See Simeon Luce, Histoire de la Jacquerie (Paris, 1859 and 1895).
(J. V.*)
JACTITATION (from Lat. jactitare, to throw out publicly), in English law, the maliciously boasting or giving out by one party that he or she is married to the other. In such a case, in order to prevent the common reputation of their marriage that might ensue, the procedure is by suit of jactitation of marriage, in which the petitioner alleges that the respondent boasts that he or she is married to the petitioner, and prays a declaration of nullity and a decree putting the respondent to perpetual silence thereafter. Previously to 1857 such a proceeding took place only in the ecclesiastical courts, but by express terms of the Matrimonial Causes Act of that year it can now be brought in the probate, divorce and admiralty division of the High Court. To the suit there are three defences: (1) denial of the boasting; (2) the truth of the representations; (3) allegation (by way of estoppel) that the petitioner acquiesced in the boasting of the respondent. In Thompson v. Rourke, 1893, Prob. 70, the court of appeal laid down that the court will not make a decree in a jactitation suit in favour of a petitioner who has at any time acquiesced in the assertion of the respondent that they were actually married. Jactitation of marriage is a suit that is very rare.
JADE, or Jahde, a deep bay and estuary of the North Sea, belonging to the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, Germany. The bay, which was for the most part made by storm-floods in the 13th and 16th centuries, measures 70 sq. m., and has communication with the open sea by a fairway, a mile and a half wide, which never freezes, and with the tide gives access to the largest vessels. On the west side of the entrance to the bay is the Prussian naval port of Wilhelmshaven. A tiny stream, about 14 m. long, also known as the Jade, enters the head of the bay.
JADE, a name commonly applied to certain ornamental stones, mostly of a green colour, belonging to at least two distinct species, one termed nephrite and the other jadeite. Whilst the term jade is popularly used in this sense, it is now usually restricted by mineralogists to nephrite. The word jade[1] is derived (through Fr. le jade for l’ejade) from Span. ijada (Lat. ilia), the loins, this mineral having been known to the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru under the name of piedra de ijada or yjada (colic stone). The reputed value of the stone in renal diseases is also suggested by the term nephrite (so named by A. G. Werner from Gr. νεφρός, kidney), and by its old name lapis nephriticus.
Jade, in its wide and popular sense, has always been highly prized by the Chinese, who not only believe in its medicinal value but regard it as the symbol of virtue. It is known, with other ornamental stones, under the name of yu or yu-chi (yu-stone). According to Professor H. A. Giles, it occupies in China the highest place as a jewel, and is revered as “the quintessence of heaven and earth.” Notwithstanding its toughness or tenacity, due to a dense fibrous structure, it is wrought into complicated forms and elaborately carved. On many prehistoric sites in Europe, as in the Swiss lake-dwellings, celts and other carved objects both in nephrite and in jadeite have not infrequently been found; and as no kind of jade had until recent years been discovered in situ in any European locality it was held, especially by Professor L. H. Fischer, of Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, that either the raw material or the worked objects must have been brought by some of the early inhabitants from a jade locality probably in the East, or were obtained by barter, thus suggesting a very early trade-route to the Orient. Exceptional interest, therefore, attached to the discovery of jade in Europe, nephrite having been found in Silesia, and jadeite or a similar rock in the Alps, whilst pebbles of jade have been obtained from many localities in Austria and north Germany, in the latter case probably derived from Sweden. It is, therefore, no longer necessary to assign the old jade implements to an exotic origin. Dr A. B. Meyer, of Dresden, always maintained that the European jade objects were indigenous, and his views have become generally accepted. Now that the mineral characters of jade are better understood, and its identification less uncertain, it may possibly be found with altered peridotites, or with amphibolites, among the old crystalline schists of many localities.
Nephrite, or true jade, may be regarded as a finely fibrous or compact variety of amphibole, referred either to actinolite or to tremolite, according as its colour inclines to green or white. Chemically it is a calcium-magnesium silicate, CaMg3(SiO3)4. The fibres are either more or less parallel or irregularly felted together, rendering the stone excessively tough; yet its hardness is not great, being only about 6 or 6.5. The mineral sometimes tends to become schistose, breaking with a splintery fracture, or its structure may be horny. The specific gravity varies from 2.9 to 3.18, and is of determinative value, since jadeite is much denser. The colour of jade presents various shades of green, yellow and grey, and the mineral when polished has a rather greasy lustre. Professor F. W. Clarke found the colours due to compounds of iron, manganese and chromium. One of the most famous localities for nephrite is on the west side of the South Island of New Zealand, where it occurs as nodules and veins in serpentine and talcose rocks, but is generally found as boulders. It was known to the Maoris as pounamu, or “green stone,” and was highly prized, being worked with great labour into various objects, especially the club-like implement known as the mere, or pattoo-pattoo, and the breast ornament called hei-tiki. The New Zealand jade, called by old writers “green talc of the Maoris,” is now worked in Europe as an ornamental stone. The green jade-like stone known in New Zealand as tangiwai is bowenite, a translucent serpentine with enclosures of magnesite. The mode of occurrence of the nephrite and bowenite of New Zealand has been described by A. M. Finlayson (Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., 1909, p. 351). It appears that the Maoris distinguished six varieties of jade. Difference of colour seems due to variations in the proportion of ferrous silicate in the mineral. According to Finlayson, the New Zealand nephrite results from the chemical alteration of serpentine, olivine or pyroxene, whereby a fibrous amphibole is formed, which becomes converted by intense pressure and movement into the dense nephrite.