Jacques d'Arc

Who was Jacques d'Arc?

Jacques d'Arc was the father of Joan of Arc. He was a farmer in the village of Domrémy in Lorraine. He held the post of doyen, a local post that collected taxes and organized the village defense. He was born at Ceffonds. He married Isabelle de Vouthon, called Romée, in 1405. Their other children were Jacquemin, Jean, Pierre, and Catherine.

King Charles VII ennobled Jacques and Isabelle's family on 29 December 1429 with an inheritable symbolic denomination. The Chamber of Accounts in France registered the family's designation to nobility on 20 January 1430. The grant permitted the family to change their surname to du Lys.

During Joan of Arc's youth Jacques and his wife owned about 50 acres of land - 30 acres of pasture, 10 acres of cropland, and 10 acres of forest.

According to a firmly maintained family tradition, it is said that two months after his daughter died, Jacques fell ill of grief and died as a result. The family tradition is presumably wrong here since Joan died in 1431 where as most sources place Jacques D'Arc's death around 1440.