon, and Isabella of Valois, a half-sister of Philip VI of France.
From October 1340 through at least 1343, negotiations and treaties were made for Joanna to marry Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy. The goal was to bring Savoy more closely into French influence. Following this, she was betrothed to Humbert, Dauphin of Viennois, which also fell through.
On 8 April 1350, Joanna married her cousin, the future Charles V of France, at Tain-l'Hermitage. Since they were first cousins once removed, their marriage required a papal dispensation. Born thirteen days apart, they both were 12 years old. When Charles ascended the throne in 1364, Joanna became queen of France.
Queen Joanna and Charles V had a somewhat strained relationship during his tenure as dauphin because of his infidelity with Biette de Cassinel, but their relationship improved after he became King, and reportedly, he sometimes confided in her on political and cultural issues and relied on her advice.[1] According to tradition, Joanna was rumored to have taken the poet for a lover, who was the biological father of the short-lived child she had in 1366.[1]
Queen Joanna was described as mentally fragile, and after the birth of her son Louis in 1373, she suffered a complete mental breakdown. This deeply worried Charles V, who made a pilgrimage and offered many prayers for her recovery. When she did recover and regained her normal state of mind in 1373, Charles V appointed her legal guardian and regent of France should he die when his son and heir was still a minor.
Joanna died at the royal residence Hôtel Saint-Pol in Paris, on 6 February 1378 three days after her 40th birthday, and two days after the birth of her youngest child, Catherine. Froissart[2] recorded that Joanna took a bath against her physicians' advice. Soon after, she went into labour and died two days after giving birth. The king was devastated. Her heart was buried in the Cordeliers Convent and her entrails in the Couvent des Célestins. The Couvent des Célestins in Paris was the most important royal necropolis after the Basilica of St Denis. The rest of her remains were then placed at Saint-Denis.
Joanna and Charles had eight or nine children. Two of them reached adulthood:
. . Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la race Capétienne. fr. Libraire Le Chevalier. 1905. Paris.
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