JEUNESSE AGRICOLE CHRÉTIENNE (J. A. C.)
Founded in 1929, it is the organization that brings together rural youth of all states and conditions in French-speaking countries and addresses all their problems. It has a twofold purpose: to educate and form rural youth in all aspects (social, spiritual, familial, physical, professional, and civic); and to enhance the rural environment by giving rural people an awareness of their value within the framework of national life.
Its organization is structured into local sections, which are coordinated by federations and a national committee, governed by a council and a national secretary. Each body has its own headquarters.
The activities, which the J. A. C. carries out for young people, are called “services” and aim to meet all the needs and address all the problems of rural youth; thus there is the service for soldiers, the press service, the professional service, the family education service, etc.
At present the organization publishes a bimonthly newspaper entitled *Jeunes forces rurales et militantes*, and a monthly for those apostolically active.
The badge is a small shield with the inscription J. A. C. and a cross entwined with an ear of wheat.
Parallel and analogous to this movement there exists one of a feminine character.
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Jesse, Tree of
According to E. Mâle the stained-glass window of St-Denis would constitute the archetype of the depictions of the Tree of Jesse (La part de Suger dans la création de l'iconographie du moyen âge, in *Revue de l'art ancien et moderne*, I (1914), p. 91). But in the chronicle of William of Thorney it is read that Abbot Hugh of Fleury would have acquired in 1091 on the continent a large bronze candelabrum “which is called Jesse” for Westminster Abbey. According to E. Mâle the representation of the Tree of Jesse would have derived from depictions of prophets, taken from a medieval sermon attributed to St Augustine, which were held in France on Christmas night or on New Year’s Day. Yet already in a manuscript of the 10th century from St Martial of Limoges there is a depiction of the Tree of Jesse with Virgil and the Sibyls.
It may therefore be that the origin of the scene is to be sought rather in the miniatures that fused the concept of the prophecy of Isaiah with the genealogy of the Saviour, along with the commentaries of some Fathers of the Church who identified Mary in the branches of the tree and Jesus in the flower that blooms at the summit.
Certainly, especially in France, the theme is reproduced frequently in the 12th–16th centuries in the stained-glass windows of cathedrals, in frescoes, on portals, in tapestries, in enamels, in ivories, in illuminated Bibles, in Evangeliaries, Psalters, Books of Hours, etc.
In Germany it is found in the ceiling of Hildesheim (12th century); in Austria in the vault of the central nave of Maria Saal (c. 1480). In Italy in the Romanesque pulpit of S. Piero in Scheraggio, now in S. Leonardo in Arcetri near Florence; on the portal of the cathedral of Genoa, in the baptistery of Parma, on the door of S. Zeno in Verona, in a fresco of the cathedral in Naples, on a pillar of the cathedral of Orvieto, etc.
In Spain in a pillar of the cloister of S. Domingo de Silos, on the Portal of Glory of S. James of Compostella, in the cloister of the cathedral of Pamplona in Burgos, in the chapel of the Conception erected by Bishop Luis de Acuña, attributed to Diego de la Cruz; in Zamora on the tomb of the canon Juan de Grado (d. 1507).
Jesse, Tree of — Miniature from the *Hortus Deliciarum*, f. 80v (c. 1230) — Paris, Bibliothèque nationale.