Bethany Aram

I tend to be suspicious of works that use phrases like “socially constructed” and “male hegemony”, but in her biography of Juana the Mad, author Bethany Aram makes a pretty good case that Juana’s “madness” really was socially constructed and that she really was the victim of ideas of male hegemony.


Juana was the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon (the Columbus Ferdinand and Isabella), the older sister of Catherine of Aragon (the Henry VIII Catherine – well, the first one) the mother of Charles V (the Holy Roman Emperor) and the grandmother of Phillip II (the Spanish Armada Phillip). On the death of her parents and older siblings she became the Queen of Spain (although for political reasons she was never allowed to rule). Thus she was right in the middle of 16th century European politics. She earned her sobriquet “The Mad” by having her dead husband’s coffin carried everywhere she went, occasionally opening it to kiss the corpse’s feet*; sometimes going after her ladies in waiting with various blunt instruments (she was reputed to be jealous that they might also wish to engage in posthumous hanky-panky with her husband Phillipe the Handsome of Burgundy, who had quite a reputation as a womanizer when alive); dressing in monk’s robes, and explaining to her confessor that her mother had been eaten by a civet cat.


The problem with all this is all the evidence of Juana’s madness comes from people who had a strong interest in keeping her out of politics. Her marriage to Phillipe was political; Ferdinand and Isabella wanted an ally against France. Unfortunately, Phillipe and his court were pro-French. Juana was kept on a short tether while in Burgundy; her Castillian servants were bribed or replaced by Burgundians, and her income – part of the marriage settlement – was intercepted by Phillipe. Phillipe’s death didn’t change very much – now it was their son, Charles, who wished to keep his mother out of action while he claimed the crown of Castille and Aragon. Charles had Juana essentially placed under house arrest in Tordesillas, surrounded by servants loyal only to him. Outside of a brief trip away when threatened by the plague, Juana remained there for the rest of her life. Her children had no compunction about looting her personal possessions and jewelry, and arranging to have the disappearance blamed on her servants; they also maintained the fiction that her parents were still alive, encouraging her to write to them and presumably forging replies.


Aram doesn’t dwell too much on the question of whether Juana was “really” mad. She comes up with perfectly reasonably, well-argued explanations for most of the “madness”: Juana kept Phillipe’s coffin with her because she wanted Phillipe buried in Granada; she attacked her servants out of frustration over their disloyalty; she dressed in monk’s robes for religious contemplation, and besides, who wouldn’t be a little off center after being confined to a small suite of rooms for decades? Juana’s been the subject of numerous operas, plays, novels and movies; it’s a shame we don’t have her side of the story.


*This sort of thing might have run in the family; Juana’s great-great-great grandparents were Pedro I of Portugal and his mistress Inez de Castro. In order to legitimatize their children, Pedro had Inez crowned Queen of Portugal, dressed her in the royal regalia, and required all the court to kiss her hand. The catch was Inez de Castro had been dead for two years.… (más)