Source: National Archives & Historic Records of Kingdom of France
Business • Historical Archive • 🇫🇷 France • 2 views

Jacques Coeur 🇫🇷

Jacques Cœur (Known as "Jacques Cœur")
Grand Royal Financier, Merchant Prince, Financed Victory in Hundred Years' War
Born c. 1395 🇫🇷 Bourges, France
Passed Away Nov 25, 1456 Chios, Republic of Genoa (Aegean)
Lifespan 61 years old
2 views
Notice / Correction
"A vaillans cuers riens impossible (To a valiant heart, nothing is impossible)."

Archival Overview

Audacious merchant prince and royal financier whose Mediterranean trading fleet and financial genius as Argentier to King Charles VII funded the French royal army that drove English forces from Normandy and Gascony.

Biographical Record

Son of a Bourges furrier, Coeur revolutionized French commerce by dispatching galleys to Alexandria, Damascus, and Beirut to import silk, spices, and porcelain. In 1438, Charles VII appointed him Grand Argentier (Treasurer of the Royal House), reorganizing royal mints and taxation.

Coeur personally loaned the King hundreds of thousands of gold écus to fund Dunois and the French armies that liberated Rouen, Cherbourg, and Bordeaux, ending the Hundred Years' War. Envied by debtor nobles, he was falsely arrested in 1451, escaped to Rome, and died commanding Pope Calixtus III's naval crusade at Chios.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Franciscan Church of Saint Nicholas (now lost)
Chios, Greece
GPS: 38.3667, 26.1333
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