Jeanne de Laval - Marriage

Marriage

A marriage contract was drawn up on 3 September 1454 between Jeanne's father and King René of Naples and Sicily. The wedding was celebrated on 10 September 1454, at the Abbey of St. Nicholas in Angers. Jeanne married René, whose first wife, Isabella of Lorraine, had died the previous year at the age of twenty-one. Jeanne's husband was more than twenty years her senior. The marriage, however, was happy. Jeanne, who was sweet and affectionate, seems to have been much loved by her husband. She became stepmother to René's children, who included the future John II, Duke of Lorraine, Margaret of Anjou, and Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine. Jeanne's marriage to René was childless. After living three years in the surrounding mansions of Angers and Saumur, the king and queen lived in Provence in 1457 to 1462, in Anjou from 1462 to 1469. In Aix-en-Provence, Angers, she participated with her husband in literary and scholarly pursuits at his court.

René composed a 10,000 verse ode to Jeanne entitled, "The Idyl of Regnault and Jeanneton". The poem was a debate on love between a shepherd and shepherdess with a pilgrim as arbiter. However, it sometimes seems to contain a good dose of conventional fiction. During his stay at Tarascon in Provence, René granted Jeanne the barony of Les Baux, which belonged to the Counts of Provence. She exchanged it on 18 February 1475 at Aix-en-Provence for Berre. She continued to live in Provence from 1469 to 1480.