Jaunay Family History
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    • Jaunay - the name, facts and figures 1800-1990
    Travelling on the main A10 highway to Poitiers from Paris, one comes across a small community named Jaunay-Clan. It would seem that the name does originate from this area. The local archive has several pre-Revolution Jaunay references in its card index. The director of the Vienne archives suggests that the place name Jaunay is very ancient. He believes it has existed since the times of Saint Leger who is purported to have lived from c616 - 678AD during the times of the merovingian kings who ruled from the fall of Roman Empire until 750AD. The earliest written reference approximating the current form occurs in 1162 as Jaunaicum.
    A Jaunay coat of arms does exist. There is no evidence in my research that the Jaunay family would ever have considered themselves as members of the noble class! In pre-Revolutionary France, any family who was able to trace their descent to 1400 or earlier was entitled to consider themselves as peers. Families able to prove descent together with ownership of any land subject to feudal obligations, commonly called a fief or feoff, from before 1560 were called gentlemen of rank and could assume titles at will. Moreover, unlike the English system, the rank of peerage was tied to the size of property owned. It was the land which was deemed to be a Baronie, Comté or Marquisat, not the individual who owned it. In 1696 Louis XIV, King of France established a tax on coats of arms and then arranged to issue arms to all those who did not have them! As a result achievements are common amongst the middle classes with about 90% of the registry listing being commoners. Armorial Général list some 90,000 arms belonging to commoners whose only distinction was that they were not to include helmets and crests in their arms. The arms listed for Jaunay were granted in 1726 at the lowest rank of nobility and it would appear that they were the same version issued previously in 1574.

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