Women of the Streets : Early Franciscan Women and their Mendicant Vocation

Chapter Five. Sancia, Queen of Naples (d. 1345) Protector of the Orders

SANCIA, QUEEN OF NAPLES 65 ChaPTer five sanCia, Queen of naPles (d. 1345) ProTeCTor of The orders ... [A] mother loves her sons, and so I love my sons, the Friars Minor ... Sancia, by the grace of God queen of Jerusalem and Sicily [Naples], your humble servant and devoted daughter sends greetings in the Lord Jesus Christ ...78 When Sancia, queen of Naples, addressed the General Chapter of the Franciscan Order that was meeting in Paris in 1329, she used these warm and maternal words to greet them. The particular words she chose to address the friars allowed her to position herself as someone uniquely devoted to the way of St. Francis, and thereby to the order, itself. As queen of the Kingdom of Naples (referred to by contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily), Sancia held a privileged office of power, prestige, and influence, which she used to participate in the affairs of religious orders that she particularly favored, especially the Franciscans. Sancia wielded her power to affect official decisions of the order, and more importantly, to affect how Franciscan ideals and policies were actually followed by members of the order residing in her realm. She had established a court that was friendly and supportive to a wide range of Franciscan causes. With personal conviction and in the apparent absence of fear, Sancia used her office as 78 As translated by Ronald G. Musto, “Queen Sancia of Naples (12861345 ) and the Spiritual Franciscans,” in Women of the Medieval World. Essays in Honor of John H. Mundy, ed. Julius Kirshner and Suzanne Wemple (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 179-214, at 210. Darleen pryDs 66 queen to establish, protect, and nurture a particular course of Franciscan piety. Her personal piety became the cornerstone of her political agenda – an agenda that she often shared with her husband, Robert, the King of Naples. Our fourth Franciscan woman to be discussed in this volume differs from the other three by her rank and class, but shares with them the fervor of a religious faith based on a passion for Franciscan spirituality. Sancia dedicated her particular Franciscan piety to poverty and then turned this piety into a royal agenda for patronage programs and, eventually , for protocol for court life. Thus, she used her station in life to advance and extend the sphere of influence of her personal spirituality. Today Sancia might be glibly labeled as a “poor little rich girl.” Known as Sancia of Majorca or Sancia of Naples, she was born into the royal family of the Mediterranean kingdom of Majorca. In keeping with her lineage, she was expected to marry at her rank, to produce royal heirs, and to oversee a royal court. In such a life, Sancia would live surrounded by the opulence of court life with all of its extravagant food and fine dresses; its social culture and strict protocol of behavior and personal interaction; and a number of servants to do one’s every bidding. But by all accounts Sancia yearned for a different kind of life – one that centered on a simple life of prayer, away from the luxuries of court life and fawning courtiers. On several occasions she tried to quit her royal life in favor of a vowed religious life, even wearing the habit of a vowed Poor Clare sister. But it wasn’t until the very end of her life that her efforts proved successful. Instead of the austere life as a vowed nun, she remained a queen at the center of one of the most culturally vibrant courts of Europe at the time. While she may have yearned for the daily sequences of prayer that characterizes cloistered life, she experienced the regular sequences of royal rituals made up of diplomatic visits, royal SANCIA, QUEEN OF NAPLES 67 pageantry, and the multitude of preparations for warfare and galas. Both forms of life – the religious and royal – center on ritual . Her personal preference was toward pious ritual rather than political and social rituals. When she was not allowed to adopt a strict life of pious ritual, she manipulated her political life to serve her religious yearnings. She did as many laywomen learn to do even today: she accommodated the particular life she found herself in to fit her innermost call and adapted her innermost call to fit within the royal life she was born into. In short, she crafted a life that she could claim was authentically her...