The Golden Legend, one of the most popular religious works of the middle ages, is a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church. The preface divides the ecclesiastical year into four periods corresponding to the various epochs of the world’s history, a time of deviation, of renovation, of reconciliation and of pilgrimage. The book itself, however, falls into five sections:—(a) from Advent to Christmas (cc. 1-5); (b) from Christmas to Septuagesima (6-30); (c) from Septuagesima to Easter (31-53); (d) from Easter Day to the octave of Pentecost (54-76); (e) from the octave of Pentecost to Advent (77-180). The saints’ lives are full of puerile legend, and in not a few cases contain accounts of 13th-century miracles wrought at special places, particularly with reference to the Dominicans. The last chapter but one (181), “De Sancto Pelagio Papa,” contains a kind of history of the world from the middle of the 6th century; while the last (182) is a somewhat allegorical disquisition, “De Dedicatione Ecclesiae.”
The Golden Legend was translated into French by Jean Belet de Vigny in the 14th century. It was also one of the earliest books to issue from the press. A Latin edition is assigned to about 1469; and a dated one was published at Lyons in 1473. Many other Latin editions were printed before the end of the century. A French translation by Master John Bataillier is dated 1476; Jean de Vigny’s appeared at Paris, 1488; an Italian one by Nic. Manerbi (? Venice, 1475); a Bohemian one at Pilsen, 1475-1479, and at Prague, 1495; Caxton’s English versions, 1483, 1487 and 1493; and a German one in 1489. Several 15th-century editions of the Sermons are also known, and the Mariale was printed at Venice in 1497 and at Paris in 1503.
For bibliography see Potthast, Bibliotheca hist. med. aev. (Berlin, 1896), p. 634; U. Chevalier, Répertoire des sources hist. Bio.-bibl. (Paris, 1905), s.v. “Jacques de Voragine.”
JACOTOT, JOSEPH (1770-1840), French educationist, author of the method of “emancipation intellectuelle,” was born at Dijon on the 4th of March 1770. He was educated at the university of Dijon, where in his nineteenth year he was chosen professor of Latin, after which he studied law, became advocate, and at the same time devoted a large amount of his attention to mathematics. In 1788 he organized a federation of the youth of Dijon for the defence of the principles of the Revolution; and in 1792, with the rank of captain, he set out to take part in the campaign of Belgium, where he conducted himself with bravery and distinction. After for some time filling the office of secretary of the “commission d’organisation du mouvement des armées,” he in 1794 became deputy of the director of the Polytechnic school, and on the institution of the central schools at Dijon he was appointed to the chair of the “method of sciences,” where he made his first experiments in that mode of tuition which he afterwards developed more fully. On the central schools being replaced by other educational institutions, Jacotot occupied successively the chairs of mathematics and of Roman law until the overthrow of the empire. In 1815 he was elected a representative to the chamber of deputies; but after the second restoration he found it necessary to quit his native land, and, having taken up his residence at Brussels, he was in 1818 nominated by the Government teacher of the French language at the university of Louvain, where he perfected into a system the educational principles which he had already practised with success in France. His method was not only adopted in several institutions in Belgium, but also met with some approval in France, England, Germany and Russia. It was based on three principles: (1) all men have equal intelligence; (2) every man has received from God the faculty of being able to instruct himself; (3) everything is in everything. As regards (1) he maintained that it is only in the will to use their intelligence that men differ; and his own process, depending on (3), was to give any one learning a language for the first time a short passage of a few lines, and to encourage the pupil to study, first the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the meaning, until a single paragraph became the occasion for learning an entire literature. After the revolution of 1830 Jacotot returned to France, and he died at Paris on the 30th of July 1840.
His system was described by him in Enseignement universel, langue maternelle, Louvain and Dijon, 1823—which passed through several editions—and in various other works; and he also advocated his views in the Journal de l’émancipation intellectuelle. For a complete list of his works and fuller details regarding his career, see Biographie de J. Jacotot, by Achille Guillard (Paris, 1860).
JACQUARD, JOSEPH MARIE (1752-1834), French inventor, was born at Lyons on the 7th of July 1752. On the death of his father, who was a working weaver, he inherited two looms, with which he started business on his own account. He did not, however, prosper, and was at last forced to become a lime-burner at Bresse, while his wife supported herself at Lyons by plaiting straw. In 1793 he took part in the unsuccessful defence of Lyons against the troops of the Convention; but afterwards served in their ranks on the Rhône and Loire. After seeing some active service, in which his young son was shot down at his side, he again returned to Lyons. There he obtained a situation in a factory, and employed his spare time in constructing his improved loom, of which he had conceived the idea several years previously. In 1801 he exhibited his invention at the industrial exhibition at Paris; and in 1803 he was summoned to Paris and attached to the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. A loom by Jacques de Vaucanson (1700-1782), deposited there, suggested various improvements in his own, which he gradually perfected to its final state. Although his invention was fiercely opposed by the silk-weavers, who feared that its introduction, owing to the saving of labour, would deprive them of their livelihood, its advantages secured its general adoption, and by 1812 there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in use in France. The loom was declared public property in 1806, and Jacquard was rewarded with a pension and a royalty on each machine. He died at Oullins (Rhône) on the 7th of August 1834, and six years later a statue was erected to him at Lyons (see [Weaving]).
JACQUERIE, THE, an insurrection of the French peasantry which broke out in the Île de France and about Beauvais at the end of May 1358. The hardships endured by the peasants in the Hundred Years’ War and their hatred for the nobles who oppressed them were the principal causes which led to the rising, though the immediate occasion was an affray which took place on the 28th of May at the village of Saint-Leu between “brigands” (militia infantry armoured in brigandines) and countryfolk. The latter having got the upper hand united with the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages and placed Guillaume Karle at their head. They destroyed numerous châteaux in the valleys of the Oise, the Brèche and the Thérain, where they subjected the whole countryside to fire and sword, committing the most terrible atrocities. Charles the Bad, king of Navarre, crushed the rebellion at the battle of Mello on the 10th of June, and the nobles then took violent reprisals upon the peasants, massacring them in great numbers.