History has often remembered Joanna of Castile—better known by her posthumous moniker Juana la Loca, or Joanna the Mad—as a queen who lost her mind for love and lingered in madness until death. She is imagined wandering with her husband’s coffin, clutching it as if unwilling to release him to the realm of the dead. But is this image accurate, or merely a convenient fiction woven by those who profited from her silence?
The Dutch historian Johan Brouwer takes this well-worn tale and turns it on its head. In his thoughtful and evocative account, Brouwer offers not a sensationalized depiction of a madwoman, but a portrait of a tragic and complex figure whose alleged insanity may have been less a medical reality than a political strategy. Through his lens, Joanna becomes not only a grieving widow but a woman undone by the forces of dynastic ambition and patriarchal politics.
Born in 1479 to the powerful Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, Joanna was educated in a rich intellectual tradition. She was fluent in Latin, trained in philosophy and theology, and exposed to the ideals of Renaissance humanism. This was not the upbringing of a passive or weak-minded woman, but one meant to prepare her for the responsibilities of rule. Yet from the outset, Joanna’s destiny was never truly hers to shape.
Her marriage to Philip the Handsome, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, was orchestrated for political gain. What began as a passionate union quickly deteriorated into a fraught relationship riddled with betrayal and manipulation. Joanna’s deep emotional bond to Philip—intensified by his infidelities and her own growing isolation at his court—set the stage for her later image as a woman “mad with love.”
When Philip died suddenly in 1506, Joanna was just twenty-seven years old and mother to six children. Her grief was profound, but it also became a weapon used against her. Her father Ferdinand soon claimed she was mentally unfit to govern, declaring himself regent of Castile. Her son Charles, later Charles V, would do the same. She spent nearly five decades confined in the Convent of Tordesillas, where she was visited rarely, ruled never, and gradually erased from public life.
Brouwer challenges us to reconsider the term “madness” as applied to Joanna. Were her behaviors truly pathological, or were they the natural reactions of a sensitive and bereaved woman in a political world that offered no space for emotional authenticity? Her supposed mental breakdowns often occurred in contexts where her authority was being questioned or usurped. Was her madness real—or constructed?
Importantly, Brouwer situates Joanna’s downfall within the broader context of gender and power. Early modern Europe was not kind to strong-willed women. A queen regnant like Joanna, who claimed her own authority and did not bend easily to the will of male advisors or relatives, was a threat to established norms. Declaring her insane was not only a means of control but a way to reinforce societal expectations about the roles women were meant to play—docile, devoted, dependent.
The tragedy of Joanna’s life lies not only in her suffering, but in the way that history has misunderstood and misrepresented her. By focusing on the supposed irrationality of her grief, traditional narratives have overlooked the rationality of her confinement. In silencing Joanna, her family secured their thrones—but in doing so, they condemned her to half a century of political and emotional imprisonment.
Brouwer’s work stands as a vital corrective to centuries of simplistic portrayals. It is both a historical inquiry and a philosophical meditation on how we define mental illness, especially in those who disrupt the status quo. His Johanna de Waanzinnige invites us to listen for the voice beneath the legend—the voice of a woman unjustly cast as mad, and long denied her place in the story of Europe.
Further Reading
· Johan Brouwer, Johanna de Waanzinnige.
· Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe
· Manuel Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca: La cautiva de Tordesillas
