Renaissance
Mengin II Le Clerc
⚭Mengette
Pulligny, Lorraine
Continuation of the Pulligny line, an important bridge between the early civic family and the later noble branches.
The Name Through History
A single continuous line, recorded under many forms as it passed through Lorraine, France, the Rhineland and Britain.
De Parroye / de Haute-Pierre
before 1310
Seigneurial houses of Lorraine from which the maternal ancestry descends
Moingins dis li clers
c. 1310 – 1400
Lorrain vernacular byname, 1355 charter
Le Clerc · Leclerc
15th – 17th c.
French-Lorraine seigneurial line
Le Claire
late 17th – 18th c.
Transitional French spelling of the direct line
Leclaire
18th – 19th c.
Napoleonic-era French form
Le Clair · Leclair
19th c.
Rhineland branch, German civil registers
Licklär
1880 – 1970
Germanised orthography, 20th-century Rhineland
LeClaire
21st c.
Restored British form, House of Greenland-LeClaire
Family connection
Parents. Son of Jehan Leclerc de Pulligney.
Spouse. Mengette.
Married Mengette, mother of Claude Leclerc de Pulligny and Thierry Le Clerc de Roville.
Position in the Direct Line
Generation 4 of 19 in the continuous bloodline shown on the home-page pedigree, from Mengin Le Clerc of Lorraine (c. 1355) to Brandon Noble LeClaire.
Generation 2·Le Clerc
Colin Le ClercGeneration 4·Le Clerc
Mengin II Le Clerc
Historical context
Mengin II Le Clerc was one of the great architects of the family's ascent. By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Le Clercs were no longer merely a family of local standing, they were involved in civic government, trade and the financial administration of Nancy.
A 1498–1499 register records the second account of receipts and expenses made by the four governors or sworn officers of Nancy, including Mengin II Le Clerc. His position enabled his sons Claude and Thierry to receive renewed noble recognition under Duke Antoine of Lorraine in 1512.
In family terms, he represents the point at which wealth, office and noble ambition converged.
Known records & evidence
Lineage explorer
Mengin II Le Clerc in the line
Trace the generations from this ancestor to the present day, follow how land, titles and arms descended, or open the wider network of marriages and allied houses.
16 generations of the documented bloodline
- 1
Continuation of the Pulligny line, an important bridge between the early civic family and the later noble branches.
- 2Claude Leclerc de Pullignyc. 1485, 1562
Valet de Chambre to Duke Antoine of Lorraine
A major patriarch of the House of Le Clerc. Merchant of silk and wool cloth, valet de chambre to Duke Antoine, Conseiller and Auditeur at the Chamber of Accounts under Charles III, and seigneur of multiple lordships in Lorraine.

- 3Claude II Leclerc de Pulligny1532, 1598
Argentier of the Duke of Lorraine
Argentier to the Duke of Lorraine and Treasurer to the Count of Vaudémont's company, the height of the Le Clerc de Pulligny family's political and financial influence, whose conversion to Protestantism brought the confiscation of the family's nobility and lands, and one of the defining crises in the history of the House.
- 4Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny1585, after 1659
Knight of the Order of Saint Mark (Republic of Venice)
Born in Nancy, son of Claude II Le Clerc de Pulligny and Claudon Mengin de Pulligny. Served Charlotte Catherine de La Trémoille, Princess of Taranto and wife of Henri de Bourbon-Condé. Later a Knight of Saint Mark and, together with his brother Jean, restored to hereditary nobility on 28 May 1623. Alexandre represents the most likely continuation of the direct ancestral line following Claude II.

- 5Nicolas Le Clerc1624, 1660
Son of Alexandre Le Clerc de Pulligny and father of Alexandre II Le Clerc; the generation through which the direct ancestral line is carried across the mid-seventeenth century in Lorraine.
- 6Alexandre II Le Clerc1652, 1695
Minor Lord of Lorraine
Minor Lord of Lorraine and key transitional figure linking the historic Le Clerc de Pulligny family to the subsequent Le Claire branches from which the modern House descends.
- 7François 'Pierre' Le Claire1684, ?
First generation to bear the Le Claire form of the family name. Son of Alexandre II Le Clerc and direct ancestor of the eighteenth-century Le Claire line.

- 8
A principal figure in the documented LeClaire line. Father of the senior French officer Théodore François Joseph Leclaire and husband of an heiress of the Van der Vyvere.

- 9'Louis Benjamin' Jean Baptiste Alexis Leclaire24 June 1754, 29 July 1825
Younger son of Jean Pierre Le Claire and Jacqueline Van der Vyvere; younger brother of Général Théodore François Joseph Leclaire. Through Louis the direct bloodline of the modern House descends into the Rhineland.
- 10Johann Baptiste Le Clair1796, ?
A generation showing the family name in the Le Clair form, reflecting linguistic and administrative variation.
- 11Gottfried Leclair1842, 1915
A nineteenth-century representative of the Leclair spelling within the family's period of German-speaking assimilation.
- 12Julius Leclair1880, 1961
Son of Gottfried Leclair and Maria E. Maßmann; husband of Elisabeth Fitze and father of Bernhardine Licklär, through whom the bloodline continues into the modern German-speaking generation.
- 13Bernhardine Licklär1920, 1978
Daughter of Julius Leclair and Elisabeth Fitze; her surname records the fully Germanised form of the family name. Mother of Monika Ute Licklär by Jan Jagt; the two were not married.
- 14Monika Ute Licklär1944, ?
Continuation of the Germanised branch of the LeClaire line; mother of the modern restoration.
- 15Andrea Michaela Tai-Noble1966, ?
A daughter of the House of LeClaire; the continuation of the bloodline through the Licklär branch, and mother of Brandon Noble LeClaire. Her documented descent runs from Jean Pierre Le Claire and Jacqueline Van der Vyvere through their younger son Louis Jean Baptiste Leclaire, brother of Général Théodore François Joseph Leclaire, and the successive Le Clair, Leclair and Licklär generations of the Rhineland.
- 16Brandon Noble LeClaire1995, ?
Head of the House of LeClaire
Modern representative and present head of the House of LeClaire, one of the historic noble and moneyed houses of the Duchy of Lorraine, and, by his 22 May 2027 marriage to Abigail Jane Greenland, founder of the House of Greenland-LeClaire. He has formally restored the ancestral surname LeClaire to continue an eight-hundred-year documented lineage that includes the Sieurs de Pulligny, Auditors of the Chamber of Accounts of Nancy, advancers of capital to the Dukes of Lorraine, and his fifth-great-granduncle Général de Division Théodore François Joseph Leclaire, Commander of the Legion of Honour.

Related entities
Other documented people, family branches, places and armorial records connected to this entry in the archive.
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Elsewhere in the archive
Citations & sources
Each numbered reference below supports a specific statement on this page. The evidence label records how firmly that reference attests the point.
- Primary SourceFull reference: Documented record, 1498–1499 register of the four governors of Nancy.
- 2.Documented record, 1512 letters patent of ennoblement of Claude and Thierry, sons of the late Mengin II.↩Primary SourceFull reference: Documented record, 1512 letters patent of ennoblement of Claude and Thierry, sons of the late Mengin II.
Chancery of the Duchy of Lorraine · 1512
Primary SourceFull reference: Grant of arms and confirmation of nobility to Claude Le Clerc de Pulligny, Chancery of the Duchy of Lorraine, 1512House of LeClaire
Published GenealogyFull reference: LeClaire Family Historical Archive, House of LeClaire — https://leclaire.co.uk/historical-archiveFrench National Archives, sovereign and noble records of the Ancien Régime and after.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Archives Nationales (France), French National Archives, sovereign and noble records of the Ancien Régime and after. — https://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/Genealogy platform; use only entries that themselves cite primary records.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Geneanet, Genealogy platform; use only entries that themselves cite primary records. — https://www.geneanet.org/Open-licensed historical images, maps and document scans.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Wikimedia Commons, Open-licensed historical images, maps and document scans. — https://commons.wikimedia.org/Charles d'Hozier's Armorial général de France (1696), digitised by the BnF.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: BnF, Armorial général de France (d'Hozier), Charles d'Hozier's Armorial général de France (1696), digitised by the BnF. — https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8470253qOpen-licensed reproductions of French armorial bearings.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Wikimedia Commons, Heraldry of France, Open-licensed reproductions of French armorial bearings. — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Heraldry_of_FranceDigitised primary sources of the BnF, including charters and registers of Lorraine.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Digitised primary sources of the BnF, including charters and registers of Lorraine. — https://gallica.bnf.fr/Parish, notarial and seigneurial registers for Nancy and the former Duchy of Lorraine.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Archives départementales de Meurthe-et-Moselle, Parish, notarial and seigneurial registers for Nancy and the former Duchy of Lorraine. — https://archives.meurthe-et-moselle.fr/Parish and notarial records covering the Pulligny / Xirocourt area.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Archives départementales des Vosges, Parish and notarial records covering the Pulligny / Xirocourt area. — https://archives.vosges.fr/Bibliographic catalogue of printed and manuscript holdings.
Published Scholarly ResearchFull reference: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Catalogue général, Bibliographic catalogue of printed and manuscript holdings. — https://catalogue.bnf.fr/
Canonical URL: https://leclaire.co.uk/people/mengin-ii-le-clerc
