John I (15 November 1316 – 19 November 1316), called the Posthumous (French: Jean I le Posthume, Occitan: Joan I lo Postume), was the King of France and Navarre, as the posthumous son and successor of Louis X, for the four days he lived in 1316. He is the youngest person to be king of France, the only one to have been king from birth, and the only one to hold the title for his entire life. His reign is the shortest of any undisputed French king. Although considered as a king today, his status was not recognized until chroniclers and historians in later centuries began numbering John II, thereby acknowledging John I's brief reign.
John reigned for four days under the regency of his uncle, Philip V of France, until his death on 19 November 1316. His death ended the three centuries of father-to-son succession to the French throne. The infant king was buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis. He was succeeded by his uncle, Philip, whose contested legitimacy led to the re-affirmation of the Salic law, which excluded women from the line of succession to the French throne.
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Consequences
The child mortality rate was very high in medieval Europe and John may have died from any number of causes, but rumours of poisoning spread immediately after his death (including one which said that he had been murdered with a pin by his aunt), as many people benefited from it, and as John's father had also died in strange circumstances. The cause of his death is still not known today.
The premature death of John brought the first issue of succession of the Capetian dynasty. When Louis X, his father, died without a son to succeed him, it was the first time since Hugh Capet that the succession from father to son of the kings of France was interrupted. It was then decided to wait until his pregnant widow, Clementia of Hungary, delivered the child. The king's brother, Philip the Tall, was in charge of the regency of the kingdom against his uncle Charles of Valois. The birth of a male child was expected to give France its king. The problem of succession returned when John died four days after birth. Philip ascended the throne at the expense of John's four-year-old half-sister, Joan, daughter of Louis X and Margaret of Burgundy.