living in the same neighborhoods as Chris-
tians. This law was strictly enforced within
the Papal States, the cities and territories
under the control of the papal administra-
tion in central Italy. The ghetto spread to
Germany and then the rest of Europe. Jews
were commonly confined to the ghettos
permanently, and were only allowed to
leave in order to transact necessary busi-
ness in other parts of the city. The gates
were locked and no traffic permitted at
night; Jews caught out after curfew were
subjecttoarrestandaterminprison.The
ghetto walls prevented Jewish communi-
ties from expanding, and as a result they
became the most crowded and least health-
ful neighborhoods, with families raising
tenements ever higher in order to accom-
modate the growing population.
SEEALSO: ghetto
Joan I of Naples ..............................
(1326–1382)
Queen of Naples, the daughter of Duke
Charles of Calabria and the niece of King
Philip VI of France. She was engaged to
Prince Andrew of Anjou, but when Prince
Andrew inherited the throne of Hungary
on the death of Robert, the king of Naples
(Joan’s grandfather) she claimed the title
of sole monarch. Pope Clement VI took
advantage of the struggle over the succes-
sion to make his own claim as the lord of
Naples. Clement’s envoy Cardinal Americ
crowned Joan Queen of Naples in 1344; in
the next year Prince Andrew died at the
hands of an assassin, who may have been
acting on Joan’s orders. The death of An-
drew prompted Louis I, the king of Hun-
gary, to invade. When the western Chris-
tian church split into French and Italian
factions, Joan allied with the king of
France and supported the French popes
who resided at Avignon. Angered by this
alliance, which countered his power in
Italy, Pope Urban VI denounced Joan’s title
to Naples and donated the kingdom to
Charles of Durazzo. Charles marched on
Naples at the head of a Hungarian army
and took Joan a prisoner in 1381. In the
next year, while imprisoned at the Castle
of San Fele, she was strangled by her
prison guards. Charles then succeeded to
the throne of Naples.Joan of Arc .....................................
(1412–1431)
A patron saint of the French nation, Joan
of Arc was born in the village of Dom-
remy, in the Vosges region of eastern
France. Her father owned a small estate
and served as a village official. At the time
of her birth and childhood, much of
France lay in ruins from the conflict with
England that had begun more than sev-
enty years earlier. The war had started over
English claims to the French throne, claims
supported by the powerful dukes of Bur-
gundy. While the English controlled Paris,
the capital, the Burgundians held Reims,
the traditional site of French coronations.
For this reason, the heir to the French
throne, the son of King Charles VI, re-
mained an uncrowned dauphin (eldest son
of a king) while the English fought for the
claim of Henry VI, an infant who ruled
through the regent John of Lancaster.
Inspired by visions of the saints to de-
fend France from its powerful enemies,
the sixteen-year-old Joan rode to the
French camp at Vaucouleurs to demand
an audience with the dauphin. At first
mocked and refused, she persisted and
eventually won over the garrison com-
mander. Arriving in the dauphin’s pres-
ence at the chateau of Chinon, she asked
Charles permission to lead an army to the
relief of Orléans, a French city then hold-Joan of Arc