THE \h'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAi\ KINGDOMS 1200-1.~00
papal diplomacy prevented a Genoese-Hungarian military
alliance being created. The arrival of bubonic plague coin-
cided with Joanna's own decision to travel to Provence and
supplicate the help of Pope Clement VI at Avignon, early in
- The price for favour was an agreement to sell Avignon
to the pope, lord already of the neighbouring Comtat Ven-
aissin; no longer would the papacy have to be an honoured
guest on the soil of Angevin Provence, but to the Provenyaux
this was a venditio maledicta, an 'accursed sell-out' .'^1 Joanna
sought public exculpation for the murder of her first hus-
band, as well as papal approval for her second marriage
which had recently been contracted with Louis of Taranto,
leader of the powerful Angevin faction that had been restive
while Andrew was alive. (She was in fact already pregnant
when she arrived at the curia.) Her absence from the Regno
while it was being torn apart by Hungarian invaders, as well
as by predatory mercenary bands, had little effect on the
outcome of Louis the Great's invasion: as well as the ravages
of plague, Venetian agitation in his rear threatened to pre-
judice his survival, for on control of Dalmatia depended
Louis' ability to create a vast Angevin domain stretching
from the borders of Lithuania to the Straits of Messina. The
struggle for the Adriatic, which was to culminate in the loss
of Venetian Dalmatia in 1352, now preoccupied him. The
pope opposed his expedition. The south Italians themselves
were restive. It was time for Louis of Hungary to go home.
This did not mean that the Hungarians evacuated the
Regno. Louis of Taranto was active in the suppression of Hun-
garian units. He also purged the court of Joanna's own sup-
porters, elevating to high office the Acciaiuoli of Florence.
For Louis of Taranto's marriage to Joanna had been an
attempt to secure the kingdom for Louis, more than it was
an attempt at compromise between the opposing factions
in the house of Anjou. A second Hungarian invasion, with
Genoese support, in 1350 resulted by 1352 in a narrow victory
for Louis of Taranto; but Louis' real victory lay within the
Regno, where he was crowned king in May 1352, with papal
approval, subject to the proviso that he held the throne in
right of Joanna (none of whose children in fact survived).
- D. Wood, Clement VI. The jmntijimtf' and ideas of an Avignon pope (Cam-
bridge, 1989), pp. 48-50.
