page_title: Church of Notre-Dame of Dijon
section_title: Jacquemart
hierarchical_section_title: Church of Notre-Dame of Dijon / Jacquemart
caption_attribution_description: English: Notre-Dame church, Dijon, Burgundy, FRANCE Français&#160;: Eglise Notre-Dame, vue de profil, Dijon, Bourgogne, FRANCE
context_page_description: The Church of Notre-Dame of Dijon is a Roman Catholic church in Dijon. Considered a masterpiece of 13th-century Gothic architecture, it is situated at the heart of the preserved old centre of the city. It is located in Place Notre-Dame, near the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy and opposite the rue Musette.
  Work on the church began around 1230.
  The church contains the statue of Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir, formerly called the Black Madonna. The church's decorations also include two symbols of Dijon: the jacquemart and the owl. The church was classified as a Monument Historique in the List of historic monuments of 1840. The chapel of the Assumption, the sacristy, and the gallery that links them have been listed as Monuments Historiques since 5 July 2002.
context_section_description: The clock with its jacquemart sits on a campanile rising from the base of the unbuilt south tower of the western façade. It has four metal automatons. Two of them, called Jacquemart and Jacqueline, sound the hours by striking a large bell with a hammer. The other two, their "children", Jacquelinet and Jacquelinette, strike the quarter hours, each on a small bell.
  The automaton Jacquemart and the big bell were brought from Kortrijk (or Courtrai) in Belgium, after the looting of the town by the armies of Philip the Bold (Duke Philippe II of Burgundy) in 1382. In that year he went on a campaign to bring aid to his father-in-law, the Count of Flanders, caught unprepared by a rebellion that extended from Lille to Kortrijk. The town of Dijon provided the Duke with a thousand armed men for this campaign. After achieving victory, Philip sacked Kortrijk. The booty included a clock placed on the tower of the market building. This clock included a marvel - an automaton that struck the hour on a bell. The duke had the clock dismantled and offered it to Dijon, his capital.
  The bell, which was broken during transport, was recast at Dijon. The duke's family and the people of Dijon pooled resources to place the clock and automaton on the western façade of Notre-Dame Church in 1383. The origin of the word jacquemart is uncertain - its use for the Dijon automaton is only attested from 1458.
  A second automaton, depicting a woman, was added in 1651 to alternate with Jacquemart in sounding the hours. The people of Dijon called this new automaton Jacqueline.
  In 1714, the Dijon poet Aimé Piron asked the municipality to provide the couple with children. In that year, or thereabouts, an automaton child, dubbed Jacquelinet, was added to sound the half-hours, and finally in 1884 a second automaton child, Jacquelinette, was added to strike the quarter hours with her brother.
caption: Close-up of Jacquemart
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