This edited work by Michael Cooper analyzes João Rodrigues's influential account of 16th-century Japan, highlighting Rodrigues's unique position as a proficient interpreter and Jesuit in a tumultuous period. While praising the value of Rodrigues's observations on various aspects of Japanese culture, Cooper critiques the manuscript's style and the limitations in its bibliography. Overall, the book serves as an essential resource for understanding the European perspective on Japan during this era, despite its stylistic drawbacks.

Bulletin of Portuguese-Japanese Studies, 2004

ASIANetwork Exchange, 2023

Though many scholars have understood Tokugawa Japan's encounter with Christianity (1549-1650) to have ended in failure, an analysis of the period's religious literature demonstrates the considerable extent to which missionaries engaged with Japanese culture. This article examines several Kirishitan (Japanese Christian) texts printed between 1590 and 1620, devoting particular attention to the theological and philosophical terminology they employed. While sometimes borrowing directly from Latin and Portuguese, the new Catholic lexicon also drew from pre existing Japanese vocabulary in the context of Buddhist and Neo-Confucian spirituality. Along with the education reforms introduced by the accommodationist Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, projects of Catholicism in translation complicate the picture of defeat and mutual misunderstanding that are often thought to characterize Japan's Christian Century.

Translating Wor(l)ds

This essay presents examples of translation of keywords of the Christian doctrine translated by Jesuit missionaries during the so-called ‘Christian century’, when Europeans undertook the conversion of the Japanese, between the second half of the 16th century and the first part of the following. The purpose is to highlight the difficulties of translation between very distant and different cultures, and the strategies that were devised in order to overcome the problems.

Bulletin of Portuguese - Japanese Studies, 2000

Bulletin of Portuguese-Japanese Studies, 2022

It is widely held that most Jesuit priests in Japan did not know enough of Japanese to be able to effectively preach and teach the Christian religion during the 16th and 17th centuries. Most support for this belief derives from comments found in some letters and other documents written by the missionaries. It is argued here that a more accurate source of information concerning the language ability of non-Japanese Jesuit missionaries may be found in some of the catalogues that describe the mission personnel. The information found in the catalogues compiled in 1579, 1593, 1603 and 1614 is reproduced, classified, and tabulated. The picture that emerges from this exercise suggests that the number and proportion of Jesuit priests fluent in the language was indeed quite low during the first 30 years of the mission, but that the situation changed markedly with the introduction of systematic language training for Jesuit priests coming to Japan by Valignano in the early 1580s. The assumption that the Jesuit missionaries were not proficient in Japanese during the 1590s and 1600s is an error.

When Alessandro Valignano arrived in Japan in 1579, the Society of Jesus had been working in the country for thirty years. However, despite impressive numbers and considerable influence with the feudal lords, the mission was struggling. The few Jesuit workers were exhausted and growing increasingly frustrated by the leadership of Francisco Cabral, who refused to cater to Japanese sensibilities or respect the Japanese people. When Valignano arrived, he saw the harm Cabral was doing and forcibly changed the direction of the mission, pursuing policies of Jesuit accommodation to Japanese culture and respect for the Japanese converts who were training to become priests. These policies were based in respect for Japan's culture and love for its people. Under three years of Valignano's leadership the fortunes of the Jesuit mission changed and the Society's work in Japan began to flourish once again. Indeed, Valignano set the course for the next thirty years of the Japanese mission.

Übersetzungskulturen der Frühen Neuzeit, 2024

Espagne (2013), pp. 1-2. 4 Kleine (2019), p. 3. 5 This term was coined by Charles Boxer (1951). The term 'Iberian period' is also used in modern studies. In Japan, the period is often referred to as Nanban jidai 南蛮時代, 'the age of the Southern barbarians', because the Portuguese arrived from the 'South', i.e. their Asian colonies or trading posts, during this period.

Acta Missiologica, 2020

Backround: This paper focuses on Francisco Xavier's activity regarding the Japanese language. As a Jesuit missionary, he worked in India, Malacca, Moluccas, and so forth, before he finally arrived in Japan in August 1549. His work in the Asian region has common features concerning languages. Xavier did not learn Asian languages to any extensive degree or speak them well. He did prepare special texts written in Roman alphabet and read them to preach to the local people. But he regarded learning the local languages very highly; he recommended Western people to learn the local languages and praised those who could speak them. He was also enthusiastic about fostering interpreters and analyzing the Asian languages. Conclusion: Although he was not fluent in Japanese, it was Xavier that sowed the seeds for the foundation of the later systematic Japanese learning systems which were put in place by subsequent Jesuits. The contribution and inspiration of Xavier's work can also be recognized today. Further detailed research and reflections of his work can be beneficial for academics and experts in this field of practice.

2013

UP TO THE ERA OF THE "GREAT DISCOVERIES"……………………p.47 2. EXPANDING TRADE-IBERIAN MERCHANTS AND IBERIAN LAY WRITINGS ON ASIA AND JAPAN IN THE ERA OF THE "GREAT DISCOVERIES"…………………………………..p.63 2.1. PORTUGUESE NAVAL EXPANSION AND TRADE IN THE ASIAN SEAS………………………………………………………………………………p.63 2.1.1. The Estado da India…………………………………………………….p.63 2.1.2. Trade and piracy in the China Seas…………………………………..p.72 2.1.3. The Portuguese encounter with Japan……………………………….p.80 ii 2.2. PORTUGUESE COMMERCIAL EXPANSION AND CIRCULATION OF INFORMATION ON JAPAN IN EUROPE…………………………….p.92 2.2.1. Portuguese discoveries and developments in cartography………..p.92 2.2.2. Portuguese first-hand merchant reports and lay histories………p.107 2.3. THE SPANISH COMPETITION………………………………………p.119 2.3.1. The Spanish settlement in Manila…………………………………..p.119 2.3.2. Spanish sources on Japan…………………………………………….p.124 3. CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOURCES ON JAPAN……..p.128 3.1. THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN ASIA AND JAPAN……………..p.128 3.1.1. Francis Xavier and the establishment of the Jesuit mission in Japan…………………………………………………………………………….p.131 3.1.2. The growth of the mission…………………………………………….p.135 3.1.3. Alessandro Valignano's influence and the shaping of the mission…………………………………………………………………………..p.139 3.1.4. Rivalling Christian orders and the persecutions against Christianity……………………………………………………………………..p.148 3.2. THE MISSIONARY SOURCES ON JAPAN…………………………p.153 3.2.1. Jesuit letter-writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the institutionalized Jesuit system for correspondence………………………p.157 3.2.2. Unpublished histories and general accounts: an overview………p.161

Classical Receptions Journal, 2017

, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55 (2012): 447-494., 2012

This article takes as a starting point for a contextual exploration of the dialogue as a form of cross-cultural interaction the accounts of disputations between Francis Xavier and his companions and various Buddhist monks during the first years of the mission in Japan (1549-51). The essay considers the differences among a lay popular version of these disputations offered by Fernão Mendes Pinto, the account publicized by Francis Xavier in his letters to Europe, and the internal working documents produced by his companions Cosme de Torres and Juan Fernández during these encounters. The latter reflected the complexity of the exchanges that took place in Yamaguchi in September 1551, offering many echoes of Buddhist arguments that stretched the Christian theological capacity. More interesting still is the process by which the Jesuits came to reject the possibilities for convergence through analogy and chose instead to emphasize doctrinal and moral differences, often employing arguments that echoed, unwittingly, the recent divisions within European Christendom. À partir des récits des disputations qui opposèrent François Xavier et ses compagnons à différents moines bouddhistes durant les premières années de la mission au Japon (1549-51), cet article se livre à une exploration contextuelle du dialogue comme forme d'interaction transculturelle. Cet essai met à jour les différences entre la version populaire et laïque de ces disputations offerte par Fernão Mendes Pinto, le récit diffusé par François Xavier dans ses lettres destinées à l'Europe et les documents de travail internes produits durant les rencontres par ses compagnons Cosme de Torres et Juan Fernández. Ces derniers reflètent la complexité des échanges qui eurent lieu à Yamaguchi en septembre 1551 et donnent à entendre les échos des arguments bouddhistes qui poussèrent les limites de la théologie chrétienne. Ce qui est plus intéressant, cependant, c'est le processus qui conduisit les Jésuites à rejeter les possibilités d'une convergence via l'analogie et à mettre plutôt l'accent sur les différences doctrinales et morales en recourant souvent à des arguments qui faisaient involontairement écho aux récentes divisions internes à la chrétienté européenne.

Historical Journal, 2023

This article argues that our understanding of the sixteenth-century Jesuit encounter with Japan is improved by taking into account the role gender played in cultural translation. Recent histories of the mission and the writings it produced have highlighted the strategies adopted by Jesuits to rely on and manipulate knowledge of local cultures to facilitate conversion. Yet, few scholars have used gender as a lens to read the actions and ethnographies performed and produced by Jesuits in overseas missions. Using Luís Fróis's Tratado das contradições e diferenças de costumes entre a Europa e o Japão (Treaty on the contrasts and differences between Europe and Japan), I argue that skilled cultural interpreters used gender as a determining lens to approach the primary task of conversion, but also the secondary task of cultural mediation. Unlike the invasion of the Americas, the ephemeral infiltration of Asia was accomplished through European accommodation of Asian political vocabularies and conduct. Examining the epistemological tools Fróis used to build knowledge of the Other sheds light on the initial stages of the unequal encounter between the Japanese and the Jesuits and how it changed based on a growing understanding of Japanese politics, class, and society.

Bulletin of Portuguese-Japanese Studies, 2018

In the first decades of the Jesuit presence in Japan, Japanese brothers and dōjuku were the main preachers of the mission. They delivered sermons according to a method developed by Xavier for converting locals, by telling stories from Christian sacred history in chronological order. Only after understanding and accepting the contents of these sermons could a person be baptized. However, in 1592, during his second visit to Japan, the Visitor Valignano wrote a list of seventeen rules for Japanese preachers. Created during the formalization of religious teaching in Japan and with the formation of a native clergy in mind, it imposed a basic model for the composition of sermons and warned preachers of the political impact of their activity, among other things. Based on these rules, in 1597 a list of instructions appeared, this time concerned more with the contents of the sermons preached in Japan. Allegedly composed by Pedro Gómez, Vice-Provincial of Japan, these instructions were based on an unidentified European author of works of religious oratory, though it has much in common with works by Luís de Granada and Diego de Estella. The 1597 Instructions refine the composition of sermons in Japan, recommending the composition of simple homilies teaching the doctrine at hand but on limited topics and free of controversial issues. The present article analyses these Rules and the Instructions as part of an integrated effort aimed at offering a fledgling local clergy the necessary theological and spiritual background to advance the work of the Vice-Province of Japan.

Bastias Saavedra, Manuel (ed.), Norms beyond Empire: Law-Making and Local Normativities in Iberian Asia, 1500-1800, 2021

During the first decades of the persecution against Christians and missionaries in early 17th-century Japan, priests and friars faced a new array of moral challenges. In the late 1610s, Japanese authorities forced residents of Nagasaki to sign an oath stating that they would deny shelter to missionaries, meaning that the mere presence of Jesuits and Dominicans in the house of the faithful represented a risk to the lives of their protectors. In addition to other difficulties, this resulted in two consultations being sent to the superiors of the Society of Jesus in Macau and to the rector of the Dominican college in Manila. This chapter analyzes how moral theology and casuistry was used by both orders when discussing the problems faced by Christians in sheltering missionaries. It thus explores the uses of so-called missionary casuistry, a normative practice informed by both written theological authoritative texts, contextual circumstances, and personal experience.

reality.Revista Internacional de Estudios Asiáticos, Vol. 3(1): 32-76, Enero-Junio 2024, 2024

This paper considers Portuguese Jesuit Luís Fróis (1532-1597) and his magnum opus the 5 volumes História de Japam, the first of the histories of the Jesuit mission in the archipelago by authors who took part in the evangelization of this country. Through close reading of this text and comparing it to fellow missionaries' letters as well as Fróis own previous letters, the História is analysed. Following the advice of the pioneer of the mission, Francis Xavier (1506-52), anything unedifying was omitted from the missives and the missionaries' letters from Japan continued to focus on the success of the mission, avoiding to mention the negative issues. In doing so the image of the mission was glossy which led to mission leaders such as Visitor Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606) and Superior of Japan, Francisco Cabral (c.1533-1609), to complain that the Jesuit's letters contain errors and gave misleading information. I contend that Fróis not only attempted to rectify previous 'errors' made by earlier Jesuit epistolary accounts, and argue that his real intentions go beyond attempting to diminish over-enthusiastic reports and presenting a more accurate and complete picture of the Japanese mission. Fróis wrote with a clear agenda, sometimes deliberately altering information, and creating a narrative that suggested a more coherent and sequent enterprise than existed in reality.

There has been an increasing number of works dedicated to the phenomenon of Japanese slavery, which involved Japanese taken overseas between the arrival of the firearms until the middle of the seventeenth century. Since 2007, this theme has been analyzed by various researchers. In recent years, we learned that merchants from Portugal and other countries took Japanese shoju, genin, nenki hokonin and other types of Japanese servants out of the country, where they would be identified as slaves. Furthermore, many historical sources have been unearthed showing that enslaved Japanese reached places such as Peru, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Italy and other regions. It has become clear that Jesuits, acting as intermediaries in the negotiation of Japanese servants, played an important role in the Japanese slave trade. In sum, recent research has focused on the geographical spread of Japanese slaves and the trading structure of the Japanese slave trade. Past research has shown...

International Journal of Asian Studies, 2012

Starting from the premise that all empire building involves ideological constructs justifying the violence that accompanies such efforts, this article concentrates on elucidating the case of the Portuguese in Asia, specifically in Japan. Although well beyond the formal Portuguese thalassocracy in Asia, the Japanese islands were exposed for about a century, between 1543 and 1640, to the informal presence of Portuguese traders and missionaries. The symbiotic relationship between these two groups was based on the experience that, in Japan, the trade was difficult to conduct, for violence was always lurking beneath the surface of the trading relationship. We know of several instances when such violence actually exploded into major armed clashes, and many other times violence was narrowly averted through the mediation of the missionaries. Based on original research in the archives of Portugal and Spain, this article analyzes the records that the leaders of the Portuguese who came to Japan in the sixteenth century, the socalled capitães mores, have left behind. Finding that a significant number of these men were or later became members of the Order of Christ or were closely related to such members, it then explores their mindset through a survey of the function of this military order in Portuguese society of the late Middle Ages. The result is a group portrait of thirty-seven men who may be considered a representative sample of the Portuguese leading both the formal and informal empires in Asia. This portrait will clarify why both Japanese and Portuguese authorities agreed, at least during the second half of the sixteenth century, that the Jesuit missionaries were an indispensable presence in Japan.

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