White Denier with crown - Joan of Naples and Louis of Tarante

Joan I of Provence — simultaneously Queen of Naples, Countess of Provence, and one of the most embattled rulers of the fourteenth century — struck these deniers jointly with her second husband Louis of Taranto following a period of extraordinary dynastic chaos. She had been implicated, though never conclusively convicted, in the 1345 murder of her first husband Andrew of Hungary, a scandal that drew Angevin and Hungarian factions into open conflict and briefly cost her control of Naples. The Provençal coinage continued through this turmoil largely undisturbed, which is itself a telling detail about the administrative durability of the county.