John I of France

John the Posthumous
Tomb Effigy of John the Posthumous
King of France and Navarre
Reign	15–20 November 1316
Predecessor	Louis X and I
Successor	Philip V and II
Born	(1316-11-15)15 November 1316 Paris, France
Died	20 November 1316 (aged days) Paris, France
Burial	Saint Denis Basilica
House	Capet
Father	Louis X of France
Mother	Clemence of Hungary

John I (15–20 November 1316), called the Posthumous, was a Capetian King of France and Navarre, as the posthumous son and successor of Louis the Quarreler, for the five days he lived. He thus had the shortest undisputed recognized reign of any French king. The son of Louis the Quarreler and Clementia of Hungary, sister of Charles I of Hungary, he is the only person to be King of France since birth, and thus, the youngest King of France and the only person to have been King of France during his entire lifetime.

John reigned for five days under the regency of his uncle Philip the Tall, until his death on 20 November 1316. The infant King was buried in Saint Denis Basilica. He was succeeded by Philip, whose contested legitimacy led to the re-affirmation of the Salic law, which excluded women from the line of succession to the French throne.

Consequences

Funerary convoy of John I.

The child mortality rate was very high in medieval Europe and John may have died from any number of causes, but rumours of poisoning spread immediately after his death, as many people benefited from it and as John's father died himself in strange circumstances. The cause of his death is still not known today.

The premature death of John brought the first issue of succession of the Capetian dynasty. When Louis the Headstrong, his father, died without a son to succeed him, it was the first time since Hugh Capet that the succession from father to son of the kings of France was interrupted. It was then decided to wait until his pregnant widow, Clementia of Hungary, delivered the child. The king's brother, Philip the Tall, was in charge of the regency of the kingdom against his uncle Charles of Valois. The birth of a male child was expected to give France its king. The problem of succession remained when the infant that was proclaimed King of France, under the name of John I, died five days after birth. It was his uncle who ascended the throne at the expense of his four-year-old half-sister, Joan, daughter of Louis X and Margaret of Burgundy.

Supposed survival

Various legends circulated about this royal child. First, it was claimed that his uncle Philip the Tall had him poisoned. Then a strange story a few decades later came to start the rumor that the little King John was not dead. During the captivity of John the Good (1356-1360), a man named Giannino Baglioni claimed to be John I and thus the heir to the throne. He tried to assert his rights, but was captured in Provence and died in captivity in 1363.

In The Man Who Believed He Was King of France, Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri suggests that Cola di Rienzo manufactured false evidence that Baglioni was John the Posthumous in order to strengthen his own power in Rome by placing Baglioni on the French throne. Shortly after they met in 1354, di Rienzo was assassinated, and Baglioni waited two years to report his claims. He went to the Hungarian court where Louis I of Hungary, nephew of Clemence of Hungary, recognized him as the son of Louis and Clemence. In 1360, Baglioni went to Avignon, but Pope Innocent VI refused to receive him. After several attempts to gain recognition, he was arrested and imprisoned in Naples, where he died in 1363.

Maurice Druon's historical novel series Les Rois maudits dramatises this theory. In La Loi des mâles (1957), the infant John is temporarily switched with the child of Guccio Baglioni and Marie de Cressay as a decoy. He is subsequently poisoned by Mahaut, Countess of Artois, in order to place John's uncle (and Mahaut's son-in-law), Philippe, Count of Poitiers, on the throne. Marie is coerced into secretly raising John as her own son, named Giannino Baglioni. An adult Giannino was portrayed by Jean-Gérard Sandoz in the 1972 French miniseries adaptation of the series, and by Lorans Stoica in the 2005 adaptation.

Ancestry

Family of John I of France

16. Louis IX of France               8. Philip III of France                       17. Margaret of Provence               4. Philip IV of France                             18. James I of Aragon               9. Isabella of Aragon                       19. Violant of Hungary               2. Louis X of France                                   20. Theobald I of Navarre               10. Henry I of Navarre                       21. Margaret of Bourbon               5. Joan I of Navarre                             22. Robert I of Artois               11. Blanche of Artois                       23. Matilda of Brabant               1. John I of France                                         24. Charles I of Naples               12. Charles II of Naples                       25. Beatrice of Provence               6. Charles Martel of Anjou                             26. Stephen V of Hungary               13. Mária of Hungary                       27. Elisabeth the Cuman               3. Clementia of Hungary                                   28. Albert IV, Count of Habsburg               14. Rudolph I of Germany                       29. Hedwig of Kyburg               7. Clementia of Habsburg                             30. Burkhard V, Count of Hohenberg               15. Gertrude of Hohenburg                       31. Mechtild of Tübingen

See also

• List of shortest reigning monarchs of all time

Further reading

John I of France House of Capet Born: 15 November 1316 Died: 20 November 1316
Regnal titles
Vacant Title last held by Louis the Quarreler	King of France and Navarre 15 November – 20 November 1316	Succeeded by Philip the Tall