Joanna of Flanders

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Not to be confused with Joan, Countess of Flanders.
Joanna of Flanders
Duchess consort of Brittany
Tenure30 April 1341–16 September 1345
Bornc. 1295
DiedSeptember 1374 (aged 78–79)
SpouseJohn of Montfort
Issue
HouseDampierre
FatherLouis I, Count of Nevers
MotherJoan, Countess of Rethel

Joanna of Flanders (c. 1295 – September 1374) was Duchess of Brittany by her marriage to John of Montfort. Much of her life was taken up in defence of the rights of her husband and, later, son to the dukedom, which was challenged by the House of Blois during the War of the Breton Succession. Known for her fiery personality, Joanna led the Montfortist cause after her husband had been captured, and began the fight-back, showing considerable skill as a military leader.

Shortly after taking refuge in England, she was confined to Tickhill Castle by order of King Edward III.

Joanna was highly praised by the chronicler Jean Froissart for her courage and energy. Because of her feats of leadership, David Hume described her as "the most extraordinary woman of the age".

Life[edit]

Family[edit]

Joanna was the daughter of Louis I, Count of Nevers and Joan, Countess of Rethel, and the sister of Louis I, Count of Flanders.[1] Her brother, Louis I, Count of Flanders, became the Count of Flanders, Nevers, and Rethel. This while Joanna married John of Montfort, marrying into a debated claim for Duke and Duchess of Brittainy. She married John of Monfort in March 1329. John of Monfort claimed the title of Duke of Brittany, although his claim was contested by Joan of Penthièvre and her husband, Charles of Blois. Joanna and John had:

The Question of Succession[edit]

When John III, Duke of Brittany died childless in 1341, he left behind a contentious succession dispute. For many years he tried to find means to ensure that the children of his stepmother, Yolande of Dreux would not inherit the Duchy, including trying to have her marriage to his father annulled. At this time he declared his heir to be his niece Joan of Penthièvre.

Shortly before dying, Duke John III reconciled with his half brother, John of Montfort, at which John was declared the successor after not getting along due to John of Montfort's hatred for John's step-mother, Yolande. Once John III, Duke of Brittany died, the succession crisis became imminent. Immediately, two rivals formed vying for the title of Duke and Duchess of Brittany:

  • The House of Montfort, the house of John of Montfort and Joanna of Flanders. Their legitimacy came from Duke John III's reconsiliation with John shortly before his death. This claim was backed by the King of England, Edward III, who would benefit from the House of Montfort taking control of Brittany.
  • The House of Blois, the hose of Charles of Blois and his wife, Joan of Penthièvre. Their legitimacy came from the Duke's previous declaration that his heir would be Joan. Only shortly before the Duke's death did he change who his successor would be, which raised questions of legitimacy directed at the House of Montfort. This claim was backed by the King of France, Philip VI, who benefited from the House of Blois controlling Brittany.

Diplomacy Before the War[edit]

In an attempt to resolve this question of succession, John of Montfort, Joanna's husband, reached out to King Philip VI. Philip, the uncle of Charles of Blois. Due to the association of the House of Montfort with the English, and the House of Blois' association to the French, historians understand that John was working to avoid starting a conflict between the English and French. Philip promised John safe conduct and invited him to Paris to be heard. Once in Paris, John was quickly imprisoned and the French courts declared Joan of Penthièvre and her husband Charles of Blois to be the heirs of Brittany. This move spurred Joanna's vengeance.

With her husband locked away, Joanna announced her son --still an infant at the time -- the rightful heir and leader of her faction. Mustering an army, Joanna lead her army into the start of the War of Breton Succession.

The War of Breton Succession[edit]

It is important to preface with the understanding that Joanna of Flanders did not write the book on being a woman participating in warfare. There was an expectation that women could lead, militarily and politically. This is clearly evident through Joan of Penthièvre's claim to the title of Duchess of Brittany. That stated, there were few men or women with as much energy and drive for revenge as Joanna.


Beginning the war with a march on Redon, Charles of Blois arrived in 1342 and besieged the town Hennebont, where Joanna was residing for the time being. At the same time, her enemy Charles of Blois besieged Joanna and the House of Montfort. Joanna responded by sending Amaury de Clisson to ask King Edward III of England for aid. Edward, in dire need to become allies with Brittany, found this opportunity impossible to ignore --Edward sent costly supplies for Joanna to help relieve the siege.

Edward was eager to give, since he had been claiming the French crown for himself, and was therefore at odds with Philip. If he could get Brittany as an ally, this would be of great advantage for future campaigns. He prepared ships under the command of Sir Walter Manny to relieve the siege.[2]

Siege of Hennebont[edit]

In the siege of Hennebont, she took up arms and, dressed in armour, conducted the defence of the town, encouraging the people to fight, and urging the women to "cut their skirts and take their safety in their own hands". When she looked from a tower and saw that the enemy camp was almost unguarded, she led three hundred men on a charge, burned down Charles' supplies and destroyed his tents. After this she became known as "Jeanne la Flamme". When the Blois faction realised what was happening, they cut off her retreat to the town, but she and her knights rode to Brest, drawing a portion of the Blois force with them. Having secured Brest, she gathered together extra supporters and secretly returned to Hennebont, evading the Blois forces and re-entering the town with her reinforcements.[2]

Charles of Blois tried to starve the people in Hennebont. During a long meeting the bishop of Leon tried to persuade Joanna to surrender, but from the window she saw Walter Manny's fleet from England sailing up. Hennebont was strengthened with the English forces and held out.[3] Charles was forced to retreat, but tried to isolate Joanna by taking other towns in Brittany. On his return he again failed to capture Hennebont.[2]

Joanna began to move away from her sieges and began to focus more onto her fleet. Joanna's focus on naval warfare gave her a newfound title: pirate.[4]

Fight back[edit]

Joanna sailed to England to seek further reinforcements from King Edward, which he provided, but the English fleet was intercepted on its way to Brittany by Charles of Blois' ally, Louis of Spain. In a hard-fought battle, the sailors and knights grappled in hand-to-hand combat as Louis' men attempted to board Joanna's ship. According to Froissart, Joanna fought in person "with the heart of a lion, and in her hand she wielded a sharp glaive, wherewith she fought fiercely".[2] Eventually the English forces beat off Louis's ships and made harbour near Vannes. Her forces then captured Vannes, besieged Rennes and sought to break the siege of Hennebont.

Joanna of Flanders slowly started stepping further back away from the war front, which would have been expected for women of her position. English warlords slowly began taking more and more leadership and acted in Joanna's place: a duchess avenging her husband. With neither side able to achieve a decisive victory, by the truce of Malestroit in 1343, her husband John was released and hostilities ceased for a period. He was later imprisoned once again, but escaped and resumed the conflict. In the wake of her husband's death, Joanna stepped up once more and became the leader of the Montfort house once more to protect the title for her son from the House of Blois. In 1347, English forces acting on her behalf captured Charles of Blois in battle.

Confinement[edit]

By this time Joanna and her son were living in England. In England, after being initially welcomed with honor, she was later confined by order of King Edward III and spent the rest of her life in confinement at Tickhill Castle and elsewhere. King Edward III entrusted her to the care of Sir William Frank until 1346, Thomas Haukeston (1346–57), John Delves (d. 1370) and finally to his widow Isabella and Godfrei Foljambe. Arthur de la Borderie attributed her confinement to mental illness, but more recent research finds no evidence she was insane. It is unlikely that "Warmer" (Warnier?) de Giston, assisted by his yeoman, would have risked gravely compromising himself by taking her out of the castle in 1347 and attempting to flee with her if she were mentally ill.[5][6] Edward III probably imprisoned her in order to increase his own power in Brittany.

She lived long enough to see the final victory of her son John IV, Duke of Brittany over the House of Blois in 1364, but she never returned to the duchy. The last mention made of the duchess and her guardian is 14 February 1374. It seems she died that year.

Legacy[edit]

Joanna of Flanders spots the English fleet arriving to relieve Hennebont, 1342
Illus. from François Guizot's, History of France, 1869

Joanna was later known as a prototype of the martial woman in Brittany, and a possible influence on Joan of Arc.[7] Jean Froissart said she "had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion".[2] David Hume described her as "the most extraordinary woman of the age".[2] Victorian feminists also cited her as a role-model. Harriet Taylor Mill mentions her as one of the "heroic chatelaines" of the Middle Ages in her essay "The Enfranchisement of Women".[8] Amelia Bloomer also cites her as one of the "heroic women" of the era.[9] Pierce Butler said that she is "known to us, through the enthusiastic record of Froissart, as an amazon, but hardly known at all as a woman". He concluded,

In those qualities admired by chivalry she was unquestionably an extraordinary woman: courageous and personally valiant, with a head to plan daring exploits and a heart to conduct her through the thick of the danger; impulsive and generous, a free-handed ruler and an admirer of those deeds of chivalrous daring in others which she was so willing to share in herself ... One cannot read her story without enthusiasm, yet one would like to know more of the woman before bestowing unreserved praise on the countess "who was worth a man in a fight" and "who had the heart of a lion".[2]

Joanna was later celebrated for her fiery exploits in Breton folklore, in particular in a ballad collected in Barzaz Breiz, which relates her attack on the camp at Hennebont. In Jeanne Coroller-Danio's Breton nationalist book Histoire de Notre Bretagne (1922), Joanna is depicted as a heroine of Breton resistance to French occupation.

See also[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joanna of Flanders, Duchess of Brittany.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Morvan 2009, n2.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Butler, Pierce, Women of Medieval France, Chapter IX, Barrie, London 1907.
  3. ^ Mortimer, Ian (2008). The Perfect King The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation. Vintage. pp. 204–205.
  4. ^ Klausmann, Ulrike; Meinzerin, Marion; Kuhn, Gabriel (1997). Women pirates and the politics of the Jolly Roger. Montréal: Black Rose Books. ISBN 978-1-55164-059-4.
  5. ^ Famiglietti, R.C. Audouin Chauveron. Vol. 2 (2015), p. 86-87.
  6. ^ Sarpy, Julie (2019). Joanna of Flanders : Heroine and Exile. Stroud: Amberley Books. OCLC 1104594605.
  7. ^ Stephen Wesley Richey, Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint, Greenwood, 2003, p.116.
  8. ^ John Stuart Mill, Alice S. Rossi, Harriet Taylor Mill, Essays on Sex Equality, University of Chicago Press, 1970, p.102.
  9. ^ Anne C. Coon (ed) Hear Me Patiently:The Reform Speeches of Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1994, p.158/

Sources[edit]

  • Morvan, Frederic (2009). La Chevalerie bretonne et la formation de l'armee ducale (in French). Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
  • Jones, Michael (1988). The Creation of Brittany. The Hambledon Press.
Preceded by Duchess consort of Brittany
1341–1345 		Succeeded by
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