The Jacobites, or Jacobins, as they are called by writers of that age (Ar. Ya’ubkiy), received their name from Jacob Baradaeus or James Zanzale, Bishop of Edessa (so called, Mas’udi says, because he was a maker of barda’at or saddle-cloths), who gave a great impulse to their doctrine in the 6th century. [At some time between the years 541 and 578, he separated from the Church and became a follower of the doctrine of Eutyches.—­H.  C.] The Jacobites then formed an independent Church, which at one time spread over the East at least as far as Sistan, where they had a see under the Sassanian Kings.  Their distinguishing tenet was Monophysitism, viz., that Our Lord had but one Nature, the Divine.  It was in fact a rebound from Nestorian doctrine, but, as might be expected in such a case, there was a vast number of shades of opinion among both bodies.  The chief locality of the Jacobites was in the districts of Mosul, Tekrit, and Jazirah, and their Patriarch was at this time settled at the Monastery of St. Matthew, near Mosul, but afterwards, and to the present day, at or near Mardin. [They have at present two patriarchates:  the Monastery of Zapharan near Baghdad and Etchmiadzin.—­H.  C.] The Armenian, Coptic, Abyssinian, and Malabar Churches all hold some shade of the Jacobite doctrine, though the first two at least have Patriarchs apart.

(Assemani, vol. ii.; Le Quien, II. 1596; Mas’udi, II. 329-330; Per.  Quat. 124-129.)

NOTE 3.—­We see here that mosolin or muslin had a very different meaning from what it has now.  A quotation from Ives by Marsden shows it to have been applied in the middle of last century to a strong cotton cloth made at Mosul.  Dozy says the Arabs use Maucili in the sense of muslin, and refers to passages in ‘The Arabian Nights.’ [Bretschneider (Med.  Res. II. p. 122) observes “that in the narrative of Ch’ang Ch’un’s travels to the west in 1221, it is stated that in Samarkand the men of the lower classes and the priests wrap their heads about with a piece of white mo-sze.  There can be no doubt that mo-sze here denotes ‘muslin,’ and the Chinese author seems to understand by this term the same material which we are now used to call muslin.”—­H.  C.] I have found no elucidation of Polo’s application of mosolini to a class of merchants.  But, in a letter of Pope Innocent IV. (1244) to the Dominicans in Palestine, we find classed as different bodies of Oriental Christians, “Jacobitae, Nestoritae, Georgiani, Graeci, Armeni, Maronitae, et Mosolini.” (Le Quien, III. 1342.)