King Robert's will left Naples to Joanna, her husband was strangled, and she sold the city of Avignon to the pope while the murder was examined

Robert of Anjou, king of Naples and count of Provence, signed his will on 16 January 1343 and died on 20 January. It named his granddaughter Joanna heir to Naples and Provence, set a regency council until she reached 25, and gave no role to her husband, Andrew of Hungary. On the night of 18 to 19 September 1345 Andrew was strangled at Aversa and thrown from a window. The Dizionario Biografico says Catherine of Valois was probably behind it and that Joanna's active role cannot be proven. Andrew's son was born on 25 December 1345. In 1347 the army of Louis I of Hungary entered the kingdom. On 15 January 1348 Joanna fled by night on two galleys to Provence and reached Avignon, the papal seat, on 15 March. On 9 June 1348 she sold the sovereignty of Avignon to Pope Clement VI for 80,000 florins. A commission was set up to examine Andrew's murder, and the pope granted the dispensation for her second marriage. She returned to Naples on 17 August 1348. On 27 July 1382 she was killed at Muro Lucano on the orders of Charles of Durazzo, and as an excommunicate she was denied a Christian burial. Avignon remained papal territory until 1791, when it became part of France.