From there, he was sent to Macao, where he immediately began to study the language and wrote, with his compatriot Michele Ruggieri — , a Chinese-Portuguese lexicon, seeking at the same time to codify a coherent system of Romanization Witek, In September , along with Michel Ruggieri, whose knowledge of Chinese etiquette had helped win the goodwill of the authorities of the province of Guangzhou, Ricci moved to Zhaoqing, near Canton, and used his knowledge of mathematics and astronomy to initiate contacts with scholars.
He would remain in the province of Guangzhou for twelve years, although his residence in the city of Shaozhou proved to be particularly challenging, with the death of two of his companions after a popular uprising against the Jesuit presence.
After three years in Nanchang in Jiangxi Province, Ricci firmly established the method of intellectual apostolate that he was to apply fully in the cities of Nanjing and Beijing. In , he finally settled in Beijing with his confrere Diego de Pantoja — after having presented gifts to the Emperor Wanli of religious paintings, books, clocks, musical instruments, mirrors, and rhino horn.
During the last nine years of his life Ricci focused on intercultural and interfaith work, while also tending the nascent Catholic community of Beijing. Together with his friend—the great statesman, scientist, and agronomist Xu Guangqi — —he translated the first six books of Euclid, Elements of Geometry.
He also published several editions of the first world map known in China; completed his major apologetic work, The True Sense of the Lord of Heaven Tianzhu sheyi , and a short presentation of the Christian doctrine, The Doctrine of the Lord of Heaven Tianzhu jiaoyi ; and fostered deep friendships with several scholars of the time.
Many other converts played a decisive role. Among them, the unfortunate general Sun Yuanhua — would be found guilty and condemned to death after a military defeat. Sun Yunhua, together with other converts, had tried to save the waning Ming dynasty by initiating the purchase of canons of Portuguese design in Macal before casting more of them in China. Huang, The role played by Chinese converts is vividly illustrated by Xu Guangqi and subsequently by his family.
Having been baptized just five years earlier, Xu appointed Lazzaro Cattaneo — to instruct his household in the faith. In , Xu presented sixty candidates for baptism. His properties became the center of the Catholic mission. His granddaughter Candida Xu — commissioned the building of more than thirty churches in the country. In , four Jesuits served the two churches and thirty chapels of Shanghai. The missionary method implemented by Ricci was designed and adopted through the resolute initiative of the Jesuit Visitor for the missions of India and the Far East, Alessandro Valignano —; Standaert, ; Criveller, b.
Valignano developed a policy of cultural accommodation that was shaped by his experience in Japan at the same time that a Spanish Jesuit, Alonso Sanchez, petitioned the Castilian court pleading for a military expedition against the Chinese empire so as to better evangelize it. The death of four successive popes undermined the notion project of a war of conquest, as well as the aim of a papal embassy to China.
First and foremost was adaptation to local customs—including the style of clothing proper to the Confucian literati. Second, it focused on elites, local and national, thus requiring missionaries to study the Confucian classics that formed the basis of imperial examinations.
Third, it fostered indirect evangelization; that is, Western science and technology astronomy, watchmaking, geometry, mapping, and so forth were introduced in China as confirmation of the truth of Christianity. A few years later, Clavius sent Ricci what were then more contemporary works Gnonomices, ; Astrolabium , He was dealing with the Science of God together with human sciences, marrying Heaven and Earth. The fourth feature of the Jesuit method was its openness to Chinese values.
The apologetic treaty written by Ricci The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven makes skilled use of Confucian vocabulary and worldview while remaining structured by Aristotelian and Thomist logic Meynard, a.
Ricci also aimed to present to Europe the civilization he was discovering, but his Latin translations of Chinese classics have been lost.
The balance to be struck between a presence at the Court and a direct apostolate in the provinces was one of the debates that would soon agitate the successors of Ricci. During his lifetime, already some Jesuits had tried to focus on the explanation of the Ten Commandments, devotional practices, and the distribution of medals. Short catechetical texts, often written in dialogical form, were distributed to those who could read, who were then questioned about their content prior to baptism.
Later, similar means would be used to develop Marian congregations and other devotional groups. These congregations would maintain Christian faith and practice after the banishment of the missionaries. The division of work among the Jesuits in charge of direct apostolate and those focusing on Court presence was to continue during the whole of the First Mission some missionaries alternated between the two.
The Jesuits were to receive the strategic responsibility of heading the Bureau of Astronomy qintianjian , they were to paint, compose music, make cannons, act as ambassadors between China and Russia, undertake mapping coverage of the empire, publish religious and scientific books, while also sending to Europe a wealth of letters and memoranda on the arts, techniques, doctrines, chronology, botany, and geography of China Pinot, ; on the corporate identity of China Jesuits as scientists, see F.
Hsia, The Court Jesuits were able to advocate for their confreres facing dangerous situations: from the start, many Chinese scholars and officials were concerned about the influence that foreigners exerted on the cultural and political system.
In addition, other religious congregations and some of the Jesuits themselves were less accommodating than Ricci and the majority of his successors, less willing to adopt Chinese rites, those addressed to the manes of Confucius and to ancestral tablets in particular. The Rites Controversy was to destabilize the young Church, fomenting internal strife and external hostility. Conflicts begin soon after the death of Ricci.
The dispute became public in when newly arrived Dominican missionaries openly attacked the theological and linguistic accommodations already made. This is not the place to describe the twists and turns of the Chinese Rites Controversy, which spanned over a century and was utterly destructive for the local Church see in particular Standaert, ; Criveller, ; Brockey, : —; Standaert, a : —; Mungello, Religious congregations, Chinese scholars, the imperial administration, and representatives of the Papacy were at odds regarding terminology not only the name of God, but also such notions as angels and soul and the civil or religious nature of the rites celebrated in honor of Confucius and the ancestors, with each group asserting its own expertise and authority.
Roman hesitations were reflected in a series of edicts enacting conflicting decisions, until the ban on Chinese Rites was pronounced by Benedict XIV in the first Roman survey on the question began in This decision was later reversed, and the Chinese rites were authorized in On the Chinese side, the Edict of Tolerance issued by Emperor Kangxi in was followed by decisions increasingly hostile to Christianity, coupled with episodic repression, until the missionaries not working at the Court were expelled in and anti-Christian repression became the norm with the edicts of and In fact, the situation of the missionaries had always been precarious.
Already in , the zeal of Alfonso Vagnone in Nanjing had earned him a beating and imprisonment in a cage in which he was transported to Canton, before being deported to Macau with five of his colleagues.
This early blow could have been fatal, since the Jesuit mission at that time comprised eight European priests and six Chinese brothers, two of whom were sentenced to forced labor as a result of this incident. Nevertheless, through the efforts of scholars converted to Christianity, the effect of the proscription ceased around The accusations brought by the authorities of Nanjing had to do with supposed similarities between the new religion and millenarian sects.
Economic and political ties with Macao and the Portuguese constituted another charge. Finally, it is possible that the haste that missionaries and converts had shown in their desire to reform the Imperial Calendar had generated opposition Dudink, In , if there were twenty-six Jesuits in China, the five Chinese among them were all coadjutor brothers.
The first Chinese ordained priest in was not a Jesuit but a Dominican from Fujian who had passed through the Philippines, Luo Wenzao — He would also become a bishop in the only Chinese bishop before the twentieth century ; in he in turn ordained three Chinese Jesuits, including Wu Yushan also known as Wu Li, —, one of the greatest painters and poets of the Qing dynasty , Lin Yunde — , and Wang Qiyuan — Before then, the Jesuits had only elevated Zheng Weixin — , also known as Manuel de Siqueira from Macao, to the priesthood in There were acrimonious debates among Jesuits on the sensitive issue of the priestly ordination of Chinese.
But it was the opposite option that would ultimately triumph: in the second half of the eighteenth century, Chinese constituted about a third of the Jesuits in China, and almost all were priests. Let us note here that the role of Chinese Jesuits in the Mission is often overlooked by scholars. The book by Brockey, , although recent and particularly well informed, is a good example of this persisting trend.
Around the years and , the Church grew steadily to 38, converts including at least members of the imperial family and palace eunuchs , reaching possibly , in although another estimate gives the figure of , in In there were twelve Jesuit residences in seven of the fifteen provinces of China. The clearest successes were recorded in the vicinity of Shanghai, under the active patronage of Candida Xu, granddaughter of Xu Guangqi.
In Shanxi, Fr. Etienne Faber — , a native of Avignon, was the object of a popular cult at his death, a cult that was still alive around In , the extension of the mission and the deterioration of the political situation led to the division of the Chinese Province into two vice-provinces.
The northern province was first directed by Giulio Aleni — , and the southern one by the Portuguese Francisco Furtado — Furtado, a talented linguist, had translated some texts of Aristotle and written Chinese commentaries on them. After a stay in Hangzhou in Hangzhou was one of the bridgeheads of the Jesuit presence in China, thanks to the protection of Yang Tingyun , Aleni had founded missions in Jiangxi and Fujian.
Aleni also initiated a mission in Shanxi, taken over in by Vagnone when, after the persecution of Nanjing, he returned under the guise of a new Chinese name. Aleni is probably the Jesuit who realized the most successful synthesis of direct apostolate and dialogue with the literati.
Also notable was his initiative in to engrave an illustrated life of Christ, based on a wide selection from the Evangelicae Historiae Imagines edited by Jerome Nadal in Antwerp in The engravings of this work represent the first known synthesis between Renaissance art and Chinese aesthetic concepts. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Aleni remained in the southern part of the empire, alongside the pretender to the throne from the late dynasty, a choice contrary to that of his colleagues in Beijing.
Following the example of Ricci, Nicolas Trigualt — worked toward a consistent Romanization system of the Chinese language. This native of Douai arrived in Macau in , in Nanjing in , and in Beijing in Entrusted with the tasks of reporting to Europe and recruiting on behalf of the mission, he returned to Europe in Although generally faithful, the translation of Trigault sometimes changes the original Italian.
It shortens and minimizes what Ricci had to say about prostitution, polygamy, and homosexuality in Chinese society. Some other changes were meant to defuse charges that Ricci was too complacent toward Chinese rites. For example, in the original manuscript, Ricci notes that ceremonies to Confucius include the offering of incense and a sacrificed animal, but he denies any religious character to these ceremonies.
Knowledge of Chinese thought and the classical texts on which it was grounded progressed in parallel. It was based on missionary translations undertaken in China for almost a century and dedicated to the King of France. The new book, entitled Confucius, sinarum philosophus, spread throughout Europe see Meynard, It is at the same time simple, sensible, and derived from the best sources of natural reason. Never has human reason, without the support of Divine Revelation reached such a level and such a force.
When it comes to geography and history, Martino Martini — deserves to be remembered for the impact his work had on philosophical debate in Europe. He significantly enriched the field of Chinese chronology, which was at the forefront of sinological, critical, and apologetic concerns of the time: the anteriority of Chinese civilization on Christian civilization seemed to make the establishment of any agreement between the Chinese and biblical chronologies impossible.
Martini wrote a Sinicae historiae decas primas in , in which he established a series of dates from Fuxi B. Previously, he published an account of the Manchu conquest, which he had witnessed from Zhejiang, in De bello tartarico historia Antwerp, —a work published twenty-eight times in eight languages between and , proof of the interest awakened in Europe by the political changes in China at that time.
Martini made a contribution of another kind with the Novus Atlas Sinensis Amsterdam, During a trip back to Europe to plead for accommodation during the Rites Controversy, he helped the Dutch mathematician Isaac Golius — publish the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese calendar, which provided a reasoned explanation of the Chinese calendar system.
Martini succeeded in obtaining a Papal decree in favor of the use of Chinese rites. But the quarrel was soon to rebound. He is also famous for the construction of the Cathedral of Hangzhou, completed the year of his death. In the field of botany, the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym — published his Flora Sinensis in in Vienna, along with many other works in medicine, cartography, and lexicography, thus making him a kind of encyclopedist Szczesniak, — Like Aleni, Michael Boym chose to remain loyal to the Ming dynasty and even went to Rome with letters from dignitaries, including the fallen Empress and other members of the imperial family converted to Christianity.
The son of the pretender to the throne was christened Constantin. But other Jesuits were already reviving it under another garb. In this ancient Chinese capital he was able to map caravan routes. However, it is the reform of the Chinese calendar that would reveal his full potential. In , at the instigation of Xu Guangqi, Johann Terenz Schreck — , a pupil of Galileo, had made the prediction of a solar eclipse. Its accuracy showed the shortcomings of the systems that Chinese Muslims were using to calculate the Imperial Calendar—an act of the highest political impact, since its purpose was to determine auspicious and inauspicious days and the smooth running of all social activities.
The death of Schreck seven months after his subsequent appointment to the Bureau of Astronomy and, two years later, the death of Xu Guangqi who for several years had played a leading role in promoting a calendar reform he considered essential both to the protection of the reigning dynasty and the propagation of the faith were to give a prominent place to Adam Schall. The success of Adam Schall in the still partial reform of the Imperial Calendar would earn him the highest honors.
He had baptized the influential eunuch Pang Tianshou, and could celebrate Mass for the staff of the Forbidden City in a private chapel. He also oversaw the deployment of guns for the Ming Dynasty used during the final assault of the Manchu troops. During the dramatic change of dynasty , he stayed in Beijing against the advice of his superiors and, under great peril, continued to use the Jesuit residence, chapel, and library.
His subsequent allegiance to the Manchu regime proved providential for the Jesuits, who initially thought they had lost everything with the end of the Ming dynasty.
The new regime quickly confirmed Schall as director of the office of astronomy—again, the correct prediction of an eclipse played a key role in the confirmation—and he formed a quasi father-son relationship with the young Emperor Shunzhi — His position and, more important, his obvious intellectual superiority earned him great hostility both within the Society of Jesus and among other congregations.
His confreres Magalhaes, Buglio, Furtado, Longobardo, and Ferreira petitioned for his dismissal from the Society, but a committee exonerated him from all charges. Still, the accusations found their way out of the Jesuit order, and they were used after the death of Schall in the context of the Rites Controversy Dunne, : sq.
The appearance of a comet and an earthquake that shook Beijing while he was in prison helped him to escape that fate: a number of mandarins convinced the regent that Heaven obviously opposed the verdict. Schall was released, but he would be rehabilitated only after his death in At the time of his condemnation, thirty out of the thirty-three foreign missionaries in China were ordered to remain in custody in Canton.
Focusing on scientific work at the expense of apostolic preaching posed problems of conscience to some Jesuits: Giacomo Rho — , associated with Schall in the calendar reform, related the torments he experienced before his guardian angel revealed to him the solution: by missing a few hours sleep he could still produce some religious books.
And, in fact, with the help of literary friends, he published six such books before his untimely death, among them an adaptation of one hundred maxims of Teresa of Avila and explanations of the Pastor Noster and the Ave Maria. This story illustrates a general trend. The success of Schall and Verbiest, as well as their amazing productivity, gave them more intellectual latitude: their writings illustrate a partial return to the attempt to link astronomical demonstrations and proofs of the existence of God as a whole, an attempt that had been costly to the Jesuits at the time of the Nanjing persecution Dudink, : — Their success in curing the emperor of fever by administering quinine Witek, : 62 earned them the gift of a plot of land inside the Imperial Palace grounds on which was later constructed a church, a residence, a library, an astronomical observatory, and a collection of scientific objects.
Within fifteen years after their arrival, forty French Jesuits would arrive in China Jamy, In its own way, the Jesuit Mission was entering the Age of Enlightenment. In , disagreements between Portuguese and French Jesuits led to a restructuring of the mission into two new vice-provinces, one with a Portuguese Superior and the other with a French one. Moreover, in the same year, four French Jesuits received the order from Kangxi to map the area around the capital.
This would be the starting point for a complete mapping of the empire Hostetler, However, at the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, metaphors other than that of mapping may help realize what was at stake in this new period: the Figurist project, which involved the systematic search for correspondences between the Chinese classics and the Bible, was an exploration of the linguistic and sapiential resources proper to China in order to establish a metalanguage transcribing the beliefs and knowledge of humankind.
Music and dance also figured as a metalanguage in the research led by Joseph Marie Amiot. Descriptions of Chinese political and technological practices similarly deconstruct the codes of Western knowledge.
In other words, a China-generated episteme questioned spheres of knowledge biblical chronology, logic and metaphysics, the distinction between human wisdom and biblical revelation that were previously thought unbreakable from the faith being proclaimed. There were eighty-two active Jesuits in Chinese territory in This number would never be reached or exceeded during the first Jesuit mission.
Note, however, that in the early eighteenth century, the total number of Jesuits in the world oscillated between 17, and 19, During the time of Matteo Ricci there were never more than twenty-one Jesuits in China, and in the s there were between thirty and forty.
From onward, the Rites Controversy negatively affected the number of Jesuits in China—with the exception of Chinese Jesuits, who went from six to twenty-two between and Chinese became the largest national group in the Jesuit mission in As for other nationalities, the Italian group remained relatively stable in proportion throughout the course of the mission, while the Portuguese Jesuits predominated until the first third of the eighteenth century, before the French became the most numerous group during a short period — By , the Jesuits who were not stationed at the Court were responsible for the service of the churches, 14 chapels, and oratories founded by the Order throughout a significant portion of the territory.
A catechist is normally in permanent residence in each church. The vice-provincial Antoine Thomas estimated the number of Christians then served by the Jesuits at about , Brockey, : — After , this number declined steadily due to progressive restrictions and, later on, persecutions. When the suppression of the Jesuit order became effective in China , only twenty-six of its members were still present in the territory of the empire. That they were sent directly by Louis XIV, in defiance of the padroado , irritated their Portuguese colleagues, and dissension followed in turn within the Jesuit community in Beijing, thus illustrating the rise of European nationalisms occurring at the time.
One of these Jesuits, Joachim Bouvet, corresponded with Leibniz, suggesting to him the connection between the binary system of arithmetic and the hexagrams of the Yijing Mungello, Bouvet was an enthusiast of this system, although his superiors progressively hindered research on the subject, but Bouvet believed in the prophetic character of his mission. The Figurist endeavor illustrates the intricacy of the questions that China was raising for the traditional Christian understanding of history, religions, and the human spirit Collani, ; Witek, Such a quest, almost alchemical in nature, characterized the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century Zeitgeist and had been already initiated by Athanasius Kircher — , in large part on information collated from China.
Approximately a third of the French Jesuits stationed in China were connected to the Figurist current. Some of them were identifying the legendary figure of Fuxi with the biblical patriarch Enoch, others or the same ones were seeing in the first five Chinese emperors typos of Christ. They also found in the Yijing the doctrine of the three ages of the world Bouvet in his later years even attempted to calculate the total duration of the world and in the Daodejing The Book of the Way and Its Virtue the dogma of the Trinity.
China was providing material for a new theological language that still could not reach maturation. An excellent scholar of Hebrew and an avid reader of the Kabbalah since his formative years, he brought new acuity to Figurist lexicography, which led him in particular to deplore the doctrinal prohibition that had struck terms such as Tian and Shangdi , the only ones, according to him, that were apt to express the notion of God hidden at the heart of Chinese Classics Lundbaek, His work was continued by Joseph-Anne Mailla — , who labored eighteen years to produce maps of the empire.
Mailla also wrote the first comprehensive history of China in a European language, which was not published until thirty years after his death. Antoine Gaubil — , another Jesuit of renown, was an excellent astronomer and historian and also a keen observer of Christian communities Gaubil, [—]. One of his pupils, Joseph-Marie Amiot — , although far from being as good a scientist as Gaubil, became the father of ethnomusicography and provided very detailed information on Chinese ritual music and dances Lenoir and Standaert, The disparition of the First Jesuit Mission in China went through various stages: the imperial edict of ; application in Macao of the decree of the Portuguese King ordering the confiscation of all Jesuit properties and the arrest of all members of the Society ; application in China of the Brief Dominus ac Redemptor by Clement XIV , which abolished the Society of Jesus.
Utter confusion prevailed in the process until, in , the last ex-Jesuit died in Beijing. Knowledge and interpretation of the Second Jesuit Mission remains a field largely unexplored and partly obscured by prejudices. Even if the quasicolonial context of the enterprise differed very much from the conditions prevailing in the development of the First Mission—and if global Catholicism was driven by factors differing from one period to another—it remains that Jesuit missionaries were more diverse and hesitant in their opinions than often thought.
Bernadette Truchet has highlighted the contrast existing between Fr. Claude Gottelant — , who epitomized Catholic intransigence, and Fr. Victor Vuilaume — or Fr. Riess introduced an empirical approach to historical documents, a method practiced by the German historian Leopold von Ranke — From the beginning of the twentieth century, the German source-based methodology ignited further archival discoveries and critical studies supported by documentary evidence.
Georg Schurhammer, S. In Japan, scholars who had begun writing about the history of Japanese Christianity did so based on European studies. These scholars supplemented their work with Japanese sources, which were scarce owing to the long period of persecution.
Beginning in the s, Ebisawa explored the continual impact of southern Europeans hence not necessarily the Dutch in the modernization of Japan.
The importation of such ideas helped the Japanese to cultivate objective, scientific methodologies and eventually to abandon their seclusionist policy. Westerners who lived in Japan also contributed to the reconstruction of bygone Christian memories by collecting and investigating early source material.
In , he published The Christian Century , a seminal survey, which drew on original sources located in the British Museum and the Ajuda Library. Cieslik uncovered the lives of hitherto forgotten Japanese Jesuits, such as Kibe Kasui — , who had visited Jerusalem and Rome. Cieslik also investigated European and Japanese sources to reconstruct the history of Christianity especially the Jesuit mission in Hiroshima and Okayama in relation to the local feudal powers.
One of the earliest Japanese scholars who took advantage of this situation was Matsuda Kiichi — When Matsuda embarked upon his research circa , the subject was regarded as somewhat eccentric in Japan. In addition, he documented the discussions on the military alliance with Japan and its potential conquest. Other discussions included the disagreements among the Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish Jesuits due to their national identities and the bitter feelings among members of the India, Japan, and China missions.
Gonoi explained that the roles of these Japanese increased as the Europeans found themselves unable to evangelize openly in Japan. Recently, CHAM undertook an international project to explore both texts and visual arts to discern how the Jesuits mis understood Japanese Buddhism and their interactions with Buddhists.
The team investigated how the Jesuits differentiated between Japanese and Indian subcontinental Buddhism, Zen and other Buddhist sects, and their traditions in Kyoto and Kyushu. Discussed below are some of the principle subjects in the study of the Jesuits in Japan.
Ide Katsumi noticed that the Jesuits only taught the rudimentary basics of religious and philosophical ideas to Japanese seminary students and missionaries. Additional missionaries and commoners are to be found in studies of Jesuit and other martyrs, many of which emphasize their glorious deeds.
Especially since the s, scholars extensively compared the European originals with their Japanese editions. Of course, the Jesuits avoided any improper expression. But he denounced it in the Ha daiusu Deus destroyed, after reverting to Buddhism.
Ebisawa, George Elison, Kiri Paramore, and others analyzed the ideas of Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism, and Confucianism in these texts and the relationship between them. Recently, more studies have appeared in the sciences.
In music and drama, Ebisawa, beginning in the s, and more extensively in a later publication, narrated how the Jesuits introduced liturgical chants and mystery plays in Japan. Alexandra Curvelo proposed that copying a European sacred image was a spiritual exercise for the seminary students.
Kotani Noriko discussed Jesuit art in Japan as an independent subject, not traditionally within nanban art. Complementing the textual and visual studies are the increasing archaeological discoveries.
These findings are collectively identified as kirishitan remains, but some of them are related to the Jesuit mission. In the same city, archaeologists found some medai medals among the soil strata that were dated to the s—87, which is to say, the period before the arrival of other religious orders in Japan.
The scholarly effort to transcribe and analyze archival materials that are scattered across the world remains a vital project. Since the Japan mission was short-lived, it is commonly believed that the impact of the Jesuits was evanescent. The clock industry in Kyoto was already well-established at the end of the seventeenth century. Behind this strategy was not only the initiative of missionaries but also the important role played by Japanese collaborators. It should be noted that the introduction of the same policy into the China mission was pursued by Valignano, who was familiar with thirty years of Jesuit experience in Japan, and, by means of this method, missionaries to China actually succeeded in establishing the necessary conditions for their activities in the country.
The clocks produced found their places not only in the private quarters of the political authorities, but also in the towers of castles and churches, where they were seen by a wider public. The interdiction of Christianity by the Tokugawa shogunate made it impossible for the missionaries to continue to produce clocks and related instruments.
It is clear, however, that their Japanese trainees continued to demonstrate their skills to a wider society that wanted their products, leading to the birth of such unique tradition of ingenious clocks called wadokei , as represented by the work of Hirayama Musashi. I wish to acknowledge my deep gratitude to Dr. Christopher Cullen for his support and valuable comments to the earlier draft of this article. I am also grateful to Daniel Said Monteiro for reviewing my translations of Portuguese texts.
Luis Frois, Historia de Japam , ed. Joseph Wicki, 5 vols. Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, — , Coimbra: Impr. The author wishes to acknowledge his gratitude to Mr. Shin Akune in drawing attention to this material.
Taitokuinden Gojikki , vol. As quoted in Hirai, Tokei no Hanashi , Although some source indicates that the first Tsuda Sukezaemon repaired a clock for Tokugawa Ieyasu around the year , Kawamoto argues against this.
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Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Author: Ryuji Hiraoka 1. Online Publication Date: 29 Jan Keywords: Japan ; Christian Century ; mechanical clocks ; Jesuit missionaries ; Japanese clockmakers.
Figure 4. Subsequent missionaries, who came one after another to Japan, also chose clocks as gifts to build relationships with those in power. Being an ardent supporter of Christian missionaries, 6 Wada suggested that Frois should bring a clock to the meeting, because Nobunaga was very anxious to see it. Again, it was a clock which Wada chose in order to make the audience take place. Wada tried to use a clock to make many other people to visit the Jesuit church.
For Wada, the clock was a pretext for leading the Japanese to the church, and not only did he encourage them to listen to the preaching by the priest, but even repeated the important points in the sermon to them.
As for the event that happened in , Frois reports as follows: When the noblemen and the great lords from different kingdoms [i.
In , when Visitor Alessandro Valignano — Fig. It is unclear if that clock was presented to Nobunaga, but there is no doubt he was pleased with another clock as well as other novelty items from Europe when he happened to visit the Jesuit residence in his own domain, Azuchi, nowadays the Shiga prefecture.
The Annual Report of stated: One day Nobunaga suddenly visited our residence and he came upon the Fathers before they knew of his arrival. A case illustrating the changed circumstances appears in the report of persecution by a Spanish Jesuit Pedro Morejon — Unfortunately, no clocks known to be of Jesuit manufacture are still extant, but we have two clocks that Ieyasu once possessed: one is a Flemish clock presented in by the Spanish king 27 and the other is an automaton clock, in the shape of a bear, which is said to have been presented at the same time.
There is an interesting report in True Record of Taitokuinden Hidetada that shows how the second shogun based his daily life on the time told by the clock. According to this record, he was so strict in following the clock tells that his attendants needed to find their own way to cope with it.
According to Kanzawa, since these clocks in different places in the castle did not all tell the same time, Hidetada issued an order that one of them should be chosen to tell the time with a drum. Abstract Full Text Metadata. Content Metrics. Sign in to annotate. Delete Cancel Save. Cancel Save.
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