1. Béatrice Leroy, La Navarre au Moyen Age (Paris, 1984), 186.
2. The other queens regnant during this period are: Margaret of Norway (Queen of Scotland, 1286–90), Beatrix of Portugal (contested queen, 1383–85), Constanza of Aragon (claimant queen, 1369–87), Isabel of Castile (1474–1504), Isabella of Mallorca (claimant queen, 1375), Maria of Sicily (1392–1401), Giovanna I of Naples (1343–82), Giovanna II of Naples (1414–35), Maria of Hungary (1382–95), Elizabeth of Hungary and Bohemia (claimant queen, 1437–42), Jadwiga of Poland (1382–99), and Margarethe of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1375–1412). See Armin Wolf, “Reigning Queens in Medieval Europe: Where, When and Why,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (Stroud, 1998), 169–188. Outside of Europe, it must be noted that the Kingdom of Jerusalem had a similar number of reigning queens immediately prior to the period of this study: Melisende (1131–53), Sibylla (1186–90), Isabella (1190–1205), Maria (1205–12), and Isabella II/Yolande (1212–28). Although these women will be discussed as comparative examples, many of these women were queens regnant in title only, due to the loss of Jerusalem in 1187 and the increasing loss of territory during the subsequent years. In addition, despite the fact that most were of French descent, these queens cannot be considered to be truly “European” and therefore do not challenge Navarre’s record of the most female sovereigns in Europe during the Middle Ages.
3. Rachel Bard, Navarra: The Durable Kingdom (Reno, 1982), 28.
4. Regarding Carlos as a French prince, see Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms 1250–1516. Vol. 2; 1410–1516 Castillian Hegemony. 2 vols. (Oxford, 1978), 564. For a discussion of his reorientation toward peninsular politics see
5. Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero, “A modo de presentación: Estudios sobre la realeza Navarra en siglo XV,” in Estudios sobre la realeza Navarra en siglo XV, ed. Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero (Pamplona, 2005), 11–13.