Jeanne's Family

Jeanne was born in the duchy of Bar, then also under the duc de Lorraine, to a peasent-farmer with a minor official position in the village of Domrémy (Lorraine) in 1412?

Daughter of Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée. Jeanne was the fourth born. Three older brothers. Jacquemin, Jean and Pierre. One younger or older?, Sister: Catherine. Jeanne’s father, mother and brothers burial sites are unknown. Jeanne and her father didn’t have a really good relationship. She had a better relationship with her mother then any one, and learned about, like how to sew linen cloths, to spin cloths, house keeping skills, and especial religion. From her father she learned to farm and to attend the animals.

Parents

Jacques or Jacquot d'Arc (Jacques d'Arc du Lys)

Born in 1380 – Ceffonds, Haute-Marne, Champagne-Ardenne, France
Deceased in 1431 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France, age at death: 51 years old

His name has been recorded with various spellings, including “Jacob d’Arc,” “Jaqes d’Arc,” “Jacques Tarc” and “Jacques Darc.”

Father of the Maid, was born about 1375 at Ceffonds, in the diocese of Troyes, according to the Traité sommaire of Charles du Lys. It was about the time of his marriage that he established himself at Domrémy, for Isabelle Romée was from Vouthon, a village seven kilometers distant. He seems to have enjoyed an honorable position in this countryside, whether he was rich, as some have implied, or not.

In 1419 he was the purchaser of the Chateau de I’Ile, with its appurtenances, put up at auction that year. In a document of 1423 he is described as doyen or sergeant of the village; he therefore took rank between the mayor and the provost, and was in charge of collecting the taxes, and exercised functions analogous to those of the garde Champêtre. The same year finds him among the seven notables who responded for the village in the matter of tribute imposed by the damoiseau of Commercy.

In 1427 in an important trial held before Robert de Baudricourt, captain of Vaucouleurs, he was again acting as a delegate of his fellow-citizens. We know that he opposed with all his power the mission of his daughter, whom he wished to marry off, without a doubt. However, he went to Reims for the coronation of the King, and the King and the municipality defrayed his expenses and gave him a horse for his return to Domrémy.

He was ennobled in December, 1429.
Jacques d’Arc died 1431, it is said, of sorrowing over his daughter’s end.

Isabelle Romée
Jacques d'Arc

Isabelle Romée De Vouthon or Isabeau. d'Arc

Born in 1384 – Vouthon-Haut, Meuse, Lorraine, France
Deceased 28 November 1458 (Sunday) – Sandillon, Loiret, Centre-Val de Loire, France, age at death: 74 years old

Isabelle Romée, also known as Isabelle de Vouthon and Isabelle d’Arc and Ysabeau Romee, was the mother of Jeanne. She moved to Orléans in 1440 after and received a pension from the city. She petitioned Pope Nicholas V to reopen the court case that had convicted Jeanne of heresy, and then, in her seventies, addressed the assembly delegation from the Holy See in Paris. The appeals court overturned the conviction of Jeanne on 7 July 1456. Isabelle gave her daughter a religious, Catholic upbringing and taught her the craft of spinning wool.

Restoring her daughter's name

Isabelle spent the rest of her life restoring her daughter’s name. Mother of the Maid, nee Romée, and called Zabilet in her patois, was born at Vouthon, near Domrémy. We learn from the testimony of Brother Pasquerel at the Rehabilitation proceedings that she returned from the great pilgrimage to Puy en Velay at the time when Jeanne was being conducted to the King, while the expedition to Orléans was being prepared. She was ennobled in the month of December, 1429.

A fter the death of her husband Isabelle left Domrémy, and eventually settled at Orléans, where one finds her established in 1440. We may recall that Jeanne had desired to establish herself in Orléans, for before undertaking the expedition to Reims she had taken a long lese on a house in rue des Petits Souliers, in Saint Maclou parish, near the apse of Saint Catherine’s church.

“Very ill” upon her arrival, Isabelle, who was then about sixty years old, was cared for at the expense of the city of Orléans, and taken care of by the chambermaid of Messire Bertrand, physician. She lived in the house of Henrier Anquetil and the municipality granted her 48 sous parisis a month “to aid her in living and acquiring her necessities in the said city.”

She acted as plaintiff at the time of the Rehabilitation, and lived in the house which her son Pierre occupied in rue des Africains. She was then said to be “decrepit through age,” and she asked to be allowed not to attend all the hearings.

She appeared before the Archbishop of Reims, not as witness, but always as plaintiff. She died on November 28, 1458, after having testified. In 1428 she founded at Domrémy an obit of two gros barrois for anniversary masses, as did Jacques d’Arc.

Isabelle was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon this she lived out her days, which were many. Twenty-four years after her illustrious child’s death she traveled all the way to Paris in the winter-time and was present at the opening of the discussion in the Cathedral of Notre Dame which was the first step in the Rehabilitation.

Paris was crowded with people, from all about France, who came to get sight of the venerable dame, and it was a touching spectacle when she moved through these reverent wet-eyed multitudes on her way to the grand honors awaiting her at the cathedral.

With her were Jean and Pierre, no longer the light-hearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs, but war-torn veterans with hair beginning to show frost.

Isabelles testimony at The Trial of Nullification or Rehabilitation

“I had a daughter born in lawful wedlock who grew up amid the fields and pastures.

I had her baptized and confirmed and brought her up in the fear of God. I taught her respect for the traditions of the Church as much as I was able to do given her age and simplicity of her condition. I succeeded so well that she spent much of her time in church and after having gone to confession she received the sacrament of the Eucharist every month. Because the people suffered so much, she had a great compassion for them in her heart and despite her youth she would fast and pray for them with great devotion and fervor.

She never thought, spoke or did anything against the faith. Certain enemies had her arraigned in a religious trial. Despite her disclaimers and appeals, both tacit and expressed, and without any help given to her defense, she was put through a perfidious, violent, iniquitous and sinful trial. The judges condemned her falsely, damnably and criminally, and put her to death in a cruel manner by fire.

For the damnation of their souls and in notorious, infamous and irreparable loss to me, Isabelle, and mine…

I demand that her name be restored.”

Overcome with grief, she had to be escorted to the sacristy of the cathedral and thus began Jeanne’s Trial of Nullification. The Case was solemnly opened on November 7th, 1455, in the Church of Notre Dame at Paris.

Jeanne's family bring the suit before the Pope 1455

Two months after the election of Pope Calixtus III, Isabelle Romée and her two sons appealed for justice concerning Jeanne’s case. The Pope authorized the investigation and appointed the judges. The process to right the wrongs done to Jeanne was begun on November 7, 1455.

Isabelle Romée, who was now somewhere between sixty and seventy years old, her two sons and a group of friends from Orleans, came to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Tearfully and filled with emotion, Isabelle approached the Pope’s representative judges and began to recite her request for justice for her daughter. The Court heard the request with some emotion.

When Isabelle threw herself at the feet of the Commissioners, showing the Papal Legit Rescript and weeping aloud, while her Advocate, Pierre Maugier, and his assistants prayed for justice for her and for the memory of her martyred daughter, so many of those present joined aloud in the petition, that at last, we are told, it seemed that one great cry for justice broke from the multitude.

In her own words - From the Trial of Condemnation

“Did not your father have dreams about you before your departure?”

“When I was still with my father and mother, my mother told me many times that my father had spoken of having dreamed that I, Jeannette, his daughter, went away with the men-at-arms. My father and mother took great care to keep me safe, and held me much in subjection. I obeyed them in everything, except in the case at Toul – the action for marriage. I have heard my mother say that my father told my brothers ‘Truly, if I thought this thing would happen that I have dreamed about my daughter, I would wish you to drown her; and, if you would not do it, I would drown her myself!’ He nearly lost his senses when I went to Vaucouleurs.”

“Did these thoughts and dreams come to your father after you had your visions?”

“Yes, more than two years after I had heard my first Voice.”

Siblings

Pierre d'Arc du Lys (Pierrelot d'Arc du Lys) Perrel

Born in 1408 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France. Deceased in 1467 – Sandillon, Loiret, Centre-Val de Loire, France, age at death: 59 years old

Pierre d’Arc went to seek his sister “in France,” fought along with her at Orléans, lived in the same house with her in that city, accompanied her to Reims, and was ennobled with the rest of the family. He was captured with Jeanne at Compiègne, but was eventually released. Pierre retired to the city of Orléans where he received many gifts from the King, the city of Orléans, and a pension from Duke Charles, among them the Ile aux Boeufs in 1443. The descendants of, Pierre, had in their possession three of Jeanne’s letters and a sword that she had worn. The letters were saved but the sword was lost during the chaos of the revolutionary period.

The youngest son of Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle Romée, Pierre and his older brother Jéan fought under their sister’s banner at the Siege of Orléans. Pierre and Jeanne were both captured in Compiègne, but he was released. After serving in the army for many additional years, he was knighted and, following his marriage, became the father of two sons and a daughter. The Duke of Orléans gave him the Ile-aux-Boeufs (a large island of pastureland that was situated on the Loire a little up river from Orleans). Charles VII bestowed upon him the perception of a right to collecting Tolls in the district of Chaumont. He became a knight of the Order of the Porcupine, created by Charles d’Orléans. He had a son curiously surnamed “The Maid” who died in 1501.

Following Jeanne’s execution, several young women came forward claiming to be her. In 1434, Pierre and Jéan temporarily accepted Jeanne des Armoises (whose real name was Claude) as the actual Jeanne.] Over the next 6 years, the brothers and their “sister” travelled from town to town, beginning at Orléans, receiving lavish gifts from Jeanne’s many admirers, among them, Princess Elizabeth of Luxembourg (1390-1451), and Elisabeth von Görlitz, widow of Prince Anton of Burgundy. Then Claude made the mistake of meeting with Charles VII of France in Paris. Unable to tell him the “secret” Jeanne had told him – which proved to Charles that Jeanne had been sent by God to defeat the English – Claude confessed to the subterfuge, and begged the king’s forgiveness.

There are no clear historical details regarding the final years of Pierre d’Arc, including the year and circumstances of his death. It is known that he died in Orléans and has descendants who have traced their lineage to him through the centuries into the 2000s.

Catherine D'Arc du Lys

Born about 1405 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France

Deceased in 1429, age at death: possibly 24 years old

There is also very little known about Catherine, than she married, Colin, the son of Greux’s mayor, and died young in childbirth near the end of 1429.

Jacques D'Arc du Lys - Or Jaquemin (petit Jacques)

Born in May 1402 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France
Deceased in 1452 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France, age at death: 50 years old

There is very little known about Jacquemin, than he was born 1402 in Vaudeville, Le Haut and died in 1450. He was married Catherine Corviset who was born 1405 and died in 1430. They were married at Doremy La Pucelle. Jacques d’Arc, nicknamed Jacquemin (at the time, it was customary to call the first-born by the father’s first name), was the eldest of the five children of Jacques and Isabelle. He did not become a soldier, unlike his brothers. Jacquemin left several children.

Jehan D'Arc du Lys

Born in 1404 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France
Deceased in 1477 – Domrémy-la-Pucelle, Vosges, Lorraine, France, age at death: 73 years old

Jean d’Arc, who fled with his sister to Neufchâteau, accompanied her to France, and was lodged at the house of Jacques Boucher at Orléans. He was ennobled in December, 1429. When provost of Vaucouleurs he worked for the rehabilitation of his sister, appeared at Rouen and Paris, and formed a commission to get evidence from their native district and produce witnesses.

He was Bailly of Vermandois and captain of Chartres and was discharged from the provostship of Vaucouleurs in 1468. The youngest, Jean du Lys, alias Little Jean, was named in 1452 Bailiff of Vermandois and Captain of Chartres. In 1457 he was made Captain of Vaucouleurs which he held for 10 years before his retirement. Jean d’Arc may be remained without posterity so he had no heir to become the parish priest of Domrémy.

From 1434 to 1440, Jeannes’s brothers passed an imposter off as their sister, claiming she’d escaped execution.

One of several women who posed as Jeanne in the years following her death, Claude des Armoises resembled the well-known heretic and had supposedly participated in military campaigns while dressed in men’s clothing. She and two of Jeanne’s brothers, Jean and Pierre, crafted a scheme in which Claude presented herself to the people of Orléans, pretending to have fled her captors and married a knight while living in obscurity.

The trio received lavish gifts and travelled from one festive reception to the next until Claude finally admitted their subterfuge to Charles VII, whose ascension Jeanne had engineered in 1429. Despite their involvement in the deception, Jean and Pierre played key roles in successfully petitioning Pope Callixtus III for Jeanne’s retrial, having presumably given up the charade of her survival by the 1450s.