Le Claire

Medieval

Arms granted upon ennoblement, 1464

Jehan Leclerc de Pulligny

⚭N. de Pulligny

c. 1410, c. 1465

Pulligny, Lorraine

Sieur de Pulligny

Ennobled by letters patent on 3 January 1464. Through him the House enters the recognised noble and seigneurial order of Lorraine.

The Name Through History

A single continuous line, recorded under many forms as it passed through Lorraine, France, the Rhineland and Britain.

  1. Von Mengen

    before 1310

    Lords of Dalheim — Rhenish-Lorrain ministerial nobility

  2. Moingins dis li clers

    c. 1310 – 1400

    Lorrain vernacular byname, 1355 charter

  3. Le Clerc · Leclerc

    15th – 17th c.

    French-Lorraine seigneurial line

  4. Le Claire

    late 17th – 18th c.

    Transitional French spelling of the direct line

  5. Leclaire

    18th – 19th c.

    Napoleonic-era French form

  6. Le Clair · Leclair

    19th c.

    Rhineland branch, German civil registers

  7. Licklär

    1880 – 1970

    Germanised orthography, 20th-century Rhineland

  8. LeClaire

    21st c.

    Restored British form, House of Greenland-LeClaire

Family connection

Parents. Son of Colin Le Clerc and Marguerite Petitgout (recorded in earlier genealogies as 'N. Petitgout'), daughter of Richart dit le Favart Petitgout, Mayor of Mirecourt, and his wife Hauvix; grandson of Mengin Le Clerc and Catherine de Gircourt.

Spouse. N. de Pulligny.

Position in the Direct Line

Generation 3 of 19 in the continuous bloodline shown on the home-page pedigree, from Mengin Le Clerc of Lorraine (c. 1355) to Brandon Noble LeClaire.

  1. Generation 1·Le Clerc

    Johannes Von Mengen III, Lord of Dalheim (Moingins dis li clers)

    c. 1310

  2. Generation 2·Le Clerc

    Colin Le Clerc

  3. Generation 3·Leclerc

    Jehan Leclerc de Pulligny

    c. 1410

  4. Generation 4·Le Clerc

    Mengin II Le Clerc

  5. Generation 5·Leclerc

    Claude Leclerc de Pulligny

    c. 1485

  6. Generation 6·Leclerc

    Claude II Leclerc de Pulligny

    1532

Historical context

Jehan Leclerc de Pulligney represents the family's formal passage from influential civic society into recognised nobility. A bourgeois of Nancy by 1429, he operated within the legal and administrative world of the Duchy of Lorraine.

He appears in litigation as procurator or legal representative in a dispute involving Guiot Poignant, the marshal of Aspremont, Henri d'Ogéviller, lord of Domrémy and Greux, and the inhabitants of those villages, placing him in the politically charged landscape associated with Jeanne d'Arc.

His ennoblement by Jean II of Lorraine on 3 January 1464 marks one of the defining moments in the family's rise. The seigneurial designation of Pulligny, granted with the patent, would be borne by the principal line of the House for the next three centuries.

Known records & evidence

  • Documented record, ennoblement act of 3 January 1464 by Jean II, Duke of Lorraine.
  • Documented record, litigation concerning Domrémy, Greux and the marshal of Aspremont.

Related entities

Other documented people, family branches, places and armorial records connected to this entry in the archive.

Related places

Sources & references

Authoritative archives, libraries and reference collections that hold — or can be used to verify, records of this entity. External sources are cited only where they genuinely support the historical record; not every claim on this page is yet matched to a digitised primary source.

  • Parish, notarial, seigneurial and military records of Lorraine, Alsace and the Rhineland preserved in the LeClaire Family Historical Archive.

Canonical URL: https://leclaire.co.uk/people/jehan-leclerc-de-pulligny