Conflict and Conversion: Catholicism in Southeast Asia, 1500-1700 [1 ed.] 0199646260, 9780199646265

Table of contents :
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: The Crossroads of the World
I . MISSIONARY STRUCTURES AND NETWORKS
1. The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600
2. Rome Takes Charge: A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690
3. Assessments of Conversion Potential
II. MISSIONARY METHODS
4. What Type of People Are You? Performing the Missionary Identity
5. Tools of Evangelization: Catechisms and Catholic Literatures
III. CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY
6. Essential Rites? Converts and the Sacraments of the Church
7. Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions
8. Catholic Women: Nuns, Martyrs, Apostles, and Apostates
9. Freeing the Souls of Slaves
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

CONFLICT AND CONVERSION

This page intentionally left blank

Conflict and Conversion Catholicism in Southeast Asia, 1500–1700 TARA ALBERTS

1

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # Tara Alberts 2013 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2013 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013940847 ISBN 978–0–19–964626–5 Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

For my parents, with love.

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgements This book began its life as a PhD thesis written under the supervision of Mary Laven at the University of Cambridge. First and foremost I am extremely grateful to her for being the ideal supervisor and for all her help and support over the years. I also owe a debt of gratitude to a great number of people for their generous advice, support, and stimulating discussions which helped to shape this project from its earliest days. For sharing references, pointing me in new directions, and offering encouragement, especial thanks to Manuel Buttigieg, Rita Bernardes de Carvalho, John Cornwell, Nicholas Davidson, Simon Ditchfield, Richard Drayton, Peter Garnsey, Tim Harper, Thirza Hope, David R. M. Irving, Regalado Trota Jose, Michael O’Brian, Adam Perry, Antonella Romano, Ulinka Rublack, Luciano P. R. Santiago, and Alan Strathern. Many thanks to Rebecca Flemming, Natalie Fullwood, Elisabeth Grisoni, Lauren Pearce, and Clare Willan for checking many of my translations. Without the patience, assistance, and helpful advice of the staff at a number of libraries and archives, this book would have been impossible to research. I am very thankful to the archivists and librarians of the Archives de la Société des Missions Étrangères and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; the Archives of the University of Santo Tomas, Manila; the Archivio Storico della Congregazione ‘de Propaganda Fide’ and the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vatican City; the Archivum Generalis Ordinis Prædicatorum, the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, the Biblioteca Casanatense, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Rome; the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, the Arquivos Nacionais Torre do Tombo, and the Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon; the British Library; Cambridge University Library; the Historical Archives of Goa; King’s College archives, University of London; and Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. I’m also very grateful for the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK for funding my PhD research and to Newnham College and Jesus College, University of Cambridge and the European University Institute Max Weber Programme for providing such congenial locations to work on this book. Thanks too to Stephanie Ireland and Cathryn Steele at Oxford University Press for their patience and care as editors, and to Tom Chandler for his efficient and thorough copy-editing. Finally, many thanks to my friends and family for their moral support, practical help, and for patiently listening to me talk about missionaries for so long.

This page intentionally left blank

Contents List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Preface

xi xii xiv

Introduction: The Crossroads of the World

1

I. MISSIONARY STRUCTURES AND NETWORKS 1. The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

17

2. Rome Takes Charge: A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

34

3. Assessments of Conversion Potential

47

II. MISSIONARY METHODS 4. What Type of People Are You? Performing the Missionary Identity 5. Tools of Evangelization: Catechisms and Catholic Literatures

89 120

III. CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY 6. Essential Rites? Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

131

7. Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

147

8. Catholic Women: Nuns, Martyrs, Apostles, and Apostates

160

9. Freeing the Souls of Slaves

180

Conclusion

200

Bibliography Index

208 239

This page intentionally left blank

List of Illustrations 1. Giovanni Filippo di Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone (1665). Frontispiece. 2. Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, Map of Siam and surrounding countries. 3. Plan of the city and fortress of Malacca. 4. The Straits of Malacca. 5. A Siamese Buddhist monk. 6. Map of Ayutthaya, showing the position of the Dominican (‘Jacobin’) and Jesuit churches and the Missions Étrangères Seminary. 7. A model Jesuit of ‘the Indies’. 8. Jesuit mathematical and astronomical instruments. 9. Temples and ritual practitioners in Tonkin, including ‘female magicians’. 10. The martyrdom of four Jesuits in Tonkin, 1737.

xv xviii 49 50 59 61 90 106 171 202

List of Abbreviations ABS AGOP AHU AMEP ANTT APF

ARSI

ASV AUST BA BNC BNF BP

DHCJ DI HAG KCL JMBRAS JSEAS MEP n.p. RMSME SF

Artur Basílio de Sá (ed.), Documentação para a história das missões do padroado portugûes do Oriente: Insulíndia, 5 vols (Lisbon, 1954–8) Archivum Generalis Ordinis Prædicatorum, Rome Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon Archives de la Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris Arquivos Nacionais Torre do Tombo, Lisbon Archivio Storico della Congregazione «de Propaganda Fide», Vatican City Acta: Acta Sacræ Congregationis Acta CP: Acta Congregationis Particularis super rebus Sinarum et Indiarum Orientalium CP: Congregazioni Particolari SC: Scritture riferite nei Congressi (first series), Cina e Indie Orientale SOCG: Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali (first series) SOCP: Scritture Originali della Congregazione Particolare dell’Indie e Cina Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome FG: Fondo Gesuitico JapSin: Lettere in arrivo, Japonica-Sínica Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vatican City Archives of the University of Santo Tomas, Manila Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon JnÁ Jesuítas na Ásia Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma Ges. Fondo Gesuitico Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris Levy Maria Jordão (ed.), Bullarium patronatus portugalliæ regum in ecclesiis africæ, asiæ atque oceaniæ. Bullas, brevia, epistolas, decreta actaque sanctæ sedis ab Alexandro III ad hoc usque tempus amplectens, 3 vols (Lisbon, 1868) Charles E. O’Neill and Joaquin Maria Domínguez (eds), Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús. Bibliográfico-temático, 4 vols (Rome, 2001) Joseph Wiki and J. Gomes (eds), Documenta Indica, 18 vols (Rome, 1948–88) Historical Archives of Goa King’s College, University of London (manuscript collections) Journal of the Malay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Journal of Southeast Asian Studies Missions Étrangères de Paris non-paginated Gérard Moussay and Brigitte Appavou, Répertoire des membres de la Société des Missions Étrangères 1659–2004 (Paris, 2004) Anastasius van den Wyngaert and Fabiano Bollen Sinica Franciscana, vols I–IV (Florence, 1929–42)

List of Abbreviations SM SR

C.C. Brown, (ed. and trans.), ‘Sĕjarah Mĕlayu or “Malay Annals”. A translation of Raffles MS 18 (in the library of the R.A.S., London)’ JMBRAS vol. 25, parts 2 and 3 (1952) António da Silva Rego (ed.), Documentação para a história das missões do padroado português do oriente. Índia, 12 vols (Lisbon: 1947–60)

xiii

Preface In 1661, Italian Jesuit Giovanni Filippo de Marini (1608–82) arrived back in Europe following an arduous three-year journey from the distant Jesuit College of St Paul in Macao, China. He had spent over two decades in Asia, visiting India, China, and Siam (Thailand), and working as a missionary for eleven years in Tonkin (now part of Vietnam). His travels had been punctuated with drama. He had suffered gruelling sea voyages, cooped up in cramped and dirty living conditions, dependent on diminishing supplies of unappetizing provisions. He had trekked overland across malarial swamps and through jungles haunted by wild animals. He had been attacked by pirates off the coast of Calicut and caught up in a battle between Portuguese colonists and a local ruler in the besieged Indian city of Nagapattinam. He had nearly died in the seas south of China when his ship was wrecked by tropical storms. Blown off course from his intended destiny as missionary in Japan, he had read second hand about the fate of his confrere, Jesuit Antonio Rubino, who died a martyr on those islands, and of another colleague, Cristovão Ferreira, who faltered under torture and apostatized, renouncing his priesthood and his Christianity. Marini himself had been arrested in Tonkin under suspicion of spying, was imprisoned, threatened with execution and eventually banished as a threat to society. Now, armed with a burning zeal for these Asian missions, and equipped with many engrossing stories of his adventures in distant lands, Marini prepared himself for a new challenge in Europe.1 As Procurer of the Jesuit missionary provinces of Japan and China, his job was to promote the interests of his religious order’s missions in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. He acted as a diplomat and propagandist, seeking to obtain the good will and support of the king of Portugal and the Pope. He worked hard to win the assistance of other powerful patrons and well wishers, including João Nunes da Cunha, the new viceroy of India, and Catherine of Braganza, queen of England and sister to the Portuguese king. Equally importantly, he strove to secure the future of the missions by persuading intelligent and capable young men to make the dangerous voyage and to devote themselves to kindling the flame of Christianity in the regions of East and Southeast Asia.2 In 1663 he published a lengthy account of the Jesuit missions in Japan, Tonkin, Cochinchina, Laos, Cambodia, Siam, Makassar, and China, which promised prospective missionaries that glory awaited them overseas.3 ‘They will rejoice to see themselves as close to Heaven, as this Orient is to the Sun, which is born there’, 1 See Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 407–10. For bibliographical details see ‘Marini (Marino da Tabia), Giovanni Fillippo de’ in DHCJ, III: 2509–10. Burnay, ‘Notes chronologiques’, 183–5, 199–200. 2 On Marini’s time in Europe see Rouleau, ‘The first Chinese priest of the Society of Jesus’, 18–27. 3 Marini, Delle Missioni de’ Padri della Compagnia di Giesu nella Provincia del Giappone. I have used the second edition, published in Rome in 1665 (see n. 1).

Preface

xv

Figure 1. Giovanni Filippo di Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone (1665). Frontispiece. Engraved by Albert Clowet. Reproduced by kind permission of The Governors of Stonyhurst College.

xvi

Preface

he pledged.4 Indeed God had placed a sign in the stars in these tropical skies: a ‘new constellation’, the Southern Cross, which promised missionaries that they would be rewarded with a ‘most holy death’ following a life sacrificed to him in the furthest Indies; maybe they would even win the ‘ultimate reward’ of martyrdom.5 Albert Clowet’s allegorical frontispiece to the work (Figure 1) depicts the varied civilizations of Southeast Asia who might be brought to Christianity, and celebrates the Jesuit missionary vocation to evangelize all peoples.6 Illuminated by the iridescence of Christ’s monogram, a group of converts is the focal point of the engraving. From their various positions of devotion, their gaze draws ours up, into the eyes of a Jesuit missionary. The beseeching gestures of the Siamese and Tonkinese devotees take in the priest and his book, which reads ‘Lord of Heaven’, ‘Ten Commandments’, ‘Heaven and Earth’, and ‘Truth’.7 With all attention fixed upon him, the Jesuit mediates between his gathered congregation and the divine. The personified Church, with symbols of pontifical power in heaven and on earth—the patriarchal cross, papal tiara, and Peter’s keys—flanks the holy name and looks down on the scene of the new Southeast Asian converts submissive at the Jesuit’s feet. Like many similar books describing Jesuit missions in Asia, Marini’s work became a European best seller, appearing in at least seven editions in Italian and French before 1683. Reproductions of the Clowet engravings varied between editions aimed at different markets: ranging from rougher, smaller prints, signed by ‘A. Brosio’, which ornamented some presumably cheaper editions to those produced for one lavish volume on red and yellow paper, ornamented with silver flowers.8 The rhetoric and imagery of the book proved sufficiently compelling to attract new recruits: on his travels through Europe, Marini was joined by a growing band of men who were drawn by these depictions of apostolicism and sacrificial triumph, and who were keen to return with him to these distant lands. However, his mission to win the support of the Portuguese crown and the Pope was not easy. Conflicting reports of these missions, written by members of other religious orders had also reached Europe, calling into question this image of apostolic perfection. Some observers accused the priests of the Portuguese Padroado (royal Patronage) missions—who had sole charge of evangelization in Asia since the beginning of the sixteenth century—of laxity and of a chauvinistic refusal to ordain non-Portuguese men as priests. Others accused the Jesuits in particular of adopting dubious evangelical techniques and permitting their neophytes to retain dangerous pagan customs: by some accounts, the whiff of heresy emanated from the Jesuit missions. Marini’s task in Europe, then, was also one of damage limitation, of demonstrating the veracity of his own account and countering the imprecations of the Jesuits’ detractors. Yet during his stay in Rome he could do nothing to persuade 4 Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 540: ‘Gioiranno al verdersi cosi vicini al Cielo, com’è quell’Oriente al Sol, che nasce.’ 5 Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 540. 6 Albert Clowet (1624–87), engraver from Antwerp, working mainly in Rome and Florence. See Michaud and Michaud (eds) Biographie universelle, VIII: 488–9. 7 Many thanks to Professor Peter Kornicki for this translation. 8 Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, 374–5.

Preface

xvii

the cardinals of the Roman Congregation ‘de Propaganda Fide’, which was responsible for overseas evangelization, to alter their intention to assert control over these missions, and to some extent to sideline the Jesuits. By the time he sailed once more to his beloved Tonkin in 1665, members of a new religious institution made up of French priests, the Société des Missions Étrangères, had sailed east with papal blessing to take charge of and to reform these missions. The religious orders already present in China and Southeast Asia objected strongly to these new arrivals: as Marini would discover on his arrival in Southeast Asia, rival missionaries increasingly spent more time fighting amongst themselves than converting local populations. Behind the glorious image of conversion portrayed in Marini’s work, then, lie myriad tensions. While exciting Jesuit tales like Marini’s account inspired priests from across Europe to answer the same call to evangelize distant lands, this grand project of the ‘universal Church’ was far from united. In this book I explore how Catholic missionaries, merchants, and adventurers responded to the rhetoric and images in works like Marini’s, and how they brought their faith to the strategically and commercially crucial region of Southeast Asia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Through these compelling accounts, I analyse missionary perceptions and presentation of evangelism and conversion and look beyond this rhetoric to examine the real experiences of priests and converts. Mapping collaborations and conflicts between a wide range of different actors, I tell the story of encounters and exchanges in lands which conjured visions of exotic goods and gods in the minds of early modern Europeans, and which became important testing grounds for controversial ideas about the nature of conversion and the relationship between religious belief and practice. The voices of missionaries like Marini ring out the loudest in the historical record. Yet the actions and opinions of converts—those silent, devout figures in Clowet’s engraving—can often be uncovered in unexpected places, even in ecclesiastical and colonial archives and European printed accounts. I examine how we can use such sources to explore why some Southeast Asians adopted Christianity—and even died for their new faith—while others resisted all incentives to reject their original beliefs and practices. Moreover I examine how Catholicism itself was converted in this encounter, as Southeast Asian neophytes adapted the faith to their own needs. A central aim of this book is to demonstrate how the laity—the ordinary men and women depicted as receiving the faith so passively in Clowet’s engraving—were instrumental in re-shaping and diffusing Christianity in Southeast Asia. I will demonstrate their part in the re-invention of Catholicism as they altered its ritual forms and even reinterpreted its doctrines to suit their own spiritual, social, and religious needs. This lay activism proved the key to the successful introduction of Christianity into an area. By focusing on lay Christianity as well as missionary endeavour, this book offers a new approach to the history of evangelism: decentring the priest, looking beyond the ecclesiastical hierarchy and examining the agency of ordinary men and women.

xviii

Preface

Figure 2. Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, Map of Siam and surrounding countries from Atlas géographique contenant Les cartes générales et particulières d’Asie, d’Affrique et d’Amérique. Tome XIV (1687). Bibliothèque Nationale de France. GE BB 565 (14, 38).

Introduction The Crossroads of the World The region that we now call Southeast Asia is a diverse patchwork of polities, stretching from the Irrawaddy Delta of Burma to the Red River Basin of Vietnam and across a pattern of islands dividing the China Seas from the Indian Ocean.1 These lands, often referred to by early modern Europeans as the ‘East Indies’ or ‘India ultra Gangem’, exerted an irresistible pull on the European imagination in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Judeo-Christian tradition had placed Eden in the farthest East, while early travellers’ tales had spoken of gardens of earthly delights and lands of unimaginable riches in the lands beyond India.2 According to early maps and enduring myths, somewhere in the region lay legendary lands such as Argyre or Regio Argenta, Chryse Chersonesos, Regio Aurea, and Islæ Bonæ Fortunæ: the Land of Silver, the Golden Island, the Kingdom of Gold, the Islands of Good Fortune. They were realms of fabulous wealth, perhaps synonymous with the Biblical Ophir or Tarshis—from which King Solomon had received shipments of gold, precious woods, jewels, and other luxuries.3 Stories of the golden promise of the region had been transmitted to the GrecoRoman world via the older traditions of other visitors to Southeast Asia. Classical compilers of geographical information such as Claudius Ptolemy had translated the Sanskrit and Pali terms—Suvarnabhûmi, Suvarnadvîpa—used by merchants plying the ˙ century ad. These described ‘golden’ Indian Ocean trade routes from˙ around the first lands beyond the Ganges.4 The Chinese too referred to ‘Chin lin’ or ‘Chin ch’en’: a rich neighbour to the south whose name might be translated as ‘Frontier of Gold’.5 1 ‘Southeast Asia’ is of course a modern denomination, coined during the Second World War. The literature debating the appropriateness of using such a term anachronistically, and the merits of writing about Southeast Asia as a coherent region is vast. See e.g. Tarling, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, vol. II, part II: ‘Preface to the paperback edition’, xvi–xiv; Legge, ‘The writing of Southeast Asian history’, 1–2; Evans, ‘Between the global and the local’, 147–62 and Kratoska, ‘Country histories and the writing of Southeast Asian history’, 104–17. In this work, Southeast Asia denotes both the region as we now understand it and the vaguer synonyms used by early modern Europeans who, as we will see, had a conception of the distinctiveness of the region, both as distinct from the neighbouring regions of India, China, and Japan, and as a region with special qualities, at the heart of Asia. 2 Suárez, Early mapping of Southeast Asia, 69–71; Grove, Green imperialism, 16–72. 3 Ophir: 1 Kings 9: 28, 1 Kings 10: 11, 1 Chronicles 29:4; 2 Chronicles 8:18; 2 Chronicles 9:10. Tarshish: 1 Kings 22: 48, 1 Kings 10: 22, 2 Chronicles 9: 21, Ezekiel 27:12. See also Suárez, Early mapping of Southeast Asia, 62–3 and 71–2. 4 Hall, A history of South-East Asia, 13–14; Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese, 138–59, 177–84. Cf. Meulen, ‘Suvarnadvîpa and the Chrysê Chersonêsos’, 1–40. 5 Hall, A history of South-East Asia, 27. See also Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese, 116–17. Wheatley suggests this might correspond to Tonkin.

2

Introduction

Scholars and travellers from Renaissance Europe suggested various locations for the golden lands of ancient legend: were they perhaps to be found in Burma, the Malaysian Peninsula, Sumatra, Siam or Java? Maybe they lay on the Vietnamese coast or amongst the islands of the Philippines? 6 Lands of legendary riches, location of Ophir or even Eden; more prosaically, the wealth of Southeast Asia lay in its mines, its forests and in the manufactures and trading power of its people. The archaeological record attests to the ancient attraction of the region and the importance of maritime trade to the early development of many of its kingdoms. The monsoon winds allowed traders from India and China to converge in the ports of what are now Indonesia and Malaysia, to exchange goods from their respective homelands and to purchase lucrative Southeast Asian commodities. Indeed, merchants from island Southeast Asia are known to have traded with India as early as 500 bc and China by 400 bc.7 Marco Polo’s thirteenth-century description of the island of Java as a land in which ‘there is such wealth, that no man in the world could calculate or describe it’ seemed to hold true for many kingdoms in the region.8 As European travel and trade in the area increased after the Portuguese conquest of the prosperous Malay sultanate of Malacca (Melaka) in 1511, travellers’ accounts became ever more heavily laden with descriptions of materials and produce which could be acquired and traded in Southeast Asian port-cities. Whole paragraphs groaned with lists of merchandise which would make the great entrepôts of Europe look like village markets. This was a region created for trade: with the coco palms of Malacca, for example, according to Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes, sailors could ‘build, equip, arm and rig a ship’, before loading it with valuable merchandise of neighbouring kingdoms and following the trade winds which connected their homelands to India, China, the Arabian peninsular, Persia and the east coast of Africa.9 A wide variety of silks, brocades and dyed textiles, porcelain, glassware, lacquered furniture, fretwork, and other manufactures from China, India, and Southeast Asia were available in portcity trading hubs. Portuguese merchant Duarte Barbosa (c.1480–1521) found copper casks of rose water from Mecca, vermilion, quicksilver, frankincense, opium, musk, pearls, saltpetre, saffron, and gall-nuts from the Levant in the bustling ports of Malacca, Tenasserim (Siam), and the spice islands of the Moluccas.10 There seemed to be intimations of Eden’s proximity in the natural abundance of the region and the heavenly perfume of its products.11 Many authors wrote in wonder of how precious products literally grew on the trees. Dutch traveller Jan 6 For example ‘L’Isle’, Relation historique du Royaume de Siam, 16–17 suggests Ophir might have been located in Siam, while Jan Huyghen van Linschoten reports that some people call Sumatra ‘Chersoneso Aurea’ whilst others identify it as Ophir. Linschoten, Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten, vol. I: 108. See also Meulen, ‘Suvarnadvîpa and the Chrysê Chersonêsos’, 13–16 and Jack-Hinton, The search for the islands of Solomon, 1–27. 7 See especially Bulbeck et al., Southeast Asian exports since the 14th century; Lockhart, Southeast Asia in world history, 15–19; Breazeale, ‘Thai maritime trade and the ministry responsible’, 1–4; Lach and Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, vol. III, bk. 1, ch. 1; Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, II: 1–10, 62–131. 8 Narrative of Marco Polo, cited by Jack-Hinton, ‘Marco Polo in South-East Asia’, 47. 9 Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions, 39. 10 Barbosa, The book of Duarte Barbosa, II: 164–75. 11 See Freedman, Out of the East, 76–103: ‘The odours of paradise’.

Introduction

3

Huyghen van Linschoten (1563–1611) described how oils, resins, barks, gums, and woods from the forests of the Malay peninsular and island Southeast Asia were in demand across Asia and Europe for use in furniture, artwork, perfumes, incense and medicines. Indeed calamba and eaglewoods of good quality were ‘esteemed more than gold or silver’. Nature also yielded camphor wood, excellent bezoar stones (objects cut from the internal organs of animals, believed to be efficacious against poison), diamonds, nutmeg, mace, sandalwood, and brazilwood, which was highly prized in Europe as an expensive red dye.12 Some valuable spices, including nutmeg, mace, cloves, and the best varieties of pepper, grew nowhere else in the world. In Cochinchina sugar, such a luxury in Europe, was found ‘in such abundance that they do not sell it for more that two sous a pound. The sugar canes here are very good and are eaten like we eat apples: one can have them for almost nothing’.13 Siam, French adventurer Vincent le Blanc (c.1554–1640) exclaimed, was ‘one of the best, the most fertile, and the most delicious lands in the world, abundant in all sorts of fruit, foods, silver mines, iron, lead, tin, saltpetre, sulphur, silks, honey, copper, sugars, aromatic woods, benzoin, lacquer, cotton, rubies, sapphires, ivory, and they bring here all sorts of spices and other goods from abroad’.14 No surprise then that according to legend, the Queen of Sheba had had a trading post somewhere in Southeast Asia, which sent her vast quantities of gold, later used to furnish the temple at Jerusalem. Indeed, thirteenthcentury friar Giovanni de’ Marignolli had reported that he had encountered the current ‘Queen of Sheba’ in her court in Java.15 While the Portuguese were the first Europeans to establish sustained, direct trade links with these regions, Spanish adventurers continued to pursue Christopher Columbus’ dream of discovering a western route to Ophir and the golden lands of the East. ‘Having won America, the fourth part of the earth, which was unknown to the ancients,’ wrote colonist Antonio de Morga (1559–1636) in his 1609 account of the Spanish arrival in the Philippines, ‘our people sailed in pursuit of the sun, until they discovered in the Eastern Ocean an archipelago of many islands adjacent to further Asia, inhabited by various peoples, abounding in precious metals and stones, pearls and all kinds of fruits.’16 Fernão de Magalhães (Ferdinand Magellan, c.1480– 1521) first made the crossing from the Spanish New World to Southeast Asia in 1521. In 1565 a viable trans-Atlantic trade route was established and a Spanish foothold in the region was secured, as colonists began the conquest of the Philippine archipelago. Through the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade, the riches of Asia could now be brought to markets throughout the Spanish Americas. Southeast Asia was now truly the crossroads of the world, a place where traders from four continents converged. Settlements of European merchants in major port cities around the region, from the coasts of Vietnam to the spice islands of the Moluccas to the Burmese littoral, 12

Linschoten, Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten, I: 120. Rhodes, Divers voyages, 62. 14 Blanc, Voyages fameux de sieur Vincent le Blanc, 155, 157. ‘L’Isle’, Histoire, repeats the same list, with a few alterations, 11. 15 Colless, ‘Giovanni de’ Marignolli’, 325–41. 16 Morga, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, 46. 13

Introduction

4

took advantage of existing local and international trading networks, and provided access to new markets. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Portuguese and Spanish merchants were facing increasing competition from northern European trading companies such as the Dutch East India Company (the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) and the English East India Company (EIC), which were equally eager to take advantage of the lucrative trading opportunities of the region. Such was the mythical renown of these lands, that forward-thinking sailors bound for the Indies with the VOC armed themselves with hammers and chisels so that they would be able to collect the legendary ‘nuggets of gold that one simply had to pick up, and precious stones that shone in the sides of mountains’ as soon as they arrived.17 Yet for missionaries like Marini, such worldly riches were outshone by another type of treasure. He rhetorically contrasted those ‘acquisitive men [who] travel over here in search of the most valuable pearls and precious diamonds’ with the evangelists to whom God would grant ‘true treasures’ of the spirit as they underwent continual persecutions and suffering.18 His confrere Alexandre de Rhodes similarly protests that ‘I have not, by the mercy of my God, searched for pearls beside those which Jesus-Christ glorifies by setting in his diadem’: in his account he would dwell on Southeast Asia’s treasures of apostles, converts and martyrs, not the fabulous temporal wealth of the region.19 Playing with the common trope of Southeast Asian abundance in travel writing, he states, ‘It is not the fertility of this land which seemed so considerable to me, but the great fruits which the preaching of the Gospel has produced here in so little time.’20 In many missionary accounts, Southeast Asia seemed to promise spiritual riches to equal or surpass the heaped merchandise of its port cities. The region was strategically crucial for the Catholic project of global evangelization: as we will see, some missionaries envisaged a domino effect whereby the successful conversion of one kingdom would lead to the spiritual conquest of its neighbours, ultimately leading even to the Christianization of the vast Asian empire of China to the north. Iberian conquest and colonization of the Philippines and of parts of the Malay archipelago promised to be the first step towards the wholesale spiritual conquest of maritime Southeast Asia. Even on the largely unconquered mainland, the focus of this study (see Figure 2), the fervour of some neophyte communities in the region seemed to presage a new dawn of global Catholic renewal, which would mirror the glories of the early Church. In Tonkin, Rhodes declared that ‘there are almost as many angels as there are Christians, and that the grace of Baptism inspires them with the same spirit which appeared in the apostles and the martyrs of the primitive 17

Cryusse, Mercenaires français de la VOC, 23–4. Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 540: ‘La doue altri auidi vi si portano in busca delle più pregiate perle, e pretiosi diamanti . . . truouare i veri tesori de’ meriti.’ 19 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine, 2–3: ‘Je n’ay, par le misericorde de mon Dieu, cherché autres perles que celles que IESU-CHRIST fait gloire d’enchasser en son diadème.’ 20 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine, 65: ‘Ce n’est pas la fertilité de cette terre, qui me sembloit considerable, ce sont les grands fruits que la predication de l’Evangile y a produits en fort peu de temps.’ Here he is referring to his own mission in Cochinchina in the early 1620s. 18

Introduction

5

Church.’21 Some missionaries favourably compared these new, potentially fertile terrains to the lands of Europe which were riven by religious wars, doubt, and heresy. Southeast Asia had long been a religious crossroads. The trade winds had carried the seeds of religious ideas from China, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian peninsula: various forms of Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Islamic beliefs had germinated in different parts of the region, where they had been cross-pollinated by indigenous beliefs and practices. Christian ideas had perhaps found their way into some parts of Southeast Asia, coming via China and India with Nestorian and Armenian Christians around the eighth century and later arriving with European missionaries and merchants in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.22 Yet it was not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the faith planted secure roots in some parts of the region. This book explores how European missionaries, arriving first with the Spanish and Portuguese colonists and merchants, attempted to introduce Christianity into three ‘zones’ in Southeast Asia: Tonkin and Cochinchina (what is now Vietnam), Siam (modern day Thailand) and the port city of Malacca (Melaka, Malaysia). In Clowet’s engraving (Figure 1), we see a range of converts from all over Southeast Asia, differently attired in an approximation of appropriate fashions as described by contemporary European travellers, and further distinguished by gesture and posture. The illustration conveys a message of the unifying power of Catholicism, drawing together all peoples, irrespective of their differences. Yet as missionaries travelled around Southeast Asia, often working in a variety of different environments and with peoples of different cultures, they found that not all regions were equally fertile ground for their message. Comparing the reception of missionaries and their message in three diverse regions of Southeast Asia, through their accounts we can examine their analysis of their successes and failures. We will follow them as they passed between these three zones and, occasionally, as they voyaged further afield to the Philippines, to what is now Indonesia, to India and to China. Comparing and connecting missionary experiences in three regions, we can begin to uncover why certain regions seemed more receptive to Christianity than others. In Clowet’s engraving, the elegantly robed figures, foremost of the devout group, are representatives of ‘Tonkin’ and ‘Cochinchina’. These polities emerged as expansionist regional powers following the disintegration of the kingdom of ‘Annam’ in the sixteenth century, and spent the majority of the seventeenth century at war with each other.23 Viet peoples who formed a dominant group in these two polities shared some cultural similarities with some Southern Chinese groups, owing to the long 21

Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine, 100. On the traces of early Christianity in Southeast Asia see Gillman and Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, 307–13; England, Hidden history of Christianity in Asia; and Moffett, A history of Christianity in Asia, 459–62. Medieval European travellers’ accounts from the region are found in Yule and Cordier (eds and trans.), Cathay and the way thither. 23 The name Annam (the pacified or conquered south), which was how early modern Europeans knew the region is avoided by many modern Vietnamese scholars due to its connotations both of Chinese and European imperialism. 22

6

Introduction

period of Chinese rule over the region. The cultural influence of China continued in subtle and varied ways which increasingly differed between the two polities. The ‘triple flower’ of Confucianism, Mahāyāna Buddhism, and Taoism also flourished in each realm, with each element encouraged at different points by various groups. Despite many overarching similarities between the two polities, missionaries were received differently by the political elites and peoples of each region. These two lands together form the first zone, providing the setting to explore how missionaries perceived and approached ‘Sino-ized’ Confucian court cultures, ancient literary traditions, varied and intricate spiritual traditions which could draw on Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian teaching, and the complex political situation of realms at war. The variations between cultures, social structures, and experiences of Christian conversion in Tonkin and Cochinchina also offer another point of comparison. Official policies towards missionaries oscillated between toleration and persecution as rulers responded to rapidly changing political and economic considerations. Yet despite the precariousness of their position in Tonkin and Cochinchina, it was against this chaotic backdrop that missionaries achieved what they perceived to be their most considerable successes in Southeast Asia, converting thousands and counting mandarins (officials) and royal relatives amongst their supporters. In the seventeenth century bloody clampdowns on Christianity provided the nascent church with its first martyrs, who were celebrated joyously by the missionaries as proof that their endeavours pleased God and enraged the Devil. The second zone is the kingdom of Siam, represented in the engraving by the tattooed individual with a half-shaved head, who stands behind Tonkin.24 By the time Marini was writing, Siam had emerged from a turbulent sixteenth century into a period of relative stability. Under King Narai (r. 1656–88), foreigners including Europeans were encouraged to settle in the capital city, Ayutthaya. External influences on Siamese court, literate and legal cultures were mainly imported and adapted from India, Burma, and the Khmer kingdoms, rather than China.25 The Buddhism of Siam was of the Theravāda school, with reformers frequently sought from the Sangha (the Buddhist order of monks) of Sri Lanka and Burma. Unlike in Cochinchina and Tonkin, Buddhism in Siam had a consistently dominant influence on ritual and ceremonial life throughout much of the realm. The toleration and positive encouragement granted to Catholics by kings of Siam persuaded several groups of missionaries to make Ayutthaya the base of their operations in Southeast Asia. Yet despite the relative security of Siam, and the welcome afforded to missionaries, they made little headway in converting the population, in contrast to the successes they enjoyed in volatile Tonkin and Cochinchina. The third zone is the port-city of Malacca and its environs. This zone both represents the world of Islamic Southeast Asia and provides a contrast to the autonomous regions of Siam and the Viet lands, as Malacca was a city under European colonial rule. Malacca was under Portuguese control for 130 years 24 On Southeast Asian tattoos and shaved-head hairstyles, see Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, I: 77–83. 25 See especially Saraya, (Sri) Dvaravati, 66–79. Cf. Cœdès, The making of South East Asia, 218–21.

Introduction

7

(1511–1641), and served as a springboard for missions to island Southeast Asia, especially in what is now Malaysia and Indonesia. Yet by the time of Marini’s account, Malacca had fallen to the Dutch. This perhaps explains why Malacca is not depicted in Clowet’s engraving: the Islamic world of Southeast Asia is symbolized by the figure of Makassar, kneeling and almost obscured behind the Jesuit. Many of the Catholic denizens of Malacca had left for other regions including Siam and Makassar; others remained under the new Dutch government. Considering Malacca besides other mission lands allows us to examine early modern missionary approaches to Islam, in contrast to the religious cultures encountered in mainland Southeast Asia, which Europeans of the time usually described as ‘pagan’. Throughout island Southeast Asia, Islam and Christianity vied for converts and missionaries drew on the rhetoric of the medieval Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula and of the Crusades in the Holy Land to describe and explain their missionary endeavours. The example of Malacca also allows us to consider differences between the conversion of colonial subjects, and those whose allegiance was officially to a non-Christian ruler. The efforts of missionaries in this city remind us that conversion was not simply a matter of persuading people to accept baptism. The Catholic denizens of the city were themselves frequently enjoined to convert from impiety and dishonourable conduct to become better Christians. Even the clergy of this colonial outpost were occasionally presented as candidates for conversion, weakened, as some commentators saw it, by the ‘moral torpor’ of the region. When the city fell to the Dutch, missionaries faced a further challenge: to keep their scattered flocks within the folds of the Church, and to prevent those who now fell under Protestant Dutch rule from embracing a new, ‘heretical’ confession. CONFLICT AND CONVERSION As missionaries travelled between these three zones, they reflected on why some regions seemed more fertile ground to plant the seed of the Gospel and why some peoples seemed more ready to convert than others. Behind these deliberations lay yet more fundamental questions: what did conversion look like, and how could missionaries know that the seed they had planted had laid roots sufficient to sustain the faith? The Clowet engraving represents the conversion of Southeast Asia with the common visual metaphor of illumination. The iridescence of the converts is instantaneous: a light from heaven enlightens them and the world around them like the flash of light that struck Saul blind and converted him into the Apostle Paul.26 Yet there are also suggestions of the complexity of the concept of conversion. The engagement of Clowet’s converts is intellectual: they listen intently to the Jesuit’s teachings, their gestures suggesting their engagement in his arguments, opening their thoughts to the divine light and knowledge which streams down directly from

26

Acts 9: 3–6, 22: 6–18, 26: 13–16.

Introduction

8

heaven. Yet their response is also emotional: with hands on their hearts or clasped in devotion they gaze open-mouthed with longing, drinking in the words which touch them to their core. Their conversion also transforms their surroundings: as the light triumphs, former idols—monstrous, bestial, and broken now—are swallowed in shadow and sacral space is reordered. Differentiated in clothing and gesture, yet alike in their reverence, their conversion is at once an individual and a communal experience. Gathered together in devotion these individuals from all over the region transcend the geography of Southeast Asia: individuals of disparate cultures are united, part of a global community under Christ. Like many similar allegories of evangelization and conversion, Clowet’s engraving thus brings together many themes reflected in other contemporary European discussions and depictions of conversion. The metaphor of light is pervasive in early modern conversion narratives, recalling both the light which blinded Saul/Paul in the New Testament and the more gradual dawning of enlightenment recorded in other conversion stories. St Augustine, for example, experienced the climax of his long journey of conversion as he read verse 13 of St Paul’s third letter to the Romans: ‘No sooner had I reached the end of the verse than the light of certainty flooded my heart and all dark shades of doubt fled away.’27 This illumination was hard-won however, following years of internal struggle described in his Confessions, which would provide a model for describing the internal evolution experienced by a convert: ‘You snapped my bonds’ he wrote, thanking God for his intervention. ‘Your words were now firmly implanted in my heart and I was besieged by you from every side’; ‘In awe inspiring ways these truths were striking deep roots within me . . . [I] was filled with dread’; ‘A new will had begun to emerge in me, the will to worship you disinterestedly and enjoy you . . . [my] two wills fought it out—the old and the new, the one carnal the other spiritual—and in their struggle tore my soul apart.’28 Conversion could involve a blinding flash, but it could also be presented as a long and difficult struggle of the light to pierce darkness as the subject underwent a moral, intellectual, and spiritual revolution and turned away from sin. As recent scholarship has highlighted, a variety of such tropes are found in a wide range of Christian conversion narratives, depicting conversion as a complex, disputed and evolving phenomenon, almost impossible to describe without paradox.29 It was a rupture, a liberation; something at once disruptive and creative; both a sudden attack and a long war of attrition. It could be experienced as an emotional wrench, a mental shift which leads to new understanding, a sudden ability to see the world in a new light—and as a gradual, on-going process of moral reform, learning, and adaptation of behaviour, signalling the triumph of the ‘spiritual’ will to direct the actions rather than the ‘carnal’ which ties the individual to the world. In the literary remains of missionaries and their converts we read traces of these varied concepts of conversion, yet a generalized, widely accepted definition of the 27

Augustine, Confessions, 10.24. Augustine, Confessions, 8.1; 7.11. 29 See esp. Morrison, Understanding Conversion; Mills and Grafton (eds), Conversion Old Worlds and New; Kendall, et al. (eds), Conversion to Christianity and Keane, ‘From fetishism to sincerity’. 28

Introduction

9

phenomenon remains elusive. Indeed, missionaries frequently struggled to define and depict conversion as a process. As we will see, while they may agree broadly on an essence of conversion, which could be alluded to through metaphors—of accepting Christ into one’s heart, of illumination, of spiritual conquest and so on—there was little consensus on the accidents of this internal reformation. On the one hand, conversion would be marked by the individual testifying to his or her new faith and desire to join the Church. The primary referent for the convert’s identity changed: ideally they would now see and describe themselves first as a member of the Church, with previous group identities and allegiances being altered or even erased.30 Yet becoming a member of the Church through baptism was not enough and did not mark the end of the process of conversion, as missionaries’ criticisms of the Catholic population of Malacca make plain. How could a convert be identified?31 In many narratives, the convert testifies to his or her conversion physically, vocally, and emotionally. St Augustine had asserted that his mental anguish during his conversion was plain to perceive: ‘my brow, my cheeks and eyes, my flushed countenance and the cadences of my voice expressed my mind more fully than the words I uttered.’32 Missionaries often similarly described their converts undergoing a period of emotional crisis which testified to the veracity of their conversion. Thus Jesuit Christoforo Borri described a former Buddhist teacher, who spent Christmas evening ‘kneeling in lengthy prayer, accompanied by rivers of tears, saying these words: “Tuijciam Biet”[Tôi cha˘˜ng bie´ˆt], that is, “I didn’t know”, by which he meant “Forgive me, Lord, that until now I did not know you.”’33 Yet how much weight should be given to such emotional displays? Some French missionaries in Siam criticized Jesuits for baptizing people without sufficient instruction, without taking the time to discern whether or not there had been a ‘true’ conversion. ‘It will be no surprise to learn that the usual practice of these missionaries is to baptise on the same day or the next those who ask to be made Christian without teaching them of the obligations of the faithful.’34 The problem of defining and identifying conversion was further highlighted as missionaries attempted to translate and explain the process in different languages and cultural contexts. One may speak of ‘entering’ or ‘embracing’ a religion: in Thai for example one ‘enters the tradition/customs’ (khao reet—เข้ารีต) of a new religion; in Malay one can only ‘embrace’ or ‘enter’ (memeluk, masuk) a faith. But how can the full import of this step be conveyed?

See Hefner, ‘Introduction: world building and the rationality of conversion’, 25. A summary of this problem from a sociological perspective is given by Snow and Machalek, ‘The convert as a social type’, 259–89. 32 Augustine, Confessions, 8.19. 33 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 194–5: ‘egli passò ingenocchioni in lunga oratione accompagnata da fiumi di lagrime, dice˜do queste parole, Tuijciam, Biet, cioè io non sapeua, volendo dire, Perdonatemi Signore, che infin’adesso non vi hò conosciuto.’ 34 Lambert de la Motte, ‘Journal de la Mission’, cited in Chappoulie, Aux origines d’une église, 143: ‘On ne s’en étonnera pas quand on sera informé que l’ordinaire de ces missionnaires est de baptiser le même jour ou le lendemain ceux qui demandent à être faits chrétiens sans les enseigner des obligations d’un fidèle.’ 30 31

10

Introduction

Conceptual parallels to Christian ideas of conversion could perhaps be found in local spiritual traditions. In Vietnam for example, a similar metaphor to the final illumination experienced by converts could perhaps be found in the Buddhist idea of giác ngˆo. (‘awakening’ or ‘enlightenment’), a term which in more recent times was even recycled to describe the development of individual political consciousness, as Communists convinced their compatriots to ‘awake’ to the revolution (giác ngˆo. cách ma. ng).35 In the Islamic world of Southeast Asia, an even more direct analogy could be found in the process of conversion to Islam. In Malay chronicles and genealogies, for example, moments of the conversion of princes are pivotal. Here too, conversion narratives feature set tropes which suggest the multifaceted nature of the process. Miraculous, sudden conversions through dreams, visions and divine intervention are followed by a period of instruction which allows the convert to clothe the bones of his belief with intellectual understanding, and by a process of adaptation to Islamic norms and practices.36 ‘Becoming Muslim’ is on the one hand a recollection of the truth of Islam and a simple move across the binary distinction which defines two spheres of humanity: ‘All mankind is sprung from the Prophet Adam’, as the Serjah Melayu puts it, ‘yet some are born in Islam, some as unbelievers: such distinctions are characteristic of all mankind.’37 On the other hand, as in Christianity, conversion to Islam referred to a longer, on-going process of reform of believers’ behaviours and understandings of the religion, and a renewal and reinvigoration of their faith.38 The idea of conversion itself was thus also fluid, as in Christianity. As Mouez Khalfaoui has pointed out, the realities of how religion was experienced in each new locality could change how conversion was perceived by existing believers: thus conversions to Islam in South Asia had an impact on many Islamic jurists’ understandings and approaches to conversion as a concept and a process.39 Considering such local complexities, it is unsurprising that missionaries sometimes struggled to translate conversion successfully. Jesuit Francisco Buzomi, for example, was horrified to discover how his confreres had failed to explain themselves effectively in Cochinchina, when he witnessed villagers in one hamlet performing a satirical play which mocked missionaries and their converts. In the skit, the parody priest asked of a hapless child, using the words hitherto used by missionaries, ‘Con gnoo muon bau tlom laom Hoalaom chiam?’ (Con nhỏ muo´ˆn vào trong lòng Hoa Long chăng?—Little boy, would you go into the belly of the Portuguese?) ‘Becoming a Christian’ was thus presented as ceasing to be Cochinchinese, and to become Portuguese, a preposterous idea that the villagers mocked. Buzomi therefore corrected the translation to Muon bau dau Christiam chiam?

35

Taylor, Fragments of the present, 58. For example in SM 40–2, 52–3. On similar tropes of princely conversion in the Hikayat Raja Raja Pasani and the Kedah Annals see Wake, ‘Malacca’s early kings and the reception of Islam’, 122; and Schultze, ‘Islamizing Malay culture’, 131–40. 37 SM 192. 38 See especially Azra, The origins of Islamic reformism in Southeast Asia. 39 Khalfaoui, ‘From religion to social conversion’, 85–93. 36

Introduction

11

(Muo´ˆn vào đa. o Christian chăng—Will you enter the Christian law/path (đa. o)?).40 We see a similar formulation used by one of the first Vietnamese priests who described ‘winning over’ 2,315 people ‘to enter the law of the Lord of Heaven’, leaving behind the wrong path of false teaching (Cho kẻ vô đa. o mà vào đa. o thánh đức chúa trời c~ ung đã được hai nghìn ba trăm mười lăm người).41 Another formulation, which sees converts as ‘returning to the law/path’ of Christianity (trở la. i đa. o), as Brian Ostrowski points out, echoes a belief shared by many missionaries that knowledge of God had once been universal amongst men, only to be lost over time.42 ‘Soon after people dispersed over the face of the earth, idolatry appeared in the world’, as Augustinian Adriano di Santa Thecla put it.43 Conversion, then, was a reawakening to the ‘original’ law of Christianity. For more precision, in Tonkin and Cochinchina missionaries could follow the lead of dictionaries and phrase books such as Alexandre de Rhodes’s Dictionarium Annamaticum which offered useful phrases to speak of various aspects of the convert’s journey. ‘The Lord of Heaven moves the heart’ (đức Chúa blời moˆ´ lao˘/o Senhor do ceo moue o curacao/cor mouetur à Domino caeli); ‘I believe in God the Father’ (tôi kính Deos cha/creo em Deos Padre/Credo in Deum Patrem); ‘to trust in the Lord of Heaven’ (đoˆ´i cu˜´ đức chúa blời/confiar em Deos/sperare in Domino): such phrases were deemed useful to translate the experience of conversion into words.44 Problems of translation and definition would prove to be a key battleground for missionaries. As in Europe, missionaries embarked upon a complicated ontological project of defining the beliefs and practices they encountered and assigning to them category labels such as ‘religion’, ‘superstition’, ‘magic’, or ‘civic ceremony’. Assessing the whether or not the distinction between these categories had any reality ‘on the ground’, in the lived experience of ordinary men and women, is a real challenge for historians.45 Could Southeast Asian concepts of belief, being and religious practice be accurately depicted using the tools and language of European, Christian thought? As Olga Dror points out in her translator’s introduction to Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses, an eighteenth-century study of Tonkinese religion by Adriano di Santa Thecla, even the most fundamental tasks of translation could prove incredibly complex. For example, should ‘tam giáo’, used to describe the triad of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Vietnamese, be translated as ‘three religions’, ‘three teachings’, or, as Alexandre de Rhodes had it, ‘three sects’?46 Each possibility had very different connotations. Similarly, translations into Southeast Asian languages of European concepts would have to navigate subtle 40 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 194–5. Translation into modern Vietnamese and English in Dror and Taylor (eds), Views of seventeenth-century Vietnam, 139. 41 Dominique Van Hão to Louis Laneau, 1687, transcribed by Marillier, Nos pères dans la foi, I: 106. French translation 101. 42 Ostrowski, ‘The nôm works of Maiorica’, 165, fn. 357. 43 Santa Thecla, Opusculum, 73. Also cited by Ostrowski, ‘The nôm works of Maiorica’, 165 n. 357. 44 Rhodes, Dictionarium Annamaticum, 402, 216, 227. 45 See, for example, the discussions in Bossy, ‘Some elementary forms of Durkheim’, 13–18; Briggs, Communities of belief, 381–413; Gregory, Salvation at stake, 1–29; Gentilcore, From bishop to witch, 1–17; Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional, 22–41; Sluhovsky, Believe not every spirit, 1–10, 34–9. 46 Santa Thecla, Opusculum, 62.

12

Introduction

distinctions in meaning. Dror explores the distinction in modern Vietnamese between tôn giáo (usually translated as ‘religion’, literally ‘ancestral teaching’ or ‘to follow a doctrine’) and tín ngưõng (usually translated as ‘belief ’, literally ‘to believe in or look up to’): terms which are applied to different types of religious activities and which distinctly define varied types of spiritual experience.47 Would ‘conversion’ also necessitate the acceptance of new Christian categories of religious experience, and the redefinition or translation of spirituality to fit European concepts? 48 Yet as we will see, the most disputed territory was the issue of convert behaviour: what must converts renounce and replace of their former lives to demonstrate their true conversion? As this book will uncover, it was through conflicts and disagreements over the ritual and spiritual lives of Southeast Asian converts that early modern European concepts of conversion were themselves transmogrified. In many ways, mission field conflicts converted conversion. A NOTE O N SOURC ES This study is based mainly on annual accounts and reports, letters, narratives, and histories produced by missionaries, other ecclesiasts, secular authorities, and other interested parties. Most of these were written in Southeast Asia and found their way to archives in Lisbon, Paris, Rome, Manila, and Goa. In addition the study draws on the extensive printed literature which developed in Europe, describing missionary activities in the region. The first obstacle for any historian embarking upon a comparative or connective study is the frequent imbalance in the sources available. Although we may wish to give each actor in the dramas equal time and space to speak their parts, the uneven production and survival of documents often renders this difficult. Most records of missions were written by missionaries. They were usually conserved by religious Orders, and when they passed into print it was often under their aegis. We can find some alternative voices: Dutch captains commenting on the Catholics of Malacca, French diplomats describing the machinations of Jesuits and Missions Étrangères priests at the Siamese court, merchants in Macao sending their perspective on recent events to Rome. The army of travellers who cashed in on the lucrative European market for printed travel narratives can also provide useful background details, although these texts can pose further methodological challenges.49 A further challenge is posed by the imbalance of material available concerning various missionary groups. Religious orders had different approaches to the recording, collation, and dissemination of information. Some of these differences were due to 47

Santa Thecla, Opusculum, 64–6. e.g. Hsia, ‘Translating Christianity’, 88 on difficulty of translating ‘conversion’—the word and concept—into Chinese. 49 General introductions to the subject are provided by Brettell, ‘Introduction: travel literature, ethnography and ethnohistory’; Hulme and Youngs (eds), The Cambridge companion to travel writing: see especially their introduction and the article by Sherman, ‘Stirrings and searchings’; Elsner and Rubiés, ‘Introduction’; Rubiés, Travel and ethnology in the Renaissance; and Campbell, The witness and the other world. 48

Introduction

13

variations in the organizational structures in each Order. Yet we can also see the development of different writing cultures in each institution. Moreover, requests for information for the creation of institutional histories could shape the content and form of correspondence. As with the secular imperial narratives, the description of evangelism was itself an extension of this endeavour: disseminating an account of missionary experience helped to propagate the faith by deepening the piety of the reader and inspiring him or her to action. We must therefore consider the interaction between archives and wider literary, political and historical projects: identifying the sources for the latter in the former, and recognizing how such ‘secondary’ writing could shape the documents written and preserved. By the mid-sixteenth century, an awareness of another potential audience—posterity—is evident in many accounts. Letters, once they reached their destination, could be bound together with other supporting material: they were not mere single units, but frequently referred to each other and were in turn cited by later arrivals, just as travellers referenced each other’s accounts to lend weight to their own descriptions. Similarly, texts dealing with controversies fought their authors’ battles by proxy, bringing into European arenas disputes occurring thousands of miles away. Historians of travel writing and ‘the encounter’ have highlighted the challenges of using early modern European accounts of different cultures: description itself can be interpretive, determinative, even controlling.50 We have also been made aware of the pitfalls of critical constructs such as ‘Orientalism’ or ‘alterity’ which have been used to describe disparagingly European ‘traditions’ of looking at other cultures.51 Often, we have no choice but to listen to the voices of Southeast Asian Christians through the filters of missionary amanuenses, editors and archivists. Although historians are beginning to uncover and analyse some accounts written by Southeast Asian converts, such sources are on the whole scant.52 Furthermore, as historians of Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia have noted, many local sources are often frustratingly terse.53 Where linguistic limitations have prevented me from gaining access to such texts in their original language, I have used contemporary or modern translations, which can have drawbacks as well as advantages: the utility of editorial exegesis must be set against the potential for distortion to enter, intentionally or not, through the translation. Moreover, we can always ask when a translation becomes a work of 50 Griffiths, ‘ “Trained to tell the truth”: missionaries, converts and narration’, 153–6; Blackmore, Moorings, 73. 51 See Said, Orientalism, and his intellectual heirs (see Brekenridge and van de Veer, ‘Orientalism and the postcolonial predicament’, 1–22), and the models of alterity suggested by, for example Todorov, The conquest of America. C.f. the approaches of Rodinson, Europe and the mystique of Islam; Gruzinski, Les quatres parties du monde; Rubiés, Travel and ethnology in the Renaissance and Varisco, Reading Orientalism. See also Clossey, Salvation and globalization, 8–10, 229–37. 52 See esp. Ostrowski, ‘The nôm works of Geronimo Maiorica’ and Tran, ‘Vietnamese women at the crossroads’. See also Aung-Thwin and Hall, ‘Introduction’ on sources and agency in the writing of Southeast Asian histories. 53 See, for example, Whitmore, ‘Vietnamese sources for the reign of Le Thanh-tong’, 375–6; Yu, Law and society in seventeenth and eighteenth century Vietnam, 5–9; Huxley, ‘Introduction’; Macgregor, ‘Review of Se˘jarah Me˘layu’, 607–8.

14

Introduction

its own, divorced to some extent from the text on which it is based. The challenge, then, is to seek converts’ experiences within missionary accounts and the colonial archive. Converts can appear as one-dimensional characters in missionary miracle or morality tales, or else we gain only tantalizing glimpses of individuals when they are mentioned in passing.54 Putting flesh on these bones and creating a convincing model of the converts’ experiences is thus a major challenge for the historian.55 One of the benefits of a comparative and connective study is that by reading across a wide range of source material we can begin to identify the variety of cultural forces which helped to shape accounts without relying on over-arching theoretical frameworks which would seek to group together ‘European’ responses into a monolithic construct. The difficulty of giving ‘agency’ to the silent converts at Marini’s feet is exacerbated by having to observe their experiences through the missionary gaze, but by reading missionary sources creatively ‘against the grain’ we can find within the sources themselves evidence which disrupts accepted narratives and allows us to observe events from different perspectives.

54 Cf. Olsen, Slavery and salvation, 4 on how converts and missionary ‘contend for power over representation’ in works such as Alonso de Sandoval’s Aethiopi salute (1627); and Griffiths, ‘ “Trained to tell”: missionaries, converts and narration’, 153–6. 55 Istaván György Tóth also provides some intriguing insights into the problem in his study ‘The correspondence of illiterate peasants’. See also Jack Goody’s thought-provoking discussion of the connections and disjuncture between writing and orality. See his chapter ‘Africa, Greece and oral poetry’ in The interface between the written and the oral, 78–109. See also Stoler, Along the archival grain.

PART I MISSIONARY STRUCTURES AND NETWORKS

This page intentionally left blank

1 The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600 The foundation of the Portuguese Padroado in Southeast Asia began with the conquest of Malacca in 1511. The rapidly constructed church of Nossa Senhora do Monte proclaimed that the justification for the conquest was to plant the banner of Christ in the region. The construction of the fortress A Famosa on the ruins of the Great Mosque of the city spoke yet more eloquently of the character of this conquest: the messianic militarism of Afonso d’Albuquerque carried the crusade against the ‘infidel’ here from the Holy Lands. Yet almost immediately, the rich and fertile mission lands of Southeast Asia became contested ground, as the two European superpowers of the age disputed access to their spoils. The first jurisdictional conflict was between the Iberian Crowns. The treaties of Tordesillas (1494) had split the world to the west of Europe into two spheres of influence. Papal Bulls had divided ecclesiastical patronage over these spheres between Portugal and Castile: they alone would have the right and duty to evangelize their respective regions. Where would the dividing line fall if it extended into the crucial region of Southeast Asia?1 It fell favourably to the west of Borneo in the Castilian estimation, but to the Portuguese mind it was firmly to the east of Formosa, preventing Castilian incursion west from the New World.2 Charles V relinquished Castilian claims to the Moluccas in 1529 and accepted the position of the dividing line at 142o latitude, but did not see this as ending his nation’s activities in the region.3 With papal recognition of the Castilian conquest of the Philippines (1565), and reluctance of successive popes to rule either way on access to unconquered neighbouring lands, missionaries from both Iberian nations continued to look to Southeast Asia, Japan, and China as the next great prize.4 Both 1 The treaty of Tordesillas (Tordesilhas in Portuguese) is found in Davenport, European treaties, I: 107. See also Disney, A history of Portugal, II: 8, 48–9. The best survey of the Bulls, briefs, and treaties which granted Patronate rights (Padroado/Patronato) is still Witte’s seven-part, ‘Les lettres papales concernant l’expansion portuguais’. On the problem of how Tordesillas affected Southeast Asia, see Jack-Hinton, ‘The political and cosmographical background’, 15–19. 2 Headly, ‘Spain’s Asian presence’; Villiers, ‘ “A truthful pen and an impartial spirit” ’, 51. On the Portuguese interpretation see e.g. the testimony (depoimentos) given to the Portuguese Crown on the subject of claims to the Moluccas in ANTT Gaveta 13-6-1, some of which have been reproduced in ABS I: 175–80. 3 Treaty of Saragossa. See Curto, Ásia dec IV, 1. VIII c. 1. See also Gruzinski, ‘«En tí se junta España con la China»’, 337–43. 4 On papal reluctance to rule against Spain see Rivera, A violent evangelism, 27.

Missionary Structures and Networks

18

powers claimed jurisdiction over these lands, but what did this mean? Political or spiritual authority over territories? The right to conquer or to appoint ecclesiastical personnel and found religious buildings?5 Hermeneutic disagreements over these issues would crop up repeatedly throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There were also major conflicts within the church: between bishops, secular clergy, and members of the religious orders. It soon became clear that massive and contentious structural changes in Portuguese overseas ecclesiastical administration would be necessary if the crown was to sustain its Padroado privileges, and make good on its duty to spread Christianity. In these first two chapters I will contextualize Marini’s mission to Europe by demonstrating the increasing complexity of missionary structures which emerged over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction can seem a little dry to modern eyes, but to missionaries like Marini they were crucial. Missionaries needed to be granted jurisdictional authority to operate, sacral authority to celebrate Mass, and appropriate faculties to administer legitimately other sacraments. Without them, they could be accused of disobedience, of the mortal sin of usurpation of spiritual jurisdiction, even of heresy. Without them, they could not call themselves missionaries. Yet this jurisdiction was increasingly contested, as conflicting authorities and confused hierarchies developed haphazardly over the centuries. Southeast Asia became a battle ground for these issues: issues which became more urgent and hotly debated in Europe as the Catholic Church entered into a period of reform and renewal. WHY THERE WERE SO FEW BISHOPS IN A S I A A ND W H Y I T M A T T E R E D : D I F F I C U L T B E G I N N I N G S ( 1 5 1 1 –1 5 58 ) Bishops are necessary for the ordination of clergy, the visitation of parishes, the administration of the sacraments of confirmation, the blessing of holy oils needed for the sacraments, and the bestowal of benefices. The need for men with episcopal powers would become a perennial theme in missionary correspondence, especially as the role of the bishop was emphasized by Catholic reformers. In 1511 Malacca came under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Order of Christ, the military-religious order which had been under the control of the Portuguese Crown since the fifteenth century. Yet once new lands were conquered overseas, the Order of Christ seemed at a loss to affect a spiritual conquest. Priests serving in the lands of the Padroado were essentially military chaplains with little authority. The exercise of jurisdiction by the spiritual head of the Order of Christ, the Vigário of Tomar (for example by visitation or licensing preaching in the conquests) was negligible, while the foundation of churches was frequently left to the initiative of local secular nobles. Although there were attempts to reform the order throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, its importance as a fount of royal patronage and 5

See e.g. Phelan, ‘Some ideological aspects of the conquest of the Philippines’, 226–30.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

19

military organization could eclipse spiritual concerns.6 A largely lay organization, steeped in a crusading past with little experience of evangelization, the order proved itself inadequate to the challenge of conversion. The early sixteenth century saw a shift from the crusader-garrison identity of Portuguese colonial settlements in Asia and Africa, with towns receiving royal charters and developing governmental structures. Similarly, the church in the Padroado also slowly began to take on a new aspect. First, the focus of ecclesiastical power moved overseas as the erection of the see of Funchal (Madeira) in 1514 shifted spiritual jurisdiction in the Padroado from the Order of Christ to the episcopacy. This created a new focus of ecclesiastical power outside Lisbon.7 It also began to answer the real need for more bishops to administer the religious life of these new territories. However, the bishopric of Funchal was still dependent on the Primate of Lisbon and the first incumbent, Diogo Pinheiro, never even left Europe.8 One solution to the lack of episcopal authority overseas was to appoint men with enhanced apostolic faculties: commissioners, nuncios, visitors, or vicars apostolic: in 1500, for example, Manuel I obtained a papal brief allowing him to appoint a commissioner with authority over missionary priests.9 ‘Bispos de Anel’ (titular bishops, literally ‘ring bishops’) were also appointed, such as Dominican Duarte Nunes (in India c.1520–c.1524) or Conventual Franciscan Fernando Vaqueiro (bishop of Aurensis 1532–5).10 These were bishops with limited faculties and no ordinary jurisdiction over clergy, who could perform certain episcopal functions although their power to ordain clergy was ambiguous.11 In 1540, with the support of João III, Jesuit Francis Xavier was endowed with the authority of a papal nuncio and apostolic visitor to enable him to make a full report on the situation in Asia. He was the first man endowed with this type of ecclesiastical authority to arrive in Southeast Asia. However, none of these measures provided a permanent solution to the problem of the episcopal power vacuum. The most obvious remedy would have been to create new bishoprics, a proposal repeatedly made by João III. Pope Clement VII (1523–34) was reluctant to agree, ostensibly due to concerns over funding for new dioceses.12 It was only following the election of Pope Paul III (1534–49) that the bulls of Æquum reputamus (1534) raised Funchal into an archbishopric, giving the incumbent the title Primate of the Indies, and creating several new suffragan sees including the new bishopric of Goa, which was defined as reaching from the Cape of Good Hope to China.13 See Olival, ‘Structural changes’ and Dutra, ‘Membership of the Order of Christ’. Pro excellenti praeeminentia I (12 June 1514) Witte, ‘Lettres papales IV (1)’, 42. 8 Silva Rego, Historia das missões, 512–15. 9 Cum sicut maiestas (Alexander VI, 26 March 1500), BP I: 59. 10 See Achilles Meersman’s brief account of these rather obscure figures, ‘The first Latin bishops’, 179–83. 11 Meersman, ‘The first Latin bishops’. See also Witte, ‘Les lettres Papales IV (2)’ 134 fn. 183 and Biermann, ‘Documenta quaedem initia missionum’, 146–8. Ordinary jurisdiction is that connected to an ecclesiastical office, e.g. that held by a bishop over his diocese. See Boudinhon, ‘Ordinary’. 12 Witte suggests that he may also have been withholding consent in order to place pressure on João III. ‘Lettres Papales IV (1)’, 59 n. 82. 13 Æquum reputamus (four bulls) 3 November 1534, Witte, ‘Lettres papales IV (1)’ 60–2. The other suffragans were São Tomé of Meliapor and the Azores. 6 7

20

Missionary Structures and Networks

For the period between the erection of the diocese of Goa and the next episcopal reorganization in 1558, the Portuguese Church in Asia was in a liminal state. Grassroots church governance outside of Goa was in the hands of vigários (vicars). These men were in a very difficult position. They had little real authority, were appointed on short, fixed term contracts, and faced constant, irritating intransigence from secular officials and other members of the clergy. The first vigário of the Malaccan fortress, for example, was Afonso Martins, who was appointed in 1514 and arrived in the city the following year.14 Shortly before Martins’s arrival the captain of Malacca, Jorge de Albuquerque, asserted that the captain of the fortress should have authority over all clergy to the extent that they should be able to imprison them whenever necessary.15 Martins’s letters to the king are dominated by conflict with the captains.16 His frustrated complaints about the obstreperousness of Pedro de Mascarenas (captain from 1525) reveal the tensions over the jurisdictions of ecclesiastical and secular officials, who often held the purse strings in colonial cities, and the problems that faced these vigários whose only appeal seemed to be to the distant king. Despite his limited powers and resources, and the small number of ordained clergy, the vigário was in theory responsible for organizing the missionary activity which justified these Portuguese conquests. In 1542 Francis Xavier reported to the head of the Society of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola, that Miguel Vaz, vigário of the bishop of Goa, was urging the pope to increase the powers of vigários. Seeing the ‘necessity we all have to participate in the sacrament of Confirmation, due to the great amount of trading, slavery and ongoing war with infidels,’ he asked the pope ‘for the greater strength, perseverance and growth of our holy faith, to accord the bishop the faculty to commit to his vicars the sacrament of Confirmation’.17 Vaz wrote again to João III the next year, reiterating that it was necessary for the vigários to administer these sacraments as these were regions ‘where the bishop never goes, nor will go’.18 In 1550–1, João III again sent an ambassador to Rome in order to request the creation of further dioceses.19 After a delay of several years, Paul IV (1555–9) finally acceded to the requests and raised Goa to the dignity of an archdiocese and metropole, erecting the dioceses of Malacca and Cochin as suffragans (1558).20 In 14 See Schurhammer (ed.), ‘Carta inédita de Afonso Martins’, 111–17, and Martins’s letters in SR II: 218–19. 15 Jorge de Albuquerque to João III, Malacca, 8 January 1515, in ABS I: 81: ‘devem de ter poder sobre elles ate prisam’. 16 Manuel Lobato notes that in Malacca the excommunication of the captain of the fortress by the Bishop became almost a tradition. See ‘Malaca’, 55. 17 Francisco Xavier to Ignatius Loyola Goa 20 September 1542, in SR III: 45: ‘la necesidad que todos tenemos de participar del sacramento de la confirmación, por mucha contratación, cativerio y guerra, que com ymfieles continuamente tenemos, pide a Su Sanctidade para maior firmeza, perseverantia y acrecentamiento de nuestra sancta fe, que dispense con el Obispo para que pueda cometer a sus vicarios el sacramento de la confirmación.’ 18 Miguel Vaz, Vigário Geral to João III, Goa, 6 January 1543, in ABS I: 378–9. This was granted in 1546: Cum sicut carissimum. SR III, 45, ft. 2: ‘omde numqua vay bispo nem ha-de ir.’ 19 Afonso de Alencastro, arriving in Rome in 1551. 20 All dated 4 February 1558. Etsi sancta et immaculata; Pro exellenti praeeminentia I and II. See Witte, ‘Les lettres papales IV (3)’, 173–5. The diocese of Cochin covered a small region of the southwest coast of India.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

21

1576, the jurisdictional map of Southeast Asia was further altered, with the creation of the diocese of Macao. After this time, of our ‘zones’, the city of Malacca and its environs, most of Siam, and Cochinchina were considered to fall under the diocese of Malacca whilst Tonkin came under the diocese of Macao, although the shifting political boundaries of these regions led to some confusion. The west coast of Siam, for example, including the important Siamese port of Tenasserim, which had been previously been under Burmese control, was considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the bishop of São Tomé of Meliapor in India, who also had authority over Burma and Pegu.21 Throughout these developments, although the Portuguese crown was protective of its privileges, it also repeatedly turned to Rome for apostolic legitimacy. While some historians have presented the grant of Padroado rights as mistakes which Rome came to regret, Charles-Martial de Witte has pointed out that certain features of the Bulls erecting the dioceses amounted to a judicial reservation of power: the authority of the Order of Christ was subordinated to that of bishops and the bulls emphasized that the spiritual authority of the latter flowed from the pope.22 The bulls stressed that the right to present candidates to benefices was compensation for the burden of evangelization, which entailed the provision of all the material needs of churches and clergy. The bulls also placed the benefices of the new dioceses in the hands of the bishop; the crown had to renounce direct control over these means of patronage.23 Difficulties emerged as the character and limits of crown, papal, and episcopal jurisdiction were reinterpreted, reflecting wider debates on relationships of power and the flow of authority between the episcopate, papacy, and national churches.24 For example, the interpretation of the bulls of Æquum reputamus and the brief Romani pontificis would be disputed over the next two centuries. This would hinge on the phrasing of the description of the diocesan limits of Goa, which extended from ‘all the way from the Cape of Good Hope to India inclusive, and all the way from India to China including all the places on the mainland and islands, and lands discovered and to be discovered, in which the said King João, as we have accepted, is understood to have strongholds and many towns, fortresses and posts, where many Christians, converted to the orthodox faith, and also many Portuguese stay and live’.25 The Bull emphasized the human geography of the Estado: that is, its jurisdiction extended where there were Portuguese subjects, ‘without logically 21

Forest, Les missionnaires français, I: 72. Witte, ‘Les lettres papales IV (1),’ 63. See also Olival, ‘Structural changes’, 2–3; and JackHinton, ‘The political and cosmographical background’, 11–12. 23 Witte also makes this point. See his reanalysis of the Bulls appointing Juan d’Albuquerque to the bishopric of Goa in ‘Les lettres papales, IV (3)’, 173 n. 192. 24 See e.g. Hsia, The world of Catholic renewal, on debates over power relations between papacy and episcopate at Trent, 21–2. 25 Romani pontificis, Paul III, 8 July 1539. Cited by Witte, ‘Les lettres papales. IV (2)’, 121: ‘a capite de Bonasperanza usque ad Indiam inclusive et ad India usque ad Chinam cum omnibus locis tam in terram firma quam in insulis et terris repertis et reperiendis consistentibus in quibus dictus Joannes rex, sicut accepimus, fortalitia et plura oppida, castra et loca, ubi plures christiani ad fidem orthodoxam conversi et etiam multi Portugalenses morantur et degun habere dignoscitur.’ 22

22

Missionary Structures and Networks

permitting the exclusion of all others’.26 This interpretation would be upheld in the seventeenth century when the Papacy created new bishoprics independent of the Padroado. Portuguese canon lawyers, however, would insist upon a territorial understanding of the bulls which granted Portugal exclusive jurisdiction over all lands where Portuguese influence (‘conquest, discovery or commerce’) had been established.27 These jurisdictional issues are important background to later disputes over missionary authority. In sixteenth-century Europe the pastoral duties and personal qualities of bishops—residence, pastoral care, and the propagation of the faith within his diocese—had become issues of central importance to Catholic reform.28 Reform councils such as Lateran V (1512–17) and Trent (1545–63) reiterated this, and example was provided by famous reforming bishops such as Carlo Borromeo, François de Sales, and Francisco Ximinez Cisneros.29 It seems that such reform movements could affect the selection of overseas bishops in the Portuguese Church. Whereas the candidates proposed in 1532 had all been ‘court appointments’, subsequent nominations increasingly reflected Tridentine interests in pious, reforming bishops.30 Yet several issues militated against bishops undertaking the duties as laid out by Trent. The distances involved frequently necessitated exceptions and allowances: various bishops of Malacca, for example, would petition for permission to reuse blessed oil, exemption from visits of obligation, or from diocesan visitations.31 As in Europe, privileges and exemptions granted to the religious orders also challenged episcopal jurisdiction. On one hand missionaries from the orders called for more bishops to oversee missionary activity: men who ‘do not content themselves merely with resting in their cities, enjoying repose and delicacies amongst the Portuguese, but who go to the missions in pagan lands to visit and anoint the new Christians’.32 Members of the orders were appointed to episcopal office, served as administrators within the diocesan hierarchy, and defended the jurisdiction of bishops when it was challenged. On the other hand, however, the archbishop of Goa and the bishops of Malacca and Macao frequently came into conflict with the religious orders over the exercise of privileges and the extent to which missionaries 26 Witte, ‘Les lettres papales. IV (2), 121: ‘sans que l’on puisse logiquement exclure les autres’. See also ‘Les lettres papales IV (1)’, 61–2, on why this brief was needed to clarify the limits defined in the Bulls of Aequum reputamus (four Bulls, 1534). 27 e.g. ‘in quibus non habet dominium Rex Portugallie’ ad ipsum pertinent ratione conquistionis, et detectionis, ac comercij’ [Account of the Portuguese Empire], 1651, AGOP XIII.56900.2, f. 42r. 28 Jedin, A History of the Council of Trent, I: 441–2. 29 Carlo Borromeo (1538–84), archbishop of Milan; cardinal François de Sales (1567–1622), bishop of Geneva; Ximénes de Cisneros (1436–1517), archbishop of Toledo, cardinal, reformer of Franciscan Order. 30 Witte, ‘Les lettres papales IV (1)’, 53 and Witte, ‘Les lettres papales IV (3)’, 173, 179. 31 See Afonso Martins, vicar of Malacca to João III 27 November 1530, in SR II: 218–29 (221) on need for dispensations. Reuse of sacred oil in Portuguese Indies: ‘Bolle Pontificie sul Patronato’, ASV Archivio della Nunziatura Apostolica in Lisbona, f. 70v; inability of the bishop of Malacca to make visit of obligation to Rome: Gonçalvo da Silva, bishop of Malacca to the pope, 10 December 1624, ASV Congregazione del Concilio Relationes Dioecesium, vol 481, f. 13r. 32 Cristoforo Borri to Urban VIII, 1631, ASV Fondo Borghese, serie I, 469–74, f. 287r: ‘che li d.i Vescoui [ . . . ] non si contentassero solo con restare nelle loro Città godendo del riposo, e delice frà portughesi, má andasseró alle missioni nelle terre de gentili á uisitare, e crismare li nouelli Christiani.’

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

23

should submit to ordinaries. In Europe the exemption of male religious orders from episcopal visitation, and the privileges granted to some houses to preach, administer the sacraments, and even found churches without seeking the permission of local bishops had caused controversy for centuries.33 On the mission fields of Southeast Asia, such conflicts would grow more intractable as the issues of jurisdiction grew ever more complex. FOOT SOLDIERS OF THE GOSPEL: THE RELIGIOUS O R D E R S , 1 5 1 1–1 6 00 The Iberian Crowns had turned first to the mendicant orders to evangelize overseas. The Dominicans and Franciscans, in particular, had a long history of evangelization in the East: both had been sent on diplomatic and apostolic missions to Asia in the thirteenth century.34 The Dominicans formed a dedicated apostolic society, the Societas fratrum peregrinantium propter Christum, in 1300 to mobilize preachers in the Holy Lands.35 Indeed, fourteenth-century Franciscans and Dominicans quarrelled over which order was most identified with overseas mission, and referred proudly to missionaries and martyrs who had travelled to Africa, the Holy Land, India, and China in the early years of each order.36 Institutional memories of these exploits were already important parts of the orders’ identities and later chronicles referred to such endeavours to highlight the orders’ long missionary credentials.37 Yet it was not until 1554 and 1581 respectively that these orders founded convents in the Portuguese Southeast Asian base of Malacca. Individual missionaries who reached the region before this point were largely acting on their own initiative, supported by the example of their orders’ pioneers but without funding and institutional support. They were isolated in their operations and owed little obedience to the vigário of the fortress: he in turn could provide them with little assistance. These problems quickly became apparent, and slowly jurisdictional structures developed to coordinate missionary effort. Innovations were frequently made by individual missionaries, who sought approbation for their faits accomplis, sometimes causing controversy. As we will see, this resulted in complicated jurisdictional tangles and disputed authority, especially in the Franciscan order. Mendicant orders involved in the evangelization of the Americas had been granted, ‘their own authority of every sort, in whatever place . . . as much as they 33 Hubert Jedin explores the discussion of this issue at various Councils up to and including the Council of Trent: A history of the Council of Trent, I: 136–8, 441–3; II: 116–22. 34 Medieval Franciscan accounts are found in SF vol I. Useful introductions to these medieval Franciscan and Dominican missions include Moorman, A history of the Franciscan Order, 226–39 and 429–38; R. J. Loenertz’s two studies, ‘Les missions dominicains en Orient au XIVe siècle’, and ‘La societé des Frères Pérégrinants’; and Daniel, The Franciscan concept of mission. 35 Cummins, A question of rites, 18. 36 See Jotischky, ‘The mendicants as missionaries and travellers’, 88–106. 37 e.g. Paulo da Trinidade states that Manuel I chose to send Franciscans along with Da Gama and other captains because they had gone to the Orient ‘to preach and die’ in the 14th cent., and Francis himself had gone ‘to India’. Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, I: 72–4.

24

Missionary Structures and Networks

judge advantageous and expedient for the conversion of Indians’.38 Secular and ecclesiastical authorities complained that all mendicants now unjustly asserted this ‘omnimoda’ authority to go on mission in Southeast Asia, Japan and China.39 The situation was deemed so disruptive in the Spanish world that a Junta held in Manila in 1586 suggested that the permission of the bishop and governor of the city should be sought from any missionary seeking to leave the Philippines.40 Portuguese mendicants had further privileges to build convents, preach, and hear confession without the authorization of the Ordinary of the region.41 Yet in the seventeenth century the exercise of such privileges would lead to accusations of disobedience and usurped jurisdiction. Repeated requests were made to Rome by annoyed ecclesiasts, to revoke all concessions hitherto awarded to religious orders, since their abuse ‘was one of the main causes from which the many disorders have arisen, which have perturbed the missions’.42

The Dominicans The first Dominican friar arrived in Malacca with Albuquerque in 1511: Domingos de Sousa was confessor-general to the fleet.43 Returning to India, he seems to have done very little to establish the order in the Padroado. It has been suggested that this first wave of Dominicans in Asia had left Portugal as a result of the reforms of the order instituted by Manuel I between 1501 and 1512: as refugees from an enforced religiosity rather than as zealous apostles inspired by a new spiritual regime.44 Furthermore, following the reform of the order in Portugal, Dominican superiors seemed reluctant to send good friars abroad, and rebuffed requests from the king.45 No Dominican convent was founded in the Padroado until Castilian Dominican Fernando Vasquéz took the initiative in 1547 and obtained directly from Rome the powers of an apostolic commissioner and the faculty to administer all sacraments.46 38 Exponi nobis, Adrian VI, 10 May 1522. Also known as ‘Omnimoda’. Cited by Paventi, ‘Congregazione Urbaniana’, 224: ‘omnimodam suam auctoritatem in utroque foro . . . tantam quantam judicaverint opportunam et expedientem pro conversione Indorum’. 39 ‘Resoluçion de los capitulos y puntos’, 1586, ARSI FG Titulus XVIII n. 1432.3, f. 6r, 6v. 40 ARSI FG Titulus XVIII n. 1432.3, f. 6r. 41 Etis mendicantium, 16 May 1567 and Supernae dispositionis arbitrio, 23 April 1568. The latter was specific to the Dominicans. Cited by Witte, ‘Aux origines de la Congrégation’ 475. ‘Ordinary’ refers to the authority of the diocese. 42 Cardinal Federico Baldeschi Cardonna to the Congregatione Particulari dell’Indie Orientali of the PF, 6 April 1672, ASV Fondo Albani 224, f. 46r: ‘era una delle principale cause, dalle quali sono proceduti i tanti disordini, che hanno confuse le Missioni.’ 43 Biermann, ‘Documenta quaedam initia missionum ordinis’, 134. 44 Biermann diplomatically describes de Sousa as ‘filius temporis sui’, ‘Documenta quaedam initia missionum ordinis’, 137. Witte is more cutting: ‘Avec la complicité, peut-être, des nouveaux supérieurs, heureux de se débarasser sans esclandre de sujets jugés inaptes à la réforme, ils obtenaient une mission au loin. [ . . . ] [Ce tableau] explique au mieux, croyons-nous, la personnalité d’un fr. Domingos de Sousa’ (‘Aux origines de la Congrégation’, 461). 45 e.g. Francisco de Bobadilla, Dominican Provincial of Portugal’s negative response to João III’s request to send six Dominicans to India: see Witte, ‘Aux origines de la Congrégation’, 468 n. 38. 46 Witte, ‘Aux origines de la Congrégation’, 465–7.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

25

The papal brief appointing Vasquéz to the mission allowed that when the number of Dominicans in his group reached six, they could hold their own chapters as an independent congregation—the Congregação de Santa Cruz das Índias— subject only to the Master General of the order.47 While the congregation was not canonically raised to the status of a province, and while the statutes granted by the General Chapter in October 1580 continued to refer it as being subject to the Province of Portugal, the superior of the congregation had in effect the powers of a provincial.48 The Dominican Order had a centralized structure, but also had had effective government at the level of convent and province. Annual chapters were held at all levels: general and provincial chapters were attended by delegates who were elected by conventual chapters in which every professed friar had a vote.49 The provincial superiors (Priors) could authorize friars to leave their province and preach outside the usual radius permitted to his convent. The Dominican was not tied to his convent like a monk: he maintained a ‘relationship of openness’ with other provinces of the order, to which he may travel.50 The pyramidal organization with autonomous representation of community opinion at each level and the possibility of movement between provinces, was central to the political philosophy of the order.51 Thus, operating de facto as a province, the Congregação de Santa Cruz das Índias asserted considerable autonomy from the Portuguese Dominican hierarchy. Reformed Dominican apostolic enthusiasm had entered Portuguese Asia with Vasquéz, and in 1554 it reached Malacca: Gaspar da Cruz founded a convent in the city, and was made Vicar General for his order in the East Indies. From this Malaccan convent soon radiated missions to Cambodia (1554), China (c.1555) and Siam (1567).52 The extraordinary experiment of the Dominican fortress on Solor in the Moluccas (founded 1561) remained under the autonomous government of the order until 1702.53 Dominicans from the Spanish Province of the Rosary of the Philippines also travelled from Manila to Macao in the 1580s, to establish a base from which to penetrate China, Japan and Southeast Asia, only to be expelled on the orders of the viceroy of India.54 Of our zones, only Siam and Malacca had become focal points for Dominican missionaries by the early seventeenth century. Three Dominican missionaries were killed in Siam in the 1580s, but from 1593 to 1605 and again from 1640, there was a permanent mission there, Witte, ‘Aux origines de la Congrégation’, 466–9 and n. 29. See also text of brief reprinted 484–6. Witte, ‘Aux origines de la Congrégation’, 477–80. 49 Galbraith, The Constitutions of the Dominican order, 37–110. 50 Almeida Rolo, ‘Figura institucional’, 74: ‘relaçao de abertura’. 51 Almeida Rolo, ‘Figura institucional’, 73. 52 On the activities of Silvestre Azevedo in the Court of the king of Cambodia (and his excommunication by a scandalized bishop João Ribeiro Gaio of Malacca) see Santos Alves, ‘Christianização e organização eclesiástica’, 329–30. 53 Villiers, ‘As derradeiras do mundo’, 573–600. 54 Gonzales, Historia de las misiones dominicanas, 35–6. Teixeira demonstrates that there is considerable confusion over the dates of this foundation, and who ordered the expulsion, deciding that it was probably the ouvidor of the city, Rui Barboso Machado, in around 1589. See his ‘IV centanário dos Dominicanos em Macau’, 331–4. 47 48

26

Missionary Structures and Networks

usually with around at least three priests.55 A group of Spanish Dominicans visited in Cochinchina in 1596 but no long-term Dominican mission would be established in Tonkin or Cochinchina until the 1670s.56

The Franciscans The umbrella term ‘Franciscan Order’ is a convenient generalization which needs some clarification. By 1517 there were two distinct orders with a Franciscan identity, with separate structures and hierarchies: the Conventuals and the Observants.57 The Lateran Council of 1516 and the Franciscan general chapter of 1517 had instituted the division and determined that the Observants were to be considered the ‘true’ Franciscans.58 Over the course of the sixteenth century considerable pressure was placed on the Conventuals to be subsumed into the Observant branch. The Observant branch had also subdivided into two ‘families’ in 1443 resulting in the creation of a dual administration on either side of the Alps (the cismontane and ultramontane vicariates).59 The Minister Generalship of the order alternated between the two, with the non-ruling vicariate administered by a Vicar General. Within each vicariate, the order was divided into provinces, custodies, and convents. There was marked royal resistance to the creation of an independent Franciscan province outside of Europe: Aviz and Habsburg kings favoured the continued dependence of missionary Franciscans on the province of Portugal, under close crown supervision. The General Chapter held in Toledo in 1583 authorized the raising of São Tomé custody to a province, but this was quashed by Philip II.60 Such vacillations caused numerous controversies amongst Franciscans in Asia. Many missionaries in Asia came from the independent provinces and custodies of the Strict Reform movements of Portugal. Austere spiritual trends in Italian friaries had spread to the ultramontane vicariate via Spanish Italy: Spanish adherents of these reforms such as Juan de Guadalupe, Pedro de Melgar or the followers of Pedro de Alcántara found a congenial welcome in Portugal, which was already seen as a refuge for Franciscan asceticism.61 From these initiatives arose the convents, custodies, and provinces of the Strict Reform which created another independent system of Franciscan administration which overlaid the Conventual and Observant provinces in Portugal. Thus the reformed convent of Nossa Senhora da Piedade, 55 Jeronimo da Cruz and Sebastião do Canto were the first Dominicans; the former was killed in a riot while his colleague and another unnamed missionary were apparently killed during the Burmese invasion in 1569. See [Account of the Portuguese Empire], 1651, AGOP XIII.56900.2, f. 30r. 56 See Diego Aduarte’s chronicle, Historia de la provincia del Santo Rosario (1693). Biographical details of Dominicans from this province are found in Ocio and Neira (eds), Misioneros Dominicanos. On the arrival of the Dominicans in Tonkin in 1676 see Forest, Les missionnaires français, II: 153–4. 57 Ending the bloodshed which had atttended disputes between Conventuals and Observants in previous decades. See Moorman, History, 580–1. 58 The Bull, Ite vos in vineam meam reprinted in Archivo Ibero-Americano (1958), 333–53 and discussed at length in Sella, Leone X e la definitiva divisione: see especially part IV. 59 Bull Fratrum Ordinis Minorum, 3 August 1443. Sella, Leone X e la definitiva divisione, 135–6. 60 Lópes, ‘Os Franciscanos no Oriente Português’, 30. 61 Freitas Carvalho ‘De l’Observance et des observances de l’Observance’, 143–64.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

27

founded by Juan de Guadalupe in 1500, became a custody in 1509 and a province in 1517. The custody of Arrábida was founded with great independence, escaped being subsumed into the Observants like some similar Italian reform movements and was raised to a province in 1568.62 Another strand within the order—the Recollects (Recoletos)—gave rise the custody of Santo António, elevated to a province in 1568.63 These reformed provinces, with their hard-won independence, became important crucibles of missionary fervour.64 Why should their members submit to the Observant province of Portugal once they went on mission? The protracted nature of these disputes perhaps explains the delay in establishing Portuguese Franciscan missions in Southeast Asia. Whilst the Portuguese Franciscans were embroiled in these conflicts, however, members of Spanish provinces of the order began to turn to the region. The Philippine custody of San Gregorio Magno was erected in response to entreaties from Mexican Franciscans who gazed longingly towards China.65 From this custody missionaries travelled sporadically to the Viet lands and Siam: the first Franciscans in Cochinchina, for example, were Bartolome Ruíz and Francisco Montilla, from the Philippines.66 A basic hierarchy for Franciscans in Portuguese India seems to have emerged by 1518, when António do Loureiro in Goa refers to himself in letters as the Comissário, suggesting he had authority to make certain decisions without referral.67 Portuguese Asia gained its first real Franciscan authority in 1543 when the Custody of São Tomé was founded, subject to the province of Portugal.68 The foundation of the custody was one indication of the central role taken by the Franciscans in the movement of militant Catholic reform and evangelization initiated by the Vigário of Goa, Miguel Vaz.69 Alongside brutal suppressions which he inflicted upon non-Christians in Goa, Vaz and his circle planted the seeds of less punitive conversion methods. His friendship with the Franciscans meant they were closely involved in the first instance, before Vaz turned to the high promise of the new Jesuit battalions following the arrival of Francisco Xavier in 1548. The successes of the Jesuits have tended to obscure the role of Vaz and other priests such as Diogo da Borba and 62 Freitas Carvalho, ‘De l’Observance et des observances de l’Observance,’ 152–3, 155–6.; Pinto Rema, ‘Implantación del Franciscanismo en Portugal’, 219. 63 Bull Sacrae Religionis sinceritas (8 August 1568). This province was also involved in the mission in Brazil, with a dependent custody erected there in 1584 (raised to a Province in 1647). Lópes, ‘Para a história da Ordem Franciscana. III’, 31–2. Members of the Province of Santo António were known as antóninos or capuchos. Franciscans from Arrábida were also sometimes known as Capuchos. Pinto Rema, ‘Implantación del Franciscanismo’, 219–21. Note that the Portuguese Capuchos were not exactly the same as the Italian Cappuccini. 64 Meersman, The ancient Franciscan provinces, 11–12. 65 Meersman, The ancient Franciscan provinces, 23. Raised to a province in 1591. 66 Francisco a Iesu de Escalona, ‘Relacion del viaje’, SF II: 304–11. 67 Previously the superior of the mission was known only as a guardião (guardian), like the head of a convent. Pinto Rema, ‘Implantación del Franciscanismo’, 224. 68 This is the date normally given, as the superior of the mission, Pedro de Atouguia, signed his letters as ‘Custódio’ from this time. Lópes, ‘Para a hisória da Ordem Franciscana. III’, 39. 69 Alan Strathern has also highlighted the role of the Franciscans in the early Portuguese missions, especially to Sri Lanka: see his Kingship and conversion, especially 86–7 and ‘Os piedosos and the mission in India and Sri Lanka’.

28

Missionary Structures and Networks

Franciscan Vicente de Lagos in the first years of the spiritual renewal in Goa, while modern sensibilities shrink from considering Vaz’s merciless persecutions as part of this same religious regeneration. However, the Confraria da Conversão à Fé, which Vaz and Borba established in 1541, also provided for the creation of a seminary to train boys ‘from various nations, such as Canarins, Paravas, Malays, Maluccans, Chinese, Bengalis, Sri Lankans, Peguans, Siamese, Gujaratis, Abyssinians, Cafres from Sofala and Mozambique and the island of St. Lourenço’.70 This would be consigned to the care of the Franciscan convent, ‘where there are always resident very virtuous, honest and exemplary religious from this order, as is well known’.71 The first convents in Portuguese territories in Southeast Asia, however, were founded by a member of the Filipino custody of San Gregorio Magno, Giambattista Lucarelli. Lucarelli had left Europe for Mexico endowed by Philip II of Spain and the new (Franciscan) pope Sixtus V with considerable authority to choose and train friars for mission in China and the Philippines.72 He and his companions, foiled in their attempts to enter China (1578 and 1582), founded convents in Macao (1579) and Malacca (1581). The first mission to Cochinchina from the Malaccan friary was sent out soon after the convent was founded.73 Franciscans also travelled to Siam between 1585 and 1610.74 Lucarelli immediately started to recruit and train Portuguese novices. He was not alone in his optimism for this Iberian joint venture. He was welcomed enthusiastically into Malacca by the bishop João Ribeiro Gaio who urged Philip II to create a single Franciscan province covering the entire region, including the Philippines.75 Jesuit Melchior Carneiro, vigário of Macao, also supported the new foundations.76 In 1582 the visitor of the Province of San Gregorio Magno, Jerónimo Burgos, visited the convent in Macao and created a new custody, encompassing both new convents, appointing Martin Ignácio de Loyola as custodian.77

70 ‘Estatutos da Confraria da Converção à Fé’ Goa, 25 July 1541. SR III: 9 fn. 6 (text 2): ‘de diverças nações, convem a saber, canarás, paravás, malaios, malucos, chins, bengalas, chingalas, pegus, de Siam, guzarates abexins, cafres de Sofala e Moçambique e da ilha de São Lourenço.’ 71 SR III: 10 fn. 7 (text 2): ‘donde continuamente residem os religiosos de la dicha orden tan virtuosos, honestos, y de buen exemplo, como a todos es notorio.’ 72 Tellechea Idígoras, ‘Fray Juan Bautista Lucarelli’, 388. We should remember that the Ultramontane Vicariate had included ‘the East’ in the Bull Fratrum Ordinis Minorum 1443, which may help to explain the number of Italian Franciscans who sought to travel there. 73 Giambattista Lucarelli, ‘Viaggio dell’Indie’ in SF II: 51–2, 62, 69; Meersman, The Franciscans in the Indonesian Archipelago, 35. 74 Antonio da Madalena, in Siam 1585–88; Bartolome Ruiz, 1593; Andre do Espirito Santo, 1606–11; Andre de Santa Maria, 1610–16. Listed by Teixeira, The Portuguese missions in Malacca, 439. Franciscans António de Cristo, Damião de Torre and Gregorio da Cruz were also captured by King Naresuan when he invaded Cambodia in 1594 and sent back to Siam, but were soon released. See Deos, Vergel de plantas, 297–8. 75 João Ribeiro Gaio to Philip II, Malacca, 4 February 1583 in Lopes, ‘Os Franciscanos no Oriente Português’, Documento IV: 128–9. 76 Meersman, Franciscans in the Indonesian archipelago, 24. 77 João Ribeiro Gaio to Philip II, Malacca, 4 February 1583, in Lópes, ‘Os Franciscanos no Oriente Português’, Documento IV: 127–8, and fn. 2. See also Gaio’s letter to Gregory XIII, in SF II: 71 n. 2. Martín Ignácio was a nephew of Ignatius Loyola: see Lucarelli, ‘Viaggio dell’Indie’, SF II: 73.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

29

However, Philip II again intervened, ordering that a clear division be maintained between the jurisdiction of the Portuguese and Spanish orders and Burgos was deemed to have overstepped his authority. The Custody of São Tomé would divide its jurisdiction with a new Custody of São Francisco de Malaca, whose field of operation stretched from the Bay of Bengal to Cochinchina, roughly matching the jurisdiction of the bishop of Malacca. A comissário geral, Gaspar de Lisboa, was appointed with the delegated authority of the minister general over both custodies, to overcome the difficulties of long-distance governance. A Portuguese custodian, Diogo da Conceição, was also appointed for Malacca. In 1584 these two superiors were dispatched along with twenty other Portuguese Strict Reform Franciscans to take control of the Malaccan convent. The Portuguese friars were drawn from the reform provinces of Piedade, Arrábida and São António in Portugal and therefore had different habits and customs. Gaspar de Lisboa issued a new custumal (a document detailing the customs and rules of the house) and habit for the new custodies to introduce uniformity, thereby in effect creating a new variant of the strict reform. This left the convent in Macao, which was not mentioned in the Brief erecting the Malaccan custody. In 1589 the viceroy ordered the takeover of the Macao convent and the formation of a new Custody of São Francisco covering Malacca and Macao, subject to the province of São Tomé.78 Martin Ignacio de Loyola returned to Europe to fight for an alternative settlement. It was finally adjudged that the viceroy had overreached his authority and that the Macao convent should be returned to the Spanish friars who would remain under the province of San Gregorio. The Spanish friars of Macao continued to make forays into Tonkin and other locations supposedly under the jurisdiction of the bishops of Macao or Malacca. In addition, a convent of Poor Clare nuns was founded under their protection in Macao. There continued to be confusion over where friars were allowed to evangelize, the extent to which they came under ordinary jurisdiction of the bishops and how further reorganization of the province of São Tomé would affect each custody.79 The Portuguese friars of the Malaccan custody continually tried to assert control over the Macao convent, and even argued that the whole province of São Tomé should be governed from Malacca.80 Eventually both the Malaccan and Macao custodies were dissolved, and absorbed into the new, Strict Reform custody of Madre de Deus of India in 1619.81 It seems that some Spanish friars remained in the Macao convent despite this change in government: in the anti-Spanish riots following the declaration of Portuguese independence in 1640, numerous Spanish religious were expelled from the city. As we will see, some of these friars and nuns would turn up in Cochinchina in the 1640s, intriguing the royal court and inspiring some Jesuits with plans for female cadres in the missionary army. 78 Lópes, ‘Os Franciscanos no Oriente Português’, 30–2, 57–8; Meersman, Franciscans in the Indonesian archipelago, 25–6. 79 See e.g. Lópes on conflict over attempts to force the Franciscans in the clergy to submit to diocesan control which they felt breeched their privileges (‘Os Franciscanos no Oriente Português’, 47). 80 Meersman, The Franciscans in the Indonesian Archipelago, 26. 81 Raised to a province 1622. Pinto Rema, ‘Implantación del Franciscanismo’, 225. Note that Jacinto de Deos’s Vergel de plantas y flores (1690) was the chronicle history of this province.

30

Missionary Structures and Networks

Disputes over Franciscan government continued in the seventeenth century. The viability of São Tomé as a province was debated again at general chapters in 1621, 1625, and 1633, and in 1634 Philip III requested that it be demoted once again to a custody. Such threats to their autonomy spurred the production of literature extolling the achievements of the province. The confusion of jurisdiction in the Franciscan order is often apparent in missionary uncertainty over which superior to apply to for licences to preach and evangelize and in the vicious condemnation of errant friars who are deemed by rival missionaries to have strayed beyond the bounds permitted to their community. Such friars are frequently accused of behaving illicitly—of not having the authority to act as missionaries.

The Augustinians The development of Augustinian structures in Southeast Asia follows a similar pattern: it was beset by disputes and internal reform programmes which limited missionary endeavours for the first half of the sixteenth century.82 Under the Prior General Girolamo Seripando (1493–1563) the Augustinians in Europe were reformed and greater centralization introduced, despite some vigorous opposition.83 In the Iberian provinces, reform and missionary zeal were twin impulses, with reformers such as Juan Gallego pushing both agendas. He presented the General Chapter at Los Santos, Spain in 1531 with plans to both reform the Portuguese provinces and to send the first Spanish Augustinian mission to Mexico.84 As with the Franciscans, the Spanish Augustinian provinces were the first to send missionaries to Southeast Asia.85 The ex-naval commander, friar Andrés de Urdeneta accompanied the expedition which conquered Cebu in 1565 and established his order in the Philippines.86 From their Province of Santísimo Nombre de Jesús the Augustinians would spend much of the sixteenth century trying in vain to gain access to China. Spanish Augustinians also established convents in Macao, from which they were expelled in 1596 and again 1622. Meanwhile, the Portuguese Congregation of the East Indies was created and the first convent founded in Goa in 1572. In 1587 Augustinians arrived in Malacca. They would also establish initially promising missions in Cochinchina (1595–c.1606), Tonkin and Siam. Like the Franciscans, Augustinian convents could vary widely, with their own chrism, rules, and habits, often necessitating the creation of new custumal to unite communities on the mission fields. Yet the Augustinians of Asia fared worse in their struggles for autonomy than other religious orders. One intriguing document in the Historical Archives of Goa 82 Hartmann, ‘The Augustinians in golden Goa’, 5. The Augustinian Hermits (OESA) should not be confused with the Augustinian Canons. 83 On these measures see Puente, La riforma tridentina en la Orden Agustiniana. On accusations of decadence of the Iberian Augustinians and need for reform see Webster, ‘La crisis de los Agustinos en el siglo XV’. 84 Gutiérrez, The Augustinians from the Protestant Reformation to the Peace of Westphalia, 207. 85 Bibliographical details of Spanish friars in Asia are found in Castro and Merino (eds), Misioneros Agustinos en el Extremo Oriente. 86 Rano, ‘Agostininani’, 367.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

31

sheds light on the frustrated hopes for independence on the Indian province of what was one of the richest religious orders in the Padroado. Writing from the fading glory of the vast convent of St Augustine in Goa in 1745, an anonymous friar reflects on the past achievements of his order and the ‘latest state of decline and misery’ into which the Augustinians and the Padroado as a whole has fallen.87 He reserves most of his criticism and rancour for what he sees as the high-handed and irrational refusal of the Province of Portugal to grant the Augustinians in the Indies the independence they deserved. Indeed over time the limitations which had been placed on the government of the Portuguese Province over that of the Indies seemed to be chipped away. He quotes one letter from 1622, which argued that new provisions granting fathers of the Portuguese Province authority over decisions made for the Asian provinces meant that ‘They will begin again, I do not say to govern, but rather to tyrannise this Congregation.’ Rather than appointing capable candidates to office, ignoring the Constitutions of the order they will ‘despotically elect unsuitable subjects, . . . [so] partial to their faction, and with such excesses, that in a short time it will be necessary for this Congregation to appeal to the Father General’.88 The Augustinian Congregation of the East Indies’ failure to secure independence created crisis of government and authority in the seventeenth century.89 Furthermore, in contrast to the Franciscans, requests to establish separate provinces for strict reforms of the order were often resisted in both the Padroado and the Patronato. The Discalced Augustinians, independent from the rest of the order since 1593, arrived in the Philippines in 1604 but the Province of San Nicola de Tolentino was only founded in 1621.90 At the very end of the seventeenth century, an independent group of Italian Discalced Augustinians would set off with the blessing of the Propaganda Fide for the missions of China and Tonkin, where they soon became predictably embroiled in jurisdictional tensions with other missionaries.91

The Jesuits The Jesuit missions in Southeast Asia were founded by Francis Xavier, who first arrived in Malacca in 1545. Jesuit missions radiated out from the Jesuit colleges of Malacca and Macao throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century, with missionaries reaching from Burma to Tonkin and across island Southeast Asia. The Society was very quick to recognize the value of print in Europe to promote these missions, with the consequence that works such as Marini’s form a large proportion of the corpus of printed material about Southeast Asia in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. 87 HAG 2779, f. 2r: ‘[Esta] ultima declinação e miseria’. The manuscript is dated 1747, but the friar describes ‘neste hera de milsetecentos quorenta sinco, em q’ escreuo estas memorias’ (f. 2r). 88 HAG 2779, f. 7r: ‘elegião despoticamente sugeitos indignes . . . e parciaes de sua faccão, e com tanto excess, q’ em breve tépo foi precizo a esta Congregação requerer ao Rmo P. Geral.’ 89 Alonso, ‘Agustinos en la India’, 243; Alonso, ‘Libro de actas del convento’, 174. 90 See Barbagallo, Sono venuto, 54; Barbagallo, ‘Agostiniani Scalzi’, 407–9. 91 Barbagallo, Sono venuto, 124–6.

32

Missionary Structures and Networks

In theory, the Society of Jesus was strictly hierarchical, with authority filtering down from the Father General in Rome through Fathers Provincial and superiors of houses. The Jesuit Visitor was the Father General’s direct representative. Yet delegation of powers, although defined in the Constitutions, could be complicated. Disputes over the relative authority of the Visitor, the Vice-Provincial of Japan and the Provincial of India, for example, arose after the foundation of a new college in Macao.92 More than the other religious orders, the Jesuits maintained an organisational structure which was practically independent of the Padroado’s ecclesiastical hierarchy.93 This exemption from ordinary jurisdiction could lead to conflicts, as we will see. The province of Goa oversaw all Jesuit missionary activity in the Portuguese Padroado until Visitor Alessandro Valignano controversially reorganized the Jesuit provincial structures in Asia in the 1580s.94 Southeast Asia then came under the province of Malabar (1601), and later under the new province of Japan from 1611.95 In 1581 Spanish Jesuits founded another province in the Philippines, ‘which are the landmark and the limit of the two worlds, Eastern and Western’, as their first chronicler wrote.96 There would be some tensions between these Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits, with their obedience to separate provinces: both groups had evangelical interests in the wider mission fields of Southeast and East Asia. The most serious disputes, however, were with the mendicant orders. The Franciscans in Macao protested about Jesuit ‘malice’ which had led the Company to attempt to secure briefs and royal orders preventing mendicant access to certain mission lands.97 Mendicants also accused the Jesuits of ignoring bishops’ instructions, undermining ordinary jurisdiction.98 Spanish Franciscans even blamed the Jesuits, specifically Valignano, for the trouble they encountered in Malacca and Macao.99 Valignano replied that it was in fact ‘their own Portuguese friars, who did not want Castilian convents in the districts of their Provinces’ and the distaste of

92 See Witek, ‘With a view towards Japan’, 51–67, and Brockey, Journey to the East, 73–4. See also Clossey, Salvation and globalization, 45–67 on ‘decentralized’ reality of Jesuit hierarchies. 93 On exemption of Jesuits from authority of bishop of Malacca, see Teixeira, The Portuguese missions in Malacca, 109. 94 The province of Goa was formed in 1549. See Alden, The making of an enterprise, 235. Valignano was accused of infringing Padroado rights and the jurisdiction of the Jesuit Provinces of Portugal and Goa. See esp. Üçerler, ‘Alessandro Valignano’ and Witek, ‘Everard Mercurian and the entry of Jesuits into China’, 821–2. 95 See the section ‘Uma hierarquia quase paralela’ in Santos Alves, ‘Christianização e organização eclesiástica’ 322–5. From 1601 the province of Goa covered West Africa, Ethiopia, and Northern India and the province of Malabar covered India, Sri Lanka, island and mainland Southeast Asia. The province of Japan then covered all the lands from China to the Bay of Bengal. 96 Chirino, History of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, I: 9. 97 e.g. letter from Francisco Manrique, Martin Ignacio de Loyola and five other Franciscans to Philip II, Macao 6 July 1587 in SF II: 210–13. 98 Diego Collado, ‘Papeles de la Compañia’, 1620s—cites a letter complaining that the Jesuits were refusing to obey the bishop of Japan and letters from the Pope. AGOP XIII-27.500–3, piece 3, f. 1r. 99 Alessandro Valignano, ‘Summario de la apologia del Pe Alexãdro du Valiñ ano’, 1598, ARSI FG 721/II/1/A no 2, ff. 38v–9r.

The Arrival of Catholic Missionaries 1511–1600

33

Portuguese seculars for Spanish friars which had destroyed their plans.100 He conceded that he thought it unwise to allow Franciscans entry to Japan, but only because of the ‘immodest zeal’ which led them to ignore royal and papal orders by trying to enter mission fields for which they were ill-equipped and unauthorized.101 We now have a picture of mission lands overlaid with confusing and shifting webs of authority. As the seventeenth century progressed, the picture would become yet more complex.

100 ARSI FG 721/II/1/A no 2, f. 39r: ‘es q’ sus mismos Frayles Portugueses, no querrian conuentos de Castellanos en los dystrictos de sus Prouincias.’ 101 Ibid, f. 39v.

2 Rome Takes Charge A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690 Would we have any grounds to believe that the religion would have been as well established in the Roman Empire if the Apostles had engaged in the same conduct that the Portuguese have in Indies for two hundred and fifty years? What would that Christianity had done, in the middle of persecutions, if it had had to wait for help to arrive from Jerusalem?1

Early modern European theorists of mission had long argued for a centralized body to rationalise the tangle of ecclesiastical authorities responsible for mission in Asia.2 Frequently they saw the Portuguese crown’s defence of Padroado privileges as the main obstacle to the elaboration of episcopal structures in Asia: from 1608 to 1675 no new bishoprics were created in the Padroado. This in turn failed to address the problem of long and contested chains of command between scattered centres of authority which left neophyte communities without spiritual succour. The reported laxity of the clergy of the Padroado, their reputed querulousness and venality and many missed opportunities for evangelization were presented as evidence that Portuguese ecclesiastical authority had broken down. Increasingly, the need to establish a ‘native’ parochial clergy was also raised.3 So, from 1600, the ability of Portugal to restrict access to Asian mission fields was undermined by a series of bulls authorizing missionaries of any nationality to travel to the Indies by any route.4 1 ‘Plan qui doit être présenté à la Sacré Cong.n le premier point consiste à faire voir la nécessité qu’il y a de faire un clergé dans les lieux des missions’, AMEP 129: 85–6: ‘Pourrions-nous croire avec fondement que la religion se fût aussi bien établie dans l’Empire Romain . . . si les apôtres avaient tenu la même conduite que les Portugais ont tenu dans les Indes depuis deux cent cinquante ans. . . . Qu’aurait fait en ce temps-là ce christianisme au milieu des persécutions, s’il avait dû attendre son secours de Jérusalem?’ 2 e.g. Jean Vendeville, bishop of Tournai, d. 1592 (see Essen, ‘Les missions à l’époque des découvertes’, 364–5) and Tomás de Jesus in his De procuranda salute omnium gentium (1613). Extensive ‘proprietorial’ historiographical can be found on the early theorists of a centralizing policy, with Jesuit, Capuchin, Carmelite and even Belgian nationalist historians (for example Essen) all identifying their subjects as the originators of the idea of a missionary Congregation. Metzler highlights instead the role of Pope Gregory XV, ‘Foundation of the Congregation’, 80–6. A more general introduction is found in Perbal, ‘Projets, fondation et débuts de la Sacrée Congrégation’, Moya, ‘Missiologia’, 1421–2. See also Costa, A missiological conflict. 3 A detailed contemporary assessment of the situation is found in the volume AMEP 129, entitled ‘Le Clergé Indigène’. 4 e.g. 1600 Clement VIII—authorized mendicants of all nationalities to go to Indies, 1608 Paul V—allowed mendicants to bypass Lisbon, 1633—Urban VIII extended these rights to all missionaries. See Vaumas, L’éveil missionnaire, 355.

A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

35

The new Papal Congregation of ‘Propaganda Fide’ was intended to coordinate jurisdictional and sacramental authority for missionary work.5 Its foundation in 1622 reflected the Tridentine trend towards centralization, curial reform, and the reassertion of papal authority.6 The bull of foundation gave a wide definition of its jurisdiction, extending ‘over all missions for preaching and teaching the Gospels and Catholic doctrine, and [the Congregation] will appoint and exchange necessary ministers’.7 Those priests, sent out to preach to non-Christian, schismatics, heretics, or even to Catholics, were missionaries by virtue of the grant of faculties and authority which amounted to a delegation of papal authority.8 The Congregation would now be the body which delegated these powers: the universal commissioner of jurisdictional and sacral authority over missionary endeavour.9 The Propaganda was thus ranked alongside other curial Congregations which had been granted universal authority, such as the Holy Office.10 A special subdivision of the Congregation attempted to rationalize all faculties previously granted, and to define the relationships between regulars and episcopate in mission lands.11 The Congregation also set about trying to address the problem of the lack of bishops and parochial clergy in Asia. This became increasingly pressing after 1640, when the papacy, refusing to recognize Portuguese independence from Spain, ceased to ordain Portuguese bishops. Faculties were once again granted to vicars in order to administer Confirmation, but missionaries complained to Rome that such measures were insufficient and harmful to the faith.12 The first appointments made to remedy this situation, came to ignominious fates. Two titular bishops with the authority of Vicars Apostolic, Mateus de Castro and Antonio de Santo-Felice, travelled overland to Asia in 1637 but were apprehended in Goa.13 Next, Ephraim de Nevers attempted to travel to Pegu as a missionary of the Propaganda, but was also imprisoned by the Inquisition in 1649. Direct orders from the Propaganda to release him were ignored, and he

5 The most detailed accounts of the foundation of the Congregation are found in the collection Sacræ Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum, ed. Metzler, vol. I. 6 Silva, Trent’s impact, 53. 7 Inscrutabili Divinae Providentiae Arcano (22 June 1622). Cited by Reuter, ‘De iuribus spiritualibus seu de facultatibus’, 117. 8 Privileges were described in this way by Caron Reymundus, Apostolatus evangelicus (1652). Cited by Paventi, ‘Congregazione Urbaniana’, 220. 9 Reuter, ‘De iuribus spiritualibus seu de facultatibus’, 117–21. 10 Yet it was not able to pass judgment on theological matters, which must be examined by the Holy Office. This caused some tension between these two bodies. Metzler, ‘Orientation, programme, et premières décisions’, 185–92. 11 The ‘Congregatio Urbaniana super facultatibus missionariorum’, meeting 1633–43. See Paventi, ‘Congregazione Urbaniana’, 226–39. 12 Antonio di S. Vicenzo, Procurator of the Augustinans in the East Indies to Urban VIII, 7 May 1631, ASV Fondo Borghese, serie I, 469–74, f. 306r. 13 Mateus de Castro, an Indian secular priest, was appointed bishop in partibus infidelem of Crisopolis 1637 and Vicar Apostolic of Bujapur, Golconde and Pegu. See Vaumas, L’éveil missionnaire, 355. Antonio de Santo-Felice, Italian Capuchin, was appointed archbishop in partibus of Myre. See Fauconnet-Buzelin, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères, 56–7. It seems that Santo-Felice was still in Goa in the 1650s, as the Propaganda asked him to intervene on behalf of Ephraim de Nevers. See Chappoulie, Aux origins d’une église, 99.

36

Missionary Structures and Networks

was not freed until the Muslim king of Golconde, Abdul Kutuh Shah, intervened on his behalf.14 Although these attempts failed, the powers granted to bishops suggested the means by which Rome would eventually circumvent Padroado rights. These appointments conferred full episcopal sacral authority, giving the appointees the power to administer the sacraments of Confirmation and Ordination, and to consecrate sacred spaces and liturgical objects. The title of Vicar Apostolic bestowed extra-ordinary jurisdiction which was not tied to a territorial diocese. This tactic had already been used in Europe, where Vicars Apostolic were invested with wideranging powers in order to restore Catholicism in Protestant lands. The holder of this office was a papal legate, exercising the authority of the Pope over lands which, lacking ordinary authority, were considered as an extension of the diocese of Rome.15 The appointment of such men was thus seen by the Portuguese crown as a clear challenge to Padroado rights. Various missionaries within the Padroado continued to recommend the rationalization of authority over missionary endeavour, and even the creation of an independent superstructure which would be able to arbitrate between conflicting interests. Letters to the Propaganda Fide express the frustration felt by men such as Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes, who had already spent five years petitioning for new bishops for the mission fields of Southeast Asia.16 Eventually, three French Vicars Apostolic were appointed: François Pallu, Pierre Lambert de la Motte, and Ignace Cotolendi, who were all members of a new French missionary society, the Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP).17 However, the arrival of these new authorities in Southeast Asia generated more conflict and eventually led—once again—to a crisis of religious authority. Lambert and Pallu made Siam their base of operations due to the tolerance and welcome shown by King Narai, founding a seminary to begin the formation of a Southeast Asian clergy.18 To replace Cotolendi who had died on the journey, they petitioned the Propaganda to create a new Vicar Apostolic. In 1669 Louis Laneau became bishop of Metellopolis and Vicar Apostolic of Siam. On the advice of the Propaganda, the French priests had not immediately declared the extent of the powers awarded to them. The ruse had helped them to reach Siam unmolested, but also led to suspicions of forgery, dissimulation, and subterfuge.19 It would only be a

14 Chappoulie, Aux origins d’une église, 98–9. A detailed study of Nevers is found in Ames, ‘The perils of spreading the true faith’. 15 Silva, Trent’s impact, 70. 16 Alexandre de Rhodes to PF, Paris, 27 March 1654, APF, SOCG 193, f. 505r: ‘sono già quasi cinque anni che stò aspettando in Europa per questo negotio’. 17 Rhodes’s first suggestion to send François Pallu, François de Montmorency-Lavel and Bernard Piques had been rejected: the triumvirate was seen as too closely linked to the Jesuits as they shared a Jesuit spiritual father, Bagot. See Launay, Histoire générale, 14–15; Fauconnet-Buselin, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères, 60; Goyau, ‘Les missions depuis la création de la Propagande’, 376–7. 18 See Destombes, Le collège général. 19 e.g. ‘Treslado da carta q o R.do Vigro da Vara do porto de Siam mandou publicar contra a do Bispo de Mettelopolis’, 23 December 1679, ARSI JapSin 70a(II), f. 213r which complains about the suspicious delay by the Vicars Apostolic to show evidence of their claims.

A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

37

short step from suspicions of illegitimate exercise of ecclesiastical power to accusations of heresy, excommunication, arrest, and imprisonment. Besides doubts over the authenticity of their commissions, there was confusion over the extent and nature of the jurisdiction they claimed. Their jurisdiction was described as personal, extending over all men who exercised the role of missionary in these regions. The Brief Speculatores, which created the Vicariate Apostolic of Siam in 1669, for example, stated that ‘every time that Regulars [that is, members of the religious orders], under the title of missionary, practise the cure of souls’ they were to be subject to the visitation and correction of the Vicars Apostolic or their delegates.20 It was also territorial: they had authority over China, Laos, Korea, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Siam. Dispute over where the jurisdiction of the Vicars Apostolic began, and that of the bishops of Malacca and Macao ended led to requests for clear demarcation of these limits.21 This issue of territorial jurisdiction was particularly complicated in Siam and Cambodia, where Portuguese refugees from Dutch Malacca had established churches, under the ordinary jurisdiction of the bishopric of Malacca. Siam especially was closely identified with the Malaccan Church: one Dominican account of the Padroado places Siam under the heading ‘De ecclesia Malachensi’ and defines the Malaccan diocesan limits as extending to Tenassarim.22 The Propaganda Fide had also confirmed the authority of the diocese in these areas, despite the fall of Malacca to the Dutch in 1641.23 The existence of Christian communities in Siam, Cochinchina, and Tonkin added to the headache of jurisdictional complications for the Vicars Apostolic.24 Pallu repeatedly and ineffectively petitioned Rome requesting that these groups remain solely subject to the Portuguese ecclesiastical hierarchy.25 Yet some supporters of the Vicars Apostolic argued that these Christians should now come under their jurisdiction. ‘If one maturely considers this difficulty, it soon disappears, it being certain that Christians fleeing from one place to another do not transfer the jurisdiction of their Ordinary with them,’ wrote one commentator.26 He argued that the bishops of Malacca and Macao could claim no jurisdiction over lands in mainland Southeast Asia: a bishop was granted jurisdiction over a district

20 Compilation of information from the Vicars Apostolic, c.1677, APF CP SOCP 8, ff. 16v–17r: ‘Ogni volta che i Regolari sotto titulo di Missionariij esercitaranno la cura dell’anime’. My emphasis. 21 e.g. call for limits to be demarcated in ‘chiari ’ and ‘espressi ’ manner by supporter of Vicars Apostolic: ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, f. 93r. 22 [Account of the Portuguese Empire], 1651, AGOP XIII.56900.2, ff. 29r–30r. C.f. however, the earlier understanding that Tenassarim and that coast of Siam came under the bishopric of St. Tomé of Meliapor. See above. 23 ‘Riposte date dalla Congne di Propaganda Fide il 24 Xbre 1668’ in ‘Bolle pontificie sul Patronato’, ASV Arch. Nunz. Apost. in Lisbona, f. 70r. 24 There were also the communities of Christians who had fled from Japan, who would come under the jurisdiction of the (vacant) bishopric of Japan. 25 See also Acta of Congretionis Particularis super rebus Sinarum et Indiarum Oriental. 9 January 1680, in APF Acta CP 1B, ff. 101r–v. 26 ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, f. 95v: ‘se si considera maturamente q’sta difficoltà, subito suanirà: essendo certo, che gli christiani fuggiti da un luogo in un’altro non trasferiscono seco la giurisd.ne dell’Ordinario del luogo’.

38

Missionary Structures and Networks

by the bull of diocesan erection or by the canonical extension of the diocese to incorporate territory ‘where various times he has performed jurisdictional acts, and has brought spiritual aid to the Christians, either himself, or through his vicars.’27 Yet the bulls of erection of Malacca did not explicitly mention many of these territories by name; moreover the bishop had failed to appoint vicars to exercise this jurisdiction.28 Priests in these countries should be seen as ‘simple missionaries’, who gained their licence from the pope, rather than delegates whose authority to act as priests flowed from the Padroado bishops. Although Tonkin, on the other hand, was mentioned in the bull of erection of the diocese of Macao, the bishop had never exercised his jurisdiction there, and it seemed that none of the Christians of the country had ever heard of him.29 Furthermore, he argued, the Jesuits, ‘used not to recognize in any way the bishops of Malacca and Macao as ordinaries over Tonkin, and Cochinchina’. Yet in order to oppose the Vicars Apostolic, they had changed their mind, ‘abandoning’ their titles of missionaries and obtaining letters appointing them as vicars and governors of the bishoprics, thus tacitly extending the jurisdiction of these bishops into mission lands where it had previously been resisted, even by them.30 Thus, according to some, the arguments of the Jesuits and mendicants against the Vicars Apostolic were in fact unjust attempts to usurp jurisdiction. The Padroado bulls had granted the Portuguese crown privileges linked to temporal dominion, which by their nature could be revoked by the Pope. Where Portuguese conquerors had never set foot, such concessions did not apply at all, and were now especially meaningless as ‘the most part of the East Indies is in the hands of other European powers’, visited by ‘not only the English, Dutch and Danish, but also the Spanish, French and other Catholics’. It seemed anomalous, another author wryly notes, that the Portuguese ‘should have the courage only to oppose the Roman Pontiffs’ but not the others, including the heretics, who operated in the region.31 Conversely, Portuguese canon lawyers saw the Padroado as a series of acquired rights, which could not be unilaterally removed. The Archbishop of Goa had the faculties of a primate of the East Indies with jurisdiction, through his suffragan bishops, over all Portuguese conquests in the East.32 The appointment of the new independent bishops for Siam, Cochinchina, and Tonkin in effect dismembered the bishoprics of Malacca and Macao without consultation or appeal and 27 ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, f. 95v: ‘in uigore della estensione canonica, con hauere più uolte esercitato ui atti giurisdittionali, e con hauer porto aiuto spuale alli christiani ò per se, ò per i suoi Vicarij’. 28 Note that the regions such as ‘Champa’ mentioned in the bulls no longer existed as autonomous states. See Forest, Les missionnaires français, I: 72 n. 16. 29 ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, ff. 94v–95r. 30 ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, f. 91v : ‘non riconosceuano in nissuna maniera li Vescoui di Malaca, e di Macao per Ordinarij di Tunchino, e della Cocincina’. 31 ‘Analisi della riposte fatta da Monsigr Pallu’, ASV, Arch. Nunz. Apost. in Lisbona, f. 52r: ‘la maggior parte dell’Indie Orientali in mani di altre Potenze Europee . . . non solo gl’Inglesi, Olandesi, Danesi, ma anche gli Spagnuoli, i Francesi, e gl’altri Catolici. . . . abbiano poi coraggio di epporsi unicamente ai Romani Pontefici’. 32 ‘Breve ragguaglio di ciò, che è accaduto’, BNC, Ges. 1255 (19) f. 103v.

A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

39

undermined papal privileges granted by the Padroado bulls. Thus the Vicars Apostolic were presented as manipulating jurisdictional boundaries and betraying papal orders to their own advantage. In Siam there was the added complication of the disputed jurisdiction of the Goan Inquisition.33 The Inquisition forbade missionaries within the Padroado from recognizing the authority of the new bishops. When these orders reached Southeast Asia, the cautiously cordial relations between the French priests and other missionaries soured rapidly. Dominican Luís Fragoso, commissioner of the Inquisition in Ayutthaya, argued that Lambert de la Motte had at first accepted the authority of the Ordinary (the Vigário of Malacca) and the Inquisition, but had slowly revealed his intentions, ‘usurping jurisdiction which did not fall within his competence’.34 Without requesting a licence from the authorities of the Padroado Church, he was conferring sacred orders, ‘against the orders of the Council of Trent’, and ‘sending vicars amongst us in Cochinchina and other parts, to the detriment of the bishops of China and Malacca, who from time immemorial have been in peaceful possession of such places’.35 Not only had he shown himself to be ‘a rebel against the orders of the Holy Office, but also in denying the jurisdiction he previously recognized of the ministers of this Holy Tribunal, he showed his faith to be suspect’. Fragoso thus excommunicated him, ordered his deportation to Goa, and forbade all Christians from interacting with him, or his priests.36 The threat of arrest by the Inquisition hung over the Missions Étrangères into the 1680s. Missionaries Pierre Brindeau and Louis Chevreuil were arrested and sent to the dungeons of the Inquisition of Goa.37 François Pallu was also arrested in the Philippines in 1674 when he travelled there to recruit mendicant missionaries for Siam and Vietnam. He was sent back to Europe and imprisoned in Madrid until Louis XIV of France and Pope Innocent XI eventually secured his release.38 The French priests argued that the Inquisition had no authority outside Portuguese temporal dominions, and requested an explicit statement of their exemption from its jurisdiction in order to prevent such arrests reoccurring.39

33 It was agreed by the Propaganda Fide in 1626 that certain prelates in Malacca, Japan and China should be explicitly granted the faculty of Inquisitor although they had already been exercising this role without such faculties formally being granted. ‘Riposte date dalla Congne di Propaganda Fide il di 9 9bre 1626’ in ‘Bolle Pontificie sul Patronato’, ASV, Arch. Nunz. Apost. in Lisbona, f. 70r. 34 Luís Fragoso, [Copy of condemnation of Lambert de la Motte published in Siam, 2 December 1666], ARSI FG 721/VII/1, f. 88r: ‘usurpando la giurisdittione che a lui non competeua’. 35 Luís Fragoso, ARSI FG 721/VII/1, f. 88v: ‘contra la dispositione del Concilio di Trento [ . . . inuiando vicarij fra noi alla Cocincina, e altre parti con pregiudicio de vescoui della China, e di Malaca, che da tempo immemorabile stanno in pacifico possesso di tali luoghi’. 36 Luís Fragoso, ARSI FG 721/VII/1, f. 89r: ‘rubello alli mandati del Sto Offo, ma anche in negare la giurisdittione gia riconosciuta, di Minsitri di questo Sto Tribunale si mostró anchora sospetto nella Fede’. 37 Pierre Brindeau (1632–1671). Louis Chevreuil (1627–1693), provicar of Cambodia 1660. ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV, Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, f. 89v. 38 RMSME 52. 39 ‘Raggioni, con le quali si mostra chiaramente’, ASV, Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, ff. 102r–3r. A statement of exemption was granted by Clement X, 10 November 1673: Essen, ‘Les missions à l’époque des découvertes’, 377.

40

Missionary Structures and Networks

In Tonkin the disputes between Jesuits and Vicars Apostolic were especially intense. At the time when François Deydier was made administrator (provicar) of the Tonkin missions in 1666, no Jesuits were in the country, having been expelled in 1663. Yet he and Jacques de Bourges, who arrived in Tonkin in 1669 were soon joined by a group of Jesuits from Macao—Domenico Fuciti, Balthazar da Rocha, and Filippo Fieschi, assisted by Tonkinese coadjutor Inácio Martins. Francisco Piemental and Manuel Ferreyra arrived in 1673. The arrival of the Jesuits initiated a long-lasting, rancorous conflict over jurisdiction. Similar tensions arose in Cochinchina, where Louis Chevreuil blamed his expulsion in 1664 on Jesuit intrigues, and continuing conflicts between Missions Étrangères priests and the Jesuits dominate the correspondence.40 In 1669 Jesuit Joseph Tissanier declared that in Tonkin: ‘it seems that our French bishop intends to exterminate us; the passion which he shows against us, his extravagant principles, and his manner of living makes many believe that he is an Alumbrado or Jansenist’.41 Jesuit Manuel Ferreyra wrote to Siam declaring his obedience to the Holy See, denying that the Vicars Apostolic and their missionaries had the correct documentation which would oblige his submission to their authority. Their copies of bulls, he declared, seemed to be on unusual paper and ‘lacked the name of an apostolic notary, and the seal of a person appointed to an ecclesiastical dignity’ to authenticate them. Furthermore, no instructions had arrived via the Father General of the order. Thus there was no way to know the real will of the Pope.42 Nor were the new priests acting with dignity and decorum, the Jesuits alleged. Ferreyra declares that he will no longer attempt to reason with François Deydier, ‘because he has placed me in the Catalogue of the Dead’ with his abusive treatment. One does not expect to receive letters from the dead, merely apparitions. The time too will come when I appear to him and summon him before the Court of Justices, now with Alciato’s emblem, ‘Not for you, but for Religion’, now with Seneca’s warning ‘Let none be excessively assured by good fortune, let none despair of better times when fortune fails’, and even with the crab which Francis I of France, whilst he was imprisoned in Spain, had placed as a joke under the Plus Ultra of Charles V with these words, ‘Today me, tomorrow you.’43

40 Louis Chevreuil, ‘Relation de la Cochinchine’, 1665, AMEP 733, ff. 73–9 on his arrival and initial Jesuit intrigues. 41 Joseph Tissanier to Father General, Siam, 10 September 1669, ARSI JapSin 76, f. 125: ‘il semble que nostre Euesque Francois a dessein de nous exterminiser; la passion qu’il monstre contre nous, ses principes Extrauagans, & sa fason de viure font croire a plusieurs qu’il est Illus ou Janseniste’. 42 Manuel Ferreyra to Provicars in Siam, 25 August 1677 ARSI JapSin 76, f. 191v: ‘per non essere authentica la copia della Bolla, mentre le mancaua il nome d’un’ Notaro Ap.co, et il Sigillo di persona costituita in dignità Ecclica’. 43 Manuel Ferreyra to Provicars in Siam, 25 August 1677 ARSI JapSin 76, f. 191v: ‘Non si aspettano lettere da Defonti, mà solo apparitioni. Verrà pure il tempo che le apparirò e lo citerò innanzi al Tribunale de gli Intendenti, hora col’ embla di Alciata non tibi, sed Religioni hora coll’auuiso di Seneca: Nemo confidat nimium Secundis, nemo desperet meliora lapsis. E anche col Grangio che Fran. co primo Rè di Francia, mentre staua prigione in Spagna fece porre per burla sotto il plus vltra di Carlo V. con queste parole. Hodie mihi Cras tibi.’

A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

41

Denouncing Deydier’s pretensions, he conjures the image of the proverbial foolish ass, common in contemporary emblem books, which mistakes the respect paid to the holy image on his back for reverence directed towards himself.44 He cites as a warning classical and historic reminders of how fortune could turn, favouring the previously downtrodden, and lowering the triumphant.45 Despite the hope of Ferreyra and his confreres that the failing fortune of the Jesuits would improve and the usurping French priests would be expelled, their position soon became yet more difficult. The Propaganda Fide ordered all missionaries to swear oaths accepting the jurisdiction and authority of the Vicars Apostolic. Yet each missionary owed holy obedience to his order, allegiance under the Padroado to the Portuguese crown, and submission to the Inquisition of Goa, which in 1682 renewed its injunction against recognizing the French bishops.46 Secular and ecclesiastical authorities of the Padroado reiterated that submission to their authority would be accounted treason, and pressurized the Jesuit authorities in Macao to expel those who swore obedience to them.47 Thus although heads of the religious orders in Rome, including in 1681 the Father General of the Jesuits, promised the Propaganda Fide to recognize the jurisdiction of its Vicars Apostolic, missionaries on the ground frequently faced many obstacles to swearing obedience to the French bishops. It was not only the Jesuits who were reluctant to recognize their jurisdiction. Various mendicants also set out the problems which they would face were they to take the oath. One letter, by Augustinian Alvaro de Benavente reports how mendicants who travelled from the Philippines to China and other lands would not take the oath without the permission of their superiors, and this was unlikely to be granted since the Orders feared their funds being cut off: ‘If the costs of the voyage and funding in China did not depend on the Philippine Province, this problem would not be so great.’48 The Propaganda Fide was not offering alternative provision for missionaries from whom it demanded loyalty.49 A Spanish Franciscan throws in a technical point about the communal, material presence of his Order: their houses and convents were not merely ‘simple habitations but formal convents, pertaining to the Philippines by concessions of Sixtus V’ whose privileges could not simply be overturned.50 The 44 See emblem ‘Non tibi, sed Religioni’ in Alciato and Lopez, Declaracion magistral sobre las Emblemas, 30. 45 The Seneca quote is from Thyestes ll. 615–16 (spoken by the Chorus). The crab was a symbol of changeable fate, adopted by François I. His imprisonment by Charles V followed defeat at the battle of Pavia in 1525, see Knecht, The rise and fall of Renaissance France, 117–25. 46 A report on the ‘anti-Congregation’ held in Goa 28 April 1682 which passed this resolution is found François Pallu and François Deydier, ‘VV AA du Tonkin en 1683’ AMEP 665, ff. 10–11. 47 Provincial of Macao to Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Macao, 31 October 1682, APF, SC Indie Orientali, Cina, 4, ff. 37–8. 48 Alvaro de Benauente (Prior of the Augustinian Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Filipinas Province) to PF, 1685, APF SC Indie Orientali, Cina, 3, f. 390r: ‘Se le spese del Viaggio et il sostento nella China non dipendesse dalle Prouincie Filippine, non sarebbe si urgente questo inconueniente’. 49 Agostino di S. Pasquale. ‘Estratto de gl’atti seguiti tra li PP Agostinni’, ASV, Fondo Carpegna, 32, ff. 345r–v. 50 Agostino di S. Pasquale. ‘Estratto de gl’atti seguiti tra li PP Agostinni’, ASV, Fondo Carpegna, 32, f. 355v.

42

Missionary Structures and Networks

thorny problem of regular versus ordinary jurisdiction was also exacerbated. Jesuit visitors and mendicant provincials who had long been exempt from ordinary jurisdiction were now ordered to submit to a new episcopal superstructure.51 Despite the troubles with the mendicants, the MEP priests did not give up the hope that they would be able to collaborate with them on the Southeast Asian missions. In 1676 Domincans Juan de Santa Cruz and Pedro d’Arjona arrived in Tonkin, probably responding to MEP attempts to recruit mendicants in Manila, and worked in Tonkin alongside MEP missionaries until 1681.52 François Pallu recruited another Dominican, Raimondo Lezzoli, in Rome and in 1678 requested of the Propaganda Fide that he be sent to the Indies and provided with money by the congregation to fund his trip and his maintenance.53 Lezzoli would succeed Deydier as Vicar Apostolic of Eastern Tonkin in 1696: the Propaganda Fide thus divided Tonkin between the Dominicans and the MEP priests, who retained jurisdiction as Vicars Apostolic over the western half.54 The 1680s saw another turning point for the missions. A series of embassies between the Siamese court and France introduced a new element of French secular interests into the missions.55 A party of Jesuit mathematicians, accompanying the second French delegation to the Siamese court further complicated the matter of jurisdiction. Far from supporting the Vicars Apostolic, the French Jesuits were sent with lettres cachets from Louis XIV forbidding them from taking the oath of loyalty, reflecting tensions over papal authority within the French church.56 What is more, in the 1690s serious tensions arose between the superiors of the Missions Étrangères missions in Southeast Asia and the MEP superiors in France. The former accused the latter of a failure to support MEP interests in Siam and Tonkin against Jesuit machinations. Parisian superiors were, they suspected, too closely bound to the Jesuits in France, whom they would support even over their own confreres in Asia. The internal hierarchy of the MEP—whether the directors of the seminary in

51 Although note that the curia seemed to have ‘forgotten’ about Omnimoda, and the Congregation of Propaganda Fide struggled to obtain a copy of it, eventually finding one in Seville in 1629. See Paventi, ‘Congregazione Urbaniana’, 224. 52 Forest, Les missionnaires français, II: 154. 53 ‘Scrittura sesta di Mons.r Segratario riferita nella Congregat.ne de 28 Agosto 1678’, APF, Acta CP, 1B: ff. 55r–v. 54 Forest, Les missionnaires français, II: 167. 55 The historiography of the Franco-Siamese embassies tends to distinguish between the two official embassies (with ambassadors) and visits of mere envoys. The standard works on French relations with Siam in this period dealing extensively with the embassies are Cruysse, Louis XIV et le Siam, Hutchinson, Adventurers in Siam; Jacq-Hergoualc’h, L’Europe et le Siam. The chronology of embassies and envoys runs as follows: the first (lost) Siamese embassy (1680–1); the envoys sent to discover the fate of this embassy (1684–5); the French embassy to Siam under Chaumont (1685–6); the ‘great’ Siamese embassy to France (1686–7); the visit of plenipotentiary envoys La Loubère and Céberet to Siam (1687–8); Tachard returning to Europe in the quantity of envoy of the king of Siam with three Siamese ‘mandarins’ (1688–90); his attempted return as (unofficial) French ambassador 1690–92. 56 Michel Bellanger to Jesuits of Parisian College, Brest, 21 June 1685, ARSI 76 f. 303r. Bellanger describes meeting Guy de Tachard, superior of the Jesuits on the mission, in Brest and hearing about these issues from him. See also Vongsuravatana, Un Jésuit à la cour de Siam.

A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

43

Paris should be considered the superiors of the heads of the Asian missions—was also hotly contested.57 One major consequence of these disputes was a continuing challenge to the sacral authority of the French bishops. What impact did this have on their central task of forming an indigenous priesthood? CREATING A S OUTHEAST ASIAN CLERGY The issue of ‘native’ priests in Asia is often studied through the prism of race: the reluctance of religious orders to admit non-Europeans into the priesthood.58 The endeavours of the Propaganda Fide are presented by some of its historians as noble attempts ‘to free missionary activities from the grip of colonialism’, setting it on a spiritual level, away from politics and racial prejudice.59 The Spanish and Portuguese were condemned by the Propaganda Fide for failing to ordain ‘native’ priests, or for restricting non-Europeans to menial roles. The Cardinal Secretary of the Propaganda Fide, Francisco Ingoli, for example, complained that the small number of non-Europeans ordained in the East and West Indies were only allowed to study enough ‘to be able to serve as chaplains in the parishes’.60 Yet prejudice against non-Europeans was not the only reason behind this reluctance. We must also consider the context of jurisdictional conflicts and of the elaboration of alternative ecclesiastical structures in the absence of clergy. Various voices had been raised demanding a systematic programme for the ordination of clergy native to mission lands, especially in regions where persecutions restricted the movement of Europeans. Where peripatetic missionaries were the only source of sacerdotal power, Tridentine reforms promoting sacramental worship, the parish as a stable focus and location for devotion, and the training of secular clergy were difficult to achieve.61 While these ideals could be promoted in colonial cities such as Malacca and Goa, and to some extent amongst the settled

57

Forest, Les missionnaires français, II: 166. See e.g. the 18th-cent. account, ‘Memoriale sulle Indie Orientali in genere’ in APF SC Indie Orientali e Cina, Miscellanea 57, ff. 4r–v. ‘Native’ corresponds to the terms used by the missionaries themselves, although often the priests would be ‘native’ to the region in which they worked. Some of the following material is also discussed in more detail in my article, ‘Priests of a foreign God’. 59 Metzler, ‘Orientation, programme, et premières décisions’, 165: ‘La Congrégation considère que son obligation principale est de libérer les activités missionnaires de l’étreinte du colonialisme.’ 60 ‘Principali disordini, et inconuenienti dell’Indie Orientali, et occidentali’, APF SOCG 189, f. 231v: ‘non si lascciano studier le scienze, ma solo quanto basta per poter seruar per capellani nelle paroche’. 61 e.g. a letter from eighty Japanese Christians requesting this was sent to the Propaganda Fide (PF) in 1625: see Metzler, ‘Orientation, programme, et premières décisions’, 176. See also e.g. the report submitted to the PF in 1648, ‘Se sia bene promouere à gl’ordine e dignità Ecce i naturali dell’India Orientale’, APF SOCG 192, ff. 35–45; and letter of Alexandre de Rhodes to the PF, Paris 14 August 1653, APF SOCG 193, ff. 500–1 which set out these reasons. 58

44

Missionary Structures and Networks

communities of foreign Catholics in Ayutthaya in Siam and Faifo in Cochinchina, the church in mission lands threatened to acquire a different character.62 Hierarchies had developed in mission churches in the absence of priests. A ‘head’ Christian would emerge, normally able to provide a space in his or her house which would become an informal church. They would supervise their little congregation, taking charge of the catechization and pastoral care of the community. These leaders were usually of high social standing in the community: frequently literate and widely recognized for their virtue, charitable practices, or profession. Wealthy merchants and respected figures naturally took on positions of responsibility. Christian noble ‘Senhor’ Paulo built a church at his expense, took on the role of catechist, baptized many and used holy water to heal the sick.63 Doctor Thadeo in Ke~ Naš oé, ‘whom all thought of as a father, since he knew the letters of this country, and was also a doctor and very prudent’, built an oratory where he gathered the Christians on Sundays to preach to them and went on mission to the nonChristians.64 Such individuals would also mediate between the congregation and the priest, reading out missionaries’ pastoral letters.65 Besides the lay ‘heads’ of churches, the Jesuits also developed a formal institution of catechists, as they had done in the Japanese and Indian missions. The dojukus of Japan, and the kanakkapillei of the pearl fisheries in India helped to contextualize Catholicism for their compatriots: their ascetic, spiritual lifestyle spoke to local conceptions of piety and could be used as a vehicle to lend credence to their teachings.66 This model was adapted to suit Vietnamese mores: from the 1620s men were recruited to devote their lives to the conversion of their countrymen and women.67 Lodged in seminaries or ‘houses of God’—Domus Dei (Nhà-Chúa)— their communities echoed Confucian and Buddhist communal structures and were supported by alms.68 Organized into different ranks depending on their learning and duties, they took oaths not to marry, not to own property, and to obey the Jesuits.69 The first rank, the professios or Thay (masters) underwent an elaborate ceremony which marked their semi-sacerdotal character. In front of the consecrated 62 Parochial divisions in Malacca can be seen, for example, in prelate Christovão Ferrerra’s contribution to the report ‘Processus probationum R.mi Domini fratris Antonij de Rosario’, where he describes three parishes of St. Tomé, St. Estevão and St. Lourenço. ASV, Arch. Consist. Processus Cosist. 30, f. 745r. On this parish-based concept of reformed Catholicism, see Hsia, The world of Catholic renewal, 122–6; Forster, Catholic renewal in the age of the baroque, 11–13. 63 Antonio Cardim, ‘Annua de Tunkim do anno de 1630’, BA, JnÁ, 49-v-31, f. 32r. 64 Gaspar de Amaral, ‘Annua do Reyno de Annam do anno de 1632’, December 1632, BA, JnÁ, 49-v-31, ff. 240r–v: ‘o qual por saberem as Letras da terra, e juntamente ser medico e muy prudente todos o estimão como Pay’. 65 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 147. 66 Ruiz-de-Medina, ‘Dojukus’, 1133–4; Lopez-Gay, ‘Misionología II: métodos misionales’, 2700–1. 67 Gaspar de Amaral, ‘Annua da missão do Reyno de Anam’, 30 December 1633, BA, JnÁ, 49-V31, ff. 267v–8r. 68 Gaspar de Amaral, ‘Annua da missão de Tunkim’, 12 March 1637, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31: see section ‘Relaçam dos Catequistas’, ff. 383r–9v. See also Lopez-Gay, ‘Misionología II: métodos misionales’, 2701. For details on Confucianism and Buddhism in Vietnam, see Ch. 3. 69 Gaspar de Amaral, to FG, Macao, 1645, ARSI JapSin 80, f. 34; Gaspar de Amaral, ‘Como se houverão os Padres’, 21 April 1634, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, ff. 304r–v.

A New Layer of Jurisdiction 1600–1690

45

Host, they gave themselves to the mission, and the solemnly swore obedience to the area’s head Jesuit and head Catechist. They promised not to allow ‘any schism between themselves’.70 Men ordained as Dominican and Franciscan tertiaries were similarly used by mendicant missionaries as catechists and mission auxiliaries. The establishment of these third orders could also be a focus of jurisdictional conflict: the Dominicans accused the Jesuits and later the Missions Étrangères of trying to prevent the entry of individuals into minor orders. Resistance could also be met from superiors of the orders in Europe and India, who frequently acted against the entry of nonEuropeans into the orders, even as tertiaries.71 Race was undoubtedly an issue, but we should not lose sight of the importance of the jurisdictional tangle which ensnared the Asian missions. The European superiors of many religious orders in Europe were often wary of the rapidly expanding overseas provinces and feared a shift in power overseas which would create an imbalance between the Asian provinces and the smaller provinces of Europe.72 The Missions Étrangères maintained and developed the Jesuit institution of catechists, but added another layer: they hoped that catechists would eventually prove suitable for the priesthood.73 The chrism of the Missions Étrangères, like that of several other Societies founded in France at a similar time, centred on the formation and improvement of a secular, parochial clergy. The Propaganda Fide had also long shown an interest in using the secular clergy for evangelism, through its connection with seminaries for secular priests in Italy.74 In contrast to Jesuit descriptions, Missions Étrangères accounts portray their foundation of churches as arising from missionary agency. In Tonkin, Deydier describes reorganizing the Christians of the capital, establishing five principal sites which would serve as churches and appointing six people in each place to oversee temporal and spiritual concerns of each church.75 I would suggest that such reforms demonstrated a desire to reduce the influence of lay Christian heads of churches, mainly in order to accommodate the implantation of indigenous priests and a new parochial structure.76 Missions Étrangères accounts still acknowledged the importance and value of the ‘chrétiens principaux’ but increasingly they entrusted the administration their churches to ‘marguilliers’ (church wardens) rather than the ‘cabeças’ (heads) who led communities under the Jesuits. 70 Gaspar de Amaral, ‘Annua da missão de Tunkim’, 12 March 1637, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 384r: ‘algumas cismas entre elles’. 71 General Chapter of Dominicans banned mestizos in 1611 and ‘native’ vocations in 1615. See also Cummins and Boxer, ‘The Dominican mission in Japan’, 25–6. On resistance to ‘native’ Jesuit vocations, see Lopez-Gay, ‘Vocaciones Indígenas’ 2705–6. 72 Metzler, ‘Orientation, programme, et premières décisions’, 183. 73 See also Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 21–4. 74 On the connections between the PF and pontifical colleges and secular seminaries, the Neapolitan Congregazione delle Apostoliche Missioni and the Collegio Missionario in Rome, see Metzler, ‘Verso un Istituto missionario di sacerdoti secolari’, 506–19. 75 ‘Extrait de deux lettres escrites du Tonkin par M.r Deydier Eccleasiastique François Grand Vicaire de Monseigneur Eeuesques à Heliopolis des 4 aoust et 1.er nobre 1667’ AMEP 677, 11. 76 See e.g. ‘Sommaire de ce qui c’est passé a la Cochinchine’, need to reform Jesuit abuse of allowing ignorant laymen to lead Christians. AMEP 733, f. 682.

46

Missionary Structures and Networks

In 1670, seven Tonkinese priests were ordained, twenty men were admitted to minor Orders and the first synod was held in Tonkin.77 Tonkin was divided into districts, each placed under the administration of one of the new priests. All were accorded the faculty to hear confession although only one was judged capable at this point of saying Mass in Latin.78 Since the catechists also performed certain ecclesiastical functions, François Deydier found it hard to characterize them as completely ‘lay’. He wanted all the catechists in Tonkin to take minor orders, like tertiaries, and to mark their function by wearing a soutane, surplice, and bonnet, although the latter strategy proved impractical, due to the need for them to remain incognito.79 The training of seminarians in Siam, the sacralization of the role of the catechists, and the holding of regular synods to gather together the growing clerical class characterized the evangelical strategy of the Missions Étrangères. The centrality of the priest and bishop to Catholic worship should be emphasized above all, even when this necessitated concessions to allow the ordination of men without a good knowledge of Latin.80 This aim was not fundamentally contrary to the missionary strategies of the other religious orders. After all, other missionaries had proposed the creation of a native clergy, and even suggested that some of the catechists had shown themselves worthy of the priesthood. Letters from Jesuits Alexandre de Rhodes and Prospero Intorcetta and Dominican Giuseppe Carmona to the Propaganda Fide, for example, argue that such measures were crucial and urgent to sustain all mission fields.81 Others continued to press the Portuguese Crown to fund seminaries to train native clergy.82 But due to the disputed jurisdiction of the Vicars Apostolic and the concessions made to ordain men whom some judged unworthy, these new priests would face considerable opposition. Debates over both jurisdiction and sacramental authority came to dominate missionary correspondence and even influenced their relations with their potential converts. As we move on to consider the process of conversion, we should not lose sight of the urgency and importance of these conflicts, which obliged the missionary constantly to define and defend his authority, jurisdiction, and power, not least to those he sought to convert. 77 These priests were Martin Mâte (d.1684), Antoine Qoué (d. 1686), Philippe Nieune (d. 1672), Simon Kiéne (d. 1690), Jacques Qhiéou (d. 1683), Léon Troung, and Vite Tri (d. 1705). Two more priests had been ordained in the Seminary of Siam two years previously. See Lesserteur, Les premiers prêtres, 25–40 for pen portraits of each, taken from biographies by Louis Néez MEP (1680–1764), written in 1752. 78 Vite Tri. See Lesserteur, Les premiers prêtres, 22, 37–40. 79 Marillier, Nos pères dans la foi, I: 24. 80 See ‘Scrittura terza di Mons.r Seg.rio’, APF Acta CP, 1B, ff. 28r–30v; and ‘Scrittura Quinta di Monsig.r’ APF Acta CP, vol 1B, f. 40r–v, and SC Cina, Indie Orientali, ff. 472–3 raising Pallu’s project to ordain native bishops in Tonkin. 81 e.g. Prospero Intorcetta to PF, c.1672, APF SC Cina, Indie Orientali, 1, ff. 574r–v; Giuseppe Carmona, ‘Informatione generale’, SC Indie Orientali, 40, ff. 316r–v; Alexandre de Rhodes to PF, Paris, 14 August 1653, APF SOCG 193, f. 500v: Tonkinese worthy of priesthood. 82 e.g. Manuel Ferreira to Pedro II, Tonkin, 22 July 1697, AHU –MACAU cx. 2, doc. n 24, requesting funds to expand seminary of Macao to train more priests from Siam, Cochinchina, Tonkin, Cambodia, and China.

3 Assessments of Conversion Potential Behold, there went out a sower to sow: . . . as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The Parable of the Sower. Matthew 13: 3–9

Whilst the way of salvation was open to all mankind, it became clear as missionaries travelled around Southeast Asia that some peoples embraced Catholicism more eagerly than others. Why did some people in Southeast Asia convert to Catholicism whilst others resisted all inducements, incentives, and even threats to embrace the new faith? To answer this question, missionaries were primed by their superiors to provide as much information as possible which might help to assess the potential fertility of their mission fields. One set of instructions issued by the Propaganda Fide urged missionaries to report, with exact and precise details, ‘the state of these places and neighbouring regions, regarding religion—that is, what religions, or rather sects are there, and what sorts of persons, or dignities, have charge of them; the number of Catholics, heretics and schismatics, or other infidels who are there—and the remedies, or what could be done there, to propagate our holy faith’. They should describe the obstacles which stood in the way of evangelism, and offer suggestions about how difficulties could be overcome.1 Missionaries were often enjoined by their superiors not to indulge in ‘vain’ or ‘redundant’ description of matters tangential to their mission of evangelization in their reports. Yet missionary accounts do linger over the details of novelty and unusual practices which would arrest the attention or provoke the idle curiosity of 1 ‘Instruttione gna’le per li Missionarij della Sac. Cong.ne de Propag.da Fide’, 1620s or 30s, APF, Istruzioni diversi dall’Anno 1623 all’Anno 1638, ff. 24 r–v: ‘dello stato delli medesimi luoghi, e de uicini quoad Religionem, cioe` che Religioni, ouero sette siano in essi, e che sorte di persone, ò dignità n’habbino la cura, la quantità de’ Catolici, Heretici, Scismatici, ò altri infedeli, ch’iui saranno, e li rimedij, e ò quali si potrà in quelli propagar la n’ra santa fede.’

48

Missionary Structures and Networks

the reader at the same time as ostensibly providing useful information for future evangelists. In this they clearly fit into a wider genre of ‘ethnographic’ writing which was developing over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.2 These missionary depictions of target populations, reflecting the hopes, obsessions, and assumptions of the authors, are particularly intriguing when viewed comparatively. One author paints a picture of the ‘character’ or ‘spirit’ of a particular people which leads him to declare his high hopes for the conversion of the region, another uses a similar description to explain his lack of success. Cultural misunderstandings, personal prejudices, and different interpretations between missionaries become apparent and help to explain disputes over appropriate evangelical approaches. In this chapter I will analyse missionaries’ assessments of the conversion potential of each region, before going on to examine factors behind the missionary rhetoric which may have made Christianity more or less appealing to target populations. MALACCA — FALLEN BY THE WAYSIDE, CHOKED BY THORNS Missionary discussions of the ‘conversion potential’ of Malacca are very different from depictions of non-colonial regions. The city’s position as a beleaguered garrison and its former importance as an Islamic centre influenced representations of its inhabitants.3 The establishment of Portuguese rule theoretically meant the imposition of the Catholic faith.4 Just as the mosque was dismantled and the stones of Sultanate Malacca were used to build a fortress and church (see Figure 3), the structures of everyday life would be deconstructed and rebuilt to a Catholic pattern. Chroniclers and poets throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries painted this reorientation of Malacca as a decisive battle in the ongoing spiritual and terrestrial war against the ‘Moor’. Albuquerque had taken away ‘from Satan the tyrannical rule of the Mosque and purified it to Christ, and humiliated religiously the force of Mars’.5 ‘One reason to praise the kingdom of Portugal’, asserted Paulo da Trinidade, considering such conquests in Asia, ‘is the particular zeal which its kings have always had to defend the Faith, to augment and extend the Christian 2 The literature on these developments is extensive. See esp. Hodgen, Early anthropology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and Pagden, The fall of natural man. Joan-Pau Rubiés has also published widely on early modern ‘ethnographic’ writing: see his collected essays Travellers and cosmographers and his Travel and ethnology in the Renaissance, esp. 25–8; 155–63; 201–22; 309–18. See also Koester, ‘The power of insult’, esp. 13, 18–25, 32–4; Linon-Chipon, Gallia Orientalis, 229–57 (on words to convey types of ‘alterity’ in travel literature) and Lestringant, ‘Le voyage, une affaire de religion’, especially on the connection between tales of conversion and tales of travel (17). 3 On Malacca’s role in Islamic proselytization see Casparis and Mabbett, ‘Religion and popular beliefs’, 330–3. 4 e.g. Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente I: 30–2. This assumption also apparent in Signaficavit nobis, Leo X, 5th September 1513, which congratulated Portugal on the conquest of Goa and Malacca. BP I: 81–2. 5 Sa de Meneses, The conquest of Malacca, 211.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

49

Figure 3. Plan of the city and fortress of Malacca. Pen and ink drawing. Collected by Roger de Gaignières (1642–1715). Bibliothèque Nationale de France. VD- 26 (2) –FOL.

religion, for this end making merciless and continual war on the followers of the false Mahometan law.’6 Practical considerations of commerce and the need for strategic alliances led sporadically to policies of accommodation and mutual assistance with Muslim merchants and neighbouring Islamic sultanates, which could make such rhetoric sound hollow in Malacca.7 Yet missionaries and secular officials continued to draw on the imagery of crusade and the rhetoric of atavistic hostility between Christianity and Islam.8 6 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, I: 52: ‘Um dos grandes louvores que se podem dar ao reino de Portugal,’ ‘é o particular zelo que sempres seus reis tiveram de defender a Fé, aumantar e dilatar a religão cristã, fazendo por esse respeito cruel e contínua guerra aos seguidores da falsa lei maometana.’ 7 On Portuguese alliances and trading with Islamic states see Sousa Pinto, ‘Captains, sultans and liaisons dangereuses’, 138 (alliances with Aceh); Sousa Pinto, Portugueses e Malaios, 148–50, (on hostility between Muslims and Christians dependent on other factors, faith secondary); Pearson, Pious passengers, 100–1 (on officials’ caution about implementing anti-Muslim policies). See also McPherson, ‘Staying on’, 71–2 on Portuguese private traders operating through (Islamic) Makassar after the fall of Malacca. 8 On use of this imagery see also Pearson, ‘Islam, Christianity and the crusades’ and Gruzinski, Les quatres parties du monde, 149. See also Rodinson, Europe and the mystique of Islam, 37–44 on developments in early modern understandings and presentation of Islam, which should be considered against these rhetorical usages. Cf. use of similar imagery in some Spanish accounts of the conquest of the New World: Hernán Cortés, for example, describing temples in America as ‘mosques’. See Rivera, A violent evangelism, 56.

Figure 4. The Straits of Malacca. From Mandelslo, Voyages celebres et remarquables (1719). Cambridge University Library Ll.2.26. Opposite p. 331. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

51

Portraying the city as an isolated, besieged garrison gave a sense of urgency to Portuguese requests for money and men. It was, officials pleaded, ‘The most important [fortress] and the one desired by enemies.’9 The tropes of crusade and the eternal threat of Islam were thus useful shorthand to stress the need for extra resources. In this context, the cosmopolitanism and position on the busy Straits of Malacca, (Figure 4) which brought the city commercial success could be presented as threatening to both imperial security and the Catholic project.10 At the time when cultural homogeneity was sought in Portugal through the hounding of Jews and Muslims, the multiplicity of faiths, cultures, and languages in Malacca could seem dangerous. ‘Pagan’ settlers such as those from China, India, Pegu, and island Southeast Asia were potentially untrustworthy as no ties of loyalty bound them to the ruler. Tomé Pires noted that ‘where the people are of different nations, these cannot love their king as do natives’.11 After all, the Chinese had been instrumental in aiding the Portuguese to overthrow the Malaccan sultan.12 The Islamic faith of some Malay, Indian, Arabian, Persian, Indonesian, and Chinese communities, either permanent residents in Malacca or visiting with the trade winds, was particularly threatening. Besides the rhetorical hostility towards Islam in sixteenth-century imperial literature, on a practical level the Portuguese perceived a risk of Muslim groups allying themselves with other powers.13 If the crusades really were about to shift to the Malaysian peninsular, how would the lonely Portuguese garrison defend the city, especially if many of its inhabitants had more in common with the Muslim enemies than the Christian conquerors? The Portuguese conquest of Malacca stimulated renewed Islamic proselytization and military aid from the Middle East and India when news spread through hajj pilgrims.14 The exiled Sultan of Malacca emphasized an Islamic identity against the cruel and unjust Portuguese impositions, whilst other Islamic sultanates manoeuvred to present themselves as the successors to Malacca as the leading Muslim, Malay power, imbued with the displaced sovereignty of the ousted sultan.15 In the course of the conquest a large number of Malacca’s inhabitants had been slaughtered or forced to flee.16 In Trinidade’s words, Albuquerque had won Malacca ‘with such a great slaughter of enemies that the streets were full of 9 Vice Roy to King, Goa, 16 March 1608, ANTT, Livros das Monções, liv. 35, f. 28r: ‘a [forteleza] mais importante, e a mais apetissida dos enemigos.’ 10 Thomaz, ‘Melaka et ses communautés de marchandes’, 42–3. 11 Pires, Summa oriental. Cited by Reid, ‘Cosmopolis and nation in central Southeast Asia’, 6. By ‘pagan’ or ‘gentile’, missionaries referred to non-Abrahamic religions. 12 Although Barros stated that the Portuguese turned down this offer of assistance. See Loureiro, Fidalgos, missionários e mandarins, 117–39; Thomaz, ‘The Malay sultanate of Melaka’, 87–9. 13 See also the discussion of these groups in Lobato, ‘Malaca’, 17–19. On Iberian anti-Muslim rhetoric and imperial policies see Pearson, Pious passengers, 96–9. 14 Sousa Pinto, ‘Captains, sultans and liaisons dangereuses’, 142; Ptak, ‘Reconsidering Melaka’, 7–8; Boxer, ‘A note on Portuguese reactions’, 420–1. 15 Andaya and Andaya, A history of Malaysia, 60–5; Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, II: 146–7. See also Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘The Islamic city’, 342–3 and Milner, ‘Islam and the Muslim state’, 29–39 on Islam, royal power, and international relations in Malay states. 16 Anthony Reid estimates that Malacca was reduced to a quarter of its pre-conquest population. ‘The seventeenth-century crisis in Southeast Asia’, 653.

52

Missionary Structures and Networks

blood’.17 Indeed the extent of the rout was seen as a particular sign of God’s grace. Albuquerque ‘set flowing much Moorish blood in Goa, Ormuz and Malacca’; the Portuguese ‘vanquished so many, and so often, and with such great death tolls of [enemies]’ despite their small number.18 Yet many Muslims and other nonChristians remained, and their conversion would be a first step towards turning back the tide of the ‘discord sown by Mohammad’.19 Under the Christian government of a colonial city, missionaries’ paths were not encumbered by obstacles such as the death penalty for apostasy from Islam and the open preaching of rival religious figures, which could exist in non-colonial Islamic regions. The Muslim elites had fallen from their previous privileged positions as non-Muslim merchants were encouraged to settle and trade in the city.20 Missionaries in Malacca could also call upon colonial authorities in their fight against the Malay mix of Islamic practices and local traditions of spirit propitiation which characterized the religious cultures they sought to replace.21 From the 1550s members of the religious orders began to draw on the resources of the fazenda and request that the Captain pass ordinances supporting their proselytization and programmes of moral reform. From the 1560s, the Goan Inquisition could also be called upon to investigate heresy and backsliding amongst Christians, although very few cases from Malacca were heard before the tribunal.22 Missionaries in Malacca thus had freedom to make public displays and to implement coercive measures to promote the faith. Furthermore, as a springboard into island and mainland Southeast Asia, Malacca could be ideal. Yet despite these clear advantages, many missionaries presented Malacca as an unfertile mission ground where the seeds of the Gospel could be broadcast but would seldom germinate. Missionary letters also conveyed a fortress mentality, depicting both the pressing threat of temporal enemies beyond the city bounds and the depraved behaviour of the city’s Portuguese denizens, which indicated that spiritual enemies were massing heavily at the gates. In the hearts of most ‘converts’ the seed of faith had never taken root and they turn immediately back to their former state: ‘the Christians of this land are very bad at taking to this [going to Church], because the majority are Moors and became Christians more through necessity, than because of a true faith which they carry with them.’23 In many missionary accounts green shoots were often choked by thorns: of the ‘seductions’ of Islam or of ‘pagan 17 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, 60: ‘com tão grande estrago dos inimigos que as ruas estavam cheias de sangue.’ 18 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, 68: ‘lança tanto sangue derramou de mouros em Goa, Ormuz e Malaca’ . . . ‘vencessem tantos e tantas vezes e com tão grandes estragos deles.’ 19 Jorge de Albuquerque, captain of Malacca to Manoel I, Malacca 8 January 1515, ABS I: 76–7: ‘a zizania semeada por Mafamede’. 20 Most Gujarati merchants re-located to Sumatra. See Reid, ‘Understanding Melayu’, 300. 21 On Malaccan religion see Winstedt, The Malays, 33–40; Andaya and Andaya, A history of Malaysia, 54–7; Thomaz, ‘The Malay sultanate of Melaka’, 79. 22 Thomaz, ‘Melaka et ses communautés de marchandes’, 43. 23 Afonso Martins, Vigario de Malacca to João III, 27 November 1532, SR II: 227: ‘os cristãos desta tera sam mui maos de tornar a iso, porque a maior parte sam Mouros e se fazem mais cristãos pela nececidade, que por Fe verdadeira que consigo tragam.’

Assessments of Conversion Potential

53

superstitions’, and of the worldly example of the unruly garrison and often impious colonial population from which neophytes should be kept.

Missionary explanations: the ‘seductions’ of Islam and the moral torpor of Malacca Missionaries explained this lack of success with reference both to the supposedly ‘nefarious’ effect of Islam on the spirit of the Malay population and to what they perceived to be the colonial population’s weakened moral character. The first perceived obstacle is described in many accounts as the most difficult to counter. Many Christian observers thought Muslims harder to convert than followers of other religions. The bishop of Malacca informed the Pope in 1624 that missions sent out to neighbouring lands faced many difficulties: ‘since the most part of the region consists of [the territory of] Muslim kings, [achieving] conversions there is very difficult, because wherever the cursed Mohammed sets foot, they fully reject the bread of Christ.’24 On the whole, despite Ignatius Loyola’s initial interest in the Holy Land, the Jesuits were not involved in extensive programmes of evangelism in the Islamic heartlands of the Middle East.25 Perhaps this had some bearing on the Jesuit decision to concentrate on the evangelization of the Portuguese, mestiço and slave population within the city walls, rather than ‘waste time’ on free Malays.26 The mendicant orders, on the other hand, who had more experience of evangelization in Islamic lands, continued to evangelize in the Muslim suburbs.27 Yet even in Malacca, perceived by some foreign Muslim visitors as lax and ripe for Islamic reform prior to the Portuguese invasion, the conversion of a Muslim to Catholicism was an occasion of special note.28 Attempting to explain the difficulty of converting Muslims, missionaries characterized Islam as ‘fanatical’, and as a near-incurable ‘infection’. Moreover, as the faith was spread for the most part by ‘ordinary’ Muslims—that is merchants and other travellers—it seemed phenomenally difficult to counter.29 Islamic missionary activity was presented as a subtle, pervasive threat, spread surreptitiously and deviously beneath the noses of the Portuguese, even aboard Portuguese ships: 24 Gonçalo da Silva, bishop of Malacca, to Gregory XV, Malacca 12 December 1624, ASV, Cong. Concilio, Relat. Dioec. 481, f. 15v: ‘E como a maior parte della consta de Rejs mouros, he mui difficultosa nelles aconuersaò; porq’ aonde o Maldito Mafemede meteo ope’ regeita’ muito o paò de Christo.’ 25 Thomaz, ‘Descobrimentos e evangelização’, 123. On Loyola’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem and early ideas of an apostolate to Muslims see Olin, ‘The idea of pilgrimage’, 387–91. 26 e.g. Darde, Histoire de ce qui s’est passé en Ethiopie, 77 describes the Jesuit college in Malacca, how the fathers go out on mission to other lands but in Malacca spend most time visiting the prisons and hospitals of the city. 27 Daniel, The Franciscan concept of mission, 110–21; Burns, ‘Christian–Islamic confrontation in the West’, 1389–91; Boisset, ‘Typologie des missions Franciscaines’, 214–15. 28 Lucarelli, ‘Viaggio dell’Indie’, SF II: 23. On the criticism by travellers from the Middle East of Muslims on the Indian Ocean littoral see Pearson, ‘Creating a littoral community’, 158–9; Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, II: 143. 29 Pearson, ‘Creating a littoral community’, 158; Andaya and Ishii, ‘Religious developments in Southeast Asia’, 170.

54

Missionary Structures and Networks

‘Under the pretext of being merchants, and bringing their merchandise there, they are allowed to stay in pagan lands, where, through the largesse and vices of their nefarious sect, they have perverted vast regions and kingdoms of these parts and made them Moors,’ wrote one Jesuit in Malacca.30 Indeed, he went on, they should be considered ‘the most pestiferous and odious thing which there is in these parts, because they take over wherever they go, and are so venerated by the pagans newly converted to their sect, that in Siam, which is one of the principle kingdoms on this coast, when these cacizes speak, they listen to them with their mouths open, waving their hands, saying that the air from these words, which enters via the mouth, sanctifies the heart’.31 Other missionaries attempted to explain the success of Islam by characterizing the religion as one which appealed to man’s baser instincts. Thus, the reason the Muslims of Persia would never convert, opined Jacques de Bourges, was that they were accustomed ‘to a life so voluptuous, that even when we convince them of their errors, they merely show themselves to be more opinionated and further from conversion, it being so difficult to subjugate to the purity of our holy religion those who place their happiness in the pleasures of life’.32 Missionaries in Southeast Asia frequently encountered the success of Islamic proselytization around the littoral and amongst some communities on the mainland such as the Cham (in what is now south-central Vietnam), some groups in Laos, and even a king of Cambodia.33 Missionary concerns over Islamic influence in Siam also increased in the seventeenth century.34 Various strains of Islam, especially Sufi mysticism, were able to adapt to Southeast Asian cultures, to be incorporated into local customs.35 Besides the convincing spiritual benefits, some rulers especially in Island Southeast Asia found that conversion granted access to a

30 Luís Fróis, from report of Baltasar Dias, to the Jesuits of Portugal, Malacca, 19 November 1556, DI III: 537: ‘com pretesto de serem mercadores e que levavão suas ffazendas ally, se deixavão fiquar nas terras dos gentios, donde, pella largueza e vicios de sua nephanda ceyta, tem pervertidas grandissimas terras e reinos destas partes a as fazerem mouros.’ 31 Baltasar Dias to the Jesuits of Portugal, Malacca, 19 November 1556, ABS II: 246: ‘Estes mouros he a mais pestifera e odeosa cousa que ha por estas partes, porque tudo abrazão, aonde chegão, e são tão venerados dos gentios, novamente conversos na sua ceyta, que em Sião, que he hum dos principaes reynos, que ha nesta costa, quando estes casizes falão, estão os ouvintes com as bocas abertas, avanando com a mão, dizendo que o ar daquellas palavras, que lhe entra pella boca, os santifica nos corações.’ ‘Cacizes’ (with various spellings) was the Portuguese term for the ulema (men trained in Islamic law) coming from Cairo and Mecca. See Thomaz, ‘Melaka et ses communautés marchandes’, 43. 32 Bourges, Relation de la voyage de Monseigneurl’évêque, 87: ‘à une vie si voluptueuse, que bien qu’on les convainque de leurs erreurs, ils ne s’en montrent souvent que plus opininâtres et plus éloignés de leur conversion, tant il est difficile d’assujettir à la pureté de notre sainte religion ceux qui mettent leur félicité dans les plaisirs de la vie.’ 33 Pearson’s study, ‘Conversions in Southeast Asia’ uses Portuguese and Spanish records to examine Islamic proselytization. See esp. 53–6 on competition between the two religions. See also Reid, ‘The Islamization of Southeast Asia’, 13–33. Connections between Muslim Cham and Malacca are mentioned in SM: 109–11. On the Cham and Islam see also Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, II: 187. On the conversion of Reamathipadei I of Cambodia, see Kersten, ‘Cambodia’s Muslim king’, esp. 11–15. See also Strathern, ‘Immanence and tolerance’. 34 e.g. Gervaise, Histoire naturelle et politique du Royaume de Siam, 203–1. 35 This process of spread and adaptation is mapped by Reid, ‘The Islamization of Southeast Asia’; Andaya and Ishii, ‘Religious developments in Southeast Asia’, 169–83; Some methodological issues are sketched by Jones, ‘Islam in Southeast Asia: problems and perspectives’.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

55

new language of political legitimacy, and international alliances through Red Sea merchants.36 ‘This wicked sect,’ warned one Spanish Jesuit, was represented everywhere in the Indies; ‘and with it comes obstinacy against and hatred towards our faith . . . Even as far as China, there are already many mosques.’37 According some missionaries, though, the people of Malacca were obdurate and lax in their faith for different reasons. Complaints concerning the moral laxity of the city and the irreligion of its Catholic denizens pepper many missionary accounts. Like some missionaries in the Spanish Philippines, they found that the colonization of the region was no guarantee of its Christianization, indeed great care must be taken to prevent backsliding and superstition amongst old Catholics and converts alike. In October 1547, when the city was at war with the Acehnese, Francis Xavier denounced the Catholics of the city for seeking spiritual remedy outside of the church in their time of need: ‘What poor Christians you are!’ he proclaimed from the pulpit, ‘There are women and other persons here who cast lots and confer with sorcerers who say that our fleet has been captured, and who are already mourning for their husbands.’38

Colonial conquest but spiritual defeat? Xavier’s complaint about the Christians of Malacca making recourse to ‘sorcerers’ echoed anxieties expressed by many of his confreres that the faith had laid only shallow roots in Malacca, evidenced by the number of their parishioners who consulted alternative spiritual practitioners. Like the Sufi holy men who had helped to inspire Malay conversions to Islam in a previous century, occasionally individual, charismatic Catholic priests, became a focus of devotion. Objects associated with such men—fabric from their clothing, medals and other items which had touched them—became sought after amongst Portuguese, convert and non-Christian communities of the city. We see this reported, for example, following the arrival of Xavier’s body in Malacca, and in the (failed) canonization proceedings of Luis da Cruz. Although, of course, candidates for sanctity have to be shown to have inspired popular devotions, such accounts do have some ring of truth when compared with other accounts of these non-Christian populations obtaining holy objects from renowned foreign holy men of a variety of faiths.39 Yet neither the Sufi saints nor Catholic priests succeeded in completely replacing local ritual specialists. The arrival of Islam in the Malay peninsula had failed to put an end to many local religious practices which were centred on images, figures, and 36 Andaya, ‘The search for the “origins” of Melayu’, 324–8; Reid, ‘Islamization and Christianization’, 158, 168–70; Kathirithamby-Wells, ‘The Islamic city’, 342–4. 37 Sánchez (Attrib.) ‘La inteligentia y estima que se debe tener de la obra de las Indias y de los medios por donde dios la a hecho y quiere que se haga’ ARSI, FG, VIII n. 722, f. 52v: ‘Esta mala seta . . . y con ella la pertinancia y odio contra nra fee, . . . hasta la mesma China tienen ya muchas mesquitas.’ 38 Schurhammer, Francis Xavier, III: 236. 39 Cf. Houben, ‘Southeast Asia and Islam’.

56

Missionary Structures and Networks

other sacred objects. The strains of Sufi mysticism which were adopted in the region could be adapted to local needs and served to imbue earlier devotions with new power. I would argue that while Islamic beliefs may indeed have created a barrier to Christian evangelism in Malacca, this was due to way in which Islamic ideas had been grafted on to local conceptions of spirits and rituals for their propitiation, without totally eradicating pre-Islamic practices and material culture. This created a very flexible and versatile system of the sacred, which addressed the concerns of the individual at every conceivable juncture. It is perhaps telling that in modern Malaysia, recurrent waves of Islamic reform failed to completely eradicate ritual specialists such as the pawang or bomor (‘magician’ or ‘shaman’).40 These Malay bomor often specialized in propitiating spirits and making safe specific daily activities: some would tell you when and where to fish and then control the weather and fish spirits to ensure a safe and profitable voyage; others were specialists in locating the rich products of the forests, and making the correct offerings to propitiate the relevant guardian spirits; others could advise on when and where to plant rice, and could provide separate rituals for every stage of growing and harvesting.41 Occasionally we catch glimpses of individuals who may be compared to these modern bomor. Malay-Portuguese scribe and cartographer, Manuel Godinho de Erédia, reported in his 1613 Declaraçam de Malaca the danger posed by the ‘wild men’ of the interior, who could change themselves into tigers (arymos) in order to harass the inhabitants of the city. These tiger-spirits, Erédia relates, were defeated once the bishop of Malacca excommunicated them and led prayers to the Virgin on the Feast of the Assumption, but other ‘enchantresses’ and ‘witches’ also caused problems. These women, Eredia alleges, also had a connection with tigers, and through their magic could control other animals to do their bidding. Skilled herbalists, shape-shifters, and ‘magicians’, some of these women were captured by the bishop and excommunicated, but Erédia leaves an impression that they were worryingly ubiquitous.42 Some modern bomor still obtain a spirit helper from ‘tiger villages’ in the forests, and many rituals illustrate the complex relationship between the bomor and tiger spirits. Indeed, the souls of dead bomor were believed by some to take the form of tigers; in other parts of Malaysia tigers or ‘wer-tigers’ appear during séances.43 Although increasingly less common in contemporary Malaysia, despite repeated attempts by Islamic reformers, some people still make recourse to such individuals. Even the ceremonies of exorcism which Catholic priests and converts were seen to perform effectively in Tonkin and Cochinchina in Malacca could seem to remain the preserve of the bomor. Indeed, in modern Malaysia in the 1970s the Catholic Church sanctioned the creation of new ceremonies featuring an exciting, almost Pentecostal blend of exorcism, glossolalia, and ecstatic transports in response to the

40

See Endicott, An analysis of Malay magic. Endicott, An analysis of Malay magic, 23–5. 42 Eredia, Declaraçam, 41ss. 43 Endicott, An analysis of Malay magic, 15–16, 20–1; Skeat, Malay magic, 70–1. See also Ahmed, ‘Rehabilitating Eden’. 41

Assessments of Conversion Potential

57

perceived problem of Malaysian Catholics seeking out the help of such nonChristian ceremonies to solve their problems.44 Reading between the lines of early modern missionary complaints that their parishioners succumbed to easily to superstition and frequently consulted diviners and sorcerers, it seems that Catholic missionaries in Malacca were not always able to offer the same form of specialized, specific advice as these kinds of ritual practitioners. In comparison to highly trained local ritual specialists, who had both practical and spiritual knowledge for each situation, neither missionaries nor lay Catholics had the necessary skills, nor could offer a sufficient range of devotional practices and objects to meet all local needs. S IA M —STONY GROUND The first editions of the printed Jesuit Avisi particolari—news from the overseas missions—contained extracts from letters by Fernão Mendes Pinto, who had just entered the Society’s novitiate in Malacca. He shared his experience of the lands he had previously visited as a merchant, describing the opulence of the Siamese court and the city of Ayutthaya (‘the greatest thing that I have seen in these parts’) to encourage his brethren to come and share in the harvest. To his confreres in Coimbra—and the wider readership of the printed version—he presented the tantalising promise of the Buddhist lands of Southeast Asia, and the urgent need to embark on their conversion.45 He is keen that his readership should also recognise the urgency with which this evangelism must be undertaken. In Ayutthaya, he writes, Catholic evangelists have to compete with Islamic scholars: ‘there are thirty thousand Moors in the city, something to greatly perturb the soldiers of Christ, as the perverse sect of Mohammad prevails to such an extent amongst these gangs and extends so far the zeal of its perversity. These Moors continuously preach the Qur’an of Mohammad.’46 For Pinto, the situation in Siam seemed promising, not least because the king of the realm allowed foreigners to settle and preach. The king is described as ‘the person second to God’, but although he claimed absolute authority over the lives of his subjects, ‘the king does not force the Siamese to be pagans, nor Moors, because, they say, he reasons that he is not the lord of souls, but only of bodies.’47 Ackerman, ‘The language of religious innovation’. Fernão Mendes Pinto, ‘Copia dv’na [sic] di Fernando Mendez de diuersi costumi e varie cose che hà visto’, in Avisi particulari dell’Indie di Portugallo . . . del 1555 (n.p.): ‘la magior cosa che in queste parte ho visto’. 46 Fernão Mendes Pinto, ‘Copia dv’na [sic] di Fernando Mendez de diuersi costumi e varie cose che hà visto’, in Avisi particulari dell’Indie di Portugallo . . . del 1555 (n.p.): ‘vi sono da trenta milia fuochi di Mori nella Città: cosa molto per confondere li soldati di Christo, poi che tanto preuale in qu’ste bande la peruersa setta di Maomettho & tanto si stende il zelo di sua peruersità. Questi Mori predicano cõtinuamëte l’alcorano di Maomettho.’ 47 Fernão Mendes Pinto, ‘Copia dv’na [sic] di Fernando Mendez de diuersi costumi e varie cose che hà visto’, in Avisi particulari dell’Indie di Portugallo . . . del 1555 (n.p.): ‘la seconda persona d’Iddio’. ‘il Re non sforza farsi li Sionesi gentili, ne Mori, p che dicono che esso da per ragione se non esser padrone delle anime: ma solamëte de corpi.’ 44 45

58

Missionary Structures and Networks

Furthermore, many observers saw evidence in local beliefs and religious practices in Theravada Buddhist lands such as Siam and Pegu that Christianity had once laid roots in these regions, and therefore could once more. Pinto, for example, reports that people in Pegu worship ‘three gods in one’: ‘it amazed me that these people being in such darkness should so clearly speak of the truth of our faith’48 Faith in the Trinity, according to this account, was almost inherent: it was up to missionaries now to work with that spark of knowledge and eradicate the incorrect interpretations and idolatrous trappings accrued. Similarly, many observers were struck by the similarities between the hierarchies and practices of the Buddhist Sangha or order of monks (Figure 5) and European monasticism. One Augustinian, Sebastião Manrique, described Burmese, and by extension Buddhist organisation in other lands: ‘Their Rahan, priests and religious are divided into various orders and dignities, the first of these is the Pongyi, which amongst them signifies the same as our episcopal dignity. To mark this, these wear a mitre or yellow tiara on their head, but with the crest turned inwards. The Panzin are of lesser dignity, almost like abbots. The Maung-shin are like simple priests.’49 Some Jesuits in Siam saw such features as evidence that Christianity had previously reached the country, ‘but all is altered with fables and lies which the Devil is teaching them.’50 A recurrent image of the self-immolation of Buddhist monks ‘who live more withdrawn and austere lives, and after some years throw themselves live into a fire, and are venerated as saints’ features in numerous accounts.51 It seemed to be a cruel simulacrum of a Christian martyrdom—indeed it is described as ‘a martyrdom’ in some accounts, but also as a ‘diabolic sacrifice’ in which ‘the unfortunate, without remedy, begins to feel the baneful prelude to the eternal flames of hell’.52 Simon de la Loubère also reported that some missionaries believed in a Christian origin for the Sangha. The similarity between Siamese ‘abbots’ and Catholic ecclesiasts suggested that Siam had had Christian bishops, ‘to whom the Sancrats have succeeded’.53 Further evidence was found in the sema 48 Fernão Mendes Pinto, ‘Copia dv’na [sic] di Fernando Mendez de diuersi costumi e varie cose che hà visto’, in Avisi particulari dell’Indie di Portugallo . . . del 1555 (n.p.): ‘marauigliomi che stando questi in tenebre nominassero tanto chiaramente la verita, di nostra fede.’ 49 Manrique, Breve relatione de i regni di Pegú, Arracan, e Brama, e degl’ Imperij del Calaminan, Siamom, e gran Mogor (Pamphlet, 1643), in APF SOCG 192, ff. 263–6: ‘I loro Raulini, Sacerdoti, e Religiosi si distinguono in varij ordini, e Dignità, le principali di esse sono i Pungrini, che tra di loro singnifica come in noi la dignità Vescouale, per insegna della qualle portano in testa mitra, ò tiara gialla, mà con la sommità riuolta in dietro, i Pangiani sono di minor dignità, quasi come Abbati, i Moxani son come Sacerdoti semplici.’ For the modern Burmese translations of these terms I have used Lach, Asia in the making, III: 1137. Rahan is a general term for religious men, pongyi refers to fully ordained monks, panzin are ordained monks who do not belong to a monestary, maung-shin are novices. 50 ‘Relatione del Regno di Siam’, 1658 ARSI JapSin 76, f. 3v: ‘pero tutto stà alterato con le fauole, e buggie che il demonio gli stá insegnando.’ 51 ‘Relatione del Regno di Siam’, 1658 ARSI JapSin 76, f. 3v: ‘che uiuano uita piu ritirata, e austera, e doppo alcuni anni si butano uiuj nel fogo, e sono ueneratj come sancti’. 52 ‘Relatione del Regno di Siam’, 1658 ARSI JapSin 76, f. 3v: ‘un Martirio’; ‘diabolico sacrificio’; ‘il miserabile senza rimedio començio a sentire il preludio funesto dell’fiame eterne dell’inferno’. 53 Loubère, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 114. It seems that Loubère must be referring to the sankha raht (สังฆราช), which in modern Thai refers to the leaders of the Sangha (sankha—สังฆ) in Siam. Titles for ‘abbot’ (e.g. the heads of monasteries) in Thai include sohm det

Assessments of Conversion Potential

59

Figure 5. A Siamese Buddhist monk. From Guy Tachard, Voyage de Siam des Pères Jesuites (1686). Cambridge University Library O.3.33. Between pp. 416–17. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

markers which indicated that a temple was the residence of a sancrat: ‘tis the resemblance of these stones with the mitres’ which persuaded the missionaries of Siamese fore-knowledge of Christianity.54 The esteem shown towards certain forms of monasticism also suggested certain shared spiritual values to some authors. Those men who practised as ‘hermits, anchorites and cenobites’ were the most valued, explained Manrique. They abstained from contact with women and ‘profess also great charity and affability’, sheltering strangers ‘for the love of God, and if they are poor, they help them as far

(สมเด็จ) or sohm pahn (สมภาร). Tambiah suggests that abbots in provinces which were governed indirectly by the king were also given the title of sankha raht in the Ayutthaya period. World conqueror and world renouncer, 181. 54 Loubère, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 114.

60

Missionary Structures and Networks

as they are able’.55 Picking up a common trope in missionary literature which sought traces of ancient evangelism in the furthest East, such account might seem hopeful: here was shared ground in which a new faith could be planted. Siamese royal policy of encouraging foreign settlements in order to build up strategic alliances, communities of merchants and a skilled mercenary corps left the door open to the first missionary attempts of the Dominicans from 1566.56 Yet the captains of Malacca often favoured making overtures to the Burmese kingdoms rather than Siam, and Portuguese attacks on Siamese vassal states, or indeed support for vassals’ rebellions, strained relations.57 These foreign policy priorities of Malacca, as well as the near continuous and damaging wars between Siam and her neighbours, limited the number of missionaries travelling there in sixteenth century. The fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese in 1569 put an end to the Siamese missions for some years.58 After a period of Burmese domination, King Naresuan (r. 1590–1605) gained the Siamese throne, reasserted his land’s independence and his own royal authority, and once again sought to secure alliances by welcoming foreigners to his capital.59 Interest in the evangelism of Siam was thus given new impetus during the reigns of Naresuan and his successors, especially Ekathotsarot (1605–1610/11), Prasat Thong (1629–56) and Narai (1657–88).60 Their encouragement of immigrant communities and the freedom granted to practise their faith and to build churches (Figure 6) restored Ayutthaya, and later major port towns such as Tenassarim, Mergui, and Bangkok as missionary focal points. French missionaries were particularly encouraged by the cordial relations established with Narai, and felt sure that the favour shown to them would soon translate into a royal conversion. Japanese Christians who had fled persecutions in their homeland, and later were again displaced by wars and persecutions in Cochinchina and Cambodia, flocked to Ayutthaya. In 1660 Jesuit Tommaso Valguarnera reported that the Japanese Christian community was once again growing by the day: a Japanese Jesuit father 55 Manrique, Breve relatione de i regni di Pegú, Arracan, e Brama, e degl’ Imperij del Calaminan, Siamom, e gran Mogor (Pamphlet, 1643), in APF SOCG 192, f. 264v: ‘professano anche gran carità, & affabilità’ ‘per amor di Dio, e se son poueri gli aiutano à lor potere.’ 56 A clear, concise overview of Siamese foreign relations is given in Smithies & Bressan, Siam and the Vatican, 11–22. On the growing foreign mercenary presence see Baker, ‘Ayutthaya rising’, 55–6. On the Portuguese communities in Siam see Carvalho, ‘La présence portugaise`a Ayutthaya’ and Smith, Creolization and Diaspora. 57 See Flores, Os portugueses e o Sião, 37–46; 56–64. On Portuguese support for rebellions, for example of Patani in the 1630s, see Wyatt, A short history of Siam, 110. 58 Flores, Os portugueses e o Sião, 116–21 gives a succinct overview of the situation in the sixteenth century. On internal disturbances and the uprisings of vassal states in the sixteenth century see Wyatt, A short history of Thailand, 89–91. On Burmese expansionism, see Hall, A history of South-East Asia, 181, 287–92; Surakiat, ‘The changing nature of conflict between Burma and Siam’ 14–20. The Burmese Toungoo rulers, who moved their capital to Pegu after conquering this kingdom and the rest of the delta region in the 1530s, created the largest empire in Southeast Asia, with the mandala of their suzerainty stretching from the outskirts of Cambodia to Manipur (Northeast India) and from Arakan (western coast of Burma) to Yunnan (southwest China). See Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 152. 59 Terweil, ‘The battle of Nong Sarai (1593)’, 43–54. Wyatt, A short history of Thailand, 101–5. 60 The dates of Ekathotsarot’s death are disputed in the chronicles. Each reign began with a succession struggle, see Wyatt, A short history of Thailand, 105–7.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

61

Figure 6. Map of Ayutthaya, showing the position of the Dominican (‘Jacobin’) and Jesuit churches and the Missions Étrangères Seminary. From Simon de la Loubère, A new historical relation of Siam (1693). Cambridge University Library T.7.35 Opposite p. 7. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

was running a school which already taught forty children.61 Later that decade MEP priest Jacques de Bourges put the total number of Catholics in Ayutthaya at two thousand.62 Yet missionaries often found these groups slid easily into error, or took up Siamese customs following marriage. The Jesuits in Ayutthaya, for example, had several difficult encounters with members of the Japanese community, ‘not with those who still keep the name of Christian, who are not more than ten or twelve in number, but with those who having received Holy Baptism, are yet so forgetful of the things of God, and of the prayers that they memorised, and live worse than the Pagans’.63 One man, who had married a Siamese woman, had lapsed so far that ‘his whole household became so remiss in the things of their salvation, that they would not be known as Christian’. Following several visits from a Jesuit he repented, ‘exhorting his wife and family to do the same, without fruit, however, because they 61

Tommaso Valguarnera to superiors, Siam, 30 May 1660, ARSI JapSin 76, ff. 21r–v. Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Êvêque de Beryte, 164. 63 ‘Noticias da Missão de Haynão de Junho de 86 athé Julho d87 pa o Padre Provincial’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-19, f. 832v: ‘não com aquelles q’ ainda conservão o nome de Christão, q não serão mais de dez, ou doze, mas com aquellas q tendo recebido o Sto Baptismo, estavão ja das couzas de Deos tão esquecidos q nem as oraçoens lhe lembrão, e vivem peuores q os mesmos Gentios.’ 62

62

Missionary Structures and Networks

were very obstinate in their errors, and committed to the depravities that the Talapoins [Buddhist monks] had placed in their heads’.64 This inability of a Christian man to persuade his even his own wife and household seemed to foreshadow the difficulties that missionaries faced when they sought to convert the Siamese. Despite the advantages given by a welcoming ruler and the existence of an apparent foreknowledge of Christianity in the kingdom, missionaries secured few conversions. Following Narai’s death in 1688, the missions in Siam were plunged into confusion, as a struggle over the succession resulted in a backlash against the French presence in the realm. Many missionaries and converts were imprisoned, and constrictions on their movements and activities were not lifted until 1691. Missionaries were left to explain how such promise had yielded such little fruit.

Missionary Explanations: Temporal Interests, Intellectual Indifference, and Spiritual Slavery Naval commander Claude de Forbin, part of the French embassy to Siam in 1688, wryly offered one suggestion to explain this failure: the Siamese, he suggested, ‘find their morality more perfect than ours, and have no esteem for our missionaries, who live in a manner less austere than the Talapoins’. The latter ‘far surpass, at least on the exterior, our most reformed religious’.65 Missionaries, on the other hand, tended to find alternative explanations rooted in the ‘character’ of the peoples whom they sought to convert. Many Jesuits, for example, depicted the Sangha as a political, power-hungry, and corrupt institution, hard to contend with due to the eternal pull of temporal interests. An account by Guy Tachard, for example, describes Buddhist monks in Siam as existing ‘in crass ignorance, these sorts of people lead a sluggish life of incredible idleness and indolence’.66 They never assemble the people in the pagodas for prayers, he asserted, and never themselves pray; when they do preach, it is ‘never by heart, but always reading from a book, and the topic of their predictions is always to do good to the Talapoins in order to gain great merit.’67 Their addiction to worldly gain explains why missionaries managed to convert so few of them, he argued.

64 ‘Noticias da Missão de Haynão de Junho de 86 athé Julho d87 pa o Padre Provincial’ BA, JnÁ, 49-V-19, f. 832v: ‘toda a sua caza tornasse tanto atraz nas couzas de sua salvação, q ja se não conhecia Christão.’ ‘exhortando a sua mulher, e familia fação o mesmo, porem sem fruito, pq estão muy obstinados em seus erros, e mui empenhados com os deprarios que os Talapoes lhe metem na cabeça.’ 65 Forbin, Le voyage du comte de Forbin à Siam, 137–8: ‘ils trouvent leur morale plus parfait que la nôtre, ils n’estiment pas nos missionaires qui vivent d’un manière moins austère que les talapoins.’ ‘surpassent de beaucoup, au moins extérieurement, nos religieux les plus réformés.’ 66 Guy Tachard, ‘Memoires secrets’, ARSI JapSin 78, f. 21v: ‘Dans une ignorance crasse, ces sortes de gens menent une vie languissante avec une oisivete et une indolence incroyables.’ The fact that this was written after the revolution, when Tachard was disillusioned by the situation, is perhaps salient. 67 Guy Tachard, ‘Memoires secrets’, ARSI JapSin 78, f. 22r: ‘jamais par coeur, mais toujours en lisant dans un liure; et tout le sujet de leurs prédications est de faire du bien aux Talapoins pour amasser un grand poids demerites.’

Assessments of Conversion Potential

63

Moreover, he blamed the monks for the upheaval of 1688 and the subsequent persecutions of Christians in the kingdom. For Tachard, the worldliness of the monks reflected character flaws shared by their compatriots, which would prevent the seed of the faith from ever taking root: The slavery in which these people live, the plurality of women, their crudeness concerning matters which are not obvious, their indifference for religion, the ridiculous ideas to which they are predisposed, and especially their fickleness which cannot be checked, have been up till now insurmountable obstacles for the establishment of Christianity in this kingdom.68

He dismisses accounts which relate any success: when the test came in times of persecution, the Siamese failed. Although it has been published in Europe that a large number of people have been baptised over the numerous years that we have worked here, I can protest that not one Siamese is to be found who made a profession of Christianity during the persecution, when the Christians of every nation – Peguan, Cochinchinese, Japanese, Portuguese, French, loudly declared their confession of Jesus Christ.69

Some Jesuit authors accused the French missionaries of having misrepresented the conversion potential of Siam, stating that Jesuits had always remarked on the small likelihood of mass conversions in the kingdom.70 In fact, although perhaps overlyoptimistic about a royal conversion, Missions Étrangères depictions of the ‘national character’ of the Siamese described the difficulty of evangelisation in the country from the 1660s. The ‘nature’ of the Siamese people is usually described as ‘gentle’, their demeanour ‘affable to foreigners who they respect sooner than hate’.71 Yet after a few years attempting to convert them to the faith, most missionaries determined that this ‘gentleness’ and affability impeded conversion. The gentleness of their nature, the access to and acquaintance with so many foreigners, the diplomatic condescension they are obliged to have for them, has committed them to this pernicious opinion that, with no hope of finding the truth, they will not trouble themselves at all with the search. This indifference is one of the greatest obstacles to their conversion: because when Christian Doctors propose our Holy Faith, and explain 68 Guy Tachard, ‘Memoires secrets’, ARSI JapSin 78, f. 21r: ‘L’esclavage dans le quel vit ce peuple, la pluralite’ des femmes, sa grossiereté pour les choses qui ne tombent pas sous les sens, l’indifference pour la Religion, les ideés ridicules dont ils sont prévenus, et plus que tout ce la leur inconstance qui ne peut estre arrestée, ont esté jusqu’icy des obstacles invincibles pour l’etablissement du Christianisme dans ce Royaume.’ More hopeful accounts also worried that polygamy would prove a great obstacle to conversion. See Gervaise, Histoire naturelle et politique du Royaume de Siam, 93. 69 Guy Tachard, ‘Memoires secrets’, ARSI JapSin 78, f. 21r: ‘quoyqu’on ait publié en Europe du grand nombre de gens qu’on avoit baptisés depuis plusieurs années qu’on y travaille, je puis protester qu’il ne s’est par trouvé un seul Siamois qui ait fait profession du Christianisme dans la persecution ou les Chrestiens de toute nation, Pegouans, Cochinchinois, Japonois, Portugais, Francois, se sont declarez hautement pour la confession de Jesus Christ.’ 70 The anonymous author of ‘Alcune notitie spettanti alle missioni de la China, Tunchino, Cocincina, e Siã delle ultime lettere, e relationi che si sono havute da quelle parte.’ (1686) makes this point. BA, JnÁ, 49-V-19, ff. 906r–v. 71 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Êvêque de Beryte, 154: ‘leur nature est doux’ ‘affable aux Étrangers qu’ils respectent plustot qu’ils ne les méprisent’.

64

Missionary Structures and Networks

to them the reasons which prove its truth, they do not contradict, and admit that the Christian religion is good, they merely point out that it is foolish to reject the other religions, and since these aim to honour the Gods, that it must be supposed that the Gods will be content with them.72

Without a royal conversion and subsequent enforcement of Christianity throughout the realm, the conversion of the population was very unlikely. The politeness and interest shown by Siamese kings towards missionaries was emulated by their subjects, but this rarely led to baptism: ‘In a word, the Siamese listen with satisfaction to the discourses we deliver to them on the majesty of the Creator, but they do not easily suffer us to disabuse them of their superstitions, and when they perceive that you aim to cast some doubt over what they believe, they no longer have ears to hear you.’73 They are very attached to their religion, Bourges warned, and one should not insult it.74 In their own way, then, the Siamese were depicted as being as intransigent as Muslims in resisting Catholicism. However, rather than ‘fanaticism’, it was ‘indifference’ that was blamed for preventing their conversion. ‘They say then that heaven is like a great palace to which many roads will lead, some shorter, others more busy, others more difficult, but all eventually arrive at the Palace of happiness sought by men . . . Their indifference for religion only comes from ignorance of the Unity of God, who is not honoured by contrary and opposing cults.’75 Thus they were willing to accept the value and merit of other religions, but saw no reason to adopt them. The Monita ad Missionarios of Pallu and Lambert—their guide to evangelisation for future missionaries—clearly reflects their experiences in Siam: ‘It is not rare to meet pagans who, full of admiration for the sublimeness of these dogmas and perfectly convinced of their truth, remain no less attached to the cult of idols.’ Possibly from bitter experience, the authors find it necessary to warn missionaries against despondency and waning zeal faced with this intransigence.76 72 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Beryte, 167: ‘La douceur de leur nature, l’abord & la frequentation de tant d’Estrangers, la condescendance politique qu’ils sont obligez d’avoir pour eux; les ont engagez en cette pernicieuse opinion; qui fait que desesperant de trouver la verité, ils ne se soucient nullement d’en faire la recherche. Cette indifference est un des plus grands obstacles à leur conversion: car quand les Docteurs Chrestiens leur proposent notre sainte Foy, & qu’ils leur expliquent les raisons qui en prouvent la verité, ils ne contredisent pas; & avoüant que la Religion des Chrestiens est bonne, ils representent seulement qu’il y a de la temerité à rejetter les autres Religions, & puisqu’elles ont pour but d’honorer les Dieux; qu’il faut croire qu’ils s’en contentent.’ 73 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Beryte, 184–5: ‘En un mot les Siamois écoutent avec satisfaction les discours qu’on leur tient de le majesté du Createur, mais ils ne souffrent pas aisément qu’on les desabuse de leurs superstitions; & quand ils s’apperçoivent que vous pretendez leur donner du scrupule sur ce qu’ils croyent, ils n’ont plus d’oreilles pour vous écouter.’ Note that the last phrase echoes the concluding words of the ‘Parable of the Sower’: ‘he that has ears to hear, let him hear’ (Matthew 11:15). 74 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Beryte, 183–4. 75 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Beryte, 166–7: ‘Ils disent donc que le Ciel est comme un grand Palais où plusieurs chemins vont aboutir, les uns sont plus courts, d’autres plus frequentez, d’autres plus difficiles, mais tous enfin arriven au Palais de la felicité que les hommes cherchent[ . . . ] leur indifference pour la Religion ne procede que de l’ignorance de l’Vnité de Dieu, qui ne peut estre honoré par des cultes contraires & opposez.’ 76 Pallu and de la Motte, Monita ad missionarios, 67–8: ‘il n’est pas rare de rencontrer des païens qui, remplis d’admiration pour la sublimité de ces dogmes et parfaitement convaincus de leur vérité, n’en restent pas moins attachés au culte des idoles.’

Assessments of Conversion Potential

65

This indifference or ‘passivity’ was also linked by some observers to Siamese social structures. According to the sakdina system the whole population of the country was ranked and given a social grade. Each grade determined the amount of corvée (unpaid) labour the individual must provide, either for the king or for private patrons. Escaping labour necessitated becoming a patron and having one’s own dependants.77 The complexity and endurance of the networks of dependency which this created struck many European observers as oppressive and a fundamental reason why so few conversions were obtained in Siam: ‘the reason for this difficulty,’ wrote one Jesuit working in Siam, Burma and Cambodia, ‘is largely based in the political government of these three kingdoms, where only the king is free, and all the vassals are slaves.’78 Another Jesuit noted that while there were no laws preventing conversion, ‘this general slavery of the lowly to the great, and the great to the greater, and these to the king, is a great impediment to their conversion’.79 For missionaries, then, Siam proved unfertile ground due to what they saw as the passivity and indifference and servile condition of their target audience.

The King, the Sangha, and the Efficacy of Existing Spiritual Remedies In the politico-religious situation of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Siam we find some conditions which would explain why the missionaries encountered such ‘indifference’ to their message. While missionaries may have found some success during the years of turmoil in the early sixteenth century, under King Naresuan began a period of territorial expansion, internal political consolidation, and intensified religious reform, which would continue under his successors and which strengthened the position of the king and the role of Buddhism in the kingdom.80 Foreign kingdoms began to take a greater interest in this growing ‘empire’, sending embassies and seeking alliances and trading treaties.81 As Siam emerged from the ashes of a tumultuous sixteenth century, although no restrictions were placed on Christian preaching or worship, many missionaries in Siam were increasingly disappointed at the lack of conversions, and the seeming shallowness of the faith of those they baptized.

77 This simplified description of Siamese social structures is based on Quaritch Wales, Ancient Siamese government and administration, 21–33, 35–6, 46–7, 50–3; Turton, ‘Thai institutions of slavery’, 252–4, Nunbhakdi, ‘Étude sur le système de sakdina’, 460–8; and Vickery, ‘The constitutions of Ayutthaya’, 133–210. 78 ‘Relatione del Regno di Siam, 1658’, ARSI JapSin 76, f. 1r: ‘la ragione di questa difficultà se funda in gran parte nel gouierno politico di questi tre Regni, doue il re solo he libero, e tutti i uassali schiaui’. 79 Thomas Valguarnera to superiors, Siam, 1 May 1659, ARSI JapSin 76, ff. 13v–14r: ‘Este catiuo geral os pequenos dos gr.des os grandes dos mais gr.des., e estes del Rej, he grande empedim.to p’ se conuerterem.’ 80 Ishii, ‘Religious patterns and economic change in Siam’, 184–7. On administrative stablization and political centralization see Lieberman, Strange parallels I: 277–82. Gervaise, Histoire naturelle et politique du royaume de Siam, 77 said it was the most ‘monarchical’ (le plus Monarchique) kingdom of the Indies. 81 See Wyatt, A short history of Thailand, 109–13.

66

Missionary Structures and Networks

The first obstacle to conversion—the sacral nature of Siamese kingship—was perhaps the most important. A blend of Indic-Brahmin and Buddhist concepts of kingship was adopted by many rulers in Southeast Asia to provide additional ideological frameworks and ceremonial structures which supported and strengthened notions of divine kingship and sacral power.82 Thus in Siam, the king was a bodhisattva (‘Buddha-to-be’ or Buddhist ‘saint’) and dhammaraja (ideal king, defender of Buddhist teachings), leading his subjects in virtue.83 He was the ‘cosmic centre’ of the kingdom, the cakkavatti—universal emperor and conqueror, owner of all temporalities and bodies within his mandala of influence yet also one who renounces these worldly concerns.84 He was devaraja—the royal vessel of divinity, an essence of the transcendent on earth.85 Royal ceremonies helped to ensure the fertility of the land and the safety of its people.86 These concepts of royalty were both modified and reinforced by the role of the king as patron of Theravāda Buddhism, which was adopted as a reform between the eleventh and twelfth centuries.87 Royal blood infused the Sangha, with ties between royalty and religion enforced as royal relations spent time in the monkhood: ‘They so esteem their priests of the Idols, called Talapoins, that many sons of the king and his nobles take the habit of the Talapoins and live in houses near the temple of the Idols, like in a monastery.’88 Royal authority and Buddhism were intertwined and rooted to the land through patronage of sacred buildings and the discovery of and

82 The mechanisms for and timing of the arrival and adoption of Hindu and Buddhist traditions in Southeast Asia from pre-historic times, has provoked considerable debate. See Cdès, The making of Southeast Asia, 219–21; Hall, A history of South-East Asia, 12–24. On the adoption of these traditions in Siam in particular see Saraya, (Sri) Dvaravati, 47–9 and Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, 19–31. On new Brahmin traditions imported from the Khmers (Cambodia) in the Ayutthaya period see Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, 89–91. 83 Lévy-Ward, ‘Rites hindous de consecration d’un roi bouddhiste’, 240; Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, 96–8; Cdès, The making of Southeast Asia, 220. 84 On the mandala conception of royal authority in Southeast Asia in general, see Wolters, History, culture and religion in Southeast Asia, 27–9. On the cakkavatti or chakravartin (‘wheel-turner’) in classical Buddhism and its use in Siam see May, Transcendence and violence, 87–8, 141–2; Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, 39–47, 115. See also Loubère, A new historical relation, 7 on Portuguese confusion over whether or not the Siamese consider their king a god. 85 This is a concept from classical India, and positioned the king as an avatar of Hindu divinities. Transliterated as เทวราชา in Thai. See Lévy-Ward, ‘Rites hindous de consecration d’un roi bouddhiste’, 232–42; May, Transcendence and violence, 88. 86 e.g. on the ploughing ceremony, see Loubère, A new historical relation, 20. 87 Previously the Mahāyāna tradition had predominated. See Dhaninivat, A history of Buddhism, 144. Although Siamese rulers periodically turned to Sri Lanka for Theravāda reformers, the Mon lands of coastal Burma were also an important source of this reform of Buddhism. See Wyatt, ‘Relics, oaths and politics’, 6, 48–9. 88 ‘Relatione del Regno di Siam, 1658’, ARSI JapSin 76, f. 2r–v: ‘stimano tanto suoi sacerdoti degl’Idoli che chiamano Talapoi, che molti figli del Rè e de suoi grandi pigliano l’abito di Talapoi e uiuono in alcune case uicino al templo degl’Idoli a modo di monestario.’ ‘Talapoin’ comes from the Mon term, tīla puin (‘Lord of merit’), used in Pegu (Burma) and picked up by European travellers who used it to refer to Buddhist monks in other countries. The term ‘bonze’ (from the Japanese ‘bônzi’) was also used by Europeans to describe members of the Sangha, but usually this was used in Tonkin and Cochinchina rather than Siam. The Thai term is ‘Bhiksu’ (ภิกษุ). This is also discussed by Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 260.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

67

pilgrimage to relics within the kingdom: traditionally such sacred objects could only be discovered and handled by virtuous and powerful kings.89 Relations between royal power, Buddhism, and the good of the kingdom were further defined when the king initiated reforms which could challenge the autonomy of the Sangha and impose his sacral authority as a defender of Buddhist teachings.90 The suitability of kings for this role was argued due to their high level of moral merit, demonstrated by rebirth into the royal family.91 Simon de la Loubère’s account shows the effect of the waves of reform which had swept the Siamese Sangha from the fourteenth century, culminating with the strict purges under Narai. He notes that as the monks were excused from corvée labour and other obligations, it was sometimes necessary ‘to diminish the number of these privileged persons’. To this end the king ‘causes them to be from time to time examined as to their knowledge, which respects the Balie [Pāli] Language and its Books: and when we arrived in this Country [in 1687] he had just reduc’d several Thousands to the Secular condition, because they had not been found learned enough’.92 Considering the intimate connections between royal authority and Buddhism, and the ways in which religious reforms were used to consolidate royal control, it is unsurprising that no Siamese ruler would dream of converting to Christianity.93 Yet their patronage of Buddhism did not result in a cuius regio, eius religio doctrine. When Bourges enquired why the king allowed diversity of faith in his realm, he was told that it was because the king ‘draws great profit from the residence of foreigners in his realms, either for their arts, or for the turnover of merchandise from the country or for access to goods from outside’. Furthermore, the Siamese were generally of the opinion ‘that all religion is good, that is why they are not against any, as long as it abides by the laws of the government of the land’.94 Several missionaries misread this situation, mistaking courtesy, interest, and tactical preferments for openness to royal conversion. This was especially the case with Narai. MEP missionaries and some Jesuits were convinced he could be persuaded to convert to Christianity, and were supported and manipulated in their ambitions by Greek adventurer Constance Phaulkon, who had become a close adviser of the king.95 89 Wyatt, ‘Relics, oaths and politics’, 35–7; Ginsburg, Thai manuscript painting, 19–21; Ishii, ‘Religious patterns and economic change in Siam’, 188. 90 See Andaya and Ishii, ‘Religious developments’, 205–6. On tensions and complexity of king’s position as lay protector and overseer of Sangha see Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, 182–3, 189 and Ishii, ‘Religious patterns and economic change in Siam’, 190–3. 91 Wyatt, ‘The subtle revolution’, 10. 92 Loubère, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 115. 93 Strathern, ‘Transcendentalist intransigence’ offers a stimulating theoretical consideration of why conversion to monotheism was resisted by Theravāda monarchs, see esp. 373 on crisis of legitimacy which could result. 94 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Êvêque de Beryte, 165–6: ‘il tire un grand profit du sejour que les Estrangers font dans ses Estats, soit pour les Arts, soit pour le debit des marchandises du pays, soit por l’abord de celles de dehors’. ‘que toute Religion est bonne, c’est pourquoy ils ne se montrent contraires à aucune, pourveu qu’elle subsister avec les loix du Gouvernement du pays.’ 95 Fermanel de Favéry, Relation des missions des éveques françois, 8, 15–16; Bénigne Vachet (1641– 1720) in particular felt that the missionaries had been duped by Phaulkon to believe in the imminent conversion of Narai. See his ‘Quelques eclairissements sur les Ambassades’, AMEP 853, ff. 1–22.

68

Missionary Structures and Networks

Envoys from Persia were also hopeful of a conversion to Islam.96 Such hopes resulted in the famous series of embassies between Siam, France, and Rome, and eventually the stationing of a French garrison in Bangkok.97 Yet the impossibility of conversion was demonstrated as Narai lay dying in 1688, and control of the throne was seized by one of his military officers, Petratcha. He justified his usurpation at the expense of Narai’s heirs, and the execution of Phaulkon, in reference both to the French troops, who threatened the sovereign authority of the king, and to fears that the king had been induced to desert Buddhism, thus stripping him of legitimacy.98 Examining the sacral-political landscape of Siam, we can perhaps suggest another reason why diversity of faith was permitted and why conversion of the populace was unlikely. The population was largely left free to convert, because it seemed unlikely that many would avail themselves of this option: conversion seemed to have little to recommend it. To demonstrate this, we must consider what access to the sacred was available, against that which the Catholic missionaries could offer. What forms did Siamese religious practices take? Historians and anthropologists have lamented the difficulty of assessing the penetration of ‘orthodox’ Theravāda Buddhism throughout society before the nineteenth century.99 Reading Buddhist scriptures or royal chronicles gives little sense of how ordinary people experienced and utilised the belief system.100 Yet several studies, drawing on archaeological findings, surviving Pāli texts and some Thai sources have attempted to examine how people could engage with Buddhist ritual and practices, and how relics, prayers, and healing, protective or celebratory rites could strengthen links between king, Sangha, and wider populace. Such connections could also serve as vectors for the spread of Buddhist teaching. This could result in a shared soteriology between the religious worlds of the ‘elites’ and the masses centred on the need to ‘make merit’ (tham bhun), and escape the cycle of death and rebirth, or at least a shared reverence for the figure of the Buddha and his Sangha, where understanding of Buddhist doctrines was not yet established.101 Royal building programmes brought communities new wat (temple) complexes and increased their opportunities to make merit and perhaps to gain some

96 Catholic fears of this Muslim influence are found, for example, in Fermanel de Favéry, Relation des missions des éveques françois, 11–12. 97 See Cruysse, Louis XIV et le Siam, 233–48; Smithies and Bresson, Siam and the Vatican, 49–112; Hutchinson, Adventurers in Siam, 51, 74, 85–6, 155–9. 98 See Kosa Pan (Siamese ambassador to France, and later phra khlang—minister of foreign affairs under Narai and Petratcha) to head of MEP in Paris, 27 December 1693, in Smithies, Witnesses to a revolution, 191–2 which explains the events of 1688 in these terms. Pombejra, ‘Ayutthaya at the end of the seventeenth century’, 252–3 demonstrates that this was a succession crisis like any other, and we should separate this religious rhetoric from other considerations. See also Aung Thwin, ‘Prophecies, omens and dialogues’, 88–9 on explaining usurpations in Buddhist chronicles (examples from Burma). 99 Andaya, ‘Localising the universal’, 1–2. 100 Swearer, The Buddhist world of Southeast Asia, 1–2, 6. 101 See also Andaya, ‘Localising the universal’; Wyatt, ‘Relics, oaths and politics’. On making merit to obtain release from the cycle of death and rebirth (tham bhun: ทำบุญ) see Harvey, An introduction to Buddhism, 42–4, 172–3. Gervaise, Histoire naturelle et politique du Royaume de Siam, 166 points out that although the ‘lesser’ people do not always understand Buddhist reincarnation (‘metempsicose’ ), they still adore the Buddha and attend the temples.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

69

instruction or medical assistance from the Sangha. Such buildings also symbolized royal authority and royal mediation with the sacred throughout regions which could be ethnically diverse and only recently brought within the king’s mandala.102 They were striking visual statements of a political cosmology.103 These Theravāda temples of the villages coexisted, interacted, and competed with other loci of spiritual power–spirit houses, sacred trees, temples to Hindu gods, the dwellings of strict, ascetic ‘forest monks’.104 Even within the precincts of the wat a variety of spiritual practices and objects of devotion could be found, speaking to specific local concerns of communities.105 Sacred objects—amulets, images, medallions, sacred cloth and string, texts, holy water—could be obtained from these varied loci, and, crucially, ‘recharged’ at Buddhist temples.106 Stricter reform movements, like the ‘forest monks’, offered a ‘purer’ form of Buddhism, stripped of the accretions of local spirit cults but at the same time more ‘syncretic’ traditions flourished, assimilating Buddhist scriptures, local spirits, and imported cults of holy men.107 Thus Siamese Buddhism did not replace spirit cults and other ceremonies, but rather provided access to further realms of transcendence, resanctifying local traditions without denying their original power.108 In the devotion of the populace to the Sangha reported by European observers, we can perhaps see a general satisfaction that spiritual needs were met by this range of spiritual practices, and a trust in the sanctity and efficacy of Buddhist religious leaders. The difficulty in overcoming the reverence shown towards monks would be a major obstacle to conversion. A Scottish sea captain visiting Siam at the beginning of the eighteenth century noted that over two centuries of mission had produced little result: They make but few converts, except when corn is dear, and then some of the poorer sort receive baptism, which entitles them to maintenance from the church, but when plenty returns, they throw away their beads and brazen saints, and bid farewell to Christianity. In Anno 1720 there were not above seventy Christians in and about Siam, and they the most dissolute, lazy, thievish rascals that were to be found in the country.109

During the sixteenth century, fraught by invasion, internal turmoil and political intrigue there may have been a chance to weave a new motif into the rent fabric of 102 On multi-ethnic nature of the Siamese realm see Wyatt, A short history of Thailand, 105 and Baker, ‘Ayutthaya rising’, 56–8. 103 See Waterson, The living house, 112. 104 Tambiah discusses the ‘forest monk’ tradition, important from the fifteenth century, in The Buddhist saints of the forest, 66–9. 105 The assimilation of disparate non-Theravāda practices into even strict-reform temples is discussed in Lagirard, ‘Devotional diversity in Buddhist monasteries’: 149–52 gives some historical background. 106 On objects imbued with power see Tambiah, The Buddhist saints of the forest, 196, 203–5, and on the ‘recharging’ of objects by, for example, having a monk touch them, 196. 107 On the syncretism of Thai Buddhism see May, Transcendence and violence, 119. 108 See May, Transcendence and violence, 109. 109 Hamilton, A Scottish sea captain in Southeast Asia, 155. He is speaking specifically of the French missions.

70

Missionary Structures and Networks

the sacral landscape. Yet Catholic missionaries in the country were few, overstretched, occupied with the care of the foreign Christian enclaves and frequently suffered the consequences of the Burmese wars along with their would-be converts. Moreover, the tear was soon repaired, as the Sangha was reformed and diversified and new vibrancy entered the spiritual realm. In the seventeenth century a welcoming hand was extended to missionaries by several monarchs, allowing the material presence of the mission to achieve some permanency. Yet dwarfing the churches, the myriad gilded temples of Ayutthaya denoted the symbiotic relationship between royalty, Buddhism and the temporal and spiritual wellbeing of the population. Ceremonial blurred the divide between the king’s spiritual and terrestrial power and granted fertility to the land, and thus life to its inhabitants. Temple, king, and spirit house were proven loci of power, through which individuals could ‘make merit’ and improve their wellbeing in this life and the next. TONK IN AND CO CHINC HINA: GOO D GRO UND Strategic and commercial considerations shaped the policy of successive rulers in Cochinchina and Tonkin towards Europeans. Interest in cultivating trade and alliances could lead to welcoming of missionaries, as in Siam. Conversely, xenophobic suspicions or shifting diplomatic and commercial aims could lead to expulsions and persecutions.110 Yet despite such setbacks these mission fields were consistently judged to be the most fertile. ‘In brief we can hope that this Christianity will be able to compete with the most flourishing of this Orient,’ wrote Alexandre de Rhodes from Cochinchina.111 ‘This kingdom of Tonkin’, declared Jacques de Bourges, ‘is more disposed to embrace our Holy Religion than any other place in the world.’112 As with Malacca and Siam, missionaries explained their successes in Viet lands in reference to the people’s ‘character’. As with the Siamese, observers commented on their subjugation in hierarchies of dependency. However, in Tonkin and Cochinchina this was seen by Europeans as stemming from a natural virtue rather than a base servility. ‘Of all the peoples of the Indies, there are none who are more attached and loyal to the will of the prince and nobles to whom they are subordinated than the Cochinchinese,’ wrote a MEP priest. While the obedience of the Siamese stems from the fact that perceive their kings to be ‘like spirits of divinities’, he asserted, the Cochinchinese conform ‘to the natural order, obedient to their kings as to their legitimate sovereigns without any mark of superstition appearing.

110 Cochinchina: on expulsion in 1629, Gaspar Luis, ‘Annua da missam do Anno de 1629’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, ff. 425v–r. 1645: Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, 255. Tonkin: on 1630 and 1639 expulsion and departure in 1643: Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, 101, 112, 152. On persecution of 1644 see Rhodes, La glorieuse mort d’André. 111 Alexandre de Rhodes to Superior, Cochincina 2 January 1625, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 13r: ‘podemos esparar que em breue esta Christandade poderá competir com as mais florentes deste Oriente’. 112 Jacques de Bourges to his brother. Tonkin, 19 February 1670, AMEP 677, 227: ‘Ce Roiaume du Tonquin est le plus disposé a embrassser nre St. Religion, qu’il y en ait auy reste du Monde.’

Assessments of Conversion Potential

71

They accord him only what he is due.’113 In Tonkin Rhodes declared himself, ‘delighted to see the respect which all his subjects bear [the chúa], and the promptitude with which they obey him’.114 The hierarchical church, he argued, appealed to this innate sense of obedience, and Tonkinese Christians therefore took seriously their duty to their priest. Yet they were also prepared to disobey political authority when it conflicted with the dictates of their conscience and prompt to accept martyrdom. Similarly the ‘gentleness’ and affability’ which were seen to characterize the ‘nature’ of the Tonkinese and Cochinchinese were interpreted differently from these qualities which were perceived by missionaries also to be characteristic of the Siamese. The comments of a Spanish Dominican in Tonkin were typical: he asserted that the region had much potential, ‘because the people are very docile and affable, and are reduced to our Catholic faith very easily’.115 Bourges similarly saw the region as fertile ground because ‘spirits here are gentle and supple to the grace of Our Lord, in a way that great proofs are not necessary to draw them to Christianity’.116 Jesuit João Cabral categorized the Tonkinese mission as the ‘best there presently is in this Orient’ because the people accept Christianity ‘without any other motive than salvation, and thus abjuring paganism which for the most part leaves no trace in them, as if they had never professed it’.117 The hold of ‘Paganism’ had been so slight that its yoke was easily shaken. The MEP priests found that the Cochinchinese community in Siam ‘testify an incredible fervour to hear talk of our mysteries’; conversions were almost spontaneous, and the frustrations faced by the missionaries in preaching to the Siamese melted away.118 Amongst these people, the hand of God was finally in evidence and the simplicity of explanation to which missionaries were reduced (not yet knowing Vietnamese) was a purity and a virtue: ‘We have noted that the naked and simple proposal of the truths our holy religion itself brings an impression of the divine.’119 113 ‘Mémoire pour seruir a l’histoire ecclesiastique de la mission de Cochinchine’, AMEP 729, 98–9: ‘De tous les peuples des Indes, il ny en a aucun qui soit plus attaché et fidel a la volonté du prince et aux grands qui luy sont subordonné que les cochinchinois’ ‘comme des Esprites des diuinités’ ‘a l’ordre naturel, obeissant a leurs Roys comme a leurs Souuerains legitimes sans qu’il y paraisse aucune marque du supersition. Il ne luy accorde que ce qui luy est du.’ 114 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, 80: ‘ravy de voir le respect que tous ses subjects luy portent, & la promptitude avec laquelle ils luy obeissent.’ 115 Anonymous Dominican to Propaganda Fide, Manila, after 1686?, APF, SC 5, f. 15v: ‘pues es una gente mui docil e afable, y q’ con mucha facilidad se reduzen a n’tra S.ta fee chatolica [sic].’ 116 Jacques de Bourges to his brother. Tonkin, 19 February 1670, AMEP 677, 227: ‘les esprits y sont dociles et souples a la grace de NS, En sorte qu’il n’est pas besoin de grandes preuues pour les attirer au Christianisme.’ 117 Cabral cited in Cardim, Batalhas, 173: ‘melhor que hoje ha neste Oriente’ ‘sem outro motivo mais que o da salvação, e assim abjuram o paganismo, que pela maior parte lhes não fica rasto algum d’elle, como se nunca o houveram professado; que é cousa rara e muito para notar.’ 118 Bourges, Relation, 188: ‘témoignoit une ardeur incroyable à entendre parler de nos mysteres’. On the Cochinchinese in Ayutthaya see Goscha, ‘La présence vietnamienne au royaume de Siam’, 213–19. 119 Bourges, Relation, 188–9: ‘Nous avons remarqué que la nuë & simple proposition des veritez de nostre sainte Religion, porte d’elle méme une impression divine’. For ‘spontaneous’ conversions see 192–4.

72

Missionary Structures and Networks

The missionaries could not rely on the fripperies of rhetorical eloquence to persuade and move their audience: they could simply act as tools of God, passive as he alone worked the miracle of conversion. Indeed those Vietnamese who refused to convert were depicted as acting against the natural inclinations of their ‘character’ due to ‘the secret opposition in their hearts, which are bound by vicious and disordered affectations’.120

Fragmentation and spiritual reinvention These missionary ethnographic analyses are of course unsatisfying explanations for the surprising popularity of Christianity among many communities in Tonkin and Cochinchina, even in times of persecution. Some potential reasons for missionary ‘successes’ in these regions can perhaps be found in the social, political and religious upheavals occurring during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The areas referred to by European travellers as ‘Annam’ or later ‘Tonkin’ and ‘Cochinchina’ should not be seen as proto-states, comparable in organization and centralizing control to Siam in a similar period.121 European observers described recognizable structures in their accounts of the political situation in each region, describing Tonkin and Cochinchina as geographical ‘kingdoms’, with moreor-less centralized government.122 While this description can serve as convenient short hand, its simplicity obscures the transitions made across the sixteenth and seventeenth century from the period of disintegration of the Lê imperial dynasty (1497–1527), to the permanent severance of ties between the Tonkinese and Cochinchinese courts (1599–1600) to the declared war between them as two distinct political entities (from the 1620s). Political turmoil, dynastic reconfiguration of the ruling elites, the rise of new provincial ruling strata, civil war, territorial expansion, economic re-orientation, religious and intellectual reforms made the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries a time of seismic change and complex, shifting power relations. The fragmentation of Vietnam began at the start of the sixteenth century, when Mac Đăng Dung, a former royal body guard, asserted control over the young ˙ emperor Lê Chiêu Tông (r. 1516–24), appointed Lê Cung Hoàng as a puppet successor when the latter fled in 1522, before usurping the throne himself in 1527. Two noble families—the Nguye˜ˆn and Trinh—refused to recognise the new Mac ˙ to seize control of southern Vietnam. ˙ ruler and rallied in the name of the Lê dynasty The Lê were ‘restored’ to the throne with the crowning of Lê Trang Tông (r. 1533– 48) by the Nguye˜ˆn-Trinh alliance. However, the Mac continued to control several ˙ ˙ 120 Bourges, Relation, 189–90: ‘l’opposition secrette de leurs curs, qui sont engagez en des affectations vicieuses & des-ordonnées.’ 121 See Lieberman’s chapter ‘The least coherent territory in the world’ in his Strange parallels, I: 338–456. 122 e.g. Saccano, Relation des progrèz de la foy au royaume de la Cochinchine (1652); Borri, Relatione della nvova missione delli della Compagnia di Giesv, al regno della Cocincina (1631); Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

73

northern provinces, resulting in continuing battles for supremacy.123 Meanwhile, a rift occurred between the Nguye˜ˆn and Trinh families. Until his assassination in ˙ lord (chúa) of the Nguye˜ˆn-Trinh 1545, Nguye˜ˆn Kim (1476–1545) had been ˙ forces, making him de facto ruler over most of Vietnam on behalf of the figurehead Lê emperor. His son-in-law, Trinh Kiểm (d. 1590), was quick to assume his mantle, eradicating competition by ˙killing Nguye˜ˆn Kim’s heir and exiling his younger son, Nguye˜ˆn Hoáng (1502–1613) to a southern border province.124 The Trinh then turned their attention to crushing the Mac, finally seizing their ˙ Hanoi (1592), executing Mac Maˆu Hợp and pushing ˙ the rest of the Mac capital of ˙ ˙ ˙ clan into near-obscurity in the northern province of Cao Ba`˘ng. At the same time, Nguyeˆ˜n Hoáng was expanding the southern province he had been sent to govern, pushing south at the expense of the Cham kingdoms. He returned north to assist in the capture of Hanoi, but by 1599 had decided to break away from the Trinh and ˙ declare the independence of the South.125 Thus began the political separation of ‘Cochinchina’ in the south from ‘Tonkin’ in the north. Some historians have argued that the differences between the two polities became so profound, that there was little ‘common history’ between Tonkin, which seems more like a part of East Asia, and the more ‘Southeast Asian’ Cochinchina.126 Yet the constant conflict between the two states, and their contingent interactions with the wider world encourage a parallel consideration of both realms.127 Moreover, each territory was incredibly fragmented and the variations and connections within them, as well as between them, should be considered.128 Centuries of Chinese imperial rule had left an imprint on Viet political theory and continued to influence literature and language.129 The Lê dynasty had maintained features of the Chinese administration and Neo-Confucian political culture and had gradually built up the literati class to extend central government into the villages.130 Tonkin retained many of these structures and ideologies. Yet Chinese influence—for example in semi-religious concepts of family loyalty and obedience to the paterfamilias—could both help and hinder central control, depending on the extent to which these loyalties became synonymous with allegiance 123 Hall, A history of South-East Asia, 219; Smith, ‘England and Vietnam in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, 232–4. 124 Thuan Hoa, now the province of Binh Tri Thien. Taylor, ‘Nguyen Hoang and the beginning of Vietnam’s southward expansion’, 43. 125 Taylor, ‘Nguyen Hoang and the beginning of Vietnam’s southward expansion’, 45–63. 126 Manguin, Les Nguyên, Macau et Portugal, 21; Taylor, ‘Regional conflicts among the Viêt peoples’, 130–2 (He argues the line between the regions could be drawn somewhere between Hué and Đà Na˜˘ng, or at the Ngang Pass, the Gianh river, or at Đo`ˆ ng Hới). 127 See also Forest, ‘La guerre et la militaire dans le Tonkin’, 148 and Lieberman Strange parallels, I : 347–8. 128 Taylor, ‘Surface orientations’, 970–4. 129 Vietnam was first incorporated (as ‘Annam’—the pacified South) into the Chinese empire under the T’ang Dynasty (618–907). See Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 352–3, 375. The Ming reoccupation (1407–27) introduced Neo-Confucian moral systems and bureaucratic government. Whitmore, ‘Literati culture and integration in Dai Viet’, 665–6. See also Smith, ‘England and Vietnam’, 235–40; Wolters, History, culture and region, 183–5 (on Sino-Vietnamese literature). 130 Whitmore, ‘Literati culture and integration’, 666–8; Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 378.

74

Missionary Structures and Networks

to the person of the ruler.131 For example, the Trinh attempted to increase numbers of ˙ literati and emphasise Confucian learning in Tonkin from the 1660s. But this led in some cases to challenges to the ‘shadow cast by the Trinh on the throne’ as Confucian ˙ focus of filial devotion.132 scholars warned that the Lê emperor was the only proper The religious cultures of the peoples of Tonkin and Cochinchina could be depicted as complex patchworks of locally inspired devotions and spirit cults overlaid with some shared beliefs and practices drawn from the Taoist, Buddhist, and Confucian canons.133 Individual adherence to the doctrines of one or more of these traditions depended on a number of personal and social circumstances. Many important devotional practices were personal and localised, tied firmly to home, family, and village interests, in a way that seemed striking to Europeans: ‘In each house there is a little altar suspended near the roof which they call the Tlan, which they believe to be the seat of their guardian spirit. Each village also has a little hut which they call the Miêu which is the seat of the village’s tutelary spirit.’134 Local ceremonies ensured the wellbeing of the village and home, expressed the relative status of each villager and demonstrated communal unity and harmony: potentially another atomizing factor reducing central control.135 From the fifteenth century repeated attempts were made to impose some centrally-directed organization over this legion of spirits, with the creation of bureaucratic registers and rankings for ‘official’ village tutulary spirits (thành hoàng) which would symbolically extend royal oversight over village-level ritual.136 The Nguye˜ˆn, in pushing south, maintained some Sino-Vietnamese practices, administrative systems, and symbols of legitimacy, to present themselves as the true Lê loyalists.137 Yet the Nguye˜ˆn’s long-standing patronage of Mahāyāna Buddhism led to an increased emphasis on this belief system: building temples allowed an assertion of political authority, whilst absorbing local spirit cults and customs almost without modification.138 Moreover, the influence of colonised Cham and Khmer groups could modify Viet customs.139 This ‘cultural fluidity’ in Cochinchina, the limited penetration of neo-Confucian reforms in Tonkin and the failure

131 Whitmore, ‘Literati culture in Dai Viet’, 668; Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 398–9. Lieberman gives the example of the ‘family-based’, long-term rebellions of the Mac, Trinh and Nguye˜ˆn. ˙ le trône’. 132 Forest, Les missionnaires français, II: 69: ‘l’ombre portée par les Trinh sur 133 See Cadière, Croyances et pratiques religieuses, I: 31–9; Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 221– 57; Phan, Mission and catechesis, 13–28. Aspects of these beliefs and practices will be discussed in more detail in Chs 6 and 7. 134 Choisy, Journal, entry for 30 January 1686: ‘Dans chaque maison il y a un petit autel suspendu proche du toit qu’ils appellent le Tlan, qu’ils croient être le siège de l’esprit qui les conserve. Chaque village a aussi une petite cabane qu’ils appellent Mieu, qui est le siège de l’esprit tutélaire du village. Le roi et toute la cour ne font tous ces actes extérieurs de religion que par grimace.’ 135 Yu, ‘The changing nature of the Red River Delta villages’, 162. 136 See esp. Dror, Cult, culture and authority, 30–42. 137 Whitmore, ‘Literati culture in Dai Viet’, 671; Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 408–9. ˜ˆn Cochinchina, 101–12; Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 413–14. 138 Li, Nguye 139 Yu, Law and society in seventeenth and eighteenth century Vietnam, 4; Lieberman, Strange parallels, 414. On the effect of Confucian ideas in drawing a clear distinction between ‘savage’ and ‘civilised’ which made cultural boundaries between Viet and non-Viet peoples appear sharply drawn to the educated, upper strata, see Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 342.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

75

of both courts to effectively establish centralized administration would be important factors behind missionary success.140 The Nguye˜ˆn move south has been presented as a ‘metaphor’ for new possibilities for the elites to become ‘another king of “good Vietnamese”’: founding new shrines and developing new systems of social order and especially engaging in foreign trade.141 This was the context in which the first missionaries arrived in Viet lands. Histories of mission tend to dismiss the mendicant missions that arrived in Cochinchina in the 1580s and 90s. Yet a closer look at these early missions, in particular the Augustinians’, can illuminate two factors central to missionary success in the region: rulers’ support for missionaries, tempered by concerns over political stability, and the missionaries’ realization that ruler conversion would not be necessary for the implantation of the faith. A Franciscan mission to Cochinchina in the 1580s had little time to make an impression before it was dissolved due to disputes over the jurisdiction of the order.142 Following the Franciscans’ departure, an anonymous Portuguese merchant wrote of his own role in the bringing the Augustinians to Cochinchina in 1595.143 The author had returned to Cochinchina several times, and heard that Nguyeˆ˜n Hoàng felt ‘since the kings of Siam and Cambodia have Portuguese fathers in their lands, that he also wants them.’144 Welcoming missionaries, the chúa had realized, like the introduction of tax-breaks for Portuguese ships from Macao, could encourage trade.145 On his return to Macao, the merchant persuaded two Augustinians, Rafael da Madre de Deus and Miguel dos Santos, to return with him.146

140

See also Lieberman, Strange parallels, I: 403–4; Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 289–93. Taylor, ‘Nguyen Hoang and the beginning of Vietnam’s southward expansion’, 64–5; idem, ‘Surface orientations in Vietnam’, 958. On new interest in trade see Nguyen-Long, ‘Trade and exchange’, 248–9. 142 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, III: 496 and fn. 4. Some histories of the mission consider the first missionaries in ‘Cochinchina’ to be Dominicans from Malacca, as Gaspar da Santa Cruz arrived in Ha Tien—now in Southern Vietnam—in 1550 (for example Phan, Mission and catechesis, 9). However, this town would not be absorbed by and colonized by Viet peoples until later, so I have not considered this as a mission to ‘Vietnam’. 143 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, after 1606?, AHU, Cód. no 1659 (non-paginated). 144 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, after 1606?, AHU, Cód. no 1659 (non-paginated).: ‘q pois q’ el Rey de Sião, e o Rey de Camboja tinhão Pes de Portuguezes em suas terras, q’ tbé elle os deseja.’ Trinidade had also credited the king with inviting the Franciscans. See Conquista espiritual do Oriente, III: 495. 145 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 29v. On early trade between Macao and Cochinchina, and on incentives offered to stimulate the Macao trade, see Manguin, Les Portugais sur les côtes du Vieˆ.t-Nam et du Campā, 186–70. Chúa means ‘Lord’ and was the title used by the Nguyeˆ˜n rulers for much of the 17th cent. C.f. vua and vương, equivalent to ‘king’, used by the Trinh and the Nguyeˆ˜n at the end of the century. ˙146 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, after 1606?, AHU, Cód. no 1659. See also Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, ff. 29v–30r. This second account seems to be a copy of what Hartmann states is the original manuscript of Felix de Jesus’ Chronicle, dated 15th January 1606, now in the Biblioteca Pública de Évora. See Hartmann, ‘The Augustinians in golden Goa.’ Hartmann has provided a modern edition of 141

76

Missionary Structures and Networks

As well as promising to build a church, the chúa granted them ‘licence to make Christians’.147 The friars were initially well received: in the well-appointed houses bestowed upon them, they established the church of Nossa Senhora da Luz and a cottage hospital.148 However, in a pattern which would soon repeat itself, the first expedition ended abruptly due to the suspicions of a mandarin.149 In one account it is suggested that it was some quarrel (certa dezauença) between a mandarin’s soldier and a slave or servant (hum moço) of the fathers which sparked the trouble.150 Other accounts report that the ‘ministers of the pagodas’ incited the ‘superstitious’ populace to petition the king to execute or expel them, blaming the fathers for natural disasters.151 Yet the Augustinians did not give up. They had made friends at court, including ‘a relative of the king who, not able to bear their absence’ asked for their return.152 They were once again promised ‘substantial provisions from the king for the religious who came back to his kingdom, with great punishments for those who did them any wrong, or impeded them’.153 Rafael, ‘who already knew the language’ returned with another Augustinian, Mathius da Santo José.154 They were well received by the chúa who ‘showed great affection for them and . . . gave the fathers what they needed’. He showed little inclination to convert, but gave them a pass to travel in his realm, which also permitted them ‘to build churches and baptise whoever wanted to become Christian’.155 He also ordered a house and a church

the Évora codex: see Felix de Jesus and Hartmann (ed.), ‘Chronica e Relação’. The version that I examined in Lisbon appears to be a close copy of this Évora manuscript. 147 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 29v: licençia pa fzer christãos’. 148 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, ff. 30r–v. Medicine as a mission strategy is discussed in more detail below. 149 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, after 1606? AHU, Cód. no 1659 (n.p., f. 2r). 150 ‘Relacão da gloriosa morte que padecerão pella confissão da feê dexpõ. nosso Senhor tres catechistas dos Padres da companhia de JESUS em o Reino de Cochinchina nos annos de 1644 e 1645’, 1646? ARSI, JapSin 70a (II), f. 2r. 151 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, ff. 30r–v; blaming the fathers for natural disasters: Simão da Graça [Account of Augustininans in East] c.1673?, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 132r. This account has the ministers of the pagodas suggesting that the Augustinians be executed in order to encourage the rains to fall (f. 132v). 152 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 30v: ‘hu~a parenta do Rey q’ não podendo sofrer sua auza.’ 153 Simão da Graça, [Account of Augustinians in East] c.1673? ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 132v: ‘prouizõis muito largas do Rey pera os Religiozos uoltarem a seu Reino, com grandes penas aquem lhes fizesse algum mal, ou lhes empidisse.’ 154 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 30v: ‘q sabia ja a lingoa’. We should note that there would be little point in devoting himself to learning the language if he did not intend to preach in it. 155 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, ff. 30v–31r: ‘lhes fes mta festa e

Assessments of Conversion Potential

77

be built for them a gun-shot’s length distant from the pagodas.156 Yet although the priests ‘converted many natives, and some Japanese’ over several years, they built no other churches and eventually the conversions dried up: it seems that the mission was hit by disease and ran out of funds.157 One year, probably around 1605 or early 1606, the merchant who had introduced them to the country returned to the mission and found that the windbattered mission buildings reflected the state of the defeated friars within.158 Mathius was on the point of death and Manuel, a Spanish Augustinian from Manila who had joined the little community, was also unwell. Indeed the latter was ‘so overcome with illness that he went with us to China, so fed up with the land and the people’. Raphael da Madre de Deus confided that the mission was in a dire state: they were only managing to baptise ‘some young children’ and that the lands given to the mission were not enough to support them.159 Yet this would not necessarily have been the end of the Augustinian mission, had events not conspired against its superior, Raphael. To replace his confreres, he set off to Malacca ‘to choose a companion from there in order to cultivate the field in which the word of the Gospel will be sown, which was already sprouting with great growths’.160 On the way, however, he was captured by the Dutch who presented him to the Sultan of Johor.161 Sentenced to death, he refused to convert to Islam, but was rescued by the Dutch despite his pleas to be allowed to die a martyr. Back in Dutch custody he was able to write to his superiors, providing a report on the Cochinchina mission.162 Eventually he got his martyr’s palm, cut down on a beach by the Sultan of Johor’s men, apparently as he was attempting to flee the island.163 [ . . . ] fes aos pes merçe do neçessario.’ ‘daquelles Regulos sufraganhos podere fzer Igras e baptizar a que˜ se quizesse fzer christão.’ 156 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, 1596, AHU, Cód. no 1659 (n.p., f. 2r). 157 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primera parte da Chronica e relação do principio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 31r: ‘se cõuertem mtos naturaes, e alg~ us Jaappoe˜s’. 158 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, after 1606?, AHU, Cód. no 1659 (n.p., f. 2v): ‘a caza e Igra pareceo muito bem lavada do vento’. Establishing a firm date for this is difficult: the biography of Raphael da Madre de Deos in Simão da Graça ‘[Account of the Augustinians in East]’, ANTT Manus Liv. liv 731 f. 134v, gives his date of death as 1606. I am assuming that the events related in the biography leading up to his death unfolded over several months at least, and that Raphael set off on his journey to Malacca soon after the merchant visited the mission, suggesting that the merchant’s visit occurred sometime in 1605–6, possibly even as early as 1604. 159 ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, after 1606?, AHU, Cód. no 1659 (n.p., f. 2v): ‘tão acabado da Enfermidades, que se veio comnosco para a China tão enfadado da terra e da gente’ ‘alg~ uas crianças de pouca idade’. 160 Simão da Graça, ‘[Account of the Augustinians in the East]’, c.1673?, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, ff. 132v–3r: ‘pera ali escolher hum companheiro pera effeito de cultiuar açeara [a seara] em que lançara a semente da palaura do Euangelho q’ ja brotaua com grandes augmentas.’ 161 Simão da Graça, ‘[Account of the Augustinians in the East]’, c.1673?, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 133r. 162 Simão da Graça, ‘[Account of the Augustinians in the East]’, c.1673?, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 134r. 163 Simão da Graça, ‘[Account of the Augustinians in the East]’, c.1673?, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, ff. 134r–v. The ‘Relação de como os Religiosos do Gloriozo D.or S. Agost.o forão ao Reyno de Cochinchina’, AHU, Cód. no 1659 (n.p., f. 2v) briefly mentions Manuel being killed by Dutch pirates

78

Missionary Structures and Networks

The Augustinians were replaced in Cochinchina in 1615 by the Jesuits, who soon ‘found themselves in great credit with the king and the nobility of the kingdom’ which they attributed to ‘the exemplary life they led.’164 Yet despite various rulers showing favour in this way, on the whole missionaries remained pessimistic about securing a ‘royal’ conversion. One consequence of Nguye˜ˆn foreigner-friendly policies was the growth of Japanese and Chinese communities in major port cities. Faifo (Hoˆ.i An) was particularly cosmopolitan, and following the persecutions in Japan in the 1590s, there was also a sizable Christian population.165 Despondent Jesuits, banished from Japan, found that tending to the Japanese here sweetened their bitter sense of loss. In 1618 Francisco Viera found that so many had gathered to hear him that they could not all fit in the church, despite its large size.166 The Jesuits also found these communities encouraged others to convert. At Easter and Christmas they celebrated ‘with as much internal joy as external’ with even the ‘pagan Japanese’ joining in ‘with their dances and songs’.167 The presence of Christian communities also meant access to funding sources. The Portuguese merchants in Tourane (Đà Na˘˜ng), for example, provided the alms to build and maintain a church to serve their community and also to act as a mission base for the Jesuits.168 In contrast, the vua of Tonkin, in-keeping with Confucian doctrine, were initially reluctant to make overseas trade a plank of state finances, and thus had less reason to welcome associated foreigners at court. Few trading concessions were made to foreign merchants. As one Jesuit commented, few merchants from Macao were interested in trading in Tonkin as compulsory purchases made it unprofitable: ‘Because this king does not have much dignity nor point of honour,’ complained a Jesuit, ‘he has greatly increased the interest he has always had in the vessels which come to his lands, because he profits from all merchandise, taking what he likes most for the price he sees fit.’169 on the way to Malacca, but it is unclear whether the author is confusing Raphael and Manuel, or if Manuel too met a similar fate. The Simão da Graça account, in its detail and reference to, for example, a lost vita based on letters documenting these events seems the more convincing account. Da Graça quotes the author of this vita directly: ‘li per uezes esta carta [written by the imprisoned Raphael], diz o author que lhe escreueo a uidam com grande consolação minha, por ser de muita edificação’—f. 134r. 164 Francesco Eugenio, ‘Lettera annua del collegio di Macao, porto della Cina, al M.R. Muito Vitelleschi, Generale della Compagnia de Giesù l’anno 1617’, Lettere annve (1621) 343: ‘Si retrouano in gran credito col Rè, e con la nobilità del Regno,’ ‘la vita esemplare, che menauano.’ 165 Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 10 (on destination of Japanese in general, and their ‘quarter’ (contrade) in Faifo). 166 ‘Annua do Collegio de Macao, 1619’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-7, f. 168v: ‘consolados por acharem ali, o que em Japam nam tem haja alguns annos.’ 167 ‘Annua do Collegio de Macao, 1619’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-7, f. 169r: ‘com alegria assi interior como exterior’, ‘ajudando os athe os gentios Japoens com suas danças e cantares.’ 168 Francisco Busomi, ‘[Annua da Missão de Cochinchina] De 635 ate Mayo de 1636’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 449v. 169 ‘Relação das guerras, e levantamentos, que houve na China, morte de seu Imperador, e entrada dos Tartaros nella des do anno de 1642 athé o de 1647’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-13, f. 40r: ‘Por q’ este Rey não hè de muito brio, ne˜ ponto de honra; levasse mto grandemte de interesses, q’ sempre tem das embarcaçoens, q’ vão as suas terras; p q de todas as veniagas se aproveita, tomando as que mais lhe contentão pello preço q’ lhe parece’.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

79

However, this policy was challenged in the 1620s, as the simmering tensions between the Nguye˜ˆn and the Trinh erupted into war after Nguye˜ˆn Phúc Nguyên ˙ to Tonkin, a defiant restatement of his inde(1613–35) refused to send tribute pendence. Cochinchina’s access to foreign military technology had led Tonkinese ruler Trinh Tráng (r. 1623–54) to make his own overtures to foreigners.170 As in ˙ Cochinchina this coincided with the reception of missionaries at court and an invitation for missionaries to establish a presence in the country. A Jesuit reconnaissance mission was sent in 1626, with a missionary presence established the following year.171 Initially encouraged by the cordial welcome, the Jesuits soon realized why they were there: ‘The king and the nobles of the kingdom consent to have the ministers of the holy Gospel here not due to an interest in the eternal, but in the temporal,’ which arrives on the ships from Macao.172 There seemed little chance of securing the conversion of the lords of Tonkin. The Trinh-Nguyeˆ˜n war is a constant background noise in missionary accounts ˙ from the 1620s. Neophytes were swept up in army levees or fled to the mountains to avoid the draft.173 Rulers attempted to use missionaries to obtain European weaponry or even tried to use them as strategists.174 Accusations of espionage were made against neophytes and priests: the wars meant missionaries had to be extremely careful to factor the enmity between the two courts into their equations. Bourges and Deydier reported in 1684 that the ‘partisans’ of the Jesuits in Tonkin were attempting to paint them as traitors, describing them as ‘Bishops of Cochinchina’ and alleging that they ‘harbour Cochinchinese in their houses, which would be a capital crime in this kingdom’. It was possible, they continue, that the Jesuits were alluding to the seminary in Siam where a number of Cochinchinese were being educated. Caution should be exercised to conceal this connection to Tonkin’s enemy.175 A similar warning was sounded by Courtaulin in Faifo, Cochinchina: a mandarin had informed him of the king’s command ‘to behead all Cochinchinese who went to Siam in the last year and stayed there’.176 Christianity was inducing individuals to leave Cochinchinese shores without permission at a time of war. Missionaries were adding a complicating international factor to issues of national security which rulers could not ignore.

170

Lê Thàhn Khôi, Histoire du Viêt Nam, 278, 282. Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 93. ‘Ragguaglio della Missione del Giappone: nell’isola Hayunam Camborria, Macassar &c. Tratto dall’ultima lettera annua scritta in lingua Portoghese’, ARSI JapSin 65, f. 36v. 173 Jean de Courtaulin de Maguelonne, ‘Relation depuis 1678 jusqu’en 1682’, AMEP 728, 9: ‘Il Rè, e i Grandi del Regno consentono quiui Ministri del santo Vangelo à ragion non d’interesse eterno, ma temporale.’ 174 Saccano, ‘Ragguaglio della Missione del Giappone’ ARSI JapSin 65, ff. 15v–16r reports being approached by a Mandarin for military advice. See also Mantienne, ‘Le recours des états de la péninsule Indochinoise à l’aide européenne’, 57, 61–2. 175 Jacques de Bourges and François Deydier, ‘Annale de la mission’, 1684 AMEP 665, f. 38: ‘Evêques de Cochinchine’; ‘[ils]nourissaient des Cochinchinois dans leurs maison, ce qui serait un crim capital dans ce Royaume.’ 176 Jean de Courtaulin de Maguelonne to Vicar Apostolic, Faifo, 15 February 1675, AMEP 734, f. 25: ‘couper la teste a tous les cochinchinois qui passent a Siam l’année passé et y sont demeurés.’ 171 172

80

Missionary Structures and Networks

As the two lords carved their territories and asserted their political control, they were also vulnerable to seditious unrest. Like the king of Siam, the rulers of Tonkin and Cochinchina laid no firm claim to authority over the spiritual lives of their subjects. Jesuit Pêro Marques reported that in both regions, ‘the kings and monarchs have power only over the body of their vassals, and not their souls.’177 Yet this control over the bodies of their subjects was also limited. As the Trinh and Nguye˜ˆn ˙ paid to the strived to consolidate their military positions, less attention was establishment of social order and control beyond the major cities.178 Devotional gatherings could be potential sources of sedition and unrest. A serious drought in Cochinchina in 1617–18 led to a withdrawal of support for the missionaries. ‘The crude masses, incited by the bonzes, began to say that the fathers have an understanding with the sky that it will not give them water. And this is given to mean that to make it rain, all the fathers must be driven out.’ The account makes it clear that Nguyeˆ˜n Phúc Nguyên was pushed into against his inclinations, as he was ‘fond of ’ the Jesuits: ‘the demands about this to this king were so many and so importunate that he, after turning a deaf ear to it for the most part, yielded . . . to quieten the popular fury.’179 Similarly in 1682, the Vicars Apostolic reported that it would be impossible to hope for a better settlement for Catholicism in Tonkin as Trinh Căn, who had just ascended the throne, sought ‘to ˙ groups which could have caused revolts in the prevent all cabals and secret kingdom, as had always happened in the past at the change of reigns’.180 Sometimes these accusations were merited. In Tonkin, converts were implicated in a plot against the life of a mandarin. François Deydier was scathing about those involved, especially Antonio, a servant of the Jesuits who had been beheaded for his part in it, which ‘was a strange mess for the Christians’.181 He lists other persecutions in the 1660s resulting from fault amongst the Christians. One was due to ‘the debauchery of some bad Christians’ who, unsupervised since the Jesuits were forced to leave, ‘soon converted their pious assemblies into occasions of sin, introducing drunkenness in the churches and causing a thousand scandals’. They had even tried to plot against Deydier, when he decided to put a stop to their cottage industry of making medals to sell to other Christians, ‘who they fool, persuading them that

177 ‘Relatione della persecutione che si solleuo nel Regno della Cocccioncina nel Decembre del 1664 . . . Cauata delle lettere del Pietro Marques e di altri’ ARSI JapSin 70a, f. 4r–v: ‘li Ri, e Monarchi haueuano solamente potenza ne corpi de’ loro uasselli, e non nelle anime.’ 178 Yu, ‘The changing nature of the Red River Delta villages’, 161. 179 Francesco Eugenio, ‘Lettera annua del collegio di Macao, porto della Cina, al M.R. Muito Vitelleschi, Generale della Compagnia de Giesù l’anno 1617’, in Lettere annve (1621), 343: ‘egli amaua loro’, ‘[C]ominciò il popolaccio sommosso da Bonzi a dire, chei Padri haueuano col Cielo intelligenza, che non desse loro acqua. Et essendosi dati ad intendere, che per far piouere, bisognaua spinger fuora del Regno tutti i Padri’, ‘furono tante, e si importune le domande al medesimo Rè, sopra ciò, che egli poi di hauere gran pezzo fatto orecchie sorde su cedere . . . per far abbassare il popolar furore’. 180 François Deydier and Jacques de Bourges to directors of Paris MEP Seminary, 1682, AMEP 665, 2: ‘prévenir toutes les cabales et les partis secrets qui auraient pu causer des révoltes dans le royaume, comme il était toujours arrivé par le passé dans les changements de règnes.’ 181 François Deydier to François Pallu, 9 November 1669, AMEP 677, 98: ‘fut une estrange confusion pour les Chriens.’

Assessments of Conversion Potential

81

they come from Rome and have been blessed by various Popes.’182 In Cochichina, Nguye˜ˆn Phúc Trăn (1687–91) banned Christianity in 1690 following incidents of iconoclasm and insults being made against the royal family by Christian groups.183 Yet missionaries insisted that many accusations of sedition were unfounded. According to Jesuit Pêro Marques, because the king of Cochinchina had no authority over the spiritual lives of his subjects, hostile Mandarins resorted to raising the spectre of sedition. Thus in 1664 mandarins warned that the Jesuits were the vanguard of the Portuguese king’s army, sowing rebellion to ease its path. A similar rumour, Marques notes, was spread by the Dutch in Japan. This ruse was used in Cochinchina, he argued, due to the Mandarins’ alarm at Christianity’s success. First, they could not bear that, ‘despite being respectable Mandarins, they find resistance in some Christians, who do not want to be their second wives’. Second, and more generally, they could not bring themselves ‘to be subject to the narrowness of the evangelical law, which these men, like brute animals, flee, judging that they cannot deny their body what it wants, and desiring nothing different to real Epicureans’.184 On the other hand, the decentralization of power could also work in the missionaries’ favour. In 1617 the Jesuits were able to stay on in Cochinchina as guests of a provincial governor. He sent two men to the Jesuits, ‘he begged them to move to Pulocambi [Qui Nhơn], adding that they would be able to make as many churches as they liked, and baptize as many pagans as asked to become Christians.’ Moreover, he ‘let them know, that he too wished to hear the catechism preached, and if it satisfied him, he would make himself a Christian’.185 However, ‘as the things of this life are uncertain’, the Governor died before he could be baptized, leaving the Jesuits to pray that his desire to convert and ‘the love that he always showed them’ would be enough to save him, though he ‘died pagan’.186 Antonio Cardim’s account of his mission in Tonkin similarly reveals the importance of provincial nobles. In 1630 he reported how several men in Thanh Hóa province were building wooden churches at their own expense, gathering together 182 François Deydier to François Pallu, 9 November 1669, AMEP 677, 98: ‘la desbauche de quelques mauuais Chriens’, ‘conuertirent bientost les assemblées de pieté en des occasions de peché introduisirent l’yurognerie dans les Eglises, et causerent mil scandalles.’, ‘qu’ils abusoient leur persuadans qu’elles venoient de Rome et qu’elles estoient benistes par diuerse Papes.’ 183 See Cooke, ‘Strange brew’, esp. 404–7. 184 ‘Relatione della persecutione che si solleuo nel Regno della Cocccioncina nel Decembre del 1664 . . . Cauata delle lettere del Pietro Marques e di altri’ ARSI JapSin 70a, f. 3: ‘non potendo soffrire, che essendo essi Mandarini graui trouassero resistenza in alcune Christiane, che non uoleuano essere loro seconde mogli.’ ‘esser soggetti alle strettezza della legge euangelica: la quale essi, come bruti animali, fuggono, giudicando non douersi negar’ al corpo ciò, che egli uuole, e desiderà, nienti differenti dalli ueri Epicurei.’ 185 Francesco Eugenio, ‘Lettera annua del collegio di Macao, porto della Cina, al M.R. Muito Vitelleschi, Generale della Compagnia de Giesù l’anno 1617’, Lettere annve (1621): 344: ‘gli . . . pregaua, che volessero trasferirsi a Pulocambi, aggiugnendo, che potrebbono fare quante Chiese volessero, e battezzare quanti Gentili domandassino di farsi Christiani.’ ‘ . . . fece lor sapere, che egli ancora voleua vdir le Prediche del Catchechismo e se gli hauessino dato sodisfattione, si sarebbe fatto Christiano.’ Note the governor is described as a ‘vassallo del medesimo Rè’ rather than as an administrator or official, suggesting his autonomy. 186 ‘Annua do Collegio de Macao, 1619’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-7, f. 170r: ‘como os bens desta vida sam incertos’, ‘o amor que sempre lhes mostrou’, ‘morreo gentio’.

82

Missionary Structures and Networks

local Christians and catechizing them. High-born and rich women were also instrumental in building churches and protecting the Christians.187 In Tourane, the mother of the governor converted and built the Jesuits a church. In this region the benevolence of local elites and a series of scandals implicating local religious leaders converged to give impetus to the Catholic mission, leading to six hundred baptisms in a year.188 It is therefore unsurprising that many missionaries realized that the real seed-bed of the conversion of each realm would be amongst the population of the provinces.189 There the candle of the faith could be shielded from any ill-winds blowing from the capitals, as enforcement of edicts against heterodox groups was often patchy. During the persecutions of 1666 in Tonkin, François Deydier marvelled at his continued freedom of action, attributing his good fortune to the protection of St Joseph.190 The eunuch-official Cao Trao˘ gave a more worldly assessment of the situation. He reported to the king that when he had visited Japan, he had seen edicts against the ‘Law of the Portuguese’ enforced with full vigour. In comparison, in Tonkin they were ‘interpreted’ or ignored. He was supported in his appraisal by two other eunuchs who gave examples of Christians openly flouting the edicts with local officials turning a blind eye.191 Ambassadors to China reported that Christianity had also been banned there, and books burnt, while in Cochinchina, it was rumoured, all the priests had been executed.192 Already furious about being forced by the Chinese to pay humiliating reparations to the Mac rulers of Cao Ba˘`ng for initiating a border skirmish, Trinh Tac was determined to˙ save face and enforce his ˙ unauthorised ˙ authority by clamping down on cults.193 Yet edicts against Christianity and measures to punish its adherents did not bring an end to the spread of the faith. Why did people convert despite such clampdowns? Times of stress—drought, unrest, epidemic—could also bring evangelic opportunities as people sought solace and solutions. Jesuit Gaspar Luís’s description of Cochinchina in 1629, on the eve of another expulsion from the kingdom, painted a picture of apocalypse, with famine, plague, and disorder sweeping the land: ‘God punished this kingdom with 187 Antonio Cardim, ‘Annua de Tunkim do anno de 1630. Para o Padre Andre Palmeyro da Companhia de JESU. Visitador da Provincia de Japam e China em Macao’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, ff. 32r– 34v. Women are considered in more detail in Ch. 8. 188 Francisco Busomi, ‘[Annua da missão de Cochinchina], de 635 ate Mayo de 1636’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 450r. Busomi referred to ‘Cacham’, called Tourane by Europeans (Đà Na˜˘ng), and its environs. 189 Yu, Law and society in seventeenth and eighteenth century Vietnam, 120–1 also notes that conversions were more likely in areas distant from administrative centres. 190 François Deydier, ‘Journal du Tunquin copié de la main de Mr Laneau.’ 1 August 1666, AMEP 650, 144. 191 François Deydier, ‘Journal du Tunquin copié de la main de Mr Laneau.’ 1 August 1666, AMEP 650, 143. 192 François Deydier, ‘Journal du Tunquin copié de la main de Mr Laneau.’ 1 August 1666, AMEP 650, 153. 193 François Deydier, ‘Journal du Tunquin copié de la main de Mr Laneau.’ 1 August 1666, AMEP 650, 153 and 147. The Mac held on to power in Cao Bang until 1677. They had the support of the Ming who recognized that dynasty as the legitimate rulers of Annam, a continuing, if minor, threat to the Trinh court in Tonkin See Hall, A History of Southeast Asia, 219.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

83

a long and great famine, which lasted fourteenth months. It was so cruel in the province of Qui Nhơn that fathers gave their children to those who asked for food, and many, dead from hunger, began to appear on the public streets. There was a great plague of locusts which increased the famine.’ Areas which escaped the insects were struck ‘with I know not what type of pestilence. It was so contagious, that in one village of three hundred people only two escaped, in another only one man’.194 Only the horseman of war seemed to be missing, until the conflict with Tonkin began to be felt.195 Yet at this time, despite the ‘exile of the Fathers, the ruin of churches, and other grave evils of persecution,’ ninety nine conversions were secured in Faifo alone.196 The power of usual ritual remedies could seem diminished by catastrophe. Christianity was not the only faith which seemed to offer some alternative answers amidst the maelstrom of social and political change and natural disaster in Tonkin and Cochinchina. Certain groups amongst the Cham peoples, whose HinduBuddhist culture had more in common with Khmer or Javanese peoples than their Viet neighbours, converted to Islam when their territories were conquered and annexed by the Viet.197 Buddhist and Taoist eschatological reformers and devotional groups also found adherents and alarmed governments during the wars and calamities of the period.198 Yet Europeans on the whole were struck by how Buddhist and Taoist clerisy seemed relatively peripheral to the devotional life of much of the population. The Abbé de Choisy summarised the situation in 1686: ‘The Cochinchinese breathe only war and have little religion. They have temples and idols, however, like in China, but they have very a few, and very ignorant Talapoins.’199 In contrast to Siam, where popular respect for the Sangha seemed to be one of the main obstacles to conversion, in Tonkin and Cochinchina although the Buddhist and Taoist 194 Gaspar Luís, ‘Annua da Missam de Cochinchina do Anno de 1629’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 422v: ‘castigo[u] deos este Reino com h~ ua longe e grande fome, que durou catorse meses: foi tam cruel na Proua de Guinhin que os Pays dauam seus filhos a quem lhe disse de comer, e amanheceram muitos mortos de fome pellas ruas publicas. Ouue h~ ua grande praga de gafanhotos que acrecentou a fome’ . . . ‘com nam sei que genero de peste. era tam contagiosa, que em h~ ua aldea de tresentas pessoas so escaparam duas: em outra só hum homem,’. Note that I have assumed that by ‘Guinhin’ Luís is referring to the city Qui Nhơn and its surrounding region (now in the province of Bình Đinh). Provinces named by the missionaries did not always correspond to the Vietnamese names of˙ the administrative divisions. 195 Gaspar Luís, ‘Annua da Missam de Cochinchina do Anno de 1629’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 422v. 196 Thirteen of these were of babies, the rest were adults. Gaspar Luís, ‘Annua da Missam de Cochinchina do Anno de 1629’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 423r: ‘desterro dos Padres, ruina das Igrejas, e outras graues males da perseguicam’. 197 These lands became the heartland of Cochinchinese power in the late sixteenth century. See Tingley, ‘Champa: riverine polities, ports of call’, 191–2; Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, II: 187. Cf. descriptions of Siamese interest in Islamic missionaries, which also referred to a time of turmoil in that kingdom. 198 e.g. peasant uprising in early 16th-cent. Tonkin led by Buddhist monk Trân Cao, claiming to be an incarnation of Indra and a descendant of ancient kings of Vietnam, See Taylor, ‘Regional conflicts among the Viêt peoples’, 112. 199 Choisy, Journal, entry for 30 January 1686: ‘Les Cochinchinois ne respirent que la guerre et ont peu de religion. Ils ont pourtant des temples et des idoles, comme à la Chine, mais ils ont fort peu de talapoins et fort ignorants.’

84

Missionary Structures and Networks

clergy could incite persecutions, they were not as insurmountable an obstacle.200 Indeed, some converted ‘bonzes’ became the Jesuits most fervent catechists.201 The Nguye˜ˆn promoted Buddhist worship, and in the late 1680s and 90s would patronise admired monks from China.202 Before then, though, according to the missionaries, the reputation of the Buddhist clergy in Cochinchina suffered a serious blow in 1681.203 Courtaulin reported that an important monk had persuaded the daughter of a mandarin to become a nun. She became pregnant in the temple, and with the monk fled to Tonkin, where both defectors were well received. Enraged, Nguyeˆ˜n Phúc Taˆ`n (1620–87) ordered that all monks, apart from the old and incapable, were to be enrolled in the army or signed up to study for a civil position. This depleted some monasteries.204 Whether or not this account was true, missionaries perhaps reflected a more generally ambiguous reputation of Buddhist and Taoist clergy amongst the population in their accounts of ‘bonze’ conversions: they are often careful to stress that these neophytes had been unusually highly respected. Thus of a converted ‘bonze’ in Pulocambi in 1621 it is noted that he had been known as sai hien, ‘which means “good priest” because he has the edge over all of them in this province’.205 He was baptized, ‘to the great joy of the Christians, rage and misery of the pagans’, some of whom, ‘moved by misplaced pity’ remonstrated with him at the error he had made, throwing away so many years as a good monk ‘though an appetite to change law’.206 Official reforms of ritual practices were carried out from the 1660s in Tonkin and Cochinchina, as governments attempted to introduce ceremonial uniformity which would tie the population to the centre. In 1662 Trinh Tac published ˙ to˙ ‘traditional’ instructions for the moral reform of his realm, recalling people practices, and forbidding all books of Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity.207 In this way, as the Trinh realized Cochinchina was unlikely to submit, they turned ˙ their attention to strengthening control over Tonkinese villages, to ‘rebuild the Confucian social order’.208 As rulers attempted to cement their hold over their territory, secure the allegiance of the different groups living there and extend their reach beyond the capital, ceremonies of devotion to symbols of the royal household were increasingly promoted. Expressions of reverence for the royal family, heroes of

200 A comparison could also be made to the unflattering image of Taoist priests in China at this time, especially in the late Ming literary genre, ‘beji’. See Zhang, ‘About God, demons and miracles’, 25. 201 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 119. 202 See Cooke, ‘Strange brew’. 203 On the 16th-cent. ‘Buddhist renaissance’ in Cochinchina, see Lê Thàhn, Histoire du Viêt Nam, 292. On Nguye˜ˆn support for Buddhism see Li, Nguye˜ˆn Cochinchina, 102–4. 204 Courtaulin, ‘Relation depuis 1678 Jusqu’en 1682’ AMEP 728, f. 22. 205 ‘Annua da Missão de Cochinchina do Anno de 1621’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-7, f. 265r: ‘q’ hé o mesmo q’ bom sacerdote, porq’ no bom credito levava ventagem à todos os daquella Provincia’. 206 ‘Annua da Missão de Cochinchina do Anno de 1621’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-7, f. 265r: ‘com grande alegria dos Christãos raiva e pezar dos Gentios,’ ‘iniqua miseratione commoti,’ ‘por hum appetite de mudar a ley.’ The Latin quote is from the 2 Maccabees, 6: 21, and refers to the friends of the ‘Holy Maccabee’ martyrs trying unsuccessfully to persuade them to break their food laws and eat sacrificed meat. 207 Lê Thàhn Histoire du Viêt Nam, 291. 208 Yu, ‘The changing nature of the Red River Delta villages’, 166, 171.

Assessments of Conversion Potential

85

history, ancestors and Confucius were important facets of social cohesion and demonstrated one’s correct moral conduct.209 These were the most dangerous reefs which missionaries and neophytes had to navigate. Practising new, competing ceremonies, or limiting one’s participation in civic rituals could call into question one’s loyalty and integrity. Thus mandarin Paulo Xabim of Cacham in Cochinchina was obliged to prove before a council of mandarins in 1628, that he was still a loyal vassal of the king and that he was not acting contrary to the customs of the country by following the Christian religion. He was able to convince them, and no further action was taken.210 As the seventeenth century wore on, however, tensions between political obedience and the profession of a Christian identity increased. CHRISTIANITY AND CATASTROPHE: HARROWED LANDS According to missionary analyses of the situation, then, the populations of Tonkin and Cochinchina, Siam and Malacca were possessed of diverse characters which would impede or encourage conversion. Behind this missionary rhetoric we can catch glimpses of other, more persuasive factors which might increase the likelihood of conversion. Missionary hopes for an Asian Constantine to smooth the path of the faith were not met. However, prohibition of a new religion by the ruling elite did not always inhibit its dissemination: indeed persecution could boost its mythic power. Conversely the interest of a ruler in Christianity could stand in stark contrast to the cool indifference displayed by his subjects to the new teachings. Once outside the colonial city, missionaries were constrained by considerations of local power relations, cultural customs and mores. Judging the conversion potential of a realm, missionaries considered the toleration extended to them and the opposition they may face. Yet neither friendly overtures of the ruling echelons, nor even their overthrow and replacement with Christian overlords guaranteed the fertility of a mission field. Examining the political, social, and cultural contexts in which the missionaries were operating, we can see certain factors which made conversion more likely: lands with decentred or weakened political and religious structures, lands where no one set of spiritual practices was synonymous with a collective identity, lands where fluid conceptions of religious life opened the door to new practices, and most of all, lands harrowed and rent by catastrophe and desperation, where disasters had challenged the potency of existing sacral remedies, would prove the most fertile fields.

These traditions and their ‘Christianization’ are discussed in more detail in Ch. 7. Gaspar Luis, ‘Annua da missam de Cochinchina anno de 1628’. January 1629, BA, JnÁ, 49-V8, ff. 412v–3r. 209 210

This page intentionally left blank

PART II MISSIONARY METHODS

This page intentionally left blank

4 What Type of People Are You? Performing the Missionary Identity What did Southeast Asians see when they first encountered a Christian priest? Missionaries were often dryly self-reflective about what a strange figure they cut when they first introduced themselves. One account by Franciscan Giovanni Battista di Lucarelli recalled the bemusement of a Chinese ‘infidel’, who asked: ‘what type of people are you? Whence did you come, and for what reason? What is this, your manner of dressing? Do you not know that those who do not have long hair cannot enter China, nor converse with us?’1 In Europe, what he wore and his manner of living were important signifiers which helped audiences to understand the part that the missionary played. How would these external signs be translated in an alien cultural context? Missionaries diverged in their interpretation of what would make the best impression on different groups. Moreover, for some commentators, any suggestion that missionary self-presentation was performative—a form of self-fashioning every bit as calculated as a layman’s cultivation of his image—was disquieting and unacceptable. Was it proper for a priest to subtly shape his own image, to project a persona like Castiglione’s courtier?2 A crucial and vexed question was that of how to dress. How did one represent externally the virtues of Catholicism and the sacral power of the priest? The Council of Trent had decreed, ‘Though the habit does not make the monk, clerics must nevertheless always wear the clerical dress appropriate to their own Order so that they may show by the suitability of their outward dress the interior uprightness of their character.’3 How was this to be interpreted in lands where the religious habit carried no such connotations? Historians have dwelt mostly on the well-documented Jesuit approaches to this question. Most famously in China the Jesuits had revised their initial strategy of 1 Giovanni Battista Lucarelli de Pisauro, ‘Viaggio dell’Indie’, in SF II: 53–4: ‘che gente siete? Di qual parte et per qual causa venite; che modo di vestir e questo vostro? Non sapete, che quelli, che non portano il capello largo non possono entrar nella China, ne tanpoco conversar con noi altri?’ 2 On self fashioning in early modern Europe see esp. Greenblatt, Renaissance self-fashioning; Biagioli, Galileo, courtier; Biagioli, Galileo’s instruments of credit; Burke, The fabrication of Louis XIV; Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance clothing. On considering missionaries within these contexts (e.g. Valignano considered in the context of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il cortegiano) see Prosperi, ‘The missionary’, 168–73. 3 Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session 14 (25 November 1551), canon 6. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II: 716. Cf. Jones and Stallybrass on ‘transnaturing’ power of clothes, which ‘maketh the man’, 1–4. See also Rublack, Dressing up, 121–3.

90

Missionary Methods

Figure 7. A model Jesuit of ‘the Indies’. From Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1780–83), vol. XII, opposite p. 100. Engraved by Nicolas Ransonnette. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ré serve A 200 020.

dressing like Buddhist monks and began instead to play the part of Confucian scholars in order to improve their image and the presentation of their message.4 In India Roberto Nobili came into conflict with colleagues over his decision to present himself as a learned Brahmin in order to position himself favourably in local social hierarchies.5 In Japan Cosme de Torres and Gaspar Vilela y Fróis argued that 4 Peterson, ‘What to wear?’; Spence, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci, 114–16; Brockey, Journey to the East, 43–5. 5 See Županov, Disputed mission, esp. 4–5, 54–80.

Performing the Missionary Identity

91

missionaries should live, eat and dress like the respected Buddhist clergy of the country. The consultation called by Visitor Valignano in 1580 concluded that such customs and even some monastic ceremonies could be licitly adopted by Jesuits.6 The image of the Jesuit in an approximation of ‘local’ dress came to be emblematic of the Jesuit method (see Figure 7). Yet there were tensions within the order over this strategy: some Jesuits, like Cabral (superior in Japan 1570–81), complained vociferously about the propriety and legitimacy of such policies, bringing them into conflict with their confreres.7 Once again the situation of missionaries in Portuguese Malacca stands in contrast to that of their confreres in lands where the secular arm had not first carved a space for predication. In Malacca priests were visibly part of the colonial project, participating in processions and pageants. Their clothing is rarely mentioned as a part of their mission strategy, although, as we have seen, the habits and other textiles used by a few revered missionaries became powerful, healing relics after their deaths. Outside of Malacca, however, difficult sartorial decisions had to be made. Should the missionary retain the holy habit of his order, or would this prove to be a barrier to conversion? Adopting another dress could require approval from superiors in Europe. If this were granted, which costume should be adopted, and should this be modified? In times of persecution, was it not better to disguise oneself? The Augustinian Hermits’ approach to self-presentation in Southeast Asia is best summarized by Sebastião Manrique’s general advice for missionaries in the region. He urges them to make an outward display of simplicity, which would advertise their spiritual calling: missionaries should go truly Apostolically, with only the necessary spiritual equipment for the administration of the Sacraments, and few of these should be carried, which are of little volume and appearance, to avoid the scandal that these infidels feel seeing some Religious burdened with belongings and more belongings, and thereby possessed by interest and temporal gain.8

Manrique suggests that missionaries would be best served by being ‘well informed of the languages, commerce and customs’ of the lands they were visiting; they should avoid presenting themselves in a manner which would detract from their message. We can perhaps see in such admonitions a contrasting yet connected Augustinian strategy to that which was adopted in colonial centres in India and the New World, where the order was sometimes criticized for its elaborate, expensive churches.9 Lopez-Gay, ‘Misionología. III: Adaptación y inculturación’, 2704. Üçerler, ‘The Jesuit enterprise in Japan’, 857–8; Cummins, ‘Two missionary methods’, 60 asserts that such internal dissent within the Jesuits was later suppressed. 8 Sebastiano Manrique, Breve relatione de i regni di Pegú, Arracan, e Brama, e degl’ Imperij del Calaminan, Siamom, e gran Mogor (Rome: Francesco Moneta, 1643) (Pamphlet) APF SOCG 192, f. 265v: ‘ben instrutti de’linguaggi, commercij, e costumi’ ‘vadino veramente all’Apostolica con solamente gl’apperrecchi spirituali necessarij all’amminstratione de’ Sacramenti, e questi si portino succinti, che faccino poco volume, & apparenza per euitar lo scandolo, che quell’infideli riceuono nel veder alcuni Religiosi carichi di robba, e sopra robba, e per lo più appartenente ad interese, e guadagno temporale.’ 9 Compare for example the studied simplicity of much Franciscan architecture. See Phelan, The millennial kingdom of the Franciscans, 49. 6 7

92

Missionary Methods

Augustinians defended their monumental architecture by asserting that it appealed to the sensibilities of ‘pagans’ and encouraged conversion.10 Manrique suggests that in these lands of Theravada Buddhism, simplicity was more attractive. Although there is no explicit Augustinian statement of a policy of ‘accommodation’, such comments suggest that the Jesuits did not have the monopoly on the concept. In the case of the Franciscans, the order’s special devotion to the habit of Il Poverello informs many accounts by missionaries. Just as Franciscan miracle accounts often featured the habit or knotted cincture of the order, representing the centrality of the concept of poverty to the mystical life of Franciscans, missionary accounts dwelt on the power of Franciscan poverty and its sartorial markers to affect conversions.11 Trinidade lists the poverty of the Franciscans, represented in their appearance, as the first quality which equips the friars to be perfect evangelists: The Son of God showed clearly that this evangelical and apostolic poverty is important in preachers when, choosing soldiers to conquer the world (who were his Apostles), the first thing he recommended to them was that they possessed no gold nor silver, nor carried money in their belts nor a bag for the road, nor two tunics nor shoes.12

In colonial Portuguese towns this poverty is described as commanding respect and inspiring piety. When Franciscan Lucarelli arrived in Malacca, for example, ‘the poverty, the life and morals of this religious, and his penitence, moved the pagans of these parts, which augmented the number of faithful, the service of God and his holy faith’.13 In kingdoms like China, wrote Franciscan Francisco de Jesus de Escalona, it was the appearance of the friars, faithful to this apostolic model of poverty, which impressed potential converts the most: ‘seeing them so poor, humble, shoeless and penitent, [the non-Christians] felt remorseful and they were edified.’14 As the foundation of his appearance, the friar’s rough, poor and tattered habit was both a badge of his apostolicism, and a tool of evangelization in its own right. It should perhaps be noted here that occasionally travellers noted that some Southeast Asians seemed unimpressed with European standards of personal hygiene, and politely pressed visitors to allow their clothes to be laundered. We can also perhaps see something pointed in the frequently reported gifts of incense, perfumes, and scented woods to foreigners in Siam and the Viet lands. Yet stale-smelling 10 Gutiérrez, The Augustinians from the Protestant Reformation to the Peace of Westphalia, 213 (mainly discussing the Americas). 11 Cummins, ‘Two missionary methods’, 51, 62. On (Christ and St Francis’s) poverty, marked by the Franciscan habit, as a key focus of their mystical identity, see Vannini, Storia della mistica occidentale, 164–5. On reformed branches, see Ch. 1. 12 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, I: 79: ‘quanto importa esta pobreza evangélica e apostólica nos pregadores, o mostrou bem o Filho de Deus quando, escolhendo soldados para conquistarem o mundo (que foram os seus Apóstolos) a primeira coisa que lhes encomendou foi que não possuíssem ouro nem prata nem levassem dinheiro nos cintos nem alforge no caminho, nem duas túnicas nem calçado.’ He is quoting Matt. 10: 9–10. 13 Bishop of Malacca to Pope Gregory XIII, SF III: 71 fn. 1: ‘la povertà, la vita et li costumi di questi religiosi et la loro pentitentia movono li gentili di questi parti, il che torna in augmento del numero dei fedeli, del servitio di Dio et de la sua santa fede.’ 14 Francisco de Jesus de Escalona,‘Relacione del viaje al reino de la gran China’, SF II: 227: ‘viendoles tan pobres, humildes, descalzos y penitentes, se compungian y edificaban.’

Performing the Missionary Identity

93

clothing would not necessarily be unappealing on a holy man: in Siam, for example, a popular explanation of the fans (ตาลปัตร—talapat) carried by Buddhist monks was that they were originally used to shield the nose when gathering the clothing of the dead from the charnel grounds, from which the monks’ robes were traditionally made. The cultivation of an appearance of ascetic disregard for personal appearance is an essential part of constructing an identity in many spiritual traditions: the friars’ grubby robes would not necessarily have been off-putting. The habit of the Franciscans in Southeast Asia was also an important symbol during the jurisdictional disputes between the Spanish and Portuguese friars. When the Portuguese had first resolved to eject the friars from Malacca, the Spanish Franciscans and their novices initially resisted, linking their determination to fulfill their vocations in the East to their habit: ‘the novices making resolutions rather to lose their lives than to give up the habit.’15 Wearing the habit was synonymous with accepting the charge of mission, whilst ‘putting off the habit’ was an act of renunciation, even apostasy.16 Lucarelli referred to the temptation felt by some of his confreres in Cochinchina to give up their missionary labour as the work of the ‘demon’ which drives men to ‘succumb to the temptation to give up our habit’.17 Tellingly, when the Dutch sought to suppress the practice of Catholicism in Malacca, the choice was given to priests to leave or to symbolize that they had renounced their sacral functions by dressing as laymen.18 As in scandalized Catholic accounts of the heretic Dutch despising holy habits, descriptions of their rejection by Southeast Asian populations could convey the perceived spiritual sterility of a region. In one account, which sought to prove the necessity of military force to bring Christianity to Asia, the (Jesuit?) author denied that religious habits would make any positive impression. ‘As for the religious, the more poor, alone, denuded and discalced they go, the more they are taken for thieves and the most concealed spies. Nor does any habit arouse love or reverence or security for them.’ Franciscan poverty seemed unimpressive when many peoples went ‘half naked’ and barefoot, he claimed, and yet ‘if Augustinians or Dominicans also go, there are also people there [who wear] many robes, and with great sleeves like Benedictines’, so these habits were also equally unlikely to impress.19 It was thus improbable, he asserts, that ‘there is anything in our ceremonies or external adornment which could cause respect and reverence, as they despise the poor and common, and covet the rich and curious, and they die and kill to take it, as various 15 Giovanni Battista Lucarelli de Pisauro, ‘Viaggio dell’Indie’ in SF II: 70: ‘fecendo i novitii risolutione piutosto perder la vita, che lasciar l’habito.’ 16 Cf. e.g. Decrees of the Council of Trent, Session 25, ch. 19 on any regular religious who protests that he entered under duress ‘and wishes for any reason to put off his habit’: ‘if before this [e.g. the review of his case] he puts off the habit of his own accord, he should not be allowed to put up any case, but be forced to return to his monastery and be punished as an apostate from religious life.’ Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, I: 782. 17 Giovanni Battista Lucarelli de Pisauro, ‘Viaggio dell’Indie’ SF II: 64: ‘consentir nella tentatione del lassar l’habito nostro’. 18 Bort, ‘The report of governor Baltasar Bort on Malacca’, 81. Cardon, ‘A Malay tradition’, 129. 19 ARSI, FG, Tit. VIII, n. 722, f. 56v: ‘Si van agostinos y dominicos alla tambien ay gente de mucha Ropa y de mangas tan largas como de Bernados.’

94

Missionary Methods

religious have died only for their chalices and ornaments, and as seculars have died for their clothes’.20 Few were as extreme in their analysis of the situation; indeed mendicants of various orders were optimistic that they would be able to convey the spiritual value of Christianity through their habits. Descriptions of Southeast Asian responses to the mendicant habit could also impress upon the European reader the order’s virtues and the power of its badges of poverty and humility. Typically, in such accounts, the poor habit of a friar is noticed by a non-Christian, creating an opportunity to discuss its symbolism. Thus Dominican André do Espírito Santo, in Siam between 1601–5, impressed king Naresuan with his appearance. Called into the royal presence, he was seated with honour in the audience room, and having him come close to him, [the king] asked for the mantel of coarse cloth with which the father was covered, to see it and put it over his lap, and rubbing the back of his hand on it and finding it rough, he asked how he could suffer such a rough robe. The father satisfied his curiosity, saying that it was a robe of penitence, and contempt for the world. The king, very pleased, ordered that he should be given an elephant, and said that he should go about the city on it, something that was only conceded to princes and great nobles.21

Moreover, an honour of more practical benefit was granted: the right to preach in the city and to build a monastery church with a cloister to accommodate four friars.22 Thus the mendicant approach to self-fashioning took the tenets of the degrees of Trent literally. The ‘appropriate habit’ meant that which had been sanctified by the traditions of the order, and had its own sacred power. The Commissioner for the Franciscans’ Chinese missions, Buenaventura Ibañez, suggested that his confreres would be ideal for Tonkin, as they could evangelize there ‘without needing to take along any aid to sustain themselves, nor to change habit’.23 It is suggested that the fabric for such habits could be imported from Manila: Ibañez requests ‘coarse woollen cloth for four habits with shoulder-capes and a mantle’.24 Such a costume was ideal for evangelism in these lands. 20 ARSI, FG, Tit. VIII, n. 722, f. 56v: ‘ay ninguna cosa de nras cerimonias o ornato esterior q’ a ellos les pueda causar respecto o poner reuerencia, sus pobre y comun lo desprecian, rico o curioso lo cobdiçian y mueren y aun matan por cogerlo como an muerto a diuersos Religiosos por solos los caliçes y ornamentos y a seculares por los vestidos. La inteligentia y estima que se debe tener de la obra de las Indias y de los medios por donde dios la a hecho y quiere que se haga.’ 21 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, III: 462: ‘E fazendo-o chegar mais junto de si, pediu o manto de burel com que o padre estava coberto, para o ver, e pôs sobre o seu regaço, e esfregando as costas das mãos por ele e achando-o áspero lhe perguntou como podia sofrer vestido tão áspero. Ao que o Padre satisfez, dizendo que era vestido de penitência e deprezo do mundo. El-Rei muito contento lhe mandou dar um elefante, e lhe disse que andasse nele pela cidade, coisa que se não concede senão a príncipes e grandes senhores’. 22 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual do Oriente, III: 464. 23 Buenaventura Ibañez to the Franciscan Provincial, 27 March 1674, SF III: 131: ‘sin tener necessidad de llevar socorro alguno para sustentarse, ni mudar de habito.’ 24 Buenaventura Ibañez to the Franciscan Provincial, 27 March 1674, SF III: 131: ‘sayal para 4 habitos con capillas y un manto’. See also Buenaventura Ibañez to Sebastian Rodrigues, 27 March 1674, SF III: 136.

Performing the Missionary Identity

95

A number of Jesuits, however, scoffed at mendicant suggestions that their poor appearance was well received on Asian missions. Alessandro Valignano, for example, challenged the Franciscan suggestion that their habit was respected in Japan, that people kissed the ground before them, and cut pieces of their habit to keep devoutly: ‘this is not a courtesy paid by Japanese’, he asserted, and the friars were not recognized as embodying the poverty of Christ in this way.25 The mendicant habit of going barefoot as a sign of penitence may adequately convey spiritual values in colonial cities: for example Jesuit missionary António de Quadros was described as being so enamoured by the discalced Franciscans that he tried whereever possible to imitate the ‘heroic virtue’ of St Francis by going barefoot like the friars.26 Yet in other lands of Southeast Asia it could be more symbolically ambiguous. Buddhist monks in Tonkin, Cochinchina and Siam went unshod, but so too did a large proportion of the population: in Cochinchina one Franciscan asserted that ‘up to the king and queen, they go barefoot’.27 MEP priest Antoine Hainques is described as trekking into his mission in Cochinchina barefoot, in an account which clearly wishes to stress the heroic nature of the undertaking for a European audience. Yet Hainques is also said to be barefoot, ‘in the custom of this region, where the use of shoes is unknown’. He was not, then, seeking to present himself to the Cochinchinese as particularly ascetic.28 Elsewhere we find Jesuit missionaries asserting that going barefoot was often more convenient in the rainy season due to the mud.29 In his study of Rhodes’s mission strategies, Peter Phan argues that the Jesuits in Tonkin and Cochinchina were usually shod, wearing the sort of slippers worn by the middling ranks of society (called giay da lang) rather than the embroidered shoes (van hai) or boots (giay ong) worn by mandarins and the rich.30 Christoforo Borri, however, described how the Jesuits ‘as the lesser evil, elected to go barefoot’, as no one knew how to make European-style shoes, and the Jesuits could not bear the Vietnamese style due to ‘the pain they cause, to which they are unaccustomed, from having the toes of the feet separated and far from each other by the buttons which fasten them’.31 It seems rather than a firm policy in the matter of footwear the Jesuits allowed practicalities to guide them.

25 ‘Summarion de la apologia del Alexã da Valiñano’, ARSI, FG, Tit. VIII, 721/II/1/A, no. 2, f. 43r: ‘no es cortesia usada de Jappines’. 26 Untitled collection of Jesuit death notices, 17th cent., KCL, Marsden Collection, piece 1, f. 82r: ‘com os quaes se consolava spiritualmente muitas uezes’. 27 Francisco de Jesus de Escalona, ‘Relacione del viaje al reino de la gran China’, SF II: 304–5: ‘andan descalzos hasta el Rey y Reina.’ Loubère in Siam: The Talapoins ‘go with naked feet and bareheaded, like the rest of the People’, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 116. 28 Pallu, Relation abregée, 27: ‘[il] marcha nuds pieds selon la coustume de cette Region où l’ussage des chaussures est inconnu’. 29 In Tonkin: Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 5 (also quoted by Phan, Mission and catechesis, 77 fn. 21). In Cochinchina, Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 59. 30 Phan, Mission and catechesis, 77. 31 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 60: ‘eleggono d’andare del tutto scalzi’ ‘per il dolore che cagiona à chi non è auezzo à portare le dita delli piedi aperte, e lontane l’vno dall’altro per causa delli bottoni, con che s’affibiano.’

96

Missionary Methods

Another strategy of self presentation was to adopt the robes of a respected group, in the manner of Ricci and Nobili. In Siam, the yellow or reddish saffron robes of the monks commanded the most respect: their costume spoke of religious dedication and renunciation of the world.32 Values close to those expressed in Western monasticism—poverty, chastity, exclusion from temporal concerns—also found their symbolism in the traditional appurtenances of the Sangha: their begging bowls, talapat, bare feet, and shaved head.33 Would it not be possible to adopt some of these symbols in Siam? The evidence suggests that the Jesuits in Siam did not have a policy of dressing as Buddhist monks. The majority of images depicting Jesuit missionaries in Siam show them in black robes which would not have turned heads in Lisbon. The Dominicans in Ayutthaya saw nothing to upset them in the costume of the Jesuits. Elsewhere, Jesuit sartorial adaptations had led to harsh criticism. One Dominican compilation of Jesuit iniquities listed a number of letters in the possession of the author, which allegedly illustrated their scandalous behaviour and heretical opinions. In the catalogue of enormities was included an assertion by Jesuit Tomas Sánchez, ‘who says that it is licit to wear the clothing . . . marked out for the cult of the false sect, to hide oneself in infidels’ lands, when there is great necessity to do so’.34 No further gloss was deemed necessary to demonstrate how preposterous this was. In putting aside the sacerdotal habit, to Dominican critics, the Jesuits seemed to be acting in contempt of their status as priests and in contradiction of the orders of the Council of Trent which had noted how, ‘so great has grown the rashness of some and their contempt of religion at the present time that, giving little weight to personal dignity and clerical honour, they wear lay clothes even in public, a walking contradiction, with one foot among divine things and the other among those of the flesh’.35 How much worse to adopt not merely lay clothing, but the outfit of the officiants of another religion. In comparison, despite several squabbles between the Dominicans and the Jesuits in Siam there seem to be no complaints of inappropriate clothing. In the 1680s Constance Phaulkon urged the Jesuits to adopt the robes of the Sangha in order to improve their chances of converting the kingdom, suggesting 32 The reddish robes were worn by the ‘Forest’ monks. Note that saffron yellow could be a ‘culturally freighted colour’ with negative connotations in some parts of Europe. See Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance clothing, 59–85. 33 Loubère describes the talapat as ‘their little umbrella’ and its use as also practical—to defend them from the sun when they are out on the alms round. A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 116. However their main use is to hide the face of the monk when he preaches or prays in front of lay people, and to screen his face from women in certain circumstances. 34 ‘que dize, ser licito usar de vestidos . . . señalados para el culto de la secta falsa; por occultarse en tierras de infieles, q.do ay graue neçesidad de hazerlo.’ Diego Collado [?], ‘Papeles de la Compañia’ [l.1620s?], AGOP XIII-27.500–3, f. 4v. This document is an index to a series of (now lost) letters, some purportedly by Jesuits, proving their adherence to bad doctrine, others by outsiders, complaining about the Company. The content of each letter is outlined. The criticism of their adoption of Japanese robes is mentioned in the description of a letter written by Collado to the Propaganda Fide which cited numerous iniquities supposedly committed and heretical tenets held. 35 Session 14 (25 November 1551), Decrees on Reform, Canon 6: Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II: 716. Although see n. 65 for an example of a Dominican doing just this.

Performing the Missionary Identity

97

that they were not hitherto following this policy. Jesuit Guy Tachard’s first printed account of Siam reported how Constance was keen to support the foundation of another Jesuit mission in Ayutthaya, ‘where they might live, as far as they are able, the austere and retired life of the Talapoins, so authoritative amongst the people’. He urged ‘that they take their habit, that they see them often and try to draw one of them to the Christian religion. After all, this policy had succeeded for the Portuguese Jesuits from Madura to Bengal’.36 Tachard’s second account describes how two of the Jesuit mathematicians who had accompanied him back to Siam in 1687, de la Breüille and du Bouchet, went to live in little houses near the temple at the request of the king, so they might learn Pāli and Siamese. Le Blanc was to join them when his kuti (apartment) was built.37 They had been there a month when Tachard left, and had decided to eat only one meal a day and avoid alcohol in order not to scandalize the monks. No mention is made, however, of them changing their robes. Derick Garnier has suggested that the Jesuits did take Buddhist robes, referring to an illustration in Wat Koh Kaew Suttharam which he considers to depict a Jesuit monk in Buddhist robes and a ‘distinctive Jesuit hat’ which the ‘Thais prudently obliged them to retain’.38 Yet it seems to me that the illustration shows a group of Portuguese (whose headwear was sufficiently outlandish to become a feature in a range of Southeast Asian art) with a Buddhist monk who is trying on a hat belonging to one of the group. Indeed it was not the Jesuits who adopted the robes of the Sangha in Siam but the priests of the Missions Étrangères. Laneau and Pallu, still hopeful that they would be able to secure the conversion of the king, were also influenced by the advice of Nobili about self-presentation.39 Laneau in particular made great efforts to understand the culture of the Buddhist monks who were so revered in the kingdom, learning Pāli and receiving instruction in Buddhist doctrine.40 In order to be taken seriously as religious leaders, the Vicars Apostolic decided around 1677 that the adoption of Buddhist robes was essential.41 The robes, synonymous with religious guidance, spiritual assistance and even healing would command respect and signify the missionary’s sacral function. As one French commentator quipped, noting that Buddhist monks can leave the order whenever they want, ‘we can say that in this country, it is the habit which makes the monk’.42 François Pallu described the costume carefully:

36 Tachard, Voyage de Siam des pères Jesuites, 238–9: ‘où l’on menât, autant qu’il se pourroit, la vie austere & retirée des Talapoins, si autorisez parmi le peuple, qu’on prît leur habit, qu’on les vît souvent & qu’on tachât d’en attirer quelqu’un à la Religion Chrêtienne qu’on scavoit enfin combien cette conduite avoit réüssi aux Jesuites Portugais qui sont à Maduré vers Bengale.’ 37 Tachard, Le second voyage, 214. 38 Garnier, Ayutthaya: Venice of the East, 187 and 131. 39 The Vicars Apostolic refer to drawing inspiration from Nobili, for example, in ‘Institutione di Vita che si sono proposti gli Vicari Apostolici’, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 176r. 40 See Agadjanian, ‘Aspects de la perception du Bouddhisme’, 129–30. 41 Forest, Les missionnaires français, I: 210–11. 42 ‘L’Isle’, Relation historique, 158: ‘l’on peut bien dire que dans ce pais-là c’est l’habit qui fait le moine.’

98

Missionary Methods

It is to be noted in the first place that robes of this sort consist chiefly of four layers, or linens, the whole of which has been alternately stitched together from the parts, evidently so that it cannot be snatched by thieves, as indeed they completely cover the shoulders with the cloth. The second layer, however, they wear for resting before synod meetings. The third layer is like breeches, which reach down to the knees; finally the fourth of them is like a girdle, with which the rest of the robes are tied together . . . While all these cloths are of a deep yellow colour, some are girdled in yellow or red, others in a dark or rust colour. So, out of these colours, a strong yellow is hardly used by any apart from these Talapoins; however red is also worn by the laity.43

Loubère noted that yellow was ‘the colour of their Kings, and of the Kings of China’ noting that only the most senior and ancient monks wore the red version of the outer robe, which he describes as ‘a kind of Scapular’.44 Thus the colour itself was an important marker separating the wearer from the laity. François Lefevre provided more details of the sartorial scheme to the Propaganda in 1686, following the arrival of an order from the Congregation banning the practice.45 He noted first that in Siam, Laos and Pegu, where there were large numbers of monks who enjoyed the respect of the population, adopting their robes seemed sensible. ‘Indeed by this easy and clear method, the road will be opened for preaching, and the people will now offer ready ears, and bestow trust, and receive them, not any longer as seculars, but as holy men, as is well known amongst all people.’46 The pursuit of this proposal was only one of the ways in which the Missions Étrangères sought to model themselves on the Sangha. They had expressed dismay at what they saw as the lax, irreligious life of the Jesuits and mendicants in Siam, and argued that it was this lack of personal spirituality amongst the missionaries which had led to a failure of the mission.47 Drawing on their own spiritual backgrounds, and their observations of the authority of the Sangha, Lambert, Pallu, and Laneau stressed that there was no hope of converting the population unless they too were ‘to embrace harshness and austerity in their conduct and bearing’.48 Therefore they drew up a series of ‘interior’ vows for MEP missionaries to take—of chastity,

43 François Pallu, ‘Postulata a Sa Congregatione Per Episcopum Heliopolitanum’, 1682, AMEP 856, 517: ‘Notandum in primis huiusmodi uestes quatuor’ potissimum consistere Linteris, seu pannis, quorum sus totus ex partibus ad invicem consutis, ne uidelicet rapiatur a latronibus, ut quidem panno cooperiunt humeros. Alter’ uerò quo ad dormiendum pro synodone utuntur. Tertius est instar’ femoralium, qui ad genua decurrit; quartur denique illis est pro cingulo, quo reliquar constringunt uestes [ . . . ]. hi autem omnes panni colore ut plurimum flauo, nonnulli alii flauo aut rubro alii fusco aut ferrugineo cincti sunt. ex quibus quidem coloribus flauus uix a nullo alio præterquam ab istis Talaponis usurpatur: rubeus uerò a laicis quoque in usus est.’ 44 Loubère, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 116. 45 On banning of practice: Forest, Les missionnaires français, I: 211. 46 François Le Febvre to PF, 20 March 1685, APF SC, Indie Orientali Cina, 4, ff. 172r:‘Hac enim ratione facilis et aperta ad predicandum uia aperitur, Populusque iam illis facilis aures praebebit, fidemque tribuet, quos iam non ut profanos, sed ut sacros homines suscipiet, ac venerabitur, ut in confesso est apud omnes.’ 47 See also Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 15–16. 48 ‘Institutione di Vita che si sono proposti gli Vicari Apostolici’, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 168v: ‘abbracciare Durezze, et austerità nella loro condotta, e comportam.ti,.

Performing the Missionary Identity

99

poverty, and obedience—which would make the Society more like a religious order, and suggested the imposition of strict obligations of mental prayer, abstention from meat and alcohol and all medicines to introduce a suitable level of asceticism.49 The extremely demanding plans were considered by the Propaganda in 1669, and the opinion of a variety of ecclesiasts was sought.50 Responses of were almost unanimous: the vows were ‘too rigorous’, ‘hardly practical’, ‘very hard to observe’, indeed ‘not even the Apostles bound themselves with such vows’.51 The idea of forgoing all medicine was, in particular, judged illicit.52 Indeed, argued Dominican Giacomo Ricci, this would be to ‘tempt God’.53 The request was denied. These attempts to impose a rigorous and ascetic rule, as scholars have suggested, owe much to contemporary spiritual currents in France.54 Yet we should not lose sight of the local context in which these vows were drawn up. Laneau’s study of Buddhism and the Vicars’ observations of the respect commanded by the Sangha were also important inspirations.55 In contrast, the Portuguese Jesuits in Ayutthaya are accused of disgracing their habits: not by abandoning them for new robes, but by using them for nefarious purposes or by failing to carry out the duties which they symbolize. On 24 December 1668 the Propaganda heard a summary of reports sent by Pallu concerning Siam. None of the religious Orders operating in Ayutthaya escaped criticism, but the Jesuits were painted in particularly dark colours. Tommaso Valguarnera, the Jesuit Superior of the Siam mission was accused of sheltering a fugitive from justice in his house ‘to accumulate riches’. Most shockingly, he offered him the shelter of ‘the religious habit, which he accepted, and when he died after a few months, he left said Father 14,000 scudi, with the public rumour that the will was forged’.56 The accusation that a member of a religious order in the Padroado had ‘sold’ the right to wear a habit to allow a fugitive to escape justice, subsequently profiting financially, would have had a ring of truth to those inclined

‘Institutione di Vita che si sono proposti gli Vicari Apostolici’, APF, Acta CP 1A, ff. 171r–9v. These responses are included in the same volume as the original submission (‘Institutione di Vita che si sono proposti gli Vicari Apostolici’, APF, Acta CP 1A, ff. 168–87) including f. 207: response of Discalced Carmelite P. Taglia, ff. 208–10 Anon. theologian, ‘Risposta ai fondamenti, che adduce l’Ill.mo Vescouo’; ff. 304–6, response of Giacomo Ricci; f. 320, response of fr. Dominicus of the Discalced Carmelite convent of S. Maria Victoria. 51 Giocomo Ricci to PF, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 304r. ‘Nè gl”istessi Apostoli, che furono perfettissimi missionarij si legarono con tali uoti.’ ‘Risposta ai fondamenti, che adduce l’Ill.mo Vescouo’ APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 210v: ‘troppo rigorosa’ ‘un’Idea poco practicabile’, ‘molto ardui da osseruarsi’. 52 ‘Risposta ai fondamenti, che adduce l’Ill.mo Vescouo’ APF, Acta CP 1A, ff. 209v–10r explains the theological and canon law reasons for this. 53 Giocomo Ricci to PF, Acta CP 1A, f. 304v. 54 Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 14–16; Fauconnet-Buzelin, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères, 24–31, 39–42, 109–10. A general sense of the spiritual ‘objectives’ arising from the spirituality of French missionaries is given in Deslandres, Croire et faire croire, 65–73. 55 These Siamese contexts are stressed in ‘Institutione di Vita che si sono proposti gli Vicari Apostolici’, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 168r. 56 ‘Cong.o par’lais super rebus sinarum habita die 24 Decemberris 1668’ APF, Acta CP 1A, ff. 13v– 14r: ‘per accumular ricchezze’ ‘l’habito religioso, che accettati e uenuto è morte dopo pochi mese, lasció a detto Padre scudi quattordicimila con uoce publicà, che il Testamento fusse falso.’ 49 50

100

Missionary Methods

to believe the worst about sharp practices in the Portuguese Assistancy. After all, there had been some scandal in recent years concerning the Order of Christ and the number of men who had supposedly bought their way out of the hands of the hangman by paying for the habit of the order.57 We also hear echoes of Dominican criticisms of the Jesuits in Japan and China, who in the silk robes of the literati were depicted as converting themselves into Mandarins rather than converting others to Christ. Valguarnera is accused of abandoning evangelic work for his own personal advancement as he worked for the king on various engineering projects: ‘instead of spending his time in the service of these souls, he applies it to courting the Mandarins, in order to ascend, himself, to their status.’58 The attempts of the Vicars Apostolic to outstrip the Sangha in asceticism is thus contrasted to the Jesuits’ pursuit of civil honour in the court: another accusation which would have resonance for those inclined to believe the black legend of Jesuit politicking.59 In times of persecution, on the other hand, it could seem more prudent to adopt overtly secular dress. Thus the Deydier and Bourges, aware of the recent prohibition of priests, first entered Tonkin disguised as merchants, and let it be known that they intended to establish a new trading company in Tonkin. The king offered them a house, where they stayed ‘as French merchants, without any other merchandise than the Holy Gospel’.60 For Jesuit Tissanier, the disguise of some MEP priests was too good: they had ‘become merchants, as in Tonkin they have an open lodge where two priests, dressed as merchants, publicly sell pepper, ivory, fabrics, sandalwood, porcelain, etc.’.61 This made hypocrites out of those who condemned the Jesuits for engaging in trade, an issue about which Tissanier and Pallu had seemed to be in accord.62 Jesuit Jacques le Faure also commented disdainfully on the clothing strategies of the French priests, asserting that in his order they never put aside their habits for expediency in this manner.63 The disguises donned by Deydier are thus presented as another facet of his chameleon nature—he is not what he seems and ecclesiastical authorities in Europe should be warned of his tendency to dissemble. The idea that a Jesuit would never put aside his habit was, of course, inaccurate. Ferreyra frequently disguised himself as a merchant in order to travel around the 57 See e.g. Viceroy’s report to Afonso VI, 8 January 1668 BNF MSS Portugais 33, f. 35. C.f. Almeida, História da Igreja em Portugal, II:173–7. 58 ‘Cong.o par’lais super rebus sinarum habita die 24 Decemberris 1668’ APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 14r: ‘in uece d’impiegar il tempo in seruito di quell’anime, l’applicà tutto in corteggiare i Mandarini con fine d’ascender anch’egli à quel grado.’ 59 See Burke, ‘The black legend of the Jesuits’, 175–7; Franco, O mito dos Jesuítas, I: 69–85. 60 Jacque de Bourges to his brother, Tonkin, 19 February 1670, AMEP 650, f. 195. 61 Tissanier, Siam, 11 June 1675. (AMEP 857) cited by Chappoulie, Une controverse entre missionnaires à Siam au XVII siècle, pp xii–xiv fn. 1: ‘devenus marchands, car ils ont au Tonkin une loge ouvert où deux prêtres habillés en marchands vendent publiquement du poivre et de l’ivoire, des toiles, du santal, de la porcelaine, etc.’ My emphasis. 62 Together they had written the Religiosus negotiator, which condemned missionary engagement on trade to raise funds for mission. See Chappoulie, Une controverse entre missionnaires à Siam au XVII siècle, 2–27, which reproduces the full text. 63 See Chappoulie, Une controverse entre missionnaires à Siam au XVII siècle, xviii.

Performing the Missionary Identity

101

provinces.64 Juan de Santa Cruz, a Dominican working with the Missions Étrangères (who himself was disguised in secular clothing) reported another of Ferreyra’s strategies for travelling the country.65 The Jesuit stationed his eunuch assistant on the upper deck of a boat, so that any guards or customs agents, ‘thinking that in the cabin in the middle of the boat there was only his wife and female servants, dare not have it opened and examine it’. With this ‘subtlety’ (‘finesse’), Ferreyra won free movement, and the eunuch was also able to convince poorer Christians that the king had sent him to accompany the priest, lending weight to Jesuit claims that the French priests were the real troublemakers in the realm.66 Jesuits travelling to Dutch-occupied Malacca often went ‘disguised as soldiers’.67 Mesquita and Hainques dressed ‘in secular clothes with their swords in their belts, hair and beards grown’. So complete was their transformation that they were immediately unrecognizable to the Portuguese in Macao: ‘so different in appearance that some who hated them before talked with them and did not know them.’68 Their disguise fooled the Dutch in Malacca, but somehow the faithful were able to see through it: ‘the Fathers disembarked and although the disguises were successful with the Dutch, none of the Catholics failed to recognize them as more than soldiers and more than merchants.’ Despite the swords and other secular accoutrements, ‘somehow’, the Christians mysteriously knew their true nature: ‘they say that the more they disguise themselves, the more they seem Fathers of the Company rather than soldiers of the world.’69 Thus even the slightly un-heroic strategy of disguise could be described in terms which celebrated the status and mystic authority of the priest and indeed the order. In general, in Tonkin and Cochinchina the Jesuits modified their robes to match local styles. Cristoforo Borri gives the most detailed account of Jesuit fashions, in his description of Cochinchina. Since the Cochinchinese did not, unlike the Chinese, ‘despise foreign things’, he declares they had not had to modify their habits greatly, but their clothes certainly differed from their confreres in Europe, consisting of ‘a soutane of fine cotton which we call Ehingon, normally blue in colour, without a mantel or any 64 Manuel Ferreyra to PF, ‘Raguaglio della Missione fatta dal Pre. Emanuele Ferreira’, Tonkin, 3 October 1676, APF SOCP 9, ff. 27v–8r. 65 On arrival of the two Dominicans (Juan de Santa Cruz and Dionisio Morales) ‘vestiti da Secolari come noi’, see François Pallu to M. Gazil, Tonkin, 10 October 1677 (‘Estratto’), AMEP 678, f. 219. 66 ‘Journal du Tonkin Dépuis le commencement de l’Année 1683 Jusqu’en Octobre de l’Année 1684’, AMEP 656, 70. 67 ‘Raggualglio della missione del Giappone: nell’isola Hayunam, Camborria, Macassar &c. Tratto dall’ultima lettera annua scritta in lingua Portoghese’, 1649, ARSI JapSin 65, f. 75r: ‘trauestiti da soldati’. 68 Pero de Mesquita, ‘Anno de 1651 Ao Pe Francisco de Tavora da Compa de JESUS assistente em Roma das Provincias de Portugal e da India. Relação da Nova Missão q’ fizerão os PP Pero de Mesquita e Mel Henriques mandados do Collo de Macao a Cide e fortaleza de Malaca em 651’, BA, JnÁ, 49-IV52, f. 8r: ‘em trajos de secular com suas espadas na cinta, cabellos e barbas crecidas’, ‘tão outros a o parecer, q’ alguns q’ odia’ antes fallarão com elles o não conheçerão.’ 69 Pero de Mesquita, BA, JnÁ, 49-IV-52, f. 8v: ‘Desembarcarão os Padres e posto q’ fizerão bem a disfarce para os Olandezes, não faltou quem dos Catholicos reconhecessa nellas Mais q’ Soldados, e Mais q’ Mercadores.’, ‘dizião, por mais que elles se disfarssem, mais parecem Padres da Compa q’ de soldados do Mundo.’

102

Missionary Methods

other outer garment’.70 It seems that these decisions could have more to do with trying to remain inconspicuous in times of persecution as trying to present a certain image to attract converts. Saccano, for example, travelled under the cover of night, dressed in Cochinchinese clothes, so that he could administer the sacraments secretly.71 Yet other signs could mark the priest out. Cochinchinese men grew their hair long and the nobles never cut their beards, distinguishing them from manual labourers and ‘mechanics’ who needed to keep them conveniently shorter.72 Borri reported that early in the mission the Jesuits were asked why they cut their hair, considering that pictures of Jesus show him with long hair. They answered that ‘imitation does not consist of clothing’; but some Jesuits did adopt the custom of wearing their hair and beards long.73 Thus Domenico Fuciti reported that ugly rumours had started to circulate about clean-shaven François Deydier—that he had openly denied being priest, or even apostatized, ‘and that is why he wears a shaved beard, in contrast to the masters and preachers of our holy faith [the Jesuits] who wear it long’.74 Some opponents of the Missions Étrangères alleged that their entire manner of dressing alienated potential converts. Ignacio Martins, one of the Jesuits’ Tonkinese catechists, seemed unable to decide whether this was due to their ‘vagabond’ ways or their vanity and the rich fabrics that they wore: They notice that the French clerics do not live in conformity with the customs by which Fathers must live, because it is the habit of the Tonkinese to wonder at Fathers who live like vagabonds, who go all over the kingdom idly, especially to ride horses and with swords raised to go hunting in the country, to eat, to drink in company of vagabonds dressed all in silk. And the Fathers of the Company do none of these things, and live in conformity with the customs and practices of the land, and by this convert many to the law of God.75

Some adaptations to costume related to the sartorial norms of those who oversaw non-Christian rituals and ceremonies in Tonkin and Cochinchina. The Jesuits, like their confreres in China, sought permission to say mass with a covered head, as going bareheaded ‘was considered discourteous’ and officiants at civil and religious 70 ‘Vestono vna sottana di bombace sottile, che chiamano Ehingon per ordinario di color azurro, senza mantello, ne altra sporaueste’, Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 60. I have been unable to identify ‘Ehingon’ as a particular type of fabric: ‘gòn’ is a sort of cotton, but the first syllable may be misspelt or a misprint. 71 ‘Raggualglio della missione del Giappone: nell’isola Hayunam, Camborria, Macassar &c. Tratto dall’ultima lettera annua scritta in lingua Portoghese’, 1649, ARSI JapSin 65, f. 13v. 72 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 57. 73 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione,, 58: ‘l’imitatione non consisteua nel vestito’. 74 Domenico Fuciti to PF, ‘Réponse du P. Dominique Fuciti aux accusations formées contre lui’, BNF MSS F.Fr. 9773, f. 37r: ‘et que c’estoit pour cela qu’il ne portoit alors la barbe rase, au lieu que les maistres et predicateurs de nostre S.te foy la portent longue.’ 75 Ignacio Martins, ‘Copia das Cartas Traduzida da lingua Tunkina em Portuguez dos Christaons da Provincia do Leste’ BA, JnÁ, 49-V-33, f. 93r: ‘Notão que os Clerigos Francezes não vivem conforme o costume como devem viver os Padres porque he costume dos Tonkins estranhar muito aos Padres, que vivem como vadios, que vão por todo o Reyno ociozos a saber, correr a cavallo, e grimir espadas hir caçar ao campo, comer beber brincar em Companhia dos vadios vestidos todo de seda, e os Padres da Companhia não fazem nenhuma destas couzas e vivem conforme o costume e uzo da terra, por isso muitos gentios se convertião a leu de Deos.’

Performing the Missionary Identity

103

ceremonies wore headwear.76 The Jesuit biretta—already the subject of heated discussion in Europe over whether lay brothers should be allowed to wear it— adapted to its surroundings in China as the Jesuits began to dress like Confucian scholars.77 Matteo Ricci described wearing a ‘quite extravagant biretta, pointed like that of a bishop’, different from the usual Jesuit model and was more in keeping with their new costume.78 The Jesuits’ headgear in Tonkin and Cochinchina was similarly adapted.79 The Dominicans and Franciscans had objected to this innovation in China, and soon the matter was referred to the Propaganda Fide. The cardinals noted the mendicants’ opposition, especially to the extension of the practice to Tonkin and Cochinchina, and noted the matter had caused ‘not a little confusion in these parts’.80 Eventually the Congregation decided that ‘The privilege claimed is not supported in the kingdoms of Tonkin and Cochinchina.’81 Debates over missionary clothing refused to die away. In 1706 Charles le Gobien used his eulogy of Antoine Verjus, director of the French Jesuit missions to the East, to once again defend Jesuit strategies of dressing. He recalled that in China when the first missionaries had tried dressing in an ascetic manner, like the Buddhist monks of the country, they secured no conversions. With a nod to the old adage that ‘the habit makes not the monk’, he reminds the readership: We can even, under silk fabric, wear the hair-shirt and cilice, after the manner of numerous holy missionaries. In short, to be holy and to preach the Gospel it is not necessary to be dressed in a habit of penitence. How many excellent religious of every Order in Heretic lands, have there been, who sustained the interests of Jesus Christ with admirable zeal, and who equally wore all sorts of habits.82

EMBODYING THE VIRTUES OF CHRISTIANITY Self-fashioning was of course not merely a matter of changing one’s costume. As the Decrees of Trent stated, ‘it is most important for clergy called to share the Lord’s 76 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 58–9: ‘sendo ciò stimato atto di scortesia’ ‘fù necessario che li Padri della Compagnia impetrassero dalla Santità di Paolo Quinto facoltà di poter’ in quelle parti celebrare il sãto Sacrificio della Messa, à capo coperto.’ 77 On debates over the biretta in Europe see Paderberg, ‘The third General Congregation’, 64. 78 Matteo Ricci to Girolamo Benci, Nanghang, 7 October 1595, in Ricci, Lettere, 269: ‘una beretta assai stravagante, acuta come quella de’ vescovi’. Many thanks to Mary Laven for this reference. 79 On clothing in Vietnam see Nguye ˆ˜n- hữu Tấn, La vie quotidienne, 55–7. 80 ‘Congregatio partucularis super rebus sinarum habita 28 Januarij 1669’, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 30r, 33r:‘ne nasce in quelle parti non piccola confusione.’ 81 ‘Congregatio partucularis super rebus sinarum habita 28 Januarij 1669’, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 30r, 33v: ‘Priuilegium assertum non suffragari in Regno Tunchini, et Cocincinæ.’ 82 Charles le Gobien, Eulogy of Antoine Verjus, 1706, Lettres edifiantes et curieuses ecrites des missions Etrangeres, VIII Recueil: 234: ‘On peut mesme sous une étoffe de soye, porter la haire & le cilice, selon la pratique de plusieurs saints Missionnaires. Enfin il n’est pas necessaire d’estre revestu d’un habit de penitence pour estre saint, & pour prescher l’Evangile. Combien y a-t-il d’excellens Religieux de tous les Ordres, dans les Pays Heretiques, qui soûtiennent avec un zele admirable les interests de Jesus-Christ & qui portent indifferemment toutes sortes d’habits.’

104

Missionary Methods

portion to so fashion their whole life and habits that by dress, gesture, gait, speech and every other way they express only what is serious, moderate and wholly devout.’83 How were these expressions to be translated to the context of the mission fields? While the Propaganda may have disagreed with the French missionaries in Siam that it was necessary to reformulate the apostolic lifestyle to adhere to strict Theravāda asceticism, the idea that missionaries should cultivate an image attractive to locals was uncontroversial. In Europe, manuals for missionaries setting off into the wilds of the provinces abounded with advice about how to make oneself approachable and appealing: Franciscans penetrating the French countryside, for example, were warned not to appear too austere, so as not to render themselves odious to the simple peasantry unfamiliar with the reformed orders.84 Through their manner of living missionaries could demonstrate their disinterest in worldly concerns, marking themselves out as men of the spirit. It was important to demonstrate this for the European audience as well as for potential converts. In Siam, for example, Augustinian Sebastião de Sousa lived in a hermitage near the Portuguese quarter of Ayutthaya until his death in 1703, after which he was hailed as a saint by Christians of the town. He was moved to adopt this lifestyle due to his admiration for the ascetic life as led by Christian anchorites, but his lifestyle also mirrored that of Buddhist forest monks and his life of silence and continuous mental prayer also impressed the Siamese.85 Such values were also appreciated in Tonkin and Cochinchina, where the proverb ‘Respect righteousness, despise riches’ summarized the need for worldly detachment, care for others without hope of material reward, and moral integrity.86 In the model provided by the Apostles and missionary saints, the particular benefits and perfection of the faith could be conveyed in the personal qualities, life and deeds of the evangelist. Thus the concordance between Catholicism, natural law and reason is portrayed by the missionary’s own learning and rational argument. Salvation is glimpsed when the priest presides over miraculous rescues: snatching tormented bodies from the possession of demons, bringing the sick back from the brink of death. Divine mercy is prefigured in the acts of charity bestowed upon the most despised: visits to prisons and slave pens, providing succour and the necessities of life for the least. The missionary could show through these worldly means— erudition and oratory, care for the sick, distribution of alms—what sort of man he was, and thus what sort of religion he represented. Potential converts could compare the promises of Christianity to the benefits of other faiths and the qualities of other spiritual leaders who also preached, taught, and healed. Missionaries would have to outstrip their spiritual rivals in order to persuade non-Christians of the benefits of conversion. 83 Session 22 (17 Sept. 1562), Decrees on Reform, Canon 1: Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II: 737. 84 ‘Ordre pour ceux qui vont en mission’, BNF MSS F.Fr. 13515, f. 3v. 85 Castro and Merino, Misioneros Agustinos en el Extremo Oriente 1565–1780, 91–3. 86 See Cao Thi Nhu-Quynh and John Schafer, ‘From verse narrative to novel: the development of prose fiction in Vietnam’ 769: ‘Trọng nghĩa khinh tài’. The authors cite this within the context of Confucian values and doctrine.

Performing the Missionary Identity

105

Spanish Augustinian Juan Bautista de Montoya, sent to establish a convent in Ayutthaya in the 1580s had given up after an unsuccessful attempt to debate with the Buddhist monks. It did not seem worthwhile to him to establish a mission there, amongst a ‘people so lettered and obstinate in their blindness’.87 Other missionaries argued that it was necessary to beat their opponents in these debates by demonstrating either a more perfect concordance between Catholicism and natural reason, or demonstrating the greater knowledge of the missionary in other spheres, which would support his claims in the spiritual realm. Jesuit assessments of the situation in Tonkin and Cochinchina stressed the value of presenting an appearance of scholarship and erudition, especially in attracting the approval of court officials and mandarins in the provinces.88 In particular ‘that which most helped these conversions’ it was reported in a Jesuit account of Cochinchina, ‘after the good life of our Fathers, was knowledge of mathematics’.89 Similarly Simon de la Loubère, having noted the importance of astronomy in Siam and the deficiency of Siamese systems of mathematics and medicine, was convinced that the true secret of insinuating into the mind of these People, supposing that one has not the Gift of Miracles, is not directly to contradict in any thing, but to show them, as at unawares, their Errors in the Sciences, and especially in the Mathematicks and Anatomy, wherein they are most palpable. . . . The Spirit of man is such, that he almost implicitly received the Opinions of him, who has visibly convinc’d him of his first Errors. Thoroughly convince a sick person that the Remedy which he uses is not good, and he will immediately take yours.90

Across Southeast Asia European sciences seemed to have the potential to ‘win the people of these vast countries to the true faith’. Sciences should be introduced in order to ‘have supernatural enlightenment and the science of salvation accepted here’.91 In Siam, notes Loubère, ‘divination’ and ‘the divine’ are the same word, and ‘This Prince, no more than his Subjects, undertakes no Affair, nor Expedition, till his Diviners, which are all Brames or Peguins, have fix’d him an hour prosperously to set upon it.’92 Astronomy and other branches of mathematics were thus 87 Castro and Merino, Misioneros Agustinos en el Extremo Oriente 1565–1780, 172: ‘gente tan letrada y obstinada en sus ceguedades’. He went on to found a convent in Macao, before being ordered to leave in 1596. 88 See Ch. 3. See also Maggs, ‘Science, mathematics and reason’, 446–9. Maggs’s article focuses on Jesuit science in Vietnam, an under-explored topic. Far more attention has been paid to science on the mission fields of China. See e.g. Elia, Galileo in China; Elman, On their own terms. On Jesuit mathematics, see Romano, La Contre-Réforme mathématique. 89 ‘Lettre de l’an MDCXXI—la mission de Cochincina’, in Darde, Histoire de ce qui s’est passé en Ethiopie, Malabar, Brasil, et les Indes Orientales, 122: ‘ce qui a le plus servy à ces conversions’, ‘apres la bonne vie de nos Peres, a esté la cogniossance des Mathematiques.’ 90 Loubère, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 142–3. On medicine, see 63–3. 91 Observations physiques et mathematiques pour servir à l’histoire naturelle & à la perfection de l’Astronomie & de la Geographie. Envoyées de Siam, Dedication to Louis XIV by P. Goüye (n.p.): ‘gagner les peuples de ces vastes contrées à la vraye Foy’ ‘pour . . . y faire recevoir les lumieres surnaturelles & la science du salut.’ 92 Loubère, Simon de la, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam, 65–6. He also notes the similarity between this superstition and that ‘Folly which is perhaps too much tolerated amongst the

106

Missionary Methods

Figure 8. Jesuit mathematical and astronomical instruments. Title page of Guy Tachard’s Voyage de Siam des Pères Jésuites (1686). Cambridge University Library O.3.33. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

crucial for good government.93 The title page of Guy Tachard’s Voyage de Siam des pères Jesuites (Figure 8) makes clear the value of Jesuit scientific training and study on the mission fields. Hic Clum Panditur, reads the banner: through these things the heavens will be opened out. Just as the secrets of the stars are revealed by the Jesuits’ scientific instruments depicted in the illustration, the secrets of Heaven are uncovered by the Jesuits themselves, instruments of God.94 Christians, witness the Almanac of Milan, to which so many persons do now give such a blind Belief.’ (66) 93 Andaya, ‘Political developments’, 76. 94 This illustration is also discussed by Florence Hsia, ‘Multinational martyrs, mandarin missionaries and apostolic academicians’, 29.

Performing the Missionary Identity

107

An ability to predict accurately lunar eclipses provided Jesuits in Tonkin, Cochinchina, and Siam with a theatrical opportunity to impress and to out-do local astronomers.95 These stories follow a similar pattern: rival predictions about the timing of the eclipse are made by court astronomers and by the Jesuits, and an audience gathers to watch the results. In Cochinchina in 1621, The news of this eclipse has spread, and the time having arrives, everybody began to take watch and look at the sky. You would have seen coming to the Court from every part princes, captains, soldiers, harquebusiers, trumpeters, and an infinity of people, some with their weapons, some with their trumpets, those with their tambours, and other instruments, to make, as is their custom, the greatest uproar they can when the moon eclipses.96

The time set by the Court astronomers passed anticlimactically, leaving the Jesuits to triumph as the precision of their forecast was demonstrated, challenging the preeminence of traditional guardians of celestial knowledge. At the end of the seventeenth century, at the height of an anti-Christian persecution in Cochinchina, chúa Nguye˜ˆn Phúc Chu (r. 1691–1725) valued such learning enough to engage two Jesuits in the court to share their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics.97 Similarly in 1685, a group of French Jesuit mathematicians was able to impress King Narai of Siam: he observed them making astronomical measurements on a number of occasions. The Jesuits endeavoured not only to impress Narai with their ability to predict eclipses and by demonstrating to him their scientific instruments and knowledge, but they also strove to undermine alternative authorities on astronomy. Tachard relates, for example, how the king enquired whether ‘what he had read in some Chinese books was true: that a fixed, very brilliant star always appeared directly above the Emperor of China’s palace in Peking.’98 The Jesuits easily persuaded him that this was a fable. They also contradicted the interpretation of eclipses put forward by some Buddhist monks, ‘that when the moon is eclipsed, a dragon devours it and then throws it back.’99 However they were less successful in countering this explanation. ‘Although we had proven to them that all of this is a fantasy,’ complained Tachard, ‘they persist stubbornly in their illusion.’100

95 Cf. Bagioli, Galileo’s instruments of credit, 1–2, 7–14, 81–97 on Galileo’s strategies of maximizing his ‘credit’ amongst potential patrons; and Helms, ‘Essay on objects’, 357–8 on significance and value imbued in certain objects. See also Cruysse, Le noble désir, 350–3. 96 Darde, Histoire de ce qui s’est passé, 124: ‘La nouvelle de ceste Eclipse s’estant espanduë, & le temps estant venu, tout le monde se mist à veiller, & à regarder le Ciel. Vous eussiez veu courir de toutes partes à la Cour, les Princes, les Capitaines, les Soldats, les Arquebusiers, les Trompettes, & une infinité de peuple, les uns avex leurs armes, les autres avec des trompettes, ceux-là avex des tambours, & autres instrumens, pour faire selon leur costume le plus grande tintamarre qu’ils pourroient quant la Lune eclipseroit.’ 97 Ramsay, ‘Miracles and Myths’, 379. 98 Tachard, Voyage de Siam des pères Jesuites, 334: ‘qu’il paroissoit toûjours une Etoile fixe & fort brilliant perpendiculairement sur le Palais de l’Empereur de la Chine à Péquin.’ 99 Tachard, Voyage de Siam des pères Jesuites, 335: ‘quand la Lune s’églipse, un Dragon la dévore & qu’il la rejette ensuite.’ 100 Tachard, Voyage de Siam des pères Jesuites, 335: ‘On a beau leur prover que tout cela est chimérique, ils persistent opiniâtrement dans leur illusion.’

108

Missionary Methods

Fascinated by European astronomy, which presented an alternative conception of the universe to that found in Siamese and Chinese cosmography, Narai also amassed a collection of scientific instruments and astronomical tables, presented to him by European ambassadors, merchants, and missionaries.101 Ian Hodges argues that ultimately this interest would lead to no real change in Siamese science in the seventeenth century.102 But in building two observatories for the Jesuits and showing further signs of his favour to missionaries in the kingdom, Narai demonstrated that he appreciated these men as skilled possessors of important and esoteric knowledge. Instruments such as telescopes, lenses, and timepieces served as visual representations of the missionaries’ access to novel and exotic knowledge and technologies. By presenting such objects as gifts to rulers and influential nobles the missionaries defined themselves as conduits of useful and prestigious information and objects.103 A similar strategy had proved successful for Indian Brahmans who presented their learning to the early Tai kings and became indispensable advisers and practitioners of court ritual.104 Missionaries from other religious orders on occasion questioned the propriety of such Jesuit attempts to reinvent themselves as intellectual authorities.105 The Dominican order, for example, although also devoted to conversion ‘by the head’ by means of reasoned argument and demonstration of the concurrence between Catholicism and natural law, were sometimes uneasy about Jesuit self-fashioning as men of science.106 Similarly, when Pallu and Lambert, of the Missions Étrangères drew up the Monita ad missionarios, their distaste for Jesuit methods in Siam was clear: astronomy and other mathematical sciences, painting, mechanical arts and others, all this is for the missionary a burden and a hindrance rather than a real help. . . . They draw to the missionary respect and a renown which fills him with the smoke of an empty misplaced vanity, amuses the curiosity of the audience and, their attention fixed to this, distracts them from the matters of salvation.107

Yet other missionaries of the Society urged superiors in Paris to send men who were skilled in ‘science, medicine and surgery’.108 When they weighed in to this debate over using worldly knowledge as a handmaiden of spiritual truth, the Franciscans had Hodges, ‘Western science in Siam’. See also Reynolds, ‘Buddhist cosmography in Thai History’. Hodges, ‘Western science in Siam’, 90. e.g. presentation of clock and demonstration of mathematical and astronomical knowledge to king in Tonkin by Baldinotte in 1626, see Ruiz-de-Medina, ‘Vietnam’, 3956. See also Vongsuravatana, Un Jésuit à la cour de Siam, 28–30; Maggs, ‘Science, mathematics and reason’, 446; Jacques, De Castro Marim à Faïfo, 113. 104 Saraya, (Sri) Dvaravati, 26–7. 105 See Cummins, A question of Rites, 7–11. 106 Cummins, A question of rites, 15–16. 107 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 48: ‘l’astronomie et les autres sciences mathématiques, la peinture, les artes mécaniques et autres, tout cela est pour le missionnaire une charge et une entrave plutôt qu’un réel secours . . . . ils attirent au missionnaire une considération et une renommé qui le remplissent de la fumée d’une vaine gloriole, amuse la curiosité des auditeurs et, en y fixant leur attention, les distrait des choses du salut.’ 108 ‘Conditions de réussité pour les établissements des Indes’, AMEP 851, ff. 177–9. 101 102 103

Performing the Missionary Identity

109

considerable institutional baggage with which to contend. Denunciations of the use of the ‘Egyptian gold’ of pagan philosophy or Arabic learning, and debates over whether friars should study in general had raged especially in the Franciscan order almost from its inception, occasionally flaring up intensely in the reformed branches.109 Spiritual questions over the probity of using worldly methods for evangelical ends would crystallize into viciously contested debates. We can see these themes in the furious denunciation of the French Jesuit mathematicians in Siam for refusing to obey the Vicars Apostolic. The king of Siam had offered to build them an observatory and host them in the country due to their demonstrated prowess. So their strategy of assimilation had succeeded: they had shown themselves to be worthy rivals to the court astronomers and had demonstrated the potency of their knowledge. Yet, claimed the French bishops, they reached the Siam mission through Jesuit influence in the French court, and their self-fashioning as mathematicians, in order to circumvent the Propaganda Fide.110 They refused to take the Oath to the Vicars Apostolic, thus seeming to renounce their own priesthood, continuing to refuse even when Pallu revoked their faculties to administer the sacraments.111 In this telling, by following the worldly strategy, the Jesuits stepped completely away from the divine. MI S S I ONA R I ES A S HEA LER S And as ye go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.112

We can see further nuances when missionaries turned to another branch of European learning in order to make an impression: medicine. Curing the sick was a perfect metaphor for the spiritual conversions which they hoped to affect: language describing Christianity as a medicine, a balsam, a salve abounds, while heresy and unbelief are ‘infections’.113 Missionaries could be presented as struggling against a rival physician: ‘the devil has everywhere his hospitals of spiritual sickness, which he treats with fatal cures.’114 Yet missionaries’ most valuable cures are intangible: a change in the soul of the convert which takes effect after death. The supernatural dimension of corporeal cures is also conveyed through paradox. The true significance of the ‘cure’ was that missionaries used materials which had negligible curative properties in and of themselves: water, paper, bread, gestures, 109 French and Cummingham, Before science, 58–9, 82–3; Agustí Boadas Llavat, provides a succinct description of some of the major themes in these debates up to the end of the thirteenth century, ‘Los estudios universitarios medievales entre los franciscanos: una aproximación’ see esp. 839–43. 110 ‘La nécessité d’établir un clergé dans les Missions’, AMEP 129, ff. 198–9. 111 ‘La nécessité d’établir un clergé dans les Missions’, AMEP 129, ff. 198–9, and ‘Veso de Metellopoli reuochi le facoltè’, APF SC 2, f 23r. 112 Matt. 10: 7–8. Also cited in Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 52. 113 Rhodes’s catechism emphasized Christ’s healing miracles, (reproduced in Phan, Mission and Catechsis. See 276–80.) See also Thayer, ‘Judge and doctor’, 20–4 on descriptions of the confessor as a doctor. 114 Memoires et instrvctions Chrestiennes, 191.

110

Missionary Methods

words and so on. Though being sanctified by a priest they gained those curative properties, transcending their substance.115 In Europe, in the course of his ‘cure of souls’ the priest was enjoined to impress upon his flock the efficacy of recourse to the holy for temporal cures. The miraculous changes wrought on the sick and dying by proper use of the sacraments, sacramentals and prayer to the Virgin and Saints proved their power, against the imprecations of Protestants.116 The reform of pastoral care and the encouragement of charitable works also resulted in the expansion of hospital or hospice provision in Catholic Europe and the colonial world. Construed as holy places of devotion in which the poor or needy could also seek temporal assistance, hospitals provided an outlet for pious display for the benefit of the souls of the benefactors.117 They could also be places in which those with the visible signs of God’s displeasure at the world—marks of plague, venereal disease, and leprosy—could be gathered and treated: cleansing society’s sins with works of charity. Institutions such as hospitals and the Miséricordia (the charitable organisation which raised money for the redemption of captives, the burial of the poor and aid for widows and orphans as well as the care of the sick) were founded to the same ends in Goa, Malacca and Macao in the Portuguese Padroado.118 The Portuguese community in Ayutthaya also reportedly had a Misericórdia.119 Religious orders—above all the Franciscans and Augustinians—and confraternities had important roles to play in these institutions.120 In many ways this was a natural extension of medieval traditions of monastic charitable care for the sick. There was also a Counter Reformation flourishing of new religious institutes especially devoted to caring and curing, often connected to the Franciscans and Augustinians, spreading to the missions of the New World.121 In Augustinian accounts and petitions to the king their care for the sick and dying was highlighted.122 One

115

See Delumeau, Rassurer et protéger, 37–50. See Gentilcore, From bishop to witch, 94–108. On Protestant attacks, especially on sacramentalia, see Cameron, ‘For reasoned faith or embattled creed?’, 173–5. 117 Gentilcore, Healers and healing, 128. The terms ‘hospice’ and ‘hospital’ do not necessarily denote a medical function. Châtellier, The Europe of the devout, 120, 131. 118 In Malacca the Hospital dos Pobres and the hospital royal were founded at same time as the fortress and church by Albuquerque. Cardon, ‘Portuguese Malacca’, 19–20; Lobato, ‘Malaca’, 27. 119 Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 34–5. On the Misericórdia, see Barreto, Macau: poder e saber, 117–18. 120 Gentilcore, Healers and healing, 132–3. See also Jorgensen, ‘The Theatines’, 2; O’Connell, ‘The Roman Catholic tradition since 1545’, 134–5. 121 Connected to the Franciscans, for example, were the Obregonians, founded by Bernardino Obregó (1540–99) with a fourth vow of hospitality and the Belemites, founded by Pedro de Betancourt (1619–67). The Order of the Hospitalier Brothers of St John of God (known as the Frères de la Charité in France) (founded 1571) were under the rule of St Augustine. See Berdonces, ‘Fratelli Minimi (Obregoniani o Obregoni)’, 665–6; Martínez Cuesta, ‘Betancur’, 1412–14; Blancard, ‘Frères hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Dieu’, 1601–2. 122 e.g. F. Gaspar Amorum to Philip IV, ‘Reporta do Prouincial de Sto Ago’ 8 January 1636, ANTT/Livros das Monções, liv. 35, f. 179r: Augustinians’ role in defence of Ormuz by running a hospital for soldiers; Pamphlet: Carta do Padre Vigairo provincial da ordem de Santo Agostinho da India Oriental (Lisbon: Antonio Aluarez 1626) in ANTT/Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 205r: Augustinians run many hospitals. 116

Performing the Missionary Identity

111

pamphlet printed in 1626 celebrates those brothers who died from plague in Bengal: ministering to plague victims demonstrates that ‘the care we have, so continual, for the conversion of infidels does not cause us to lessen the care which we owe to the service and conservation of the faithful’. Across Portuguese Asia, we are told, the Augustinians intertwine both duties: ‘it is well known that our Religious go, enduring continuous labours, with their lives always at risk, curing the sick, collecting the wounded, and consoling all with the Sacraments when the occasion permits.’123 The foundation of a hospice often occurred alongside the building of an Augustinian church: Juan Bautista Montoya, for example, founded both in Macao before his ejection in 1596.124 The Franciscans also typically ran hospitals as a central part of their mission strategy: their hospitals in Ternate, the Philippines and Japan were staffed by lay brothers when the friars were on mission.125 Care for the sick and poor was also an important part of Buddhist traditions in Southeast Asia and had also served as a Buddhist strategy of proselytization.126 It would thus be an especially important Catholic evangelical strategy in Siam.127 The Jesuits founded several hospices in Siam; however in 1666 the Propaganda Fide recommended that rather than running a large number of establishments around the region, the Jesuits should concentrate on a few foundations.128 The Missions Étrangères also saw ‘the primary and most considerable task’, for missionaries as ‘first to win over the people of this kingdom with the example of general Christian virtues, and especially of charity and mercy, leaving their doors open for every sort of sick person to cure them’. Establishing ‘a little hospital for the reception of the more wretched’, visiting the prisons, seeking out dying babies and individuals condemned to death had led to the baptism of around seventy to eighty people. This may not seem like a great number, ‘but [Pallu] considered that it was a great gain’.129 Pallu suggested that ‘some Brothers of Charity’ could be

123 Pamphlet: Carta do Padre Vigairo provincial da ordem de Santo Agostinho da India Oriental (Lisbon: Antonio Aluarez 1626) in ANTT/Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 205r: ‘a ocupação que temos tão continua na conuersão dos infieis, não he parte para afroxarmos do cuidado que deuemos ao seruiço, & conseruação dos fieis.’ ‘he notorio, que andão os nossos Religiosos, padecendo continuous trabalhos, & com a vida sempre arriscada, curando os enfermos, recolhendo os feridos, & consolando a todos com os Sacramentos nas ocasiões que se offerecem.’ 124 Castro and Merino, Augustinos en el Extremo Oriente, 172. 125 Meersman, The Franciscans in the Indonesian Archipelago, 61–2; Pinto Rema, ‘Implantación del Franciscanismo em Portugal’, 225; Cady, Southeast Asia, 250. 126 Demiéville and Tatz (trans.), Buddhism and healing, 4, 35–41 notes that in Theravāda tradition medicine was seen as a lucrative profession ‘unworthy of the children of the Buddha’ but there were ways around this, just as there were in Catholicism. Note also that Vaidyarāja—king of physicians or of medicine—was a name for the Buddha and bodhisattvas, especially in the Mahayana tradition (14). See also Zysk, Asceticism and healing in ancient India, 65–6. 127 Although the Dominican order do not seem to have used this strategy. 128 Giovanni Paolo Oliva to PF, Rome, 10 July 1666, APF SOCG 230, f. 112r. 129 ‘Relatione dello stato presente della Missione di Siam con i Prouedimenti’ APF SC Miscellanea 37, Piece B (np, 1r). See also Forest, Les missionnaires français, II: 210: ‘La prima, e la più considerabile applicatione’ ‘è stata di guardagnarsi nel princ.o li Popoli di q.o Regno coll’esempio delle gn’li uirtù Christiani, e specialm.te della Carità, e della misericordia, lasciando le lore porte ap’te p’ ogni sorte d’ammalati p’ curarli’, ‘un piccolo hospidale p’ riceuere alcuni dei più miserabili’, ‘stima però egli, che fosse un’acquisto grande.’

112

Missionary Methods

sent out to help with the hospital, although little seems to have come from this proposal.130 Missionaries could be accused of failing in charity when they did not engage in these duties, or even when they passed the care of the sick on to secular helpers.131 Their care of the sick is shown to be lacking in a religious dimension: not a strategy of evangelization or devotion, but rather a misguided policy and example of spiritual deficiency. Thus Franciscan Bernardino della Chiesa downplayed the success of the MEP hospice in Ayutthaya, alleging: ‘even if much has been spent to sustain the incurable sick, there is nevertheless a lack of charity as some die without confession, and as there are no personal visits there and only one servant.’132 Without personal visits from the priests, the corporal healing power of the sacraments could not be engaged. Moreover individuals would die with their souls ‘uncured’. Some modern scholars have suggested that leprosy was endemic in seventeenthcentury Siam, and thus the Franciscans missed an opportunity by failing to establish a lazar, in contrast to their colleagues in Macao.133 There was a shortlived attempt to establish a hostel for the poor and a leper house by the Jesuits Marjico and Regio in Caùgin, Tonkin around 1631. However these seem to have been destroyed in the persecutions of 1632.134 Yet it was not necessary to establish a hospice for the missionary to present himself—and the faith—as a healing force. In Cochinchina and Tonkin, where their precarious position often prevented the foundation of a hospice, missionaries described keeping their houses open on a more casual basis for the sick, poor, and desperate. Even when the no miracle cure was affected, such acts of charity were often impressive enough to affect a conversion. This seems to be especially true where mothers of dying children were concerned. One example, given by Chevreuil in Faifo, is paradigmatic. Amongst the flock of supplicants who came in search of his alms came a woman and her three children, one at her breast, ‘who seemed to me to be a fruit ripe for heaven, because I saw him so languishing that I did not believe he could last two or three days’. Chevreuil told the mother that her child would die, but asked whether ‘she would not truly like to give him to the God of Heaven who the Christians adore, and I told her many things about paradise so that she said she would gladly do it’. The child died the day after it was baptized, and the mother brought it back to the missionary who consoled her and buried the child in

130 François Pallu to the Procurers of the Vicaires Apostoliques, Madagascar, 4 August 1671, in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 157: ‘quelques Frères de la charité’. On Frères de la Charité, see n. 131. 131 Note that the use of servants and slaves in religious hospitals was widespread in Portugal and the Portuguese Indies. See Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 67; Thomaz, ‘A escravatura em Malaca’, 274. For more detail see Ch. 9. 132 [Summary of points from accounts by Bernardino della Chiesa and Basilo Brollo] after 1683, APF SC Indie Orientali, Cina, 3, ff. 324v–5r: ‘se bene si faccia m.la spesa p’ sostenere l’infermi incurabili, ui manca nondim.o la carità p’ morireui alcuni senza confessione, e p’ non esserui ne uisite personali, ne seruitù, che d’un solo seruo.’ 133 e.g. Garnier, Ayutthaya: Venice of the East, 69. On endemic diseases in Southeast Asia see Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, I: 58–61. 134 Ruiz-de-Medina, ‘Vietnam’, 3957.

Performing the Missionary Identity

113

the Christians’ cemetery. ‘The mother was so grateful for the care I took for this child and so touched by the Holy Spirit that she too wanted to become Christian, so that I had her well instructed about what we must believe and do and then I baptized her with her children. It must be believed that this little baptized child obtained from Our Saviour this mercy for his mother.’135 Here although Chevreuil was not able to preserve life, his care for the spirit of the child and his solicitude for a proper burial—equally important parts of caring and curing as far as the distraught mother was concerned—were enough to persuade the bereaved of the advantages of the faith. As emissaries from exotic lands who professed novel spiritual powers, missionaries often found a place in a target population’s mental landscape as physicians and healers. Connections between spiritual and physical health were made in Southeast Asian societies as they were in Europe, and there was often a potential market for new approaches alongside the range of spiritual, magical, medicinal, and practical remedies on offer.136 Those who approached physicians were vulnerable: anxious, open to (even eager for) novelty, grimly reminded of mortality. The medical knowledge of Étienne Paumard (1676–90) of the Missions Étrangères saw him granted access to the inner courts of Narai, whom he served alongside court physicians.137 Along with Jesuit Claude de Bèze, also medically trained, he was allowed to visit Narai until a few days before he died and escaped imprisonment due to his status as a physician.138 Yet some ambiguity could surround the figure of the physician: one with such power to whom the desperate turn. Some European and Southeast Asian authorities seemed to share an anxiety over the potential for the relationship between a physician and his patient to lead to the corruption of the latter. For example, a decree of the first Council of Goa (1567) stipulated that Christians should not employ ‘infidel’ doctors, to avoid malign influence.139 Similarly, one Christian convert in Tonkin who practised as a physician came under suspicion from local officials, who accused him of using consultation with patients to pressure the defenceless and susceptible to embrace the banned religion.140

135 Louis Chevreuil ‘Relation de la Cochinchine,’ Cochinchine, 1665 AMEP 733, 84–5: ‘qui me sembla estre un fruict meur pour le ciel parcéque ie le vis si languissant que ie ne creus pas qu’il peust passér deux ou trois iours’, ‘elle ne le vouloit pas donner de bon cur au Dieu du ciel que les chrestiens adorent & luy dis bien de choses du paradis de sorte qu’elle dit que bien volontiers’, ‘de ce soign que ie pris pour cet enfant la mere en fut si recognoissante & touchée du S.t esprit qu’elle voulut aussy se faire chrestienne, de sorte que ie la fis instruire bien de tout ce que nous deuons croire & faire & puis la baptizai auec ses enfants; il faut croire que ce petit enfant baptizé obtint de N.S. cette misericorde pour sa mere.’ 136 On medicine in Southeast Asia see Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, I: 52–7. 137 RMSME 58. 138 RMSME 58; See also Cerutti, ‘Tailandia: I Antigua CJ’, 3690; Hutchinson, Adventurers in Siam, 166. 139 Accão 2, decree 29. Jordão, BPP, Appendix, I: 13. Similar decrees passed against using Jewish or Muslim doctors from the thirteenth century. See Amundsen, ‘The medieval Catholic tradition’, 92. 140 François Deydier, ‘Journal du Tonkin Dépuis le commencement de l’Année 1683 Jusqu’en Octobre de l’Année 1684’, AMEP 656, f. 92.

114

Missionary Methods

Missionary use of medicine could be fraught with dangers. One lay member of the Missions Étrangères, Michel Cochard (1642–79) who assisted the mission in Ayutthaya as a surgeon felt the pull of potential profit and quit the Society to exercise his trade on his own behalf.141 As a lucrative profession, medicine carried a worldly taint; it even aroused suspicion of irreligion and was incommensurate with religious status according to Canon Law.142 In part, this explains the insistence that nursing the sick was an act of charity, and the means employed were befitting for clerics. Missionaries engaged in the care of the sick were often at pains to point out that they were not practising medicine as such. The Augustinian account quoted above, for example, bears the standard features of descriptions of mendicant care of the sick. The danger to the friars is stressed, as is their dedication and hard labour. Crucially, though, cures are not attributed to the exercise of medical knowledge but rather ‘in every part curing with our poverty and industry only.’143 A similar concern is evident in a Missions Étrangères account which refers to the mission in Bangkok which was under the direction of Claude de Chandebois de Falandin (1640–87).144 Juan Bautista Bangayama, a Filipino priest who had been trained at the Siamese seminary assisted Chandebois, being especially involved in visiting the sick. ‘They write of him, that he cures the sick with very simple remedies, and those which ordinarily have no natural relation to the sicknesses.’145 Yet the line between licit care and meddling in temporal cures was not entirely clear and various missionaries wondered whether the injunctions against clerical medicine and surgery could be waived for the good of the mission. Often these enquiries and requests for clarification were practical in nature, reflecting the remote situation of the missions. François Pallu noted: ‘It would be desirable that all missionaries know a little surgery, which is not difficult to learn, and that there is some layman amongst them who knows how to draw blood . . . It would be even better to obtain from Rome for some missionaries the power to draw blood and handle the scalpel.’146 In 1668, the Congregation of the Propaganda Fide was asked 141

RMSME 56. Amundsen, ‘The medieval Catholic tradition’, 91; O’Connell, ‘The Roman Catholic tradition since 1545’, 119; ‘Gentilcore, Healers and healing, 163. See also Palmer, ‘Physicians and the Inquisition’, 118–20 on the high number of physicians denounced to the Inquisition in Italy for heresy and Bellini, ‘Medical scholarship’, 36–9 on the association between physicians and Jews in 16th-cent. Portugal. 143 ‘Carta do Padre Vigairo provincial da ordem de Santo Agostinho da India Oriental’ (Pamphlet) ANTT/Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 205r: ‘em h~ ua, & outra parte curados com nossa pobreza & industria somente’. 144 RMSME 55. 145 Called ‘Giov. Batt.a Bagaiaua’ in the manuscript. ‘Piece B: Relatione dello stato presente della Missione di Siam con i Prouedimenti’, APF SC, Miscellanea 37, (n.p. [1v]): ‘Si scriue di lui, che guarisce gl’ammalati con rimedij molte simplice, et i quali per ord.rio non hanno proportione n’ale con le malatie.’ Bangayama was ordained in April 1675 after five years at the Seminary. He reportedly spoke Spanish, Portuguese, Siamese, Cochinchinese, and Latin well. See Destombes, Le collège général, 9. 146 François Pallu to Procurers of the MEP, Surat, 8 February 1663, in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 46: ‘Il seroit à désirer que tous les missionaires sçeussent un peu de chirugie, ce que n’est pas difficile à apprendre, et qu’il y eut quelque laïque parmy eux qui sçeut seigner . . . Il seroit encore mieux d’obtenir de Rome le pouvoir de seigner, pour quelques missionaires, et de manier le rasoir.’ 142

Performing the Missionary Identity

115

to discuss whether a priest could legitimately carry out an amputation to save a life, despite the prohibition on surgery. The Congregation has permitted missionaries to practice medicine, except incisions. The Bishop of Heliopolis says that of one of his Christians, a fisherman, having been bitten on the finger by a great fish, a missionary after caring for him for a long time because the injured finger was putrefied, to save the arm and his life, cut it off. He adds, that if what the Doctors say is right, that to incur an irregularity it is necessary for the amputated part to be a principal one, like an arm, with all this, he describes the case to Your Eminences, to know how missionaries must comport themselves on similar, and more urgent occasions, were it necessary to cut off a principal part, when danger to a life was evident and probable.147

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this request is the fact that the Christian seemed to consider that the missionary was the first port of call for treatment. A rather gruesome description of the demise of Vietnamese priest Jacques Văn Chiên suggests why such matters could be of concern for missionaries. We are told of his brave stoicism as his leg became infected and then putrid and gangrenous from a small wound sustained on visitation around his province.148 The MEP priests nursed him but were obliged to send for English and Dutch doctors as he deteriorated. Both agreed there was no hope: he needed amputation but was too weak to survive it.149 Incidentally, the ill-fated visitation of Jacques also illustrated another reason for missionaries to present themselves as doctors: as a means to travel from place to place avoiding detection. Jacques and his colleague Léon Troung had been visiting the Christians of Nghé-Ane province in 1678 dressed as ‘poor doctors’, with rough clothes and a small bag of medicines. This meant they were unequipped to say mass, but were able to win back many wavering Christians to the fold with their preaching and cures.150 Occasionally we surmise from instructions, check-lists or requests for material some further medical resources which missionaries used and carried around.151 147 ‘Acta, Congo par’laris super rebus Sinarum habita die 24 Decemberris 1668’, APF, Acta CP 1A, f. 19r: ‘Hà la S. Cong.e permesso à i missionarij di essercitare la medicina, seclusa incisione. Dice il vescouo d’Eliopoli, che uno de suoi Christiani Pescatore essendo stato morso in un dito da un grosso Pesce, dopo di hauerlo curato un missionario per molto tempo, perche il deto ferito si era putrefatto, per saluare il Braccio, e la Vita, gliel’haueua tagliato. Aggiunge, che se bene i Dottori dicono, che per incorrere l’irregolarità bisogna, che la parte tagliata sia delle principali, come un Braccio, con tutto ciò rappresenta il fatto all’EE.VV. per sapere, com’hanno da comportarsi i missionarij in simili, e più urgente occasioni, se fusse bisogno di tagliere alcuna parte delle principali, quando fusse euidente, e probabile il pericolo della vita.’ 148 Jacques de Bourges, ‘Journal du Tonkin Dépuis le commencement de l’Année 1683 Jusqu’en Octobre de l’Année 1684’ AMEP 657, 6. 149 Jacques de Bourges, ‘Journal du Tonkin Dépuis le commencement de l’Année 1683 Jusqu’en Octobre de l’Année 1684’ AMEP 657, 66 and Jacques de Bourges and François Deydier, ‘Journal’, Tonkin 1683, AMEP 665, 20. 150 Lesserteur, Les premiers prêtres indigènes de l’Église du Tong-King, 31. 151 Such items are often included in lists of book to bring. The inclusion of these cures alongside printed materials makes sense as many printers also traded in medicines. See e.g. Isaac, ‘Pills and Print’ and Hargreaves, ‘Some later seventeenth-century book-trade activities’ for studies of this.

116

Missionary Methods

Pierre Langlois’s instructions to missionaries advise bringing a quantity of tin which he suggests could be used to make boxes to carry around hosts, letters, and medicines.152 One missionary Siamese seminary requests ‘several dozen temple stones if they cost no more than two sols apiece, with some serpents eyes and tongues’.153 Two missionaries had died of suspected poisoning in Tonkin, and repeat incidents seemed a real threat: he was asking for fossils, believed effective as poison antidotes and prophylactics.154 Thus we can see several forces acting to shape missionary approaches to medicine. On the one hand was the rejection of ‘worldly means’ and dependence on Providence seen in the Monita and in Pallu and Lambert’s request that missionaries should be allowed to forego the use of medicines themselves: in corporal infirmities it is tested whether they have a true, firm faith that Christ our Lord will heal the wounds of our souls. It is added that doctors’ work and medicine are prescribed by God for the infidels, those who have no faith, and these can also be used by Christians who have not completely abandoned themselves to God.155

On the other hand many missionaries gave themselves the best chance that their cures would work by using worldly remedies as well as sacramentals. Thus Pallu resolved ‘to make in Surate a good provision of drugs of every sort’ for the hospital he proposed to establish in Siam, and noted approvingly how missionary Pierre le Teller ‘knows enough to work as a surgeon, apothecary and even physician’.156 The French priests did not hesitate to call for Siamese or Chinese doctors in serious cases.157 Studies of botanical remedies had long been made by the Franciscan order.158 Jesuits too examined and collected local drugs, sending many back as gifts to patrons in Europe.159 Most seemed to agree with Dominican Giacome Ricci that Pierre Langlois, ‘Avis aux missionnaires qui doivent aller à Siam’, Siam, 1674, AMEP 857, 314. Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 1692? AMEP 851, 210: ‘quelques deuzaines de pierres du temple si elles ne coustent que 2 sols pièces avec des yeux de Serpent et langues.’ 154 Deydier also suspected a Jesuit partisan tried to poison two (unnamed) Vietnamese priests. ‘Journal du Tonquin Depuis le commencement de l’année 1682 Jusques à la fin de l’année 1683’, AMEP. 656, f. 47. ‘Les langues’ are probably carcharodon megalodon teeth, known as ‘tonguestone’ (Glossopetrae) in England in this period, which could be dipped in water to make a cure. ‘Yeux des serpents’ were the fossilised teeth of the sargus fish, ‘pierres du temple’ perhaps refers to ammonites. See Magnol, ‘De la méthod naturelle et des Jussieu’, 31; Oakley, ‘The folklore of fossils part I’, 13; Oakley, ‘The folklore of fossils part II’, 122–3. 155 ‘Institutione di Vita che si sono proposti gli Vicari Apostolici della China, Cocincina, e del Tunchino’ APF Acta CP 1A, ff. 179v–180r: ‘nelle Infermità corporale si proua se habbinono una uera, ferma fede, che Christo n’ro Sig.r guarirá le piaghe dell’anime nostre. con aggiongere che l’opera de Medici, e le medicine sono state ordinate da Dio per li Infideli, i quali non hanno la fede, e che di esse anchora di ponno seruire i Christiani, i quali non ponno in tutto abandonarsi a Dio.’ 156 François Pallu to Procurers of the Vicaires Apostoliques, Madagascar, 4 August 1671, in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 157: ‘de faire à Surate une bonne provision de drogues de touttes sortes’ ‘en sait suffisamment pour faire l’office de chirurgien, d’apothicaire et mesme de medecin.’ Pierre Le Teller (1643–78) trained as a surgeon, eventually quit Society and died in Ayutthaya. RMSME 56. 157 Fauconnet-Buzelin, Aux source des Missions étrangères, 285. 158 See e.g. Cañizares-Esguerra ‘Iberian colonial science’, esp. 66 on clerical botany. 159 O’Malley, The first Jesuits, 343–4. See also Baldwin, ‘The snakestone experiments’, 409–10 on quinine coming to be known as ‘Jesuits bark’ and their use of medicines as gifts. 152 153

Performing the Missionary Identity

117

it was not fitting to ‘test’ God by relying on prayer and miraculous cures alone when other worldly remedies could be used. Yet emphasizing that cures are achieved through sacramentals and prayer alone makes a better edifying tale. When the cure is attributed to a convert rather than a missionary, such tales also prove the genuine and devout conversion of the former to Catholicism. This is evident in the numerous tales of miraculous cures from the Vietnamese missions. Here these ‘medical’ benefits of Christianity were most fully exploited and seemed to be most readily accepted by the population. For once, the Jesuits, Dominicans and MEP priests were in agreement: Christian converts in Tonkin and Cochinchina seemed to have a knack for exorcism and for curing hopeless cases through holy water and prayer.160 The success of such cures was so striking that in printed works destined for the European market it was often deemed necessary to assure the readership that the tales were not exaggerations.161 ‘It is not my intention to write in this chapter miracles, which are the milk which the Lord gives as first sustenance to an infant Christianity,’ wrote Marini. Yet it is soon clear that he is using a typical rhetorical technique of paralipsis: he declares that although he would rather not dwell on these tales, it is better to speak than be silent in these matters, ‘to satisfy pious curiosity and to declaim gratitude to God’.162 Such reassurances seem necessary when the astonishing details are described. Rhodes reported that armed only with a cross and holy water, Tonkinese Christians ‘ordinarily chased out demons, cured all sorts of illnesses, giving four or five drops of holy water, they cured some blind people and even resuscitated two dead’.163 They were even effective against plagues: one lord listened to the advice of his Christian wife when one of his villages was struck with disease. He called for the assistance of local catechists: ‘they went there with their weapons in their hands to make war on the devil, who they believed to be the cause of these illnesses. They were the cross, holy water, the blessed palm, the blessed candle, and the image of the Virgin which I had given them at baptism.’ They planted the cross in the middle of the village and went to pray near each of the sick, and gave

160 There are hundreds of references to such miracles. Early Jesuit example: Francisco Busomi, ‘[Annua da Missão de Cochinchina] de 635 ate Mayo 1636’ BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 451r (Anna the Catechist curing the sick). MEP example: Jacques Bourges to his brother in France, 19 February 1670 (received in Paris 26 June 1672), AMEP 677, 227 (Tonkinese Christians and miracle cures with holy water and prayers). 161 Cf. European ‘illness narratives’ and accounts of miraculous cures, Gentilcore, Healers and healing, 177–202. 162 Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 234: ‘Non è mia intentione scruiere in questo Capitolo miracoli, che sono il latte, col quale il Signore costuma dare il primo nutrimento ad vna Christianità bambina.’ Paralipsis refers to the device whereby the author draws attention to a subject by stating he or she does not intend to discuss it. 163 Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions, 96–7: ‘chassoient ordinairement les diables, guerissoient toutes sortes de maladies, donnants à boire quatre où cinq gouttes de cette eau sacrée, ils ont guery quelques aueugles & mesme ressuscité deux morts.’ See also Rhodes, Histoire du Royaume du Tonkin, 129–31: description of cures made with holy water and the cross.

118

Missionary Methods

them some drops of holy water to drink. In less than eight days they had cured 272 sick.164 Holy water was the main source of success in these accounts.165 In the early years of the Jesuit mission in Tonkin, Antonio Cardim wrote to explain the high numbers of conversions the fathers were achieving in the country. The first reason was ‘a great power which our lord God has given to these Christians to cure the sick by virtue of holy water, and not only for mild illnesses, but very grave and dangerous ones’. Cardim describes the ceremonies which attended the application of holy water almost as a detached observer, as though the Christians themselves had devised their manner of proceeding: ‘The manner in which the Christians do it is a sight to see. When they are called to visit the sick, the take their crosses out of their sleeves and kneel, raising prayers of Our Father, and Ave Maria, and the Credo, and our Lord hears their prayers, giving health to many sick.’166 Holy water became so central to Christian practices, and seemed such a powerful cure, that, wrote Alexandre de Rhodes, people would come from come from miles around to get it, sometimes travelling for five or six days.167 Every Sunday he was obliged to bless 500 large vases of it to satisfy demand.168 ‘The faith these Christians have in holy water is marvellous,’ wrote Jesuit Ferreyra, adding, ‘our Fathers use this medicine in their own sicknesses.’ As well as using it as a cure, the Tonkinese employed it to bless the rivers and the seas to ensure good fishing and the fields to secure the harvest.169 Rhodes describes how they wore vials of holy water like amulets: ‘they carry it in a porcelain vase attached to their arms with a beautiful bracelet.’170 In each of these accounts, devotion to holy water takes on a life of its own which must speak of divine inspiration and favour. It was also the centrepiece of Tonkinese ceremonies of exorcism: ‘Against these demons Our Lord God has given great power to the Christians, and the Christians need only pray, or throw holy water at someone possessed to soon cast it out, and the demon leaves that body.’171 Ferreyra’s accounts also seek to demonstrate how the 164 Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions dv P. Alexandre de Rhodes, 97–8: ‘Ils s’y allerent portants leur armes en main, pour faire guerre au diable, que l’on croioit estre la cause de ces maladies. C’estoit la croix, l’eau benite, le Rameau benit, le Cierge benit, & l’Image de la Vierge, que ie leur auois donnée au Baptesme.’ 165 Cf. Johnson, ‘Blood, tears and holy water’, 420. 166 Antonio Cardim to Andre Palmeiro, ‘Annua de Tunkim do anno de 1630,’ Tonkin, May 1630, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 30v: ‘hum grande poder que Deos Nosso Senhor tem dado a estes Christãos para curarem os Enfermos por vertude da agoa benta, e isto não só da doença leves, mas muy graves e perigozas.’ o modo com que os Christãos a fazem he muito pa ver, quando sam chamados vam visitar o doente, tiram das mangas suas cruzes, poemse de joelhos erezam as oraçoens do Padre Nosso, e Ave Maria, e Credo; eouve Nosso Senhor suas oraçoens dando saude a muitos enfermos.’ 167 Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions, 102; Rhodes, Sommaire des Divers voyages, 97. 168 Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions, 102. 169 ‘Raguaglio della Missione fatta dal Pre. Emanuele Ferreira’ Tonkin, 3 October 1676, APF CP 9, f. 38v: ‘La fede che portano all’Acqua benedetta, questi Chrisitani,’ ‘e merauigliosa, e li nri Padri Missionarij si seruono di questo Medicina nelle loro Infermità.’ 170 Rhodes, Divers voyages et missions, 97: ‘ils en portent dans un vase de pourcelaine attaché à leurs bras par un beau brassellet.’ 171 Antonio Cardim, ‘Annua de Tunkim do anno de 1630,’ Tonkin, May 1630, BA, JnÁ, 49-V31, f. 30v: ‘Contra estes demonios tem Deos Nosso Senhor dado grande poder aos Christiaons, e basta

Performing the Missionary Identity

119

Tonkinese obtained such successes through other worthy devotions, such as to relics. Two possessed women were cured by the application of a relic of the wood of the Cross, and many other people obtained miraculous cures by kissing the same.172 Other amateur exorcists found success through the application of images of saints or the use of other sacramentals.173 Exorcisms were a chance to demonstrate the superior salvic power of Christianity. Courtaulin relates how a possessed girl in Cochinchina was driven to submerge herself in the river for hours, and make incredible leaps and bounds on the bank. The repeated attempts of Buddhist monks to expel the demons came to naught, but he succeeded, to the wonder of onlookers.174 Conversely, those who betrayed their new faith risked God’s displeasure being manifest in sickness or death of the sinner.175 Deydier reported that Tonkinese Christians Jean and Magdalaine Ké Bích had hidden from him in confession the fact that they had married their daughter to a non-Christian, through fear of not being granted absolution. On their return to their house, both immediately fell ill: ‘this rapid chastisement much surprised them, and made them admit their sacrilege.’ They pleaded with the priest and the rest of the Christians to pray for them.176 Their fear of failing to receive absolution suggests they placed high value on the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist, but social considerations over selecting a match for their daughter had outweighed injunctions against non-Christian unions and the value of a Catholic marriage. However, ill health had forced a reassessment, and had proved an important motivation to seek reconciliation with the Church as represented by Deydier. The exposition of the missionary’s character and status was the first act in the presentation of the faith to non-believers. The next step was to introduce ideas and doctrines. Criticizing the conversions secured by their rivals, missionaries stressed that it was not enough merely to affect a ‘surface’ change in behaviour by introducing Catholic devotions. A real conversion of the heart must be achieved, with previous erroneous beliefs effaced and uprooted. We will now turn to consider how missionaries could help people to understand the basics of Catholicism and to believe.

rezarem os Christaõs, ou lancarem agua benta a algum em demoninhados para ficar logo desatado, e o demonio sahir daquelle corpo.’ Cf. Gentilcore, Healers and healing, 158–9 on attempts in Europe to regulate ‘lay’ exorcisms. 172 Manuel Ferreyra, ‘Raguaglio della Missione fatta dal Pre. Emanuele Ferreira’ Tonkin, 3 October 1676, APF CP 9, ff. 32v–33r: ‘Dalle Virtù, e gratie operate da Dio per mezzo delli esorcismo potrei raccontare molti Casi merauigliosi.’ 173 Exorcisms through appeal to image of St. Michael in Tonkin: ‘Ragguaglio della missione del Giappone . . . Tratto dall’ultima letter annua scritta in lingua Portoghese’, 1649, ARSI JapSin 65, ff. 44r–v and 46v. 174 Jean de Courtaulin de Maguelonne, ‘Relation de la Cochinchine’, Siam, 20 November 1683, AMEP 735, f. 105. 175 Although death and suffering could be presented as positive outcomes, depending on the moral of the story. See Gentilcore, Healers and healing, 186, 192. 176 François Deydier, ‘Extrait de la continuation du Journal de Mr Deydier Prestre missionnaire apostolique au Royaume du Tonquin depuis la my octobre 1667’, AMEP 656, 11: ‘ce prompt chastiment les surprit fort, et leur fit auoüer leur sacrilege.’

5 Tools of Evangelization Catechisms and Catholic Literatures If the trumpet call is not clear, who will get ready for battle? It is the same with you. You must speak words that people understand. If you do not, no one will know what you are saying. You will just be speaking into the air. 1 Corinthians, 14: 8–9.

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw numerous innovations in the theory and practice of communicating the tenets of the faith. Among these developments were the distillation of Catholic teaching into catechisms, the production of guides for missionaries, attempts to regulate and improve the quality of preachers, the development of pedagogical programmes and the circulation of reports by individual missionaries discussing their own successes.1 This chapter will trace the impact of some of these factors on missionary approaches to Southeast Asia. It will also demonstrate how these written instruments cannot tell the whole story. When trying to uncover missionary strategies we should bear in mind several factors. First, the cultures in which missionaries operated, although perhaps more literate than Europe in some regions, were predominantly oral.2 Secondly, we should also consider how the lines between ‘catechisms’ and other evangelical texts could be blurred, and how catechism perhaps is not yet a stable ‘genre’. Thirdly, the use of lay auxiliaries to fulfil some of these duties could also change the way in which the message was communicated. We should be aware of these variations and avoid assuming that, for example, missionaries from each Order would develop catechisms in the same way. Finally, behind missionary literary remnants lie other means to introduce the faith, which will fall outside the scope of this discussion: statues, images and broader cultures of exchange.3 Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia has also demonstrated the need to consider the role of casual conversation and equal dialogue as a tool of 1 Hsia, The world of Catholic renewal, 182–6; Roest, Franciscan literature of religious instruction, esp. 265–9. Lopez-Gay, ‘Misionología: II Métodos Misionales’, DHCJ III: 2701–3; Kamperidis, ‘Catechesis in East and West’; On preaching see Hudon, ‘Two instructions to preachers’; McGinness, ‘Preaching ideals and practice’; McGinness, Right thinking and sacred oratory, 29–54, 82–5, 92; O’Malley, ‘Content and rhetorical forms’; O’Malley, ‘Form content and influence’; Dinet, ‘Le bon prédicateur’; Morán and Andrés-Gallego, ‘The preacher’. 2 On literacy rates in Southeast Asia see Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, I: 219–22, 224. Cf. Lieberman, Strange parallels, 272. 3 Some of these materials are considered in a slightly different context in Ch. 7.

Catechisms and Catholic Literatures

121

conversion in China. He sees a shift after 1680 when ‘conversation has been institutionalised into catechism’ but in the earlier years of the mission the ‘less efficient’ and more uncertain model of exchange—friendly conversation—was a key part of missionary strategy.4 It is particularly difficult to compare effectively the preaching and teaching strategies of missionaries: aside from the usual problems of unequal survival of material, mendicant accounts are on the whole less detailed when it comes to describing texts used to guide catechism, the contents of sermons or methods of proceeding. The Jesuits and Missions Étrangères priests are usually more explicit and precise in documenting their strategies. However, we can often supplement the scant material for mendicants in Southeast Asia with relevant examples drawn from Europe, other Asian and South American missions, when these seem to reflect influential currents of thought within an order. There were also fundamental anxieties which surrounded the practice of oral explanation of the faith and preaching. We see a tension in missionary accounts between the need to demonstrate that oratorical flair or conversational eloquence were useful skills for an evangelist, and the desire to impute success to divine favour rather than worldly abilities. The decrees of the Lateran Council perfectly summarize the perceived dangers of the spoken word. Preachers must take care that, when about to speak, they approach the people with prudence and caution lest, caught up in the enthusiasm of their oratory, they entangle the hearts of their hearers with verbal errors as if with nooses, and while perhaps they wish to appear wise, in their delusion they foolishly tear asunder the sinews of the hoped-for virtue.5

Well-meaning preachers could themselves be overtaken by their own words, inebriated by the exuberance of rhetoric, thereby becoming tools of harm, with which ‘the hearts of the audience are bruised by too urgent and careless forms of speech’.6 If the intent was malign, the risk was even higher. One Italian instruction to preachers from around 1538 warned how ‘shrewd satans’, disguised as monks and other legitimate teachers of the Gospel, spread heresy by provoking confusion with their dazzling oratory and through the discussion of complex questions.7 Simplicity was therefore undoubtedly the key, to avoid ‘disquieting’ the hearts and minds of the unlettered and spiritually unsophisticated. The Council of Trent advised priests to eschew delivering homilies and sermons to ‘uninstructed people’ which treated ‘the more difficult and subtle questions, which do nothing to sustain faith and give rise to little or no increase of devotion’.8

Hsia, ‘Translating Christianity’, 100. Decrees of the Fifth Lateran Council, Session 11, 19t December 1516, Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, I: 635. 6 Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, I: 635. 7 Instructions by Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542), bishop of Belluno and reformist Cardinal. See Hudon, ‘Two instructions to preachers from the Tridentine Reformation’, 459. 8 Decree of the Council of Trent, Session 25, 3–4 December 1563, Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, I: 774. 4 5

122

Missionary Methods

So what topics should a preacher cover, and how? The Franciscans pointed confidently to the example set by their founder, who urged his followers to discourse mainly on the vices and virtues, in simple and easy to understand language, preaching without artifice.9 This model was promoted at Trent: all priests with pastoral cure of souls were enjoined to teach, ‘what it is necessary for all to know with a view to salvation, by proclaiming briefly and with ease of expression the vices they must avoid and the virtues they must cultivate so as to escape eternal punishment and gain the glory of heaven.’10 Ecclesiastical Councils in Portuguese India, tasked with implementing Tridentine reform, also stressed the importance of simplicity and episcopal oversight. In 1567 the Council of Goa laid down the basic qualifications for a preaching licence in the Padroado, ordering that preachers should have three years of theological training, be over twenty-five years of age, and submit to examination by the Ordinary.11 Yet the preacher should wear his learning lightly. To avoid confusion and disturbance, he should preach with simplicity: ‘the holy Synod highly recommends to preachers that they do not deal with difficult questions, and they announce the Gospel with an easy and commonplace interpretation, in conformity with the Doctors recognised by the Church.’12 The need for learning and an ability to express oneself had been long recognized as important for introducing the faith. In the medieval Franciscan order, figures such as Raymond Lull had stressed the need to study the beliefs and languages of a population and effectively craft the message.13 Ignorance was a fatal flaw in a preacher, he must have ‘a sufficient knowledge of scholastic, particularly moral, theology so that the doctrine he teaches the people is nothing other . . . than that which God prescribed for us’.14 Yet ultimately the missionary should draw on the well-spring of his own spirituality, rather than relying on learning alone. Such is the advice of the 1536 Capuchin Constitutions: ‘it is enjoined on preachers not to carry with them many books, so that they may attentively study the most excellent book, the Cross.’15 Like any other preacher, the missionary should never celebrate their preaching abilities in order to avoid the most dangerous snares of the Devil: 9 Gleason, ‘The Capuchin Order in the sixteenth century’, 44; O’Malley, ‘Form, content and influence’, 45. 10 Council of Trent Second decree: on instruction and preaching, Session 5, 17 June 1546, Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II: 669. O’Malley suggests that a Franciscan, Cornelio Musso, was responsible for this inclusion. ‘Form, content and influence’, 46–7. 11 Accão 3, decree 4, BP Appendix I: 17. 12 Accão 3, decree 4, BP Appendix I: 17: ‘encomenda muito a sancta Synodo aos pregadores que não tratem questões difficultosas, e declarem o evangelho com interpretaçam facil e commun conforme aos sanctos e doutores recebidos da Igreja.’ 13 Roest, Franciscan literature of religious instruction, 244–5; Sugranyes de Franch, ‘Raymond Lulle, ses idées missionnaires’, 218–19; Boisset, ‘Typologie des missions Franciscaines’, 214–15. 14 French Capuchin Nicolas Peltrat’s advice for preachers, 1688. Cited by Dinet, ‘Le bon prédicateur, selon le père Nicolas de Dijon’, 184: ‘une science suffisante de la théologie scholastique et particulièrement de la morale, afin que la doctrine qu’il enseigne au peuple ne soit autre . . . que celle que Dieu nous a prescrite.’ See also Morán & Gallego, ‘The preacher’, 141–4. 15 ‘The Capuchin Constitutions of 1536’ in Olin, The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola, 175.

Catechisms and Catholic Literatures

123

presumption and vainglory. The first protection against such sins was humility and self-abnegation: ‘Let him measure his strengths and abilities not by the opinion of man, but by God’s judgement alone. . . . He will flee the plaudits of men or better, he will hold them in horror.’16 References to missionaries’ oratorical skills are often padded with pious, modest assertions which almost compare the missionary to an ostensibly useless remedy which achieved remarkable cures through God’s grace. Yet the numerous guides for preachers on framing the message, attracting attention, and persuading listeners demonstrate that these skills could be learnt.17 This proliferation of works was part of a larger trend in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, to standardize the texts which were at the heart of Catholic devotion, such as the breviary, calendar of saints, and missal.18 It is against this background of reform and regularization that we must consider the development of catechistical texts.19 Considering the importance of the catechism in modern Catholic missionary strategy, it is unsurprising that many studies focus on the development of these texts.20 Aside from the Tridentine Roman catechism produced by committee in 1566, members of the Jesuit order produced the most widely-circulated printed catechisms, often to rebut Protestant versions. The catechisms of Peter Canisius (1521–97) and Edmund Auger (1530–91), and Roberto Bellarmino (1542– 1621) were widely translated and the latter especially was promoted by Rome for the use of the clergy of Europe and for diffusion around the world.21 In this way Jesuit pedagogical strategies coincided with Trent’s emphasis on standardized texts: they privileged catechisms and doctrine summaries in their method of religious instruction.22 1633 the bull Ex debito pastoralis officii ordered that in missions throughout the East either the Roman Catechism or the catechisms of Bellarmino should be translated into an appropriate language, printed and used exclusively.23 Yet the instruction did not prevent the creation of new texts. In 1655 the Propaganda found it necessary to ban the independent printing of books destined for use in catechism on the overseas missions due to the large number of new works

16 Pallu and Lambert, Monitas, 25: ‘Qu’il mesure ses forces et ses capacités non à l’opinion des hommes, mais au jugement de Dieu seul. . . . Il fuira les applaudissements des hommes ou mieux, il les aura en horreur.’ 17 Dinet, ‘Le bon prédicateur’ on works of Nicolas de Dijon; O’Malley, ‘Content and rhetorical forms’; McGinness, Right thinking and sacred oratory, 50–3; Morán and Gallego, ‘The preacher’, 138–9. 18 See Bonniwell, A history of the Dominican liturgy, 255ss. 19 See esp. Dhôtel, Les origines du catéchisme moderne. 20 On modern importance of catechism, see Phan, ‘What is old and what is new in the catechism’ 69–71. 21 Dhôtel, Les origines du catéchisme moderne, 65–116 provides a detailed examination on these major works. On the production of the Tridentine Catechism see Wilhelm, ‘Roman Catechism’. See also Silva, Trent’s impact on the Portuguese padroado, 110–13; Phan, Mission and catechesis in seventeenth-century Vietnam, 108–9. 22 For the Iberian context see Debergh, ‘La première évangélisation du Japon au XVIe siècle’, 176–7. 23 Silva, Trent’s impact on the Portuguese padroado, 139. On issues of linguistic translation see Županov, ‘Twisting a pagan tongue’.

124

Missionary Methods

produced.24 Numerous ‘greater’ or ‘lesser’ catechisms and related texts were produced for the use on Asian mission fields, even by laymen. João de Barros’ Gramática da língua portuguesa, for example, contained a catechism and description of moral precepts, intended to implant Catholicism as well as the Portuguese language.25 This was used by Xavier as the basis for his ‘little’ catechism, produced in Goa in 1542, which he extended a few years later to create his longer catechism, which was distributed and later printed for the use of missionaries.26 In Asia, following the reforms of Alessandro Valignano—who promoted language study and accommodation and produced a catechism specifically for evangelization in Japan—many Jesuit catechisms began to differ from European versions, by situating Catholicism within local cultural contexts.27 In Southeast Asia we know of numerous catechisms and other instructional or explanatory texts, written by Jesuit and MEP missionaries, which were produced in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is sometimes unclear whether these texts, many of which do not survive, were literal translations of other catechisms or whether they also ‘translated’ concepts and changed the content to fit the cultural context.28 For example the Jesuit annual letter from Cochinchina of 1620 refers to a catechism being produced and written in the language of the land without noting the content.29 In 1632 Jesuits Mayorica and Reggio (the latter had been a printer and engraver) established a press in Tonkin, which they used to print Ricci’s Chinese catechism and an apologia for the faith by Francesco Buzomi.30 Mayorica also produced many other manuscript works in Vietnamese, including a calendar of the life of the saints, a translation of Thomas à Kempis, prayers, meditations and a work of devotion to the Virgin, ‘most worthy of attention even in Europe’.31 Brian Ostrowski’s detailed study of the surviving manuscripts in nôm attributed to Mayorica illustrates the complexity of the task of translation of key metaphysical concepts. Describing the 24

Silva, Trent’s impact on the Portuguese padroado, 141. See Županov, ‘Twisting a pagan tongue’, 113. 26 ‘Doctrina Christiana’ first printed in Goa in 1557. The text of the ‘short catechism’ in an English translation is provided by Costelloe, The letters and instructions of Francis Xavier, 41–5. See also Županov, ‘Twisting a pagan tongue’, 120; Debergh, ‘La première évangélisation du Japon au XVIe siècle’, 179–80. 27 Moran, The Japanese and the Jesuits, 54–7, 212; Debergh, ‘La première évangélisation du Japon au XVIe siècle’ 187–9; Hsia, ‘Translating Christianity’, 96. J. Lopez-Gay notes a distinction between Jesuit works described as Catechisms and Jesuit Doctrines: the latter ‘siguen casi todas fielmente las líneas del catecismo del Concilio de Trento’. ‘Misionología: II Métodos Misionales’, 2701. Valignano’s catechism was translated into Latin and printed in Lisbon 1586, entitled Catechismus Christianae fidei, in quo veritas nostrae religionis osetenditur & sectae Japonenses confutatur. See Braga, ‘The panegyric of Alexander Valignano’, 239. 28 Lopes-Gay, ‘Misonología: II Métodos Misionales’ 14; Phan, Mission and catechesis, 112–21; Lange, ‘La catéchèse au Vietnam’, 211–30. 29 João Roiz, ‘Annua de Cochichina, 1620’, Macao, 20 November 1621, ARSI JapSin 72, f. 6r. Phan also discusses some of these early Jesuits texts as background to Rhodes’ catechism. Mission and catechesis, 31–2. 30 Ruiz-de-Medina, ‘Vietnam’, 3957. However, the press was destroyed in the same year. 31 ‘Ragguaglio della missione del Giappone: nell’isola Hayunam, Camborria, Macassar &c. Tratto dall’ultima lettera annua scritta in lingua Portughese’, ARSI JapSin 65, f. 57r: ‘degnissima della luce stessa di Europa.’ On Mayorica’s works see Xuâng Han, ‘Girolamo Maiorica. Ses uvres’, 205, 209–14. 25

Catechisms and Catholic Literatures

125

Trinity, for example, necessitated a complicated explanation of the difference between the concepts of ‘nature’ (tính) and ‘person’ (ngôi) as explained by European metaphysicians: the Vietnamese terms chosen to stand for these concepts needed considerable gloss to convey the weight of European philosophical baggage behind them.32 Ostrowski also demonstrates how Mayorica’s texts reveal the ways in which missionaries and their converts could develop new theologies in-keeping with local mores. The Christology of Mayorica’s texts, for example, reflected the importance of filial piety in Vietnamese societies: after his crucifixion Christ is depicted rescuing his father Joseph from Limbo, and appearing first to his mother Mary to console her.33 Gaspar do Amaral also produced works in Vietnamese.34 The work of these pioneers, however, has generally been eclipsed in the literature by Alexandre de Rhodes’s catechism, printed by the Propaganda Fide in Rome in 1651.35 His extensive published writings made him, for a European audience, the most visible Jesuit working in Vietnam and the publication of his catechism has likewise led to numerous detailed studies of his evangelical methods, whilst the labours of his colleagues remain more obscure.36 Yet it is unlikely that this catechism was ever diffused in the printed form in Vietnam: it was written in a Romanized version of the language for the use of missionaries, rather than in nôm.37 In Siam we find some references which give a sense of the material and practical arrangements needed to produce catechistical texts, and the range of prior works missionaries drew on to produce new materials. Jesuit Cardim wrote a Siamese catechism and a tract on the faith between 1626–9 and Valguernera produced numerous, now lost, works in that language.38 The Missions Étrangères used these Jesuit works to teach with, but also produced their own texts. Laneau presented his Siamese catechism to Narai in 1666, who diplomatically proclaimed it ‘very good’.39 To print this and other tracts, Langlois petitioned the superiors of the Society’s Parisian seminary to provide the Ayutthaya seminary with the funds for a printing press, and to send over an engraver. He noted the cheap price of paper in Siam and the fact that the writers of such texts lived there, making it cumbersome to send manuscripts back to Europe for printing. However, his requests were denied: Siamese catechisms would remain in manuscript form.40

32 Ostrowski, ‘The nôm works of Geronimo Maiorica’, 121–35, and ‘The rise of Christian nôm’, 35–6. 33 Ostrowski, ‘The nôm works of Geronimo Maiorica’, 163–4. 34 In particular a dictionary, which Rhodes later used. See DHCJ I: 97. 35 Phan provides a full, annotated translation of the Catechismus in Mission and catechesis, 215–315. 36 e.g. Phan, Mission and catechesis, Lange, ‘Catéchèse au Vietnam’ 213–16. 37 Marillier, Nos pères dans la foi, I: 22. Two systems of writing were used in Vietnam, standard Chinese characters (chữ nho), and a modified version (chữ nôm) where Chinese characters were adapted to Vietnamese. Missionaries mostly used the latter when they wrote in Vietnamese. See Phan, Mission and catechesis, 29–31. 38 Lopez-Gay ‘Misionología: II Métodos Misionales’, 2701. On Valguernera, DHCJ III: 3876–7. 39 See Fauconnet-Buzelin, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères, 155. 40 Destombes, Le collège général de la Société des Missions-Étrangères, 9–10.

126

Missionary Methods

According to the general advice for Missions Étrangères, missionaries heading to Siam, ‘will always follow in their explanations the definitions and divisions of the Catechism of the Council of Trent and of Abelly. They will take care above all not to talk of high or difficult things’.41 Requests for texts sent to Paris by the directors of the seminary in Ayutthaya also demonstrate the variety of works drawn on by the French missionaries. Such requests were often extremely detailed and showed a good knowledge of what was on the market, listing the publishers who should be approached and even prices. One letter, sent in 1692 after the persecutions had died down and the seminary library needed re-stocking, listed a wide range of desirable books for the benefit of students and missionaries.42 Besides the ‘little full-text Bibles, of which not enough can be sent’, copies of the New Testament and breviaries head the list, and seemed destined for the students of the seminary.43 To inspire trainee priests and catechists ‘it is believed that there can be no histories more useful’ than the lives of missionary martyrs, especially those recounted in the work of ‘M. Fleury’.44 The catechism of choice, a copy of which, it is declared, should be given to each scholar, is that of the Council of Trent, ‘those little ones from Cologne are much more suitable for them than the others’.45 Other works requested included twelve ‘little books of instruction about the rosary and indulgences’, six ‘little books of instruction about the scapular and indulgences’.46 Other pious works required included Thomas À Kempis’s Imitation of Christ to replace their tattered copies, copies of Pugna Spiritualis, and ‘a little collection of the Meditations of St Augustine, St Anselm, St Bernard etc., which can be found everywhere, printed together’.47 The author specifies that books which are ‘very mystical or spiritual’ are ‘good for nothing here’.48 In addition to works described explicitly as ‘catechisms’ or ‘doctrines’, numerous dialogues, books of religious polemic, lists of questions and answers, treatises, and rhymed verses detailing the faith, printed or in manuscript also served similar 41 ‘Advis pour le Gouvernemt du Seminaire de Siam’, AMEP 129, f. 252: ‘ils suivront touiours dans leurs explications les definitions, et diuisions du Cathechisme du Concil de Trente et d’Abelly. Ils prendront garde sur tout en ces commencements de ne parler pas des choses hautes ou dificiles.’ The ‘Abelly’ text probably refers to Medulla theologiæ by Louis Abelly (1604–91) bishop of Rodez, France, who was close to the Lazarists. This was a theological manual with an emphasis on how to combat modern unorthodoxies, such as Jansenism. 42 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 29 October 1692, AMEP 851 203–8. 43 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 29 October 1692, AMEP 851, 204–5. 44 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 29 October 1692, AMEP 851, 213: ‘petites Bibles entières, dont on ne peut trop envoyer’, ‘on croit qu’il n’y auroit point d’histoires plus utiles’. Probably to Claude Fleury (1640–1723), Catéchisme historique (1683). Forest also discusses this text, noting that it stresses that the primitive church developed at grass-roots level before the conversion of princes. Les missionnaire français, III: 46. 45 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 29 October 1692, AMEP 851, 214: ‘ces petits de Cologne sont de beaucoup plus propres pour eux que les autres.’ 46 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 1692? AMEP 851, 210: ‘petits livres d’instruction du Rosaire et les Indulgeances’, six ‘petits livres de l’Instruction du Scapulaire et les indulgeances’ (i.e. the indulgences which will be gained by saying the rosary or wearing a scapular). 47 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 29 October 1692, AMEP 851, 213: ‘un petit recüeil des Meditationes de St. Augustine, St. Anselme, St. Bernard &c, qu’on trouué par tout imprimé ensemble.’ 48 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 29 October 1692, AMEP 851, 214: ‘fort mistiques ou spirituel . . . sont icy bons a rien du tout.’

Catechisms and Catholic Literatures

127

purposes. They gave missionaries ideas for dealing with the questions of potential converts, suggesting methods to make their lessons memorable and helping their neophytes to learn and remember key points in the faith. The Franciscans in India, for example, produced several manuscript lists of key questions and answers, some of which used mnemonic devices such as rhyme.49 Yet a text was not the final product. Many texts, especially those produced in Romanized versions of a language, such as Rhodes’s Catechism, were designed as aides-mémoire for missionaries rather than works which could be read by the laity. They would serve as a foundation upon which a missionary or catechist could construct his own evangelical edifice. Moreover, a large number of converts were claimed in Tonkin and Cochinchina who had not been evangelized by priests or their auxiliaries, by lay men and women who had limited or no access to these texts. We saw how the curative powers of the sacramentals were most evident and useful as evangelical tools when co-opted by the lay Christians themselves. Similarly, evangelism proved to be most successful when undertaken by a wider group of lay Christians. The Franciscans in Tonkin asserted that large numbers could be converted, because these neophytes are so zealous, that achieving one baptism is the same as creating an apostolic preacher who with every care and eagerness tries to draw souls to God. And this has been the reason why the most part of this kingdom has received the light of the Gospel in a very short time, only having ministers at random to administer the sacraments for them.50

The missionaries, he suggested, are sidelined in the tasks of evangelization: ‘where catechism, teaching the doctrine, preaching to the infidel and exhorting them to greater perfection is concerned, [the lay Christians] do it amongst themselves’.51 These descriptions of neophytes-turned-catechists serve almost as wonder-tales, narratives which demonstrate God’s grace as he uses unlikely tools to do his work without the benefit of texts or training. Similar accounts emerged from Japan following the expulsion of the missionaries: superiors included in their reports rumours ‘that two beautiful children go about preaching the holy Gospel and they cannot take them nor lay a hand on them . . . Ultimately God is all powerful’.52 Other converts produced their own texts in order to preach to and convert their countrymen. Alexandre de Rhodes celebrates the literary endeavours of one female convert, Catherine, so named due to her learning.

49

Silva, Trent’s impact on the Portuguese padroado, 126. Juan de la Camara, ‘Relatio ad confratres’, Bangtang, 1 November 1670, SF III: 367–8: ‘porque son tan fervorosos aquellos neofitos, que acabarse de bautizar uno es lo mismo que criar un predicador apostolico, que con todo cuidado y anhelo procura atraher almas a Dios. Y esto a sido causa para que la mayor parte de aquel reino en muy poco tiempo en recevido la luz del Evangelio, sin tener mas que azer los ministros que administrarles los sacramentos.’ 51 Juan de la Camara, ‘Relatio ad confratres’, Bangtang, 1 November 1670, SF III, 368: ‘en lo que toca a catequizar, enseñar la doctrina y predicar a los infieles y exortarse a mayor perfeccion, ellos entre si lo hazen.’ 52 Buenaventura Ibañez to Sebastian Rodrigues, Lanquin, 20 October 1660, SF III: 42: ‘que yvan dos niños hermosos predicando el santo Evangelio y no podian prenderles ni echar mano dellos . . . al fin el Señor es todo poderoso.’ 50

128

Missionary Methods

She composed in fine verse the whole story of the catechism, for she was very well versed in poetry. She began with the creation, and carried on up to the coming, the life, the Passion, the resurrection and the ascension of our Lord. She even added at the end of the poem a description of our [the Jesuits] arrival in the kingdom of Tonkin and the beginnings of the preaching of the Gospel. This work did much good: the new Christians sing these verses in their homes, in the town, in the countryside; the pagans themselves sing them, and in singing them they instruct themselves in the mysteries and truths of the faith, at the same time as taking pleasure in the sweetness of the song.53

Her mother, Dona Magdalena, is elsewhere described as exercising the role of a ‘Catechist’ to the Christians who gathered in their church, expounding on the mysteries of the faith.54 This type of catechistical ‘text’ is greatly overlooked and could explain the comparatively rapid spread of popular Catholicism in Tonkin and Cochinchina. Such works could harness fashionable and popular forms of literature which could cross social boundaries and the literate/illiterate divide and allowed the penetration of Christian ideas into regions where no missionary text had previously reached. Yet whatever the content of the missionary’s teachings, they could not hope to compete with dynamic contemporary non-Christian movements of religious proselytization, nor other drives for religious reform and renewal if they were not able to demonstrate the immanent power of their religion. Indeed, in many parts of Southeast Asia the most effective missionary tool would prove to be the spiritual services offered by missionaries to desperate individuals and communities hoping for a miracle.

53 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 119: ‘elle composa en beaux vers toute l’histoire du catéchisme, car elle était très versée en poésie. Elle commença avec la création, et poursuivit jusqu’à la venue, la vie, la Passion, la Résurrection et l’Ascension de Notre-Seigneur. Elle ajouta même à la fin du poème la description de notre arrivée au royaume de Tonkin et les débuts de la prédication de l’Evangile. Cet ouvrage fit beaucoup de bien: les nouveaux chrétiens chantaient ces vers chez eux, à la ville, à la campagne; les païens eux-mêmes les chantaient, et en les chantant ils s’instruisaient des mystères et des vérites de la foi tout en prenant plaisir à la douceur de ce chant.’ 54 Antonio Cardim, ‘Annua de Tunkim do anno de 1630’, BA, JnÁ, 49-v-31, f. 28v: ‘faz oficina de Cathequista’.

PART III CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY

This page intentionally left blank

6 Essential Rites? Converts and the Sacraments of the Church Writers from across the spectrum of Catholic reform agreed broadly on several issues which would ensure the regeneration and perfection of the church in its members.1 The sanctity and primacy of the seven sacraments must be reemphasized, errors expurgated.2 Lay devotions, in all their regional variety, should steer clear of superstition. The proper mediators between the lay person and the divine—the parish priest and other ordained clergy—should exercise control over matters moral and spiritual within a community. The proper hierarchy of the church, through which the sacral power and legitimate jurisdiction of Christ over souls was enacted, must be maintained. Yet putting such ideals into practice—by regularizing the texts, clerical training and ecclesiastical legislation across Catholic Europe and through the creation of bodies of centralized control and oversight— could be a contested process.3 Missionaries in Southeast Asia were part of this same project. Their accounts boasted that neophytes demonstrated perfect devotion to the sacraments, deep respect for their priest, and reverence and obedience to bishops and popes. Local devotions were models of orthodoxy: paraliturgical ceremonies to celebrate the sacraments, reverence towards the established saints, the Virgin, and Christ. Yet for practical reasons alone, the ideal of a Catholic community, fortified by the sacraments and guided by a priest, faced numerous obstacles. Adaptations made to the delivery of the liturgy, and contrasting missionary approaches to the translation of prayers, blessings and other holy words could challenge the Tridentine drive for regularization. The parish of a single priest could stretch for leagues; visiting all the communities under his care, however fleetingly, could take the best part of a year. According to missionary accounts, Christians became separated from their pastor not only by distance, but also by the yet more 1 In this section I draw in particular on Po-Chia Hsia, The world of Catholic renewal; Gentilcore, From bishop to witch; Ditchfield, Liturgy, sanctity and history (especially following his lead in characterizing liturgical and textual reform as ‘regularization’ rather than ‘standardization’—see 10–11). 2 The Council of Trent affirmed that there were seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, last anointing, order, and matrimony) in its seventh session, 3 March 1547. See Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, II: 684. 3 See especially Ditchfield, Liturgy, sanctity and history, 96–114 on local saints’ cults in the context of the Tridentine Breviary and oversight of the Congregation of Rites. See also Senn, Christian liturgy, 386–8.

132

Converts to Christianity

formidable wastelands of worldly interest: corrupted by the temptations of the region or the example of impious or non-Christian peers, lost to sin through lack of sufficient spiritual labourers. Missionaries sometimes speak of communities amongst which no priest had set foot for ten or fifteen years, or of Christians who had never met a priest.4 Material necessities could also prevent a priest from exercising his sacramental functions: travelling incognito or the fear of bandits may require the priest to leave behind his altar, ornaments, and vestments.5 Logistical difficulties, financial crises or the lack of raw materials could prevent priests obtaining or making candles, incense, wine, and wafers.6 The vacancy of the sees of Goa, Malacca, and Macao meant that no bishop was available to bless annually the oil needed for various sacraments. As we have seen, the circumstances of evangelism in partibus infidelum would clearly require compromise and adaptation. So how would missionaries establish a faith which on the one hand emphasized the importance of the sacraments, yet on the other was nourished and maintained without them? How was a sacerdotal religion to be sustained in the absence of a priest? As we saw in Chapter 2, catechists and other lay persons who assumed or were granted authority could help to maintain a sense of ecclesial hierarchy and unity of discipline. Yet devotional needs must also be met. This chapter will explore the introduction and promotion of the sacraments in Southeast Asia, focusing in particular on the sacraments of baptism, penance, and the Eucharist. In Chapter 7 we examine a range of other spiritual practices which emerged to compensate for their absence. DEVOTION TO T HE SACRAMENTS As pious tales which seek to edify, and as texts which justified certain evangelical strategies, it is no surprise that missionary reports often emphasized the devotion shown by converts to the sacraments, especially baptism, the Eucharist and penance, which will be the focus of this section. Alexandre de Rhodes asserted that in Tonkin he found ‘almost more angels than Christians, and that the grace of Baptism inspired in all of them the same spirit which appeared in the Apostles and Martyrs of the primitive Church’.7 Concerning their devotion to the sacraments, ‘nothing delighted me more than the care with which they prepared for Confession and Communion. They had love and veneration for these Sacraments 4

Rhodes, Divers voyages, 181. On fear of bandits: Xavier on situation in Japan, ‘I do not think it will be possible to take what is necessary for saying Mass . . . because of the many thieves along the roads.’ To Simão Rodrigues, Goa, 7 April 1552, in Costelloe, Letters and instructions of St. Francis Xavier, 375. 6 That missionaries must know how to make hosts, candles, and other things: François Pallu to M. Fermanel, Balassor, 10 December 1672, in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 196, 197–8. Lack of altar stones, 197. 7 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, 95: ‘quasi autant d’Anges que de Chrestiens, & que la grace du Baptesme leur inspire à tous ce mesme esprit qui a paru dans les Apostres, & dans les Martyrs de la primitive Eglise.’ 5

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

133

which I admired a thousand times.’ He reports, almost as a detached observer, how they prepare themselves. ‘The day before they always fast, and take the discipline . . . They confess with as many tears as they would shed if they committed great crimes,’ although he often finds it hard to discover any sin which needs absolution.8 Historians of early modern Europe have examined lay practices alongside theological discourses in order to explore how clerical and lay conceptions of the sacraments and liturgy could enter into dialogue or conflict.9 In Europe, lay people ‘engaged’ with the sacraments in a variety of ways. Missionary letters suggest a similar range of behaviours in Portuguese colonial cities, for example during the Mass. Jesuit Baltasar Dias described the people of Malacca praying privately in different ways: ‘some pray on their beads, others with the hours of Our Lady, and those who cannot come by beads, because the workmanship on some cost up to half a cruzado, pray on their fingers.’10 On the mission fields we must also attempt to uncover the ways in which Christians understood the sacraments by considering the practices which arose around them, whilst also considering how missionaries attempted to translate their meaning and mystery to neophytes.11 Considering first the rite of initiation into the church—baptism. Three controversies concerning this sacrament can illustrate key issues surrounding its administration. First, the perennial problem of translation, which caused disputes amongst Jesuits in Tonkin and Cochinchina. The variety of baptismal rituals which were practiced across Europe were only partially regularized by the introduction of the Catechism of Trent in 1566 and the Tridentine Rituale Romanum in 1614.12 ‘Ancient’ diocesan rites were preserved and local variations in the phrasing of the liturgy and associated ceremonies remained.13 Similarly, the rituals practised by missionaries could be varied. Rhodes and his confreres in Cochinchina had translated the baptismal formula into Vietnamese, allowing it to be used by laymen and women who could not

8 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, 97–8: ‘Rien ne me ravissoit plus que le soin, avec lequel ils ne preparoient à la Confession, & à la Communion. Ils ont un amour, & une veneration pour ces Sacremens que j’ay admirée mille fois.’ ‘Le jour precedent ils jeûnent tousjours, & ils prennent la discipline . . . Ils se confessent avec autant de larmes, qu’ils en pourroient jetter s’ils commettoient de grandes crimes.’ 9 See e.g Scribner, ‘Ritual and popular religion’; Gentilcore, From bishop to witch; Monter, Ritual, myth and magic; Lang, Sacred games. On baptism: Spinks, Early and medieval rituals; Kelly, The devil at baptism; Johnson, The rites of Christian initiation; Prosperi, ‘Science and the theological imagination’, Prosperi, ‘Battesimo e identità cristiana’. On the Eucharist, Zika, ‘Processions and Pilgrimages’; Rubin, Corpus Christi; Erler, ‘Palm Sunday prophets’. On penance: Bossy, ‘The social history of Confession’; Tentler, Sin and confession; Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional; Lualdi, ‘A body of beliefs and believers’. 10 Baltasar Dias to confreres in Portugal, Malacca, 19 November 1556, ABS II: 243: ‘huns rezão por suas contas, outras por horas de Nossa Senhora, e os que não podem chegar a contas, porque levão meo cruzado de feitio por humas, rezão pellos dedos.’ 11 Phan provides a clear description of the adaptations made by Rhodes to the sacraments in Tonkin, see Mission and catechesis, 97–9. 12 Johnson, The rites of Christian initiation, 283. 13 Spinks, Early and medieval rituals and theologies of baptism, 151–5.

134

Converts to Christianity

pronounce Latin: literally it ran: ‘I wash you, in the one name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’14 Yet numerous doubts were raised by other Jesuits over such translations. One complaint, for example, suggested that the words nhân danh (‘in the name of ’) was a literary form, whilst Tao ru~a mâ`i, ‘I baptise you’, was in the vulgar tongue, but as this hybridization was common to Portuguese usage: ‘Eu te bautizo, In nomine . . . ’ this query was dismissed.15 A large Jesuit consultation in Macao in 1645 settled on the accepted form, changing Rhodes’s version slightly to omit ‘nhâ´t’ (one).16 Words of sacramental power, then, could be important loci of conflict. The second controversy concerned the delegation of sacral powers. Who could administer the sacrament? When there was no priest available, or in emergencies, it was legitimate for any individual to baptize another. Yet over the seventeenth century, ‘unregulated’ baptism came to be seen as a sign of evangelical laxity. Rhodes made the catechists of Tonkin into ‘ordinary ministers’ for baptism, which caused some controversy amongst Jesuits in Macao.17 Those lay individuals chosen by the Vicars Apostolic to lead churches were also granted a similar faculty.18 Yet Pallu and Lambert suggested that the names of those thus baptized should be marked with an asterisk in the baptismal records, ‘to distinguish them from the others, so that the missionary on his arrival will easily be able to call them, to supply the lacking ceremonies of baptism’.19 Priestly oversight was still to be promoted as central to the completion of the ritual. The third controversy was linked to adult baptism, and regarded the need for catechumens to receive adequate instruction before they were baptized. Opinions differed concerning which elements of the faith should be accepted and internalized before baptism. The mass baptisms used by some Franciscans in the New World provoked extensive debates over this matter.20 The criticism of Jesuits such as José d’Acosta of Franciscan mass baptism has occluded the support which some of his confreres in the Portuguese Indies gave for this technique, citing the custom of the primitive church, in which ‘twice a year, at Easter and Pentecost, solemn baptisms

14 ‘Tao rua mâ ~ `i, nhân nhâ´t danh Cha, và Con, và Spirito Santo. Amen.’ Cf. Phan, Mission and catechesis, 98–7, nn. 107 and 108. In his catechism, Rhodes translated ‘baptism’ as phép ru~a tô.i ‘powerful ritual of washing sins away’. See Rhodes, ‘Catechism for those who want to receive baptism’ in Phan, Mission and catechesis, 245 n.12. (Phan provides the Vietnamese without the diacritics, which I have added). See also my ‘Catholic literate and oral cultures’ which discusses these issues in more detail. 15 ‘Manoscritto, em que se proua, que a forma do Bauptismo pronunciada em lingoa Annamica he verdadeira’, ARSI JapSin 80, f. 35v: ‘elles dizem Tau rua mai he lingoa vulgar da terra, eo nhan danh he falar em letra, e esta formula corresponde, como se disseramos en Portugues Eu te bautizo, e depois em latim In nomine.’ 16 Ruiz-de-Medina, ‘Vietnam’ 3957; Phan, Mission and catechesis, 98, n.107. 17 Phan also mentions this briefly, Mission and catechesis, 105 n.133. 18 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 131. 19 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 131: ‘pour les distinguer des autres; grâce à quoi, le missionnaire à son arrivée pourra facilement les appeler pour suppléer les cérémonies du baptême.’ 20 See Pirillo, ‘Il battesimo degli Indios’, 425–48; West, ‘Medieval ideas of apocalyptic mission’, 309–10; Rivera, A violent evangelism, 232–3.

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

135

were made of an infinity of catechumens’.21 Mass baptisms privileged the salvific potential of the sacrament, the fact that the rite made a real and indelible mark on the soul of the convert.22 Yet at a basic level there were doubts about whether the sacrament was truly administered. If the individual was not definitely touched by the water, splashed from a distance over a crowd, how could he or she be baptized?23 Even if mass baptisms did have sacramental value, the ignorance of Christians ‘converted’ in this way, with little instruction and no examination, was held as an indictment of the policy, not least by other members of the Franciscan order.24 The first priests of the Missions Étrangères perhaps took the most rigorous line on pre-baptismal catechism. In the view of Pallu, the recipient must orally prove him or herself to be ready. Pallu was particularly concerned about the difficulty of doing this if the candidate is deaf or mute, or does not share a language with the missionary—especially a problem ‘concerning slaves and other infidels to whom one cannot make oneself understood.’ When such individuals request baptism, what should the missionary do? There are great theologians who hold that it is a mortal sin to administer baptism to an adult who does not have the necessary aptitudes for this sacrament, which are faith, consent and pain – at least imperfect – over his sins, and in our case, although signs can be made, it is impossible to judge the faith and consent, as much for the blind and mute, as for the infidels to whom one cannot make oneself understood.25

On the other hand, it would seem harsh to exclude genuine supplicants. Should the missionary rely on his instincts, or ‘can these people not be considered like those who were, since their birth, entirely deprived of the use of reason, to whom one can, indisputably, administer baptism? The church answers for them, as it considers them its children.’26 Active participation was necessary for the adult, or else he or 21 ‘Doutrina que pregou o Padre Lopo de Albreo na Igreja de S. Paulo de Goa, a cerca do modo com que eram os Canarins induzidos ao Baptismo’, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-18, f. 378r: ‘duas vezes no anno pella Pascoa da Resurreição e de Pentecostes fazia baptismos solemnes de Infinitos de Cathecumenos’. For example, Acosta’s criticism of shallow conversion and poor understanding, De procuranda Indorum salute, 44–5. 22 On the ‘indelible mark’ see Decrees of the Council of Trent, session 7, 3 March 1547, in Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 685. See also Prosperi, ‘Battesimo e identità cristiana’, 1–9 on baptism effecting a profound change and altering the person. 23 Giovanni Botero mentions this issue in Le relationi universali (1600), see Pirillo, ‘Il battesimo degli Indios’, 426. Cf. debates over baptizing still-born infants and the problems of membranes impeding the access of water to the skin, Prosperi, ‘Science and the theological imagination’, 227. 24 Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic world, 69–72; Pirillo, ‘Il battesimo degli Indios’, 425–7, 441–4. 25 François Pallu to M. Sevin, Bantam?, December 1672, in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 191–2: ‘à l’esgard des esclaves et autres infidelles auxquels on ne se peut faire entendre en aucune façon.’ ‘il y a de grands theologiens qui tiennent qu’il y a peché mortel d’administrer le baptesme à un adulte, où on ne voit pas les dispositions necessaires à ce sacrement, qui sont la foy, le consentement et la douleur au moins imparfaite de ses pechés, et dans nostre cas, quoique l’on puisse faire par les signes, il est impossible de juger de la foy et du consentement, tant de l’aveugle et du muet que des infidelles auxquels on ne se peut faire entendre.’ 26 Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 192: ‘ne pouroit-on point considerer ces personnes comme ceux qui ont esté, dès leur naissances, privés absolument de l’usage de la raison, auxquels sans contredit on peut administrer le baptesme; l’Eglise respond pour eux, car elle les prend pour ses enfants.’ There

136

Converts to Christianity

she must be baptized as an infant or one who is mentally impaired, denying him or her the reason necessary to sin. The Monita ad missionarios set out the French bishop’s position. ‘It is divine law that baptism must be preceded by sufficient preparation,’ it stated, citing numerous authorities to demonstrate that all catechumens must undergo a rigorous programme of instruction, fasting, prayers, examinations, and repeated affirmations in word and deed before receiving baptism.27 The practice of certain missionaries of the Indies is far from this pious and indispensable solicitude: welcoming the first to approach, hardly asking them what they want, after one or two lessons, they confer upon them holy baptism. Their haste to give a list of numerous names of the baptised, their utter carelessness in instructing them, their laziness in taking care of them, their excessive credulity when a choice should be made between them, their hurriedness to administer the baptism to them: these are the great number of obstacles laid by them and it would not be believed how much this manner of proceeding has damaged the serious and proper establishment of the faith, and what immense wrong this has done to the Christian name.28

A forty-day period of instruction was the minimum to ensure a true conversion. This period should be extended for Subjects who are crude, obtuse and slow, slaves, people who seem to have embraced the faith with the aim of escaping a worldly punishment, for others who become Christians in the hope of some lucre or some advantage to be derived, and finally for those who have already given some sign of fickleness of the spirit and inconstancy of the will.29

The successes of their predecessors in Southeast Asia in obtaining large numbers of baptisms are recast as symptoms of vanity and self-regard. Missionaries are warned of the danger of ‘allowing oneself to succumb to that inane idea of preferring the vainglory of number of baptisms to the quality of dispositions and the soundness of instruction of the recipients’.30

was, in fact, some debate over whether those who lacked reason should be admitted to the sacrament, see Prosperi, ‘Battesimo e identità cristiana’, 24. 27 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 113: ‘Il est de droit divin que le baptême doit être précédé d’une préparation suffisante.’ 28 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 114: ‘Il y a loin, de cette pieuse et indispensable sollicitude, à la manière de faire de certains missionnaires des Indes: accueillant les premiers venus, leur demandant à peine ce qu’ils veulent, après une ou deux instructions, ils leur confèrent le saint baptême. Leur hâte à aligner de nombreux noms de baptisés, leur incurie à les former, leur paresse à s’occuper d’eux, leur crédulité excessive quand il fallait faire un choix parmi eux, l’empressement à leur administrer le baptême: voilà autant d’obstacles posés par eux et on ne saurait croire combien cette façon de faire a nui à l’établissement sérieux et convenable de la foi, et quel tort immense cela a fait a nom chrétien.’ 29 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 114–15: ‘des sujets grossieres, des esprits obtus et lents, des esclaves, des gens qui semblent vouloir embrasser la foi dans le but d’échapper à un châtiment temporel, pour d’autres qui se font chrétiens dans l’espoir de quelque lucre ou de quelque avantage à retirer, et enfin pour ceux qui ont déjà donné quelques signes de légèreté d’esprits et d’inconstance de volonté.’ Note the particularly pejorative connotation of ‘lucre’. 30 Pallu and Lambert, Monita, 115: ‘se lasser aller à cette sotte idée de préférer la gloriole du nombre de baptêmes à la qualité des dispositions et à la solidité de l’instruction des récipiendaires.’

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

137

Reflecting the importance of the Eucharist, the gravest condemnations of rival missionaries’ teachings concerned this sacrament. A Portuguese merchant living in Cochinchina attested that one of the French priests’ catechists was teaching that the Eucharist was not the body of Christ, that Christians should not cross themselves, and that fornication was not a sin. He asserts that many people were going without confession as they could not believe that true Catholic priests would allow such enormities: the heretic taint of the Huguenots which had infected France, he clearly insinuates, has also left its mark on the French bishops and their helpers.31 Such accusations were also made of the Vietnamese priests ordained by Pallu and Lambert. Just as the MEP priests had accused the Jesuits of baptizing uninstructed catechumens, the Jesuits accused the MEP bishops of (illegitimately) administering the sacrament of Orders to create untrained and ignorant clergy. This irreligion was often represented by descriptions of the missionary selling his altar ornaments. Thus Cochinchinese priest Emmanuel, according to Jesuit Bartolomeu da Costa, failed to say Mass for two years, before selling his silver chalice in order to buy a boat and ply his trade as a floating doctor.32 His superior Langlois, rather than defrocking him, avoided scandal and persuaded him to administer the sacraments again, although he was ‘little less than a schismatic, and apostate’. By this point his boat had attracted him a wife, and the two sailed with their children, ‘travelling through the cities and the countryside, to administer the sacraments’. Wisely, many Christians refused ‘to admit to their homes this sort of missionary’. Those who were unaware of his reputation found that ‘he went about selling not only medicines, but even the sacraments, giving them pecuniary penances which he received himself ’. Lest there be any doubt of his character, da Costa asserted that even a MEP missionary had admitted seeing, ‘coming out of his mouth, something black, like smoke’.33 Although missionaries rarely discussed the liturgy they used to celebrate Mass, we can surmise that this could also vary. Indeed this was a complaint made by Pallu: he argued that ‘Roman usage’ alone should be promoted to introduce uniformity in the region where ‘some often want the French usage, some the Spanish, some Portuguese, some introduce the customs of their own religious order into the regions committed to them.’34 The lack of uniformity was also reflected in the ritual spaces in which Mass was celebrated. Tridentine reformers in Europe strove to move devotions to the main altar of parish churches, to stabilize notions of 31 Clemente da Cruz, ‘Carta de h~ u Portuguese principal de Cochinchina subscrita per mão propria do mesmo’, 2 June 1685, Cochinchina, APF SC Cina, India Orientalia, 4, f. 431r. 32 Bartolomeu da Costa to PF, Macau, 20 October 1685, APF SC, Indie Orientali Cina vol 4, f. 322r. 33 Bartolomeu da Costa to PF, Macau, 20 October 1685, APF SC, Indie Orientali Cina vol 4, f. 322r–v: ‘poco meno che scismatico, e Apostata’; ‘scorrendo la Città, e le terre per amministrar i Sacrimenti;’ ‘ammettere in Casa tal sorte di Missionario’; ‘andaua egli uendendo non solo le medecine, ma ancora i Sacrimenti, dando loro penitenze pecuniare che egli stesso receueua;’ ‘uscire della propria bocca una cosa nera come fumo’. 34 François Pallu to François Deydier and Jacques de Bourges, c.1678 in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 238: ‘unde alii sæpe vellent gallicos usus, alii hispanicos, alii lusitanos, alii demum propriæ religionis consuetudines in regiones sibi commissas introducere.’

138

Converts to Christianity

sacred space and to restrict the use of private altars inside and outside of the church.35 These concerns were also felt in colonial cities. Around 1598, the Jesuit Visitor had ordered members of the Company in the Portuguese Indies not to use the privileges granted to the society to say Masses in ‘private oratories’ or private houses, ‘apart from when occasionally the quality of the person and other circumstances require it’.36 Yet on the mission fields, outside of Malacca between 1558 and 1626, Ayutthaya after 1664 and some Vietnamese towns after the 1670s, there were no bishops to consecrate fixed altars or permanent churches.37 ‘New’ ritual space could be created by Christian leaders who set aside rooms for their community to gather or built structures for worship, or missionaries who obtained property.38 In these spaces the Mass was celebrated on a portable altar, for which mendicants had early obtained privileges in their roles as military chaplains, pilgrimage pastors, and missionaries.39 The Jesuits and Missions Étrangères were also granted similar privileges.40 These portable altars were thus another essential part of missionary equipment. Pallu requested a supply from Paris, and recommended that future missionaries bring their own, specifying, ‘they should all be of a good size, not too large or small. It does not really matter if they are of marble, slate or hard stone, the best value must be chosen; they must all be set in wood and covered all over in twill or a very strong fabric, with a cross on the cloth on the side where the stone will have been consecrated.’41 They enabled the priest to celebrate Mass in any suitable location. However, there were various attempts to enforce more rigid definition of a ‘suitable location’. Despite the injunctions against saying masses in private homes and oratories, an Italian Discalced Carmelite in Goa complained in the 1680s that this was still widespread throughout the Portuguese Indies, ‘not only in [the houses of ] noble people, and people of quality, but also the ordinary, and natives of the country’.42 Moreover, the Portuguese manner of carrying Viaticum was

35 Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional, 18; See also Palazzo, L’espace rituel, 32; Davidson, The Counter Reformation, 45–8. 36 ‘Alguas cousas comm~ us pa’ se guardarem em a Prouincia & Viceprouincia de India Oriental’, c.1601, ARSI FG, 721/II/3/3, f. 23r: ‘oratorios particulares’; ‘saluo quando algua vez a qualidad da pessoa & outras circunstancias o pidissem’. 37 Gonçalvo da Silva, bishop of Malacca 1613–32, left Malacca for Goa in 1626 in protest over not being paid, and did not return. He was replaced by Luís de Melo in 1638, whom also seems never to have visited Malacca. Teixeira, The Portuguese missions in Malacca, I: 211, 218. 38 Cf. Tridentine trend towards ‘official’, episcopal ceremonies of consecration for sacred space. Palazzo, L’espace rituel, 32–3. 39 Palazzo, L’espace rituel, 130–1, 136–9, 148–52. 40 See ‘Congretatio Particularis super rebus Sinarum habita 13 Augusti 1669’, APF CP 30, ff. 68r-v. 41 François Pallu to M. Fermanel, Balassor, 20 December 1672, in Launay, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu, 197: ‘Il faut qu’elles soient touttes d’une bonne grandeur, ny trop grandes, ny trop petites. Il importe peu qu’elles soyent de marbre, d’ardoise ou de pierre dure; il faut en cela prendre le meilleur marché; il les faut touttes enchassés en du bois et les couvrir partout de couty ou d’une toile tres forte, avecq une croix sur la toille du costé où la pierre aura esté consacrée.’ On materials used to make altar stones, portable altars and coverings see Pocknee, The Christian altar, 43–6. 42 ‘Le missione de Carm.ni Scalzi. Memoriale dato del Pr. Agnello dell’Immacolata Concettione’, Goa, 1680s, APF CP 30, f. 273r: ‘e ciò non sola à Persone nobili, e di qualità, mà anche à ordinare, e naturali del Paese.’

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

139

contemptible: ‘in a little palanquin, or rather a portable litter with which the priest himself is covered, the holy pix is held with little decency, and is carried by four gentiles, or four black men who are not neatened up in any way, nor is it proceeded by a Cross, nor light or anyone to accompany it.’ They also carry it out in the driving rain, the author complained.43 The French in Siam were also shocked by Portuguese laxity about saying Mass in unsuitable locales. Pallu found it necessary to prohibit Jesuit Tommaso Valguarnera from celebrating Mass ‘in profane places’.44 Yet elsewhere, the sensitivities of certain religious orders, especially the Augustinians, led them to refuse to carry the Viaticum into poor homes, ‘alleging as a pretext the distance of the houses, their position in the woods which makes access difficult, the poverty of the Christians, who could not accommodate them with the necessary decency to receive the holy Eucharist.’45 This was also an abuse in need of cure, as it was a failure both of charity and pastoral duty. Missionaries often organized or participated in Eucharistic processions in colonial cities. The Jesuits in particular used processions—Eucharistic and penitential—to great effect in Goa and Malacca, just as they did in Europe.46 However, Portuguese practices again shocked some Italian and French observers, who considered the dancing which often accompanied these ceremonies inappropriate, and alleged that a large number of the participants were often drunk.47 Reliance on processions could also lead to accusations that missionaries were merely ‘playing’ at religion, attracting people to church with baubles without instilling true faith.48 Moreover, in Siam, for example, although missionaries held small Corpus Christi processions, they could never match the splendour of the royal kathin processions which demonstrate the king’s devotion to the Sangha, and the importance of Buddhism.49 Outside of colonial centres, missionaries could not always compete ceremonially.

43 APF CP 30, f. 273r: ‘in un Palachino, o sia letto Portatile del quale stesso il Sacerdore è coperto, tiene con poca decenza la Sacra Pisside, e uiene portato da quattro Gentili, ò quattro Cafri, senza compostura niuna del loro corpo, senza che lo procedano, ne Croce, ne lume, e senza chi lo accompagni.’ The Viaticum was the Eucharist carried to the sick or dying. 44 ‘Summario del processo del Visitatore della Chiesa di Malaca’, APF Misc. 37, Piece E, 1r. 45 ‘Scrittura sesta di Mons.r Segratario riferita nella Congregat.ne de 28 Agosto 1678’, APF Acta CP Cina, Indie Orientali, 1B: ‘per pretesto la distanza delle Case, la loro situatione ne Boschi il dificile accesso, e la pouertà de Christiani, che non gli permette l’accommodarle con quella decenza, che si conuerrebbe per riceuere il Santissimo.’ On medicinal benefits of Eucharist in popular belief, see Lang, Sacred games, 336–7. 46 Madeira Santos, «Goa é a chave», 271–2. On processions in Europe see Rubin, Corpus christi; Delumeau, Rassurer et protéger, 90–133; Zika, ‘Processions and pilgrimmages’; Cadilhon, ‘Les processions jésuites en France’; Tardieu, Le destin des noirs, 218; O’Malley, ‘The ministry to outsiders’, 258; Paderberg, ‘The third general congregation’, 65. 47 On dancing traditions in European religious processions, see Backman, Religious dances in the Christian Church, 82, 97–8, 107; attempts to ban them: 155–9. 48 Cf. Cadilhon, ‘Les processions jésuites en France’, 199. 49 On these ceremonies see Tambiah, World conqueror and world renouncer, 226–7; Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, I: 100. Cf. Acosta’s description of festival of the ‘God Vitzilipùtztli’ in Mexico, which he sees as a demonic parody of a Corpus Christi procession. Acosta, Historia naturale, 360–4.

140

Converts to Christianity

Missionaries described Eucharistic devotions outside the Mass—processions, forty-day devotions, adoration—to demonstrate the orthodoxy and piety of their converts. Once this was achieved, the ways in which converts engaged with the sacraments could be used to support certain strands of Catholic thought, for example concerning frequent communion.50 Thus the Christians in Tonkin in Rhodes’s depictions are exemplary in their devotion to the Mass: ‘They so love to hear the Masses which are said in our churches [that] they would like to hear them all, every day, so much so that we are obliged to chase them away, and allocate to each days and hours, so as not to cause great gatherings of Christians which would shock the pagans.’51 Moreover, these pious Christians have an innate desire for frequent communion: ‘if I did not prevent them, they would have taken communion more than once a week.’52 In this they support the position held by some Jesuits on frequent communion, refuting both the Protestant reformers who limited communion to three or four times a year, and other Catholics, such as the Jansenists, who argued for restriction of the sacrament.53 Other missionaries were less enthusiastic about frequent communion, emphasizing instead the restrictions they placed on neophytes, and the spiritual progress which they had to demonstrate before they were deemed ready to receive first communion.54 We also see considerable differences in the approach of missionaries to the sacrament of penance. Next to the Eucharist, this sacrament features most prominently in missionary accounts. The Council of Trent had reaffirmed that the sacraments were necessary for justification: since mortal sin was capable of erasing justifying Grace, penance was crucial for salvation.55 In Malacca, Jesuit missionaries stressed that priests serving the varied, shifting population of the city should be skilled in the discernment of spirits to obtain meaningful and complete confessions: ‘this land has great need of Fathers who are able to confess, and who know how to distinguish between leprosy and leprosy, usury and usury, profiteering and profiteering, and theft and robbery.’56 Yet the lack of sacerdotal manpower could make 50 On debates over frequent communion, see Lestringant, Une sainte horreur, 261–3; Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional, 23–6. 51 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 204: ‘ils aiment tellement entendre les messes qui se disent dans nos églises, [ . . . ] ils voudraient les entendre toutes, tous les jours; si bien que nous sommes obligés de les chasser, et s’attribuer à chacun des jours et des heures, afin de ne pas provoquer de grands rassemblements des chrétiens qui choqueraient les païens.’ 52 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient, 97: ‘si ie ne les eusse retenus, ils se fussent communiez plus souvent qu’une fois la Semaine.’ 53 On Jesuits and frequent communion, O’Malley, ‘The Society of Jesus’, 146. On Jansenist rejection of frequent communion, see Doyle, Jansenism, 23; Lestringant, La sainte horreur, 269–89. Note some Jesuits were also opposed to frequent communion. see Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional, 23. On general anti-Jansenist feeling in the Portuguese Church, see Souza, Jansénisme et reform, 20–1, 451–2. 54 Note that François Pallu’s uncle, Victor, had been persuaded by the Jansenist treatise De la fréquente communion by Antoine Arnauld and became a Solitaire at Port Royal, adding to the rumours that the French bishops were closet Jansenists. See Lesaulnier ‘Pallu, Victor’, 776. 55 That is, against Luther’s teaching on justification by grace alone. See Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional, 15–16, 21–41. 56 Francisco Pérez to confreres in Coimbra, Malaca, 4 December 1548, DI I: 374: ‘tiene esta tierra necessidad de Padres que confiessen y sepan distinguir entre lepra e lepra, e omzena e omzena, e logro e

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

141

even annual confession difficult to achieve. In Malacca, Baltasar Dias complained in 1564, the Jesuits spend long periods hearing confessions, ‘as these men come from parts where, for much of the time, there are not many confessors.’57 It is concerning penance that the most virulent missionary disputes arose in Siam, Tonkin, and Cochinchina. In order to legitimately administer the sacrament it was necessary to be granted the faculty of confession by means of a licence from an Ordinary.58 For some commentators, the behaviour of French and Vietnamese priests in the confessional was merely further proof of the irreligion which had led them to usurp sacral power by administering sacraments illicitly. Profaning the sacrament of penance by using the confession to extort or solicit their penitents seemed par for the course for these pirates. Jesuit Tomé Vaz reported receiving a letter from a ship’s captain about a French priest who ‘did not give absolution to any who did not first give him the money he demanded’.59 His notoriety was such that he gave rise ‘to the saying of the Japanese there, that the demons may carry them to hell, if they ever confess to such a priest’.60 Such accounts are often laden with innuendo: ‘some French missionaries make the sacrament of confession odious’ one Portuguese observer alleged, ‘with impertinent and licentious questions’ leading upright citizens to boycott the sacrament.61 Ignacio Martins translated into Portuguese several Tonkinese accounts from Christians who were reportedly scandalised by the behaviour of certain French and Vietnamese priests. Of the priests who had taken over Jesuit Marini’s residency in Ké Coé we are told they ‘always close the door to the street and open a little secret hatch behind the house and they permit women to enter by this hatch, who are not married, and afterwards they leave pregnant’. The women were alleged to kill their babies and dump their bodies beyond the village bounds.62 The Jesuit catechist Barnabé ‘discovered’ that confession was used by Vietnamese priest François to

logro, y hurto y robo.’ My translation is slightly loose in order to maintain the cadence of the phrasing. ‘Omzena’ or ‘onzena’ refers to lending money at 11 per cent interest, or ‘usury’ more generally, whilst ‘logro’ is ‘profit’, ‘gain’ or, by extension ‘usury’ (whence the Portuguese ‘logrão’—swindler, cheat, or greedy person). The point of the terms is that there are very subtle differences between them. 57 Baltesar Dias to confreres in Europe, Malacca, 3 December 1564, ABS III: 107: ‘por andarem, estes homens, em partes, muito tempo, aonde não ha copia de confessores.’ 58 Noirot, ‘Facultés’. See also Haliczer, Sexuality in the confessional, 17 on licences. 59 Information reportedly from the captain of a ship belonging to the king of Siam, no mention of his nationality. Tomé Vaz to Charles de Noyelle (FG), Macao, 4 November 1685 (copy translated from Portuguese), APF SC Indie Orientale, Cina, vol. 4, f. 327r: ‘non daua l’assolutione à che prima non gli daua il denero, che egli dimandaua’. 60 APF SC Indie Orientale, Cina, vol. 4, f. 327r: ‘onde si originò il dire de Giapponesi che iui si trouano, che i Demonij li portino all’Inferno, se mai si confesserano con tal Prete.’ 61 Luis Gonçalves Cota to Pedro III, 1686 (?), APF SC Indie Orientali Cina vol 4, ff. 436–7: ‘Alguns Missionarios Francezes fazem odiozo o Sacramento da Confissão’; ‘com perguntas impertinentes, e impudicas’. 62 ‘Copia das Cartas Traduzida da lingua Tunkina em Portuguez dos Christaons da Provincia do Leste, que escreverão ao Irmão Ignacio Martins pa dar conta ao Padre Superior da Missão’, after 1679, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-33, f. 91v: ‘sempre fechão a porta da rua e abrem huma portinhola da banda detras de caza e permitem entrar por aquella portinhola as molheres, que não tem marido e depois salirão prenhadas.’ Ignacio names 14 Christians who had complained about the priest behaving in this manner.

142

Converts to Christianity

seduce women: typically, ‘after confession, the priest said various words of love to her, and taking her hands, said “Daughter, soon you will sleep at the foot of my bed.”’63 The profanation of sacrament in the course of their debauchery demonstrated that something more sinister than mere weakness of the flesh led to their sins. The intimacy of the act of confession could easily lead to accusations of impropriety. One set of instructions from Andre Palmeiro, Jesuit Visitor, to Gaspar do Amaral in Tonkin, warned that non-Christians who ‘do not understand what confession is, or how this sacrament is carried out, can be scandalised’ to see priests alone with women: there should always be witnesses.64 Rhodes tried to resolve this by having the woman sit in one house, whilst he was in the neighbouring one, listening through a gap in the wall.65 We can see a different culture of confession being introduced to the mission fields when the French arrived. The ascetic and mystical spirituality of the first Vicars Apostolic, especially of Lambert and Laneau, privileged the sacraments, mental prayer and the examination of conscience, for converts and missionaries alike.66 Emphasis was placed on contrition, indeed in making a public display of repentance.67 In Tonkin, François Deydier condemned what he saw as typical Jesuit laxity in confession, failing to impress upon Christians the pain and sorrow they should feel over their sins.68 Dominican accounts hint that disputes over casuistry also affected the missions.69 Diego Collado, for example, suggested that Jesuits were teaching that mental reservation was permissible, that a Christian could ‘without lying say, and even swear, that someone did something, understanding in their mind that the person did not do it in such a place, etc.’70 Jesuit practice on the mission field could be used as ammunition in doctrinal wars in Europe. The darkest interpretation placed on Jesuit ‘laxity’ in the confessional was that, taken to its extremes, it would disavow the necessity of the sacrament. In 1684, there were reports that catechists in the Jesuit camp in Tonkin were preaching heresy. Catechist François Văn Loên, for example, was said to have delivered a sermon urging all to refuse to confess to the Vicars Apostolic: ‘he related the 63 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-33, f. 92r: ‘depois de confessião o clerigo lhe disse varias palavras de amores, e pegando suas maons lhe disse, Filha, daqui a pouco vos vindes dormir ao pe do meu catre.’ Citing a letter from the catechist dated 28 February 1679. Catre is perhaps more literally translated as ‘cot’, conveying a sort of makeshift pallet. 64 ‘Instrucção que a Padre Andre Palmeiro Visitador da Provincia de Japam, e China, deu ao Padre Gaspar de Amaral’, 16 February 1631, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 41v: ‘não entendem que couza seja confessam, nem o que neste sacramento se executa, podem-se escandalizar.’ 65 Phan, Mission and catechesis, 99. 66 On spiritual influences, see Fauconnet-Buzelin, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères, 23–42; Laneau, La divinisation, vi; Koehler, ‘Servitude (saint esclavage)’, 742. 67 Cf. public displays and penitential practices in Europe, especially by Jesuits and Franciscans. See Selwyn, ‘ “Schools of mortification” ’ and Schneider, ‘Mortification on Parade’. 68 See Forest, Les missionnaires Français, III: 33–4. On issue of perfect contrition see Doyle, Jansenism, 19, 36. On laxity in administering confession more generally as an area for reform see Halicer, Sexuality in the confessional, 10–11. 69 See Zagorin, Ways of lying, 153–9. 70 Diego Collado, ‘Papeles de la Compañia’ [l.1620s?], AGOP XIII-27.500–3, f. 4v: ‘sin mentira dezir, y aun jurar, q’ uno hizo algo, . . . entendiendo interiom.te q’ no lo hizo en tal parte ett.a.’

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

143

example of the lives of some of the Desert Fathers, who despite passing fifty to sixty years without Mass, confession or communion, did not fail to be good servants of God, and to become great saints.’71 Yet more alarmingly, the Dominican Juan de Santa Cruz told Deydier that the Jesuit’s catechist in Ké Mèn, Joseph Tăn Lôc, had been teaching, ‘that the Dutch never confess, and that they are nevertheless saved, merely by repenting their sins, for which they ask forgiveness of God, and many other heresies of this manner.’72 Other Christians retreated to the oratories in their homes, believing that holy water and an act of contrition before a holy image was sufficient.73 The French priests argued that in contrast, their own robust approach to rooting out and publicly condemning sin, and refusing to absolve the imperfectly contrite, could make them potential martyrs for their defence of the sacrament’s integrity. Concerning Deydier in Tonkin for example, his confreres reported: ‘their fear was great that some misfortune would happen to him following his denunciation to the magistrates by a wicked woman, [because] he refused to give her the absolution of which she was not capable.’74 In Jesuit accounts, this strictness flows from other sources: ignorance, a lack of pastoral concern, even greed as missionaries offered to replace onerous penances with cash alternatives. Ferreyra saw all these motives in the practices of the Tonkinese priests. The Jesuit confessed many people in the province of Bochinchie in November 1673, who came to receive the sacrament ‘to the great joy of the Angels and the confusion of Demons.’ Yet he also discovered the failings of their usual pastors: The penitents do not know how to distinguish and explicate the number and types of sins, and the Tonkinese confessors [are] ignorant and also so indiscreet, and impose intolerable penances on the penitents. Such as, it happened that a little girl of thirteen was assigned five hundred and fifty chaplets, and a man four hundred rosaries. And if the penitents receive such long penances, they commute them into so many piastres or pieces of eight, to pay at once not with their mouth, but with their purse.75

71 ‘Journal du Tonkin dépuis le commencement de l’Année 1683 jusqu’en Octobre de l’Année 1684’, AMEP 657, 111: ‘il leur rapporta pour exemple la vie de quelques Peres du desert, qui nonobstant qu’ils passassent les 50 et 60 ans sans messe, sans confessions, ny communions, ne lassoient pas d’estre bons serviteurs de Dieu, et d’estre de venus de grands Saincts.’ 72 AMEP 657, 111–12: ‘que les Hollandois ne se confessoient point, et que neantmoins ils se sauvoient avec le seul repentir de leur pechez, dont ils demandoient pardon a Dieu, et plusieurs autres heresies de cette maniere.’ 73 AMEP 657, 112. 74 ‘Extrait des nouuelles receües le 19 May 1670 de Mgr de Berite et de Mr de Bourges’, AMEP 677, f. 43: ‘qu’étoit grande leur craint qu’il ne lui fust arriué quelq disgrace ensuite de la dénoncia.on qu’une mauuaise femme auoit faite de lui aux Magistrates . . . il lui auoit refusé l’absolution dont elle n’étoit pas capable.’ 75 ‘Raguaglio della Missione fatta dal Pre. Emanuele Ferreira’ Tonkin, 3 October 1676, APF SOCP 9, ff. 27v–8r: ‘con grand’allegrezza degl’Angeli e confusione dè Demonij.’ ‘li Penitenti non sanno distinguere, et esplicare il num.o e le spetie dè peccati, e i Confessori Tunchinesi [ . . . sono . . . ] ignorante et anco tanto indiscreti, ed alli Pentitenti impongono intolerabili penitenze. Come è auuenuto di assegnare ad un zitello di tredici Anni cento ciquanta Corone, et ad un huomo quattro Centro Rosarij. E se li Penitente rieusano si lunghe penitenze, le commutano loro intante Piastre ò Pezze da otto, da pagarsi subito non colla bocca, mà colla borsa.’ The ‘corone’ and ‘rosarij’ could both

144

Converts to Christianity

Langlois was also accused of profaning the sacrament by Jesuit da Costa with the grave sin of making public what was learnt in confession: The priest Pierre Langlois, when he was about to hear Confession, ordered a catechist to read publicly certain writings in which were set out all the occasions of sin against the sixth Commandment [against Adultery], and they were such that many onlookers, scandalised, returned home without confessing, taking their wives and children with them so that they did not hear such enormities.76

The breaking of the seal of the confessional, a spiritual violation, is fittingly undertaken through the sharing of details of sexual sin. The image of the salacious priest with prurient interests underpins the enormity of his sin against pastoral duty. In missionary descriptions of the sacraments, then, we can see some of the major processes and problems of Tridentine reform play out. The drive to make the sacraments firmly the responsibility of the priest and to place these sacraments at the heart of Christian worship was hampered by the difficult conditions of the mission field. Jurisdictional quarrels took on a bitter edge when they touched, as they often would, these priestly duties: exercising the sacraments without the proper authority opened the door to heresy accusations and dark interpretations of national and doctrinal differences. So what did Catholic communities in Southeast Asia make of the sacraments? We can speculate that the exorcismal rites associated with baptism could help to make this sacrament attractive. In addition to the formal renunciation of Satan required in baptismal liturgies, rites surrounding the sacrament made the exorcism and purification of the catechumen into an affecting performance.77 Sacramentals such as exorcised salt, water and two types of holy oil, along with insults towards and banishments of the devil book-ended the moment of baptism.78 Equally, as we have seen, infant baptism, especially of dying children, could be important. In addition to ‘saving the soul’ of the child, it guarded against unquiet spirits: either by ridding the child of malign influences causing illness, or by ensuring that its spirit did not return as a malevolent force. This could add to the natural propensity of desperate parents to try any remedy for worldly or spiritual relief. Across Southeast Asia, as in Europe, fears surrounded the spirits of dead children, women who died in childbirth and those who died violent deaths could be of particular concern.79

refer to the rosary, but it is possible that he is referring to versions with different numbers of beads, told in different ways. 76 Bartolomeu da Costa to PF, Macau, 20 October 1685, APF SC, Indie Orientali Cina vol 4, f. 321v: ‘Il Prete Pietro Langlois quando staua per udire le Confessioi mandaua a leggere da un Catechista publicamente certa scritture in cui si spiegauano tutte le circostanze de i peccati contro il sesto Commandamento, et erano tali, che molti de i Circostanti scandalizati se ne ritornauano à Casa senza confessarsi conducendo seco le loro mogli, e figluole acciò non udissero tali enormità.’ 77 Kelly, The devil at baptism (esp. 9–12 on idea of performance); Johnson, The rites of Christian initiation, 231. 78 On exorcism in pre-Tridentine liturgies, Kelly, The devil at baptism, chs. 12 and 13, and in Roman Ritual, 261. See also Spinks, Early and medieval rituals, 155. 79 See e.g. Dror, Cult, culture and society, 69 on Vietnam. Cf. similar European traditions on infant ghosts. On southern Italy: Prosperi, ‘Battesimo e identità cristiana nella prima età moderna’, 37–8.

Converts and the Sacraments of the Church

145

A parallel can be seen in Calvin’s Geneva, where parents made recourse to Catholic priests for baptism of their children in extremis, unsatisfied with reformed ceremonies which were stripped of all elements of exorcism.80 Yet Theravāda Buddhist and spirit rites in Siam could propitiate even the most dangerous demons: this was done not by ‘casting out’ the demon, but by appeasing it, or tricking it to leave with offerings.81 It should further be noted that such ceremonies, and more general festivities which kept dangerous spirits at bay, also made extensive use of water to symbolize purification.82 Furthermore, spirits in Southeast Asia were not all malign: for many communities the spirits of the natural world, and even of household objects, if honoured, could aid and assist.83 Whilst missionaries may view such beliefs as symptoms of the demonic infection of superstition, persuading their neophytes of this may prove a challenge.84 Similarly, as religious cultures in each region offered ways in which ‘sins’ could be atoned for, or the negative repercussions of bad activity assuaged, missionaries must demonstrate the comparative power of their own rites of purification.85 Concepts of divine sacrifice and atonement were understood in each society, but how far was the Eucharist seen as just another form of offering to a spirit or deity?86 Simon de Loubère considered that Siamese concepts of ‘sin’ would make it particularly difficult to introduce the Eucharist into that kingdom. First, he suggested the example of the saints should be discussed, until the catechumen could be made to understand that ‘one may be unfortunate and innocent’. This was the major stumbling block: the Passion ran contrary to understandings of karma. However, the ideas ‘that the Innocent might load himself with the Crimes of the Guilty, it was necessary that a God should become Man, to the end that this ManGod should by a laborious life, and a shameful, but voluntary Death satisfie for all the Sins of men’ would, he felt, be comprehended.87 ‘The Eucharist after this will not scandalise the Siamese, as it formerly scandalized the Pagans of Europe.’88 Yet Buddhism in general was seen by many European missionaries as a form of atheism: 80

258.

Prosperi, ‘Battesimo e identità cristiana nella prima età moderna’, 37; Kelly, The devil at baptism,

81 On ‘yakka’ (demons) in Siam see Swearer, The Buddhist world of Southeast Asia, 16–17; see also Yalman, ‘Sinhalese healing rites’, 117, 23–6 on similar rituals in another Theravāda country. Note that ‘professional’ itinerant Siamese physicians often also offered ritual relief from unquiet spirits, see Heinze, ‘Nature and function of some therapeutic techniques’, 90. 82 e.g. the Siamese New Year, Songkran (in November). See Swearer, The Buddhist world of Southeast Asia, 36–8. 83 See e.g. Tingley, ‘Trade and exchange: catalogue entries’, 308 on the lime pot in Vietnam, used to store an ingredient of betel chewing, which was honoured; on phi and chao (spirits) in Siam see Swearer, The Buddhist world of Southeast Asia, 19, 46. 84 See also Rhodes on Taoist ceremonies in Tonkin and Cochinchina to appease ‘evil spirits’, Histoire du Tonkin, 68. 85 See e.g. Quach-Langlet, ‘La compassion transcendée’, 135–9 on Vietnamese prayers for souls disquiet through their wicked deeds. 86 On offerings see e.g. Cadière, Croyances et pratiques religieuses, I: 102–28, 202–3; Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, II: 136–40. On ‘confession’ (amongst monks) in Buddhism see Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 266. 87 Consider e.g. the possibility of ‘transferring’ merit, Harvey, An introduction to Buddhism, 42–3. 88 Loubère, A new historical relation, 140–1.

146

Converts to Christianity

this lack of a God-head must first be tackled.89 Furthermore, Loubère reported that the Buddha’s nephew Devadatta had been punished as a heretic, ending in Hell with a pot of flames on his head, and pierced through or ‘crucified’ with a cross of iron bars.90 Many Siamese were persuaded that Christ was Devadatta: suggesting that the Catholics were preaching an old heresy, a suspicion perhaps confirmed by descriptions of Christ’s Passion and its Eucharistic celebration.91 It is, of course very difficult to reach any firm conclusions by reading, as we must, missionaries’ analyses of the success or failure of their attempts to convey the meaning of the sacraments. Yet where there were conflicts between missionaries over converts’ understanding of the sacraments, we encounter more details of the devotional lives of Southeast Asian Catholics, revealing how European and Southeast Asian religious cultures could meet, interact or collide.

89

See e.g. Rhodes, Histoire du Tonkin, 64–5. Loubère, A new historical relation, 156. 91 Loubère, A new historical relation, 152. Other visitors to Siam related comparisons being drawn between the crucified Christ and sinners in the Buddhist hells. See Agadjanian, ‘Aspects de la perception du Bouddhism’, 128–9. 90

7 Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions Besides the sacraments, missionaries brought to Southeast Asia a wide range of devotional objects and practices with which they hoped to shape the religious lives of their converts. Items such as images, the rosary, the Agnus Dei, religious medallions, and relics of saints could serve as didactic aids, rewards for piety, and badges of belonging.1 Yet missionaries could not always retain control of the devotions that they instituted. Nor were they the only vectors by which elements of Christian devotion reached Southeast Asian communities. Trading centres such as Faifo and Ayutthaya hosted communities of Catholic merchants from Europe, China, and Japan who introduced their own forms of Christian worship. Southeast Asian converts themselves also took a leading role in the creation of new forms of Catholic devotion, which spoke to their own spiritual needs and concerns. On these developments the success or failure of the mission could hang. Potential converts would have to be persuaded that Catholicism provided an effective spiritual and devotional arsenal to equip the practitioner to face the challenges of this world. The efficacy of Catholic rites to address immanent concerns could in turn support the veracity of Catholic claims about the next world. We have seen how holy water was an important focus of lay devotion in Tonkin and Cochinchina and how its judicious use by missionaries or neophytes in healing and exorcism could persuade others to convert to Catholicism. Yet missionaries were also sensitive to the charge that converts conceived of the faith purely in terms of the temporal benefits which could accrue from it.2 As far as missionaries were concerned Catholic devotions therefore had to fulfil three criteria. First they had to be ‘powerful’ or effective enough to satisfy the practitioners and perhaps to impress potential converts. Secondly they had to be orthodox: missionaries debated heatedly how much neophytes could borrow from the ritual and cultural language of their homelands in order to shape these devotions. Thirdly, in keeping with the Tridentine emphasis on the priest and the parish, they should not detract from the central importance of sacerdotal rituals nor descend into ‘superstitions’ which were intended only to improve worldly circumstance.

1 See Gentilcore, From bishop to witch, 94–105. Cf. Consecrated Buddha images, relics and objects as conduits of power in Siam. Swearer, The Buddhist world of Southeast Asia, 26; Tambiah, The Buddhist saints of the forest, 196, 203–4. 2 Cf. also some Franciscans in the New World discouraged discussion of miracles, arguing that the Indians should convert through hearing the doctrine and seeing the example, rather than being dazzled by miracles. See Phelan, Millennial kingdom, 51–2.

148

Converts to Christianity

In the course of disputes over the acceptability of devotional developments, missionaries raised fundamental questions: How were the truth and mysteries of the faith to be internalized by new believers, and how were these beliefs to be externalized in ritual observance considering the absence of priests? If neophytes did not behave in accepted ways, were they truly Christian? IMAGES, SACRAMENTALS, AND CATHOLIC MATERIAL CULTURE Conversion to Catholicism would mean engaging with a new visual and material culture: it brought exposure to a range of exotic sacred images and objects. In Malacca, the Portuguese conquest transformed the appearance and sound-scape of the city. The urban landscape was now visually defined by churches, and the tolling of their bells replaced the muezzins’ call to prayer. Religious processions and festivals took over the streets to mark saints’ days and special occasions, balancing any sacred solemnity with music, dancing, fireworks and the crowd’s raucous enthusiasm. During such processions, images of the divine were borne throughout the city: statues, paintings and models served to focus the devotion of the crowd and the exposure of these images promised to relieve the sufferings of the faithful in times of plague and war.3 Following the loss of Malacca to the iconophobic Dutch, such religious images became a focus of stubborn devotion for the remaining Catholics. In the absence of priests, devotional life focused on the hidden relics of the Catholic past of the city. Missionaries, excluded from Malacca and able to make only sporadic visits, saw these images and objects as a crucial point of difference, and prophylactics against heresy.4 Sporadically, Jesuit Pedro Mesquita reported, the Dutch would demonstrate their disdain for popish images by confiscating pictures and ornaments. The continuing importance of these objects was thus tacitly acknowledged by their subsequent treatment: following a mocking public parade, the objects were disposed of, with those of less value given to children, ‘to play them with like dolls’.5 Their sacral power was thereby denied and undermined. Yet the futility of such ceremonies was demonstrated, according to Jesuit accounts, by the conversions won, achieved through prayers directed through images, or by non-believers coming into direct contact with Catholic objects. In the case of one ‘Bengali’ woman, who had been converted to Calvinism as a child, it was reportedly through her visit to the house of the Jesuits, when she saw ‘the cleanliness and decoration of

3 See e.g. Francisco Peres to his confreres, Malacca 2 January 1550 and Peres to his confreres, Malacca, 24 November 1551, in ABS II: 8, 61–7. See also Braga, ‘A vida quotidiana’, 538–9 and Cardon, ‘Portuguese Malacca’, 9. 4 See also Bort, ‘Report of Governor Balthasar Bort on Malacca’, 82. 5 Pedro Mesquita to Francisco de Tavora, ‘Relação da Nova Missão q’ fizerão os PP Pero de Mesquita e Mel Henriques mandados do Collode Macao a Cide e fortaleza de Malaca em 651’ BA, JnÁ, 49-IV-52, f. 5v: ‘para brincarem com ellas como bonecas.’

Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

149

the altar’ that she recognized ‘that this was the true Law, and that all that of the Dutch was falsity and deceit’.6 Missionaries emphasized both the utility of images to convey a message, and their intrinsic power as sacred objects. Europeans brought a variety of paintings, engravings, and printed images—of Jesus, the Virgin, the Saints, angels, the Last Judgement, and figures from the Bible—to Southeast Asia, although most survive now only as passing references in letters. By the mid-sixteenth century, Catholic images were also being created in Asia.7 Chinese and Japanese Catholic settlers brought to Southeast Asia their own representations of the Virgin as Stella Maris, protector of sailors, which was in turn a Christianization of the Goddess of Mercy or bodhisattva Guanyin/Kannon.8 In the port-cities of Southeast Asia, it seemed that the popularity of this Buddhist divinity—known as Chao Mae Kwan Im in Thai (เจ้าแม่กวนอิม) and Quán Thê´ Âm in Vietnamese—and of other local goddesses of the sea could similarly segue seamlessly into devotion to the Virgin Mary, who thus appeared as a divinity with a familiar form.9 As we will see, devotion to Mary would become particularly pronounced in many parts of Southeast Asia: an attachment some scholars have also linked to various local concepts of filial piety and respect for motherhood.10 The assimilation of foreign religious images had a long history in many parts of Southeast Asia. In Siam, for example, divinities, godkings, and sacred representational techniques had been selectively absorbed from regions including Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, India, and China; reworking new religious imagery, combining it with older forms could create objects of devotion with lasting sacral power.11 In Tonkin and Cochinchina, orders issued in times of persecution to search out and destroy Christian images perhaps suggest that missionary propaganda concerning their effectiveness and importance had reached civil authorities. The replacement of depictions of kings, Confucius, and Buddhist or Taoist entities with Christian images could be construed as an act of civil disobedience and filial impropriety. The honour and worship paid towards such images was in a sense pouring out of society and being bestowed upon alien entities. Thus on numerous occasions authorities ordered the destruction of these objects which were usurping the place of traditional images in the ritual landscape. The persecution of 1664 in Cochinchina, for example, began with such raids: soldiers were sent to the Jesuit church in Faifo, ‘hiding their wickedness with a diplomatic courtesy’, as a Jesuit put it. The soldiers insisted they only wished to ‘see’ the images kept by the Jesuits, but the Father Superior, suspecting a more sinister purpose, ‘replied, that they would sooner take his head, than the image 6 BA, JnÁ, 49-IV-52, f. 11r–v: ‘a limpeza, e ornamento do altar, a gravidade q’ aquella era a verdadeira Ley, e q’ tudo o dos Olandezes era falsidade, e engano.’ 7 See Bailey, ‘Religious encounters’, 110–16, 120. 8 Bailey, ‘Religious encounters’, 104, 115. Davidson, The Counter Reformation, 64. 9 See Forest, Les missionnaires français, III: 294. 10 On women and religion in Southeast Asia see for example Andaya, The Flaming womb and the essays in her edited collection, Other pasts. 11 See Gosling, The origins of Thai art, esp. 170–83.

150

Converts to Christianity

from the church, and the other fathers all replied in the same way, with such fervour that it gave the soldiers something to consider and fear’. Having called for backup, now numbering around fifty, the soldiers easily overcame the meagre human cordon that the Jesuits had thrown up around the Marian altar image. The Fathers, seeing finally that they could not free the image from those sacrilegious hands, nor even accompany it personally, remained there, dissolving in tears, and sending moans and sighs to Heaven, lovingly lamenting with the Most Holy Virgin.12

As was the case in Japan, Christians in Cochinchina and Tonkin were often ordered to walk over a Christian image to prove their obedience. Many neophytes refused and were martyred for their devotion: for example, Cochinchinese converts Michele and Ignatio, ‘not wanting to walk on the image, were taken into the square, where they were beheaded, and their bodies, pounded with iron hammers, were thrown into the river.’13 Others were thrown to the elephants, walled up, or tortured to death for the same refusal, each death proudly described in gruesome detail in Jesuit accounts.14 Yet although such devotion to images was laudable and celebrated in missionary accounts as a badge of Catholic orthodoxy, some tensions could arise. In Tonkin, for example, MEP priests alleged that Jesuits’ converts worshipped their images of Christ without worshipping Christ himself: they were engaged in a form of idolatry. Indeed, they remained ignorant of what the image represented, thinking that it depicted the ‘king of Portugal’. Converts must understand not only what the image represents, but how to ‘use’ it correctly, worshipping it with dulia but directing the latria due only to God through the image. Other sacramentals—especially the rosary, blessed candles, religious medals, Agnus Dei and holy names and phrases written on scraps of paper—proved attractive to neophytes, and missionaries strove to demonstrate that they were being used correctly. One Jesuit described a miracle in Tonkin which occurred when A Christian convert was devoutly saying his rosary alone in his home, when in the middle, with tears, he entered into anguish with the lord, ‘My God, is it possible that I have for so many years sought after a medal, and to this day I have not been able to acquire one?’ He had hardly finished innocently weeping, that from on

12 ‘Relatione della persecutione che si solleuo nel Regno della Cocccioncina nel Decembre del 1664 [ . . . ] Cauata delle lettere del Pietro Marques e di altri’, ARSI JapSin 70a, ff. 12–13: ‘ricoprendo la loro maluagità con una cortese ambasciata’, ‘risposto, che più tosto hauerebbono leuata à lui la testa; che l’immagine dalla Chiesa: et il medesimo risposero tutti gli altri Padri: con tanto feruore, che diedero da pensare, e da temere alli soldati’, ‘Veggendo finalmente li Padri, che non poteuano liberare l’immagine da quelle mani sacrileghe, ne meno accompagnarla personalmente, se ne rimasero quiui disfacendosi in lagrime, e mandando gemiti, e sospiro al Cielo, lamentandosi amorosamente con la Santissima Vergine’. The texts names Domenico Fuciti, Francesco Ignatio and a ‘P Chorista di S. Franc.o’ as mounting the defence. 13 ARSI JapSin 70a, f. 15: ‘non uolendo calpestar l’Imagine, furono condotti in piazza, doue furono decollati: e li loro corpo pestati con mazze di ferro furono gittati nel fiume.’ 14 ARSI JapSin 70a, ff. 15–16; see also more detailed vitae of Michele f. 42, Ignatio ff. 45–6, Pietro Simone and Benedetto ff. 47–8; Giovinetto Raffaelle ff. 48–9, Tomasso Vecchi ff. 52–3 who were all martyred specifically for refusing to walk on an image.

Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

151

high fell into his hand a rain of medals, which had on one side the imprint of St Ignatius, and on the other, that of St Francis Xavier.15

For the Jesuit, the account serves to convey the devotion of his converts towards orthodox elements of Catholic material culture, the great need for such devotional objects on the missions, and the glory of the Jesuit saints whose virtues were evident to these distant Christians. The account also suggests the importance of material, tangible objects in the devotional life of this convert: the sacred was something to be held and touched. Spirituality was something which could both request and obtain a temporal presence. The rosary seems to have been particularly popular across Southeast Asia. To explain this, the Dominicans pointed to the illustrious history of the devotion in overcoming numerous heresies across Europe and the spiritual favours bestowed by this ‘poor man’s breviary’.16 Another reason is suggested by the fact that prayer beads were common devotional tools in Southeast Asia, making an easy translation to Catholicism: a familiar object imbued with new powers. Yet missionaries on the whole seemed confident that the Southeast Asian Christians’ devotion to the rosary was entirely orthodox and uncontaminated by any alternative significance of the prayer beads. Jeronimo Majorica had even suggested that meditations on the mysteries of the rosary should serve to structure communal devotions in Tonkin: the rosary itself could stand in when there was no sacerdotal presence, to guide devotions and prevent unorthodox deviations.17 Some missionaries emphasized that by promoting the sacramentals they were hoping to offer a direct alternative to non-Christian amulets, charms and other religious paraphenalia. Thus Deydier wrote to France requesting ‘a mass of Agnus Dei’ from his friends: These poor Christians who, when they were still attached to their superstitions, had great faith in certain characters which their enchanter made for them to protect them from all sorts of ill, have now changed the object of their faith and have placed it much more reasonably in the things we call sacramentalia and principally in Agnus Dei, images and medals.18

15 ARSI JapSin 70a, f. 64r: ‘quando nel meglio entra con lagrime in questa doglianza co’l Signore: (Mio Dio, è possibile che io tanti anni son’ ito dietro à una medaglia, e fin’ hora non n’ho potuto fare acquisto?) Appena egli finito di sè innocentemente lagriarsi, che da alto gli cade in mani una pioggia di medagli: le quali da una faccia hauean l’impronta di Sant’Ignacio; e dall‘altra, quella di San Francesco Sauerio.’ 16 A 16th-cent. history of rosary as a tool of evangelization and destruction of heresy is found, e.g. in Castillo, Primera parte dela historia general de Sancto Dominico on St. Dominic promoting the rosary against the heresy of the ‘Tolosanos’: 22r–25r. 17 Marillier, Nos pères dans la foi, I: 23 and ft. 43. Deydier’s modification of these practices, adding a vocal prayer for the conversion of the ruler of the country, and encouraging mental prayer by establishing the adoration of the sacrament and an examination of conscience was a point of contention with the Jesuits. 18 François Deydier to Canon Larmedieu and Prior Cabasson of Toulon, 22 January 1685, in Deydier, Lettres Inédites, 143: ‘J’ai eu pensée de vous prier de me faire un amas d’Agnus Dei. Ces pauvres chrétiens qui, pendant qu’ils étaient encore attachés à leurs supersititions, avaient une grande confiance à de certains caractères que leur enchanteur faisait pour les préserver de toutes sortes de maux,

152

Converts to Christianity

Deydier’s description of such devotions thus contrasts slightly with Jesuit accounts which suggest such piety to be divinely inspired: the Vietnamese cultural context is more prominent in his explanations, as is the missionary who introduces these sacred objects. It is extremely hard to assess exactly how such items were perceived or used by converts. Did they enter rich local religious material cultures on an equal footing with items such as Siamese Buddhist votive tablets, Malay magic coins, or Vietnamese sacred stones and ‘magic’ necklaces?19 Did their ‘foreignness’ give them extra cachet or sacral power? We have already encountered the difficulty of understanding ‘rituals’ in the context of the Southeast Asian approaches to the sacraments. Similarly here, similar questions arise, which have no easy answers. In Tonkin and Cochinchina Catholics brought together all their devotional objects and images, creating what the Jesuits referred to as ‘oratories’ in a corner of their homes. The connection between these oratories and Vietnamese spirit houses and household altars can be seen in the vocabulary used by some missionaries to refer to the latter. Giovanni Marini, for example described how one female Christian convert in Tonkin, a ritual specialist herself (Marini calls her a ‘witch’ of whom ‘the Enemy did not bear the loss’), became possessed shortly after conversion.20 Local Christians sent for the priest to exorcise her, and in the meantime ‘dismantled the oratory of the woman, where she adored the Devil’. Seeing this destruction, the demon became enraged, swearing, ‘neither the power of heaven nor that of earth, nor any other, will draw me out of this body’. Yet the woman was rapidly exorcised and baptized.21 As an exorcism tale it is unremarkable, but the description of the destruction of the woman’s oratory is interesting. Cristoforo Borri similarly described how one woman had a ‘very beautiful oratory’ in her house, ‘in which she daily made her superstitious devotions to an idol’. After her conversion, the idol was taken outside, smashed on the ground, and stamped upon, and the whole house sanctified with holy water. The oratory was redecorated with a statue of Jesus, Agnus Dei, blessed candles, crosses, medals, and reliquaries.22 Frequently in early missionary accounts the conversion of these ‘oratories’ is presented as a lay initiative. In Tonkin and Cochinchina, missionaries seem almost taken aback at this element of material culture which has arisen on the missions. ‘There are few houses of these Christians’ wrote Jesuit Antonio Barbosa ‘which do

ont maintenant changé l’objet de leur confiance et l’ont logée bien plus raisonnablement aux choses que nous appelons sacramentalia et principalement aux Agnus Dei, images et médailles.’ 19 See e.g. Cribb, Magic coins, 65–79; Tambiah, The Buddhist saints of the forest, 196, 203, 375 (n. 2) on amulets, sacred fabric (often with animal representations), and Buddha images in Siam; Cadière, Croyances et pratiques religieuses, II: 80–1, 106–7; 203–4 on sacred stones, statues, and ‘magic’ necklaces in Vietnam. 20 Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 145–6: ‘non sofferse il Nemico la perdita’. 21 Marini, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone, 146: ‘disfecero l’Oratorio della Donna, doue adoraua il Demonio.’ ‘Non mi cauerà de questo corpo, nè il potere del Cielo, nè quel della terra, nè de chi altro sia.’ 22 Borri, Relatione della nvova missione, 163–4.

Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

153

not have oratories, and some very curious.’23 ‘Ordinarily in the oratories’, he explained, ‘there is holy water, crosses, rosaries, and disciplines hanging . . . and besides these oratories when they travel on business and to visit doctors, to pray for the sick (a custom very well established in this Christianity), they take little images in their very curious retables.’24 The high level of decoration of these oratories struck many Jesuits: Rhodes extolled the ‘crosses of precious materials, tortoise shell, ivory, always artistically wrought’.25 In such accounts, the agency of the laity in their creation is emphasized and the missionary’s role seems to be merely to sanction the devotion which has arisen without his explicit direction. In order to retain some sort of control over these vibrant lay Catholic practices, missionaries established confraternities to promote and oversee these devotions. Whereas in Europe lay organizations could be regarded with some concern, in mission lands they could form an organizational structure for a nascent church deprived of clergy.26 To give just a few examples: the Dominicans, Jesuits, and Missions Étrangères all established confraternities devoted to the Rosary.27 Confraternities devoted to the Sacrament were established by the Augustinians in Malacca, and the MEP also sought permission to organize a sodality for the Perpetual Adoration in Ayutthaya.28 The cooperation of various Franciscans with the MEP also gave scope for the establishment of Franciscan confraternities such as that of the scapular.29 Considering the frequent description of conversion in missionary rhetoric as being the taking on of ‘Christ’s yoke’, devotion to the scapular, called the jugum Christi, would be particularly appropriate for converts. Yet often it was not possible to simply transfer European models. The separate altars which confraternities often used in Europe were hardly practical in many places. One petition on the subject of the Dominican Confraternities of the Rosary, the Holy Name of Jesus and the Holy Sacrament in the provinces of Tonkin, China, and Japan, requested that ‘all these three said Confraternities might be able to be founded at the same altar in the case where the Church, due to its smallness or poverty has no more than one altar.’30 Mixed-sex devotions were also to be 23 Antonio Barbosa to Antonio Rubino, ‘Annua de 1639 da Missão de Tunkim’, 19 March 1640, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 483v: ‘Poucas são as Cazas destes Christiaons’ ‘que não tenhão Oratorios, e alguns muy curiozos em que.’ 24 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 483v: ‘de ordinario nos Oratorios tem agua benta, Cruzes, Contas, e disciplinas de penduradas . . . e alem destes Oratorios quando vão caminho a seus negocios e a vizitar curas, erezar pelos enfermos as oraçoens (custume muy introduzido nesta Christandade) Levão Imagens pequenas em seus retabilos muy curiozos’. 25 Rhodes, Histoire du Tonkin, 204: ‘les croix de matières précieuses: écailles de tortue, ivoire, toujours artistement travaillées.’ 26 See also Costa, ‘The Brotherhoods (Confrarias) and lay support’, esp. 75–9. 27 For example, Courtaulin describes establishing a Confraternity of the Rosary, ‘according to the power granted to us by the Father General of the Dominicans’ in Khoa Nghia province, Cochinchina, 1681. Jean de Courtaulin de Maguelonne, ‘Relation de la Cochinchine’ (written in Siam), 20 November 1683, AMEP 735, f. 108. 28 Seminary in Siam to Paris superiors, Ayutthaya, 1692? AMEP 851, 210. 29 AMEP 851, 210. 30 Untitled, 17th C, AGOP XIII-27.500–3, ‘Piece 2’1r: Ut omnes dicte’ tres Confraternitates possint fudari in uno eodemque altari, casu, quod Ecclesia ob sui paruitatem, aut paupertatem non habeat plures altares quam unum.’

154

Converts to Christianity

discouraged, even if they were permitted in some European confraternities, due to local sensibilities.31 Sometimes the Portuguese in colonial towns opposed the establishment of confraternities for non-Europeans. Attempts were made to extend the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception of Cochin to other parts of the Portuguese Indies. Members would ‘accompany the dead to the grave in sackcloth, with crosses raised’. Yet the confraternity had to apply pre-emptively to the Propaganda Fide for assistance as it expected to face stiff opposition: it requested that censure should be made against ‘anyone who opposes it, because the Misericórdia, which is made up of Portuguese nobles, is against it, as this one is for black Indian people’.32 There were also, predictably, tensions between missionaries from different orders over lay devotions. The Jesuits founded a Confraternity of the Rosary in their Southeast Asian mission lands: this promoted a Dominican devotion, but the Dominicans objected strongly. They accused the Jesuits of founding the confraternity with the intention of controlling this devotion and restricting Dominican influence in the missions.33 Rivals’ distribution of sacramentals was also sometimes presented in a sinister light. In the village of Bac Trach in Tonkin ‘a ruse which the Jesuits use . . . to draw many churches to their party’ was ‘discovered’ by Deydier, whereby After they have won over the Christians with beautiful medals, Agnus Dei and images, which they widely distribute, they propose that the Christians offer their churches to Jesus Christ and the Company of Jesus, and promise soon that if they want to make the donation in writing, they will send it to our holy father the pope in Rome, who in return will pray a great deal to God for them, and will afford them great prosperity in their affairs.34

Vietnamese priest Dominique Văn Haõ also reported that at the beginning of January 1684, Ferreyra had gone to the Christian village of Ké Máõ where ‘He distributed many medals, images etc. to them, and insinuated that the two Vicars Apostolic only produced false papers, and controversies, and it must be that they

31 On the need to separate the sexes in Tonkin and Cochinchina in all devotions, see Rhodes, Histore du Tonkin, 138–9 and n. 1. See also AGOP XIII-27.500–3, ‘Piece 2 1r. 32 Note for the attention of the Congregazione Generale of the Propaganda Fide, 1650s? APF SOCG 233, f. 487r: ‘accompagnare i morti alla sepoltura con li sacchi, e croce alzata’. ‘chiunque s’opporrà; perche la Compagnia della Misericordia, che consta di Portughesi nobili, gl’e contraria per esser quella di gente nera Indiana.’ 33 See e.g. Juan de los Angelos, 4 September 1621, part of submission entitled ‘Gesta per Rev. Patrem Fratrem Didacum Collado Ordinis Praedicatorum . . . in causa proponenda pro religionibus Sanctorum Dominici, Francisci et Augustini . . . ’ (no date). Mostly dealing with Jesuit calumnies against the mendicant martyrs of Japan. ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, f. 84r. 34 François Deydier, ‘Journal du Tonquin Depuis le commencement de l’année 1682 Jusques à la fin de l’année 1683’, AMEP 657, 29: ‘une ruse dont les PP Jesuites se seruent’, ‘por attirer beaucoup d’Eglises à leur parti’ ‘aprés qls ont gagner les Chrs, par de belles medailles, Agnus Dei, Images, qls leur distribuent largemt, Ils leur pposent d’offrir leurs Eglises à NS Jesus Christ at à la Compagnie de Jesus, [ . . . ] et promettent aussi-tost q.e s’ils veulent leur en faire un donnaôn par écrit, qls l’enuoyeront à NS P Le Pape a Rome, qui en recompense priera beaucop le bon Diex po. eux, et leur moyennera beaucoup de pperité dans leurs affaires.’

Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

155

were false bishops.’35 In such accounts, the very objects of devotion, which should demonstrate the success of Jesuit missionary endeavour, become symbols of the mercenary approach of disobedient priests. The converts are also discredited: they appear as people easily bribed with material possessions—objects which are stripped of their spiritual value by this sordid exchange. Missionaries also had to take care lest devotions provoked derision or even disgust amongst non-Christians in lands where they could not depend upon colonial protection. While corporeal relics of the Buddha, bodhisattvas and revered monks can be objects of devotion in Buddhism, Catholic use of holy relics sometimes inspired revulsion in Tonkin and Cochinchina.36 During the persecution in Cochinchina in the l690s, the discovery of relics in a church aroused widespread horror. The chúa ordered the bones to be displayed publically in the market place to demonstrate the ‘true nature’ of these Christians. ‘Behold,’ he proclaimed, ‘how far these Christians carry their Impiety, so as even to disturb the Bones of the Dead in their Graves . . . what can be more horrible?’ The missionaries were accused of using the bones to make potions to ‘entrap’ the unsuspecting, leading the Jesuits to declare that it would be better not to introduce relics into these regions just yet, lest they should ‘cast pearls amongst the swine’.37 CHRISTIANIZING CEREMONIES While converts in Malacca could be expected to move out of the non-Christian areas of the city, dress in ‘Christian’ clothes and repudiate former cultural practices, in most areas, expecting converts to undergo a radical change could be counterproductive. It was not always possible to find exact replacements from within European Catholic culture for all Southeast Asian ceremonies and rituals: if these needs were not fulfilled, would Christianity be viewed as deficient? It was therefore necessary, many missionaries argued, to anatomize ceremonial practices and to allow that which was not odious to God to endure. These issues have been examined in the context of the Chinese and Indian missions and especially concerning the ‘Chinese Rites’ and ‘Malabar Rites’ controversies.38 The Chinese Rites controversies affected the missions of Tonkin, and to a lesser extent Cochinchina, where ceremonies to honour Confucius, ancestors and

35 AMEP 657, 61: ‘Il leur avoit distribué beaucoup de Medailles, Images, &c, et Insinué, que les Deux VV. AA. ne produisoient que de faux papiers, et controuuez, il falloit qu’ils ne fussent aussi que de faux Evêques.’ 36 Harvey, An introduction to Buddhism, 78. 37 Pelisson to de la Chaize, (Confessor to Louis XIV), Canton, 9th December 1700 in Edifying and curious letters, 40–1. 38 See esp. Županov, Disputed mission; Rule, ‘Towards a history of the Chinese Rites controversy’ Mungello, ‘An introduction to the Chinese Rites controversy’ Timmermans, Entre Chine et Europe, 33–6, 93–119; Cummins, ‘Palafox and the Chinese Rites controversy’, 395–427; Brockey, Journey to the East, 105–7; Phan, Mission and catechesis, 78–106 considers Rhodes’s approach to these ceremonies in Vietnam.

156

Converts to Christianity

national heroes were important parts of civil and religious life.39 The disagreements between different religious orders in this region reflected to some extent the divisions concerning China: many Jesuits were against banning such ceremonies which they mainly considered ‘extremely innocent’- that is, neither idolatrous nor superstitious.40 Some mendicants and MEP priests, on the other hand, asserted that even when such offerings were not made to divinities, it was still ‘inexcusable to pay divine honours to those who had never known the real God’.41 Yet the battle lines were not always so clear. Jesuit apologists, fighting Jansenist and mendicant condemnation of such ceremonies in China, called on the testimony of Dominican and Franciscan missionaries in Tonkin to prove the validity of their position.42 Laneau of the MEP also suggested that many ceremonies in Theravada Buddhist countries should be Christianized rather than banned: sacrifices to ‘demons’ could become offerings to angels and spirit houses could be reconsecrated as Catholic shrines. It was not even always necessary to ban giving alms and other offerings to Buddhist monks, as the importance of this social ritual lead to Christians being held in contempt if they shunned it.43 Whilst these intricacies could fruitfully be further explored, I wish rather to highlight the process by which these adaptations were made, specifically the role of the laity in reinterpreting ceremonies in a Christian manner. Take, for example, ceremonies of allegiance.44 Each year, soldiers were obliged to take an oath of loyalty: a good performance in the ceremony would result in the gift of a helmet and robe which would mark out whom was ‘more or less faithful, zealous and devoted to the king’s service’.45 Despite the essentially civic nature of this ceremony, the oath entailed ‘the invocation of false gods and demons’. Rhodes recounted one occasion where a young Christian soldier Christianized the ceremony, substituting his own words: I attest by the true God of heaven and earth, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the company of blessed souls, and all the heavenly court, that I will render faithful service until death to my king, Thanh Đô Vơng, That if I lie, and if I falsely swear and against

39 See e.g.Tellier, Défense des nouveaux chrestiens, 322–3: ‘Demandes des missionnaires du Tunquin touchant les honneurs qu’on rend à Confucius avec les reponses du R. P. Iean de Paz, de l’Ordre de Saint Dominique.’; 334–87, ‘Demandes et reponses touchant les ceremonies dont on use dans le Tunquin en l’honneur des mortes’; Gobien, Istoria dell’ Editto dell’Imperatore della Cina, 211–12 on Confucianism in Tonkin. As Confucianism was not as central to Cochinchinese life, ceremonies in his honour were less of a point of contention, although ancestor worship was still an issue. See Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 97, n. 4. 40 Rhodes, Divers voyages de la Chine, 74: ‘la pluspart sont fort innocentes.’ 41 Bourges, Relation du voyage de monseigneur l’eveque de Beryte, 171: ‘inexcusables de rendre des honneurs divines à ceux qu’ils savent n’avoir point reconnu le vrai dieu’. 42 See e.g. Gobien, Istoria dell’ Editto dell’Imperatore della Cina, 211–13; Tellier, Defense des nouveaux chrestiens, II: 322–33, 388–95. 43 Laneau, Instructions pour ceux qui iront fonder une mission, 5–6. 44 See also Phan, Mission and catechesis, 80. 45 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 44–5: ‘plus ou moins fidèles, zélés et affectionnées au service du roi.’

Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

157

my conscience, I am happy for the true God, lord of heaven and earth, to kill me at this hour, and burn me with lightning bolts.46

Rhodes reported that far from being punished, ‘He said all that in such a firm tone, in such an elevated manner, and with such resolute courage, that he who presided over the ceremony gave him there and then the most honourable notice, and the most honourable of all citations.’47 By his own initiative, he negotiated the problem and managed to arrive at a compromise. Similarly in Cochinchina, in the annual letter for 1628, Jesuit Gaspar Luis reports on the work of Christian Mandarin Paulo Xabim. During some festivals, Mandarins and officials would ‘spend [in the temples] several entire days and nights in songs, music, and drinking toasts’ in honour of the divinities, historical figures and the reigning monarch.48 Paulo ingeniously Christianized these ceremonies of his own initiative. He built an altar, ‘well adorned with ornaments, lights and perfumes in honour of an image of the Virgin, who had her blessed child in her arms.’49 To match the spectacle of the non-Christian festivities, ‘more than sixty singers came’. Yet he ensured that no mention was made of non-Christian divinities or any dead (‘pagan’) king. He explained the significance of the image on the altar to the assembled crowd, and knelt to pray: when this was over, his solemn prostrations, which conformed to the fashion of the Mandarins and were no less splendid than long drawn out. After Paulo had all present do the same, adoring the Lord of Heaven, and asking for his favour. Soon music and songs followed, the words being only what Paulo had chosen, their meter interspersing the verses with the repeating sentence, ‘Thanks to the Lord of Heaven and Earth’.

Thus the celebrations became an evangelical opportunity, as many curious individuals had come to watch. The ceremony was judged a success: ‘The festivities ended to great acclaim, and with honour to our holy Law, which was his primary purpose.’50 Again, it was lay initiative which negotiated a compromise and Christianized an existing ceremony. 46 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 45: ‘l’invocation des faux dieux et démons’, ‘criminelle et superstitieuse’, ‘J’atteste le vrai Dieu du ciel et de la terre, Père, Fils et Saint-Esprit, la compagnie des bienheureux esprits, et toute la cour du ciel, que je rendrai fidèle service jusqu’à la mort à mon roi Than do Vvan. Que si je mens, et si je jure à faux et contra ma conscience, je suis content que le vrai Dieu, Seigneur du ciel et de la terre, me tue à cette heure et me consume de ses foudres.’ Thanh Đô Vơng is the ‘temple name’ of Tri.nh Tráng (1623–52). 47 Rhodes, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, 45: ‘Il dit tout cela d’un ton si ferme, d’un air si élevé, et d’un courage si résolu, que le président lui bailla sur-le-champ le billet le plus honorable, et la plus louable de toutes les mentions.’ 48 Luis, Gaspar, ‘Annua da missam de Cochinchina anno de 1628’, January 1629, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 413r: ‘Gastase ally alguns dias e noites inteiras em des cantes, e musicas, e brindes.’ 49 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, ff. 413r–v: ‘bem apparamentado com os ornamtos, lumes, e perfumes a honra de h~ ua Imagem da Virgem Senhora que tinha seu bendito filho na braças.’ 50 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-8, f. 413v: ‘Passaram de sesenta as cantores, q’ correrã.’ ‘e acabada ella, suas solennes zumbayas, que conforme ao estilo dos Mandarins não sam menos magestosas, que prolixas. A pos Paulo fizeram o mesmo todos as presentes, adorando ao Senhor do Ceo, e pedindo lhe seu favor. Seguiram se logo a musica e des cantes nam sendo a Letra autra, senam a que Paulo tinha determinado, repetindosse aseus compassos por versos intercalar esta sentença: Graças ao Senhor do Ceo e da terra’, ‘Acabouse a festa com grande fama sua, e honra de nossa Santa Ley, que era a seu principal intento.’

158

Converts to Christianity

In the accounts of the Tonkinese and Christian missions we can find the clearest examples of this lay agency, but reading between the lines of missionary accounts, frequently we can find converts demanding new ceremonies of their priests, or developing new devotions in their absence. For example, historian Stefan Halikowski Smith suggests that the Dominicans in Siam may have been ‘inveigled by local society into preaching for the arrival of the rains and, on occasion, sun’.51 In Malacca, Jesuit Baltasar Diaz reported in 1556 that how he and his confreres were co-opted for similar services: to pray for rain and to bless the rice before it was planted or stored, to ensure its fertility and to keep away the vermin.52 Diaz, and other missionaries who tell similar tales present these stories in the context of their own efforts to reform belief and behaviour. Yet his phrasing is telling: people bring the rice to the Jesuits, or demand of them that something must be done about the late rains. They are constrained, then, to perform some Christian rite in order to satisfy a primary, fundamental need. It is clear that sometimes the solution offered by Catholicism was not convincingly effective enough. Diaz relates how, ‘for the sins of the people’, God had allowed a plague of mice to threaten the harvest. The judicial application of holy water to the fields of the Christians had apparently chased the vermin onto neighbouring (non-Christian) fields, causing considerable tensions. They came to no minor disagreement, even going as far as arguing about who had the better God, and when reasoning did not suffice, they came to arms to such an extent that I myself struggled to make peace amongst them, saying to the Christians that they should not get involved any more in these disputes, because it was not fitting to compare our Eternal and Immense God to the false, lying Gods who the pagans adore, who are statues of their own fathers and sons.53

Non-Christians were not convinced enough of the Christian remedies to apply them to their own fields, and the missionary had to intervene to prevent an unseemly fight over the relative, disputed merits of the various available spiritual solutions. Studying the devotional life of Catholics in Southeast Asia through the lens of missionary narrative, it is easy to forget this tension between the sacramental, priestly focus of the missionary’s conception of the faith, and the lived religion which developed within communities. Understandably, studies which analyse the development of missionary techniques and Catholic devotions in convert communities are often very priest-centred. Drawing on some missionaries’ own experiences of introducing the faith, they present the solitary figure of the evangelist as the crucible in which new forms of Catholicism were distilled from his observations of 51

Smith, Creolization and Diaspora, 164. Baltasar Diaz to Jesuits in Europe, Malacca 17 November 1556, in Nvovi avvisi dell’Indie, f. 6r. Baltasar Diaz, in Nvovi avvisi dell’Indie, ff. 5r–v: ‘ueniuano à non piccola contentione, insino à trattare di chi hauesse miglior Dio; & quando le ragioni non bastauano ueniuano alle armi; di tal maniera, che à fatica bastaua io àponergli in pace; dicendo alli christiani che non trattassero più di tali dispute; poi che non conueniua ponere nostro Eterno & Immenso Iddio in comparatione con gli Dei falsi & bugiardi, che i gentiliadorano; come sono statue de suoi padri ò figliuoli proprij.’ 52 53

Southeast Asian Catholic Devotions

159

local culture, religious training, experience, and his attitudes towards acculturation/ inculturation or accommodation.54 Innovations are thus generally discussed as emanating from a missionary’s own background and evangelical method. Missing from this picture, however, is the role of Southeast Asians themselves in interpreting the faith and developing devotions. In areas where there had been the most conversions, these problems were most pronounced: there was the least sacerdotal oversight and devotions introduced by a missionary could take on a life of their own. Where some groups of converts were concerned, the potential dangers of lay agency, and the need for close sacerdotal supervision were particularly pronounced. Chapters 8 and 9 take a closer look at two under-studied groups of lay people, women and slaves, and the challenges which missionaries perceived to be inherent to their conversion.

54 Modern missologists favour the neologism ‘inculturation’ to describe the process by which theologians mediate between religion and culture, transposing or translating one into the other. ‘Acculturation’ on the other hand refers to encounters between disparate cultures or beliefs, and the way the two interact. perhaps leading to ‘inculturation’, perhaps to syncretism, which may be licit or unorthodox. ‘Accommodation’ refers to the adaptations made by missionaries in order to fit into local cultures, or the policy of allowing certain cultural practices of a convert community endure. For a discussion of these and other similar terms see Phan, Mission and catechesis, 191–2, inc. nts 1–4.

8 Catholic Women Nuns, Martyrs, Apostles, and Apostates A wave of persecutions had washed over Christian communities in Cochinchina in 1643–4: churches and oratories were torn down; images and religious items confiscated and burnt; and converts arrested, imprisoned, tortured and executed. On his return to the realm around Easter, Alexandre de Rhodes praised the work of catechists and devout converts in keeping the faith going in the face of these storms. He noted in particular the heroism of many women who stood before soldiers and refused to let them desecrate churches or burn holy images.1 Others ‘gave proof of their zeal, going themselves, without fear, to present themselves before the judge and to profess publicly our holy faith’. Refusing to renounce their faith, they were punished in the village squares and subjected to torture in the fierce midday heat. They moved onlookers to pity: several attempted to shield the Christian women with large hats, to protect them from the sun’s glare. Yet ‘these brave Amazons, blessedly indignant at such offers, threw all these little comforts far from themselves, repeating over again that they were all more inclined to suffer yet worse torments than to wobble slightly in the faith pledged to God’.2 At the very height of the persecution, he relates, one of the highest profile converts, Marie, mother of the chúa’s uncle, had even dressed a Christmas crib in her palace in the royal court, ‘procuring that her son and his little children came and paid court to the king of glory incarnate, and herself proclaimed his greatness to those who came from all over to visit the holy cradle’.3 But these were dangerous times, even for a high-born woman of the court. Marie also made her house available to Rhodes to celebrate Palm Sunday, which fuelled the chúa’s suspicions that the new religion could be a threat to his rule. According to Rhodes, the chúa suspected his uncle of plotting to usurp the throne: he feared that the latter would use Christian knowledge of mathematics to plan the best place to bury Marie when she died. With the right geomancy (the science of determining the most auspicious 1

Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 8–10. Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 95, 97–8: ‘lesquelles rendirent des preuues de leur zele, allant d’elles mesmes, sans aucune crainte, se presenter au Iuge, & professer publiquemetn nostre sainct foy’, ‘ . . . ces courageuses Amazones sainctement indignées de telles offres, ietterent loing d’elles tous ces petits soulagements, repetant souuentes fois, qu’elles estoient toutes disposées de souffrir encores dauantage plustost, que de branler aucunement en la Foy iurée à Dieu.’ 3 Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 17–18: ‘procurant, que son fils & ses petits enfans vinssent adorer & faire la Cour au Roy de gloire incarné, annonçant elle-mesme ses grandeurs à ceux qui abordoient de toutes parts pour le visiter en sa saincte creche.’ 2

Catholic Women

161

place to bury one’s ancestors) and the proper respects paid to his deceased mother, the uncle would thus be able to ‘make himself master of the kingdom’.4 In this atmosphere of suspicion, Rhodes judged it prudent to find different premises in which to celebrate the sacraments, and urged the Christians to be discreet when they came to visit him. In early 1644 Rhodes himself was arrested and held for several months in Pulocambi.5 It was during these tense months that an extraordinary encounter took place in the kingdom. A group of Spanish nuns of the Poor Clare Order, forced off course from their voyage between Macao and Manila by storms, landed in Cochinchina and were received with great curiosity by the chúa in the royal court. The nuns, along with a small community of Franciscan friars and several Spanish merchants resident in Macao, had suffered as collateral damage in the struggle for Portuguese independence from the Spanish crown. The Poor Clare convent in Macao had originally been founded by a group of six nuns from Manila, who arrived in the Portuguese city in November 1633.6 The jurisdictional situation was tricky: these nuns of the Spanish patronato, belonging to the Franciscan province of Manila would now be living under the jurisdiction of the Franciscan Guardian in Macao. Intially, both Spanish and Portuguese authorities accepted the arrangement, judging it ‘very agreeable to Our Lord, of great utility and profit for the city of Macao and for the notable increase of our holy religion.’7 Yet the tide soon changed. News of the rebel Duke of Bragança’s accession to the Portuguese throne as João IV in 1640 reached Manila and Macao in 1642. An abortive attempt was made by Manila to send troops to ensure the loyalty of the Portuguese colony, which helped to inflame anti-Spanish sentiment in the city. In October 1644 Spanish residents, including the nuns, were expelled.8 The chance arrival of these exiles in Cochinchina caused a sensation amongst Catholics and non-Christians alike. Rhodes described the encounter in some detail, reportedly basing his accounts on information received when he met the two Franciscan friars who travelled with the nuns in Đà Na˘˜ng and on letters that they sent to him whilst he was imprisoned in Pulocambi.9 We can juxtapose his accounts with a lesser known manuscript report of the incident written by Antonio de Santa Maria, one of the Franciscan friars, addressed to the Poor Clares of Manila.10 This manuscript ended up in the Jesuit archives in Rome and bears enough similarities to Rhodes’ accounts to suggest that he may have drawn on it for his reports. Taken together these accounts reveal a number of common concerns and assumptions about female religiosity and the (potential) role of women as evangelizers. 4

Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 21–3. Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 87–90. 6 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual, III: 526. See also Teixeira Macau e a sua diocesa, 483ss. A more detailed history of female monasticism in the Philippines is given by Santiago, To love and to suffer. 7 Trinidade, Conquista espiritual, III: 525: ‘mui agradável a Nosso Senhor, de grande utilidade e proveito para a cidade de Macau e notável aumento de nossa sagrada Religião.’ 8 Boxer, ‘Portuguese and Spanish rivalry’, 163–4. 9 Rhodes, Divers voyages and Relation des Progrez. 10 Antonio de Santa Maria, ‘Carta de Relaçion sobre los suçessos de los castellanos que saliendo de Macan por el mes de Otubre de 1644 arribaron â Cochinchina’ ARSI JapSin 68, ff. 48–59. 5

162

Converts to Christianity

We have already encountered female participation and agency throughout this book. Treating women in a separate chapter is not intended to ‘present female participation as simply an insertion, an interrruption in a metanarrative dominated by men’ but rather to emphasize their prominent place in the history of Catholicism in Southeast Asia.11 There are, of course, a number of problems with uncritically linking gender with physical sex, as might be implied by a chapter on the experiences of ‘women’ as a group. Yet this distinction is a helpful one as it both mirrors missionary understandings of gender and allows space to explore how Catholic concepts were challenged by the realities of the mission fields. In their reports missionaries frequently sought to differentiate female and male experiences. The separation and particularization of female experiences of religiosity was arguably an important effect of Counter Reformation reforms in Europe.12 Yet in many Southeast Asian Catholic communities missionaries encountered different paradigms of gender relations, female religiosity, and female leadership which challenged many basic assumptions about female capacity. Through a careful reading of these missionary accounts we can analyse the various ideas which Europeans brought to the mission fields about gendered religious experience and their desires to impose more rigid distinctions on the spirituality of men and women. We can also uncover numerous instances where these intentions were fustrated or subverted, and indeed where new models of female Catholic life were able, if sometimes only briefly, to flourish. SPANISH NUNS IN THE COCHINCHINESE C OURT We begin, however, with an archetypal group of colonial women who reflected—as far as possible in the circumstances—a Tridentine ideal of cloistered female religiosity. The nuns in Rhodes’s accounts are four anonymous sisters under the care of two Franciscan friars. Santa Maria provides more detail. He names his fellow Franciscan as Antonio del Puerto, and refers to three professed sisters by name— Margarita, Clara, and Maria Magdalena. A fourth sister, Teresa, was still a novice, but from the time they entered the port it was decided that she should exchange her white veil for the black of a professed nun, so that she would be accorded the same ‘reverence and respect’ as the vowed nuns.13 Teresa’s two siblings were also in the party: Luisa and an unnamed ‘little sister’ (la niña su hermanita).14 The protection of nuns’ clothing was also extended to these girls whenever they might be seen in public: ‘they cropped their hair and we dressed them . . . when they had to see or Andaya, ‘Studying women and gender’, 115. The literature on women and the Counter Reformation is vast. See esp. Laven, The virgins of Venice; Lux-Sterritt, Redefining female religious life; Rapley, The dévots; Strasser, State of virginity. 13 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 52r. 14 The professed nuns were amongst the six who had first travelled to Macao to establish the convent. Trinidade gives their names and roles in 1633 as Maria Magdalena (vigaria), Clara de S. Francisco (vigaria do coro) and Margarida da Concepcão (torneira). Rhodes also lists one unnamed novice and two ‘meninas para o serviço’, possibly referring to Teresa and her sisters. Conquista espiritual, III: 527. 11 12

Catholic Women

163

visit some Mandarin, in the habit of the Order, and I think that this saved them from danger.’15 Both Rhodes and Santa Maria stress that paramount importance was given to protecting the nuns’ virtue through the maintenance, as far as possible, of a form of symbolic cloister, shielding the women from contact with, and even the sight of the outside world. Santa Maria’s account is shot through with a dark sense of anxiety that the nuns would be somehow dishonoured, which would be an assault upon the faith itself. In the weeks following their arrival, the whole party feared for their lives: there were concerns that Portuguese and Chinese merchants were briefing a mandarin in Faifo against the new arrivals, alleging that they were in league with disreputable Dutchmen, that they were the advance party for an invasion attempt, that they were robbers or troublemakers and that ‘those who we called nuns were not, but rather were loose women, disguised in this manner of dressing’.16 Soon the rumours and tensions came to a head, and the mandarin demanded that the nuns be brought into his presence. Antonio de Santa Maria negotiated that the nuns and their belongings rather be inspected in a more private location. Maria Magdalena and Margarita consented to lift their veils a little, which satisfied the mandarin.17 Soon afterwards the chúa sent word that he accepted the Spanish were good people and that they could stay in the realm. The mandarin’s attitude towards the nuns became very cordial: he ‘came to the nun’s house to visit them on behalf of the king, with every courtesy.’ He was delighted to see them, and found their appearance and demeanour paradoxical and intriguing: they ‘seemed to be Angels from heaven’, yet were said to shave their heads, ‘which amongst [the Cochinchinese] is a thing of great shame and ignominy’.18 To show his favour, the mandarin sent his two daughters to dance for the nuns. Antonio de Santa Maria was called back to the nuns’ house to check on the propriety of this development but declared there was nothing untoward in allowing the nuns to watch such entertainment: ‘it seemed that it pleased God to send to his brides this honest recreation, after the afflictions of the previous day.’19 In his Divers Voyages, Rhodes suggests that the nuns’ attire and their seclusion led Cochinchinese onlookers to understand instinctively their religious status. In Đà Na˘˜ng, they caused a sensation amongst local women: ‘All the women of the neighbourhood came to see these girls, believing them very holy, as they always stayed shut away and veiled.’20 Maria Magdalena, the Christian wife of a local 15 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 52r: ‘se raparon el cabello, y las vestimos, en esta ocassion, y en otras de auerlas de Ver o Vissitar algun Mandarin, el habito de la Orden, y pienso q’ ha importado p.a librarlas de peligrô.’ 16 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 51v: ‘las que llamauamos Religiosses, no lo eran, sino mugeres de mal uiuir, disfraçadas en aquel modo de Vestir’. 17 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, ff. 51v–52r. 18 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 52v: ‘vino â casa de las Religiossas, â visitarlas de parte del Rey, con toda cortesia’, ‘le parezian ser Angeles del çielo’, ‘cossa que entre ellos es de grande afrenta y ignominia.’ 19 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 53r: ‘Pareze quiso Dios, embiar â sus espossas, esta honesta recreaçion, despues de la afliccion del dia antes.’ 20 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 241: ‘Toutes les Dames du voisinage venoient voir ces filles que l’on leur disoit estre fort Sainctes, qui demeurent tousiours enfermées & voiles.’

164

Converts to Christianity

mandarin, was particularly taken by the sisters, sending them some present every day, visiting them frequently and even giving them charge of her thirteen-year-old daughter. The latter became enamoured and was only dissuaded with difficulty from her intention to return to the Philippines with the nuns.21 Intrigued by news of the nuns, the chúa ordered that they come to court. Initially the friars were concerned, but they were assured that the nuns would be treated with respect and dignity.22 Their procession there was itself a spectacle: Rhodes lingers over the details of the display made by both the Spanish and the Cochinchinese. The nuns were heavily veiled and accompanied by around fifty Spanish soldiers, ‘who were all very well dressed and not lacking in that beautiful gravity common to that nation’.23 Entering the court, the Spanish party encountered the nobles of the realm and the massed ranks of the chúa’s military guard, dazzlingly robed in uniforms appropriate to their rank. The soldiery stood silent and motionless as statues until, on command, they sat on the ground in unison. The chúa and his principal wife looked on from above, magnificently attired.24 The nuns were escorted to an enclosed pavilion, richly hung with tapestries, while the captain of the Spanish made elaborate and ceremonial greetings to the chúa. After the whole party had enjoyed a fine meal served on gilded tables, accompanied by dancing of the women of the court, the nuns were asked to leave their closet and approach the queen. She asked to see their faces, and whether it was true that they shaved their heads. They demurred from removing their veils in front of so many men, which caused the king to take a little offence ‘and say that since he had shown them his face, he didn’t know why they were refusing to show themselves.’25 Clearly curious about these exotic visitors, and recognizing them as some sort of ritual practitioners, the queen questioned them at length: The queen, who greatly loved the Idols, asked them what their law was and what sorts of prayers they sung. These good religious always responded as they ought, but the woman who acted as their interpreter did not faithfully convey their response.26

Santa Maria’s account adds the detail that the Christian interpreter ‘either did not wish or did not know how to, or did not dare to give the reply which the Mothers said, as she merely said, that they did not have their books with them, and that without books, they could not reply to the questions asked of them’.27 The issue of 21

Rhodes, Divers voyages, 241–2. Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, ff. 53r–v. 23 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 242: ‘qui estoient tous fort bien couuerts, & ne manquoient pas d’auoir cette belle grauité ordinaire à la nation.’ 24 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 243. 25 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 244: ‘& dit que puisque il leur monstroit son visage, il ne sçauoit pas pourquoy elles refusoient de se découurir.’ 26 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 245: ‘La Reyne qui ayme fort les Idoles, leur demanda qu’elle estoit leur Loy, & qu’elles sortes de prieres elles chantoient: ces bonnes Religieuses répondirent constamment ce qu’elles deuoient, mais la femme qui leur seruoit d’interprete, ne rapporta pas fidellement leur réponçe.’ 27 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 54v: ‘o no quisso, o no supo, o ne se atreuio à responder lo que las Madres dezian: porque solo dixo, que ellas no tenian alli sus libros, y que sin libro, no podian responder â lo que les era preguntado.’ 22

Catholic Women

165

their shaved heads once again intrigued the audience and the queen, ‘ordered one of her ladies to put her hand on the head of the religious, and to see if they were shaved as it was said. This woman touched the head of the eldest nun, and not having found any hair, cried out that it was indeed true: this was held to be a great marvel’.28 The queen too reached out to touch the eldest nun, Maria Magdalena. Santa Maria underlines the intimacy of this scene: ‘for all this there were present only the nuns, without any man being permitted to come near, not even us friars.’29 The royal audience ended only after several more hours of amusements and honours paid to the visitors, and over the following ten days the Spanish were invited to attend further spectacles and ceremonies as a mark of the chúa’s favour. The nuns continued to be a popular attraction in the court. Staying with a Christian magistrate and his wife Anne, their lodgings were filled day and night with visitors.30 Santa Maria claimed that the flood of the curious was so overwhelming that they eventually had to restrict access to Christian women ‘and some maids or ladies of the queen, who came several times to see them even though they were pagans’.31 Christian women from outside the court also came to see them, ‘all of them bringing some gift of rice or fruit, a little or a lot, and once they had spoken to them, we could only get them to depart and give up their place to others with great difficulty’.32 Both authors concur that the lifestyle and appearance of the nuns drew universal admiration. In addition to intriguing non-Christian women, they report, the nuns also helped to deepen the faith of existing Christians and secure further souls for the church. Everyone was delighted to see the modesty and the holy life of these girls. When they sang the Office all these good Christians who had never seen this before burst into tears. The good fathers [the friars] were occupied day and night in hearing the confessions of Christians, and in ten days they baptised fifty-four pagans, amongst whom were several of very high status.33

Furthermore, both authors claim that when the nuns came in direct contact with or were compared to local female religious practitioners, the Cochinchinese 28 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 245: ‘Lors la Reyne commanda à l’vne de ses Dames, de mettre la main sur la teste des Religieuses, & de voir si elles estoient rasées comme l’on disoit, cette Dame toucha la teste de la plus âgée, & n’y ayant point trouué de cheueux, s’écria tout haut qu’il estoit bien vray: cela fut tenu comme vne tres-grande merueille.’ 29 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 54v: ‘a todo esto estuieron solas alli las madres sin consentir llegasse algun hombre, ni â nosotros los Religiossos.’ 30 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 246. 31 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 55r: ‘y â algunas criadas o damas de la Reyna, q’ las Vinieron â Vissitar aunque gentiles, algunas Vezes.’ 32 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 55r: ‘todas trahian algun regalo de arroz, o fruta, poco, o mucho; y las que vna vez las hablauan, no podiamos, sino con dificultad, hazer que se despiediessen, y diessen lugar â otras.’ 33 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 246: ‘Chacun estoit rauy de voir la modestie, & la sancte vie de ces filles, quand elles chantoient l’Office, tous ces bons Chrestiens qui n’auoient iamais veu cela fondoient en larmes. Ces bons Peres estoient occupez jour & nuict à oüir les confessions des Chrestiens, & en dix jours ils baptiserent cinquante quatre Payens, entre lesquels il y en auoit quelques vns de fort grande condition.’

166

Converts to Christianity

recognized the superior virtues of the Catholic women. Thus Rhodes has the chúa praising the nuns for their ‘honesty and their poor habit’: He even took the opportunity to reproach the nuns of his country (because the devil is like an ape, who counterfeits all the most pious things) amongst these pagans, who are called vaït, and to criticise their vanity, portrayed by their pompous finery and their faces made up with various colours to attract the eyes of passersby when they go out on the streets.34

Two such ‘nuns of the devil from the Pagodas of the Queen’, in Santa Maria’s words, coming to visit their Catholic counterparts also provided the opportunity for the Poor Clares to demonstrate their potential as teachers of the faith. The nuns ‘explained to them very well’ about the faith, ‘showing them the path to heaven’ through a Christian interpreter who had spent many years in the service of the Jesuits.35 ‘By which means the holy nuns announced the word of God, and the path of the light to those who walked blindly in the shadows of their paganism.’36 When the time came for the Spanish to leave, many Christians and women of the court were heartbroken: all came ‘to say goodbye with many tears. Some wanted to accompany them a long way, others followed them along the riverbank, and all followed them with their eyes and their hearts’.37 Madame Marie, the mother of the chúa’s uncle, who we encountered at the beginning of this chapter, was particularly affected. She sent them off with many presents and ‘bore such devotion for their holy habit that they gave her one of their rope cintures, and promised to send her one of their robes, which they very faithfully did when they had arrived in the Philippines’.38 In this holy fabric, she intended, she would be buried.39 Reflecting on the episode led Rhodes to rhapsodize, ‘the fruit would have been even greater, had their stay been longer: all the enemies of the Faith dared not speak a word, Mass was said publicly, and we preached our mysteries without fear of the edicts of the king, who endured this without offence.’40

34 Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 112–13: ‘leur honnesteté, & leur habit pauure. Mesme il prit de la occasion de reprocher aux Religieuses de son pais (car le diable est comme vn singe, qui contrefaict tout ce qu’il y a de plus pieux) en a parmy ces Payens, qui s’appelle˜t vaït, & de blâmer leur vanité depeinte sur leurs atours pompeux, & en leurs visages fardés de diuerses couleurs, afin d’attirer les yeux des passans, quand elles vont par les rües.’ 35 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 55r: ‘dos monjas del diablo de los pagodes de la Reyna,’ ‘se explayaron muibien las benditas Religiossas, mostransolas el camino del cielo.’ 36 Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 55r: ‘por cuio medio las sanctas Religiossas annunçiaban la palabra de Dios, y el camino dela luz â los que andauan çiegos en las tenieblas de su gentilidad.’ 37 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 249: ‘venoient leur dire Adieu avec plusieurs larmes, quelques vns les voulurent accompagner bien loin, les autres les suiuoient sur la riuage, & toutes les suiuoient des yeux & du cur.’ 38 Rhodes, Divers voyages, ‘Elle témoigna tant de devotion pour leur S. habit, qu’elles luy donnerent vne de leurs ceintures de corde, & promirent de luy enuoyer apres vne de leurs robbes ce qu’elles firent fort fidellement; quand elles furent arriuées aux Philippines.’ 39 Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 117. 40 Rhodes, Divers voyages, 246: ‘Le fruict eut esté encore plus grand, si leur sejor eut esté plus long: tous les ennemis de la Foy n’osoient dire mot, la Messe se disoit publiquement, & on préchoit nos misteres sans crainte des Edits du Roy, qui souffroit cela s’en offençer.’

Catholic Women

167

Yet the impact of the nuns was more ambiguous than this triumphant conclusion would suggest. It seems clear that the initial rumour that these were women of ill repute had been dispelled, but it seems that their reputation as holy women could bring problems of its own. Santa Maria notes the strangeness of the contrast between the widespread persecutions recently suffered by Christians in the country, including the deaths of catechists André and Ignacio, and the very public manner in which people were flocking to see the nuns and receive the sacraments from the Spanish friars.41 Rhodes’s account, however, suggests that the chúa’s crack-down on dangerous spiritual sedition did not end in the court, and indeed was exacerbated in some cases by the nuns’ presence. For Marie, the Christian mother of the king’s uncle, her affection for the nuns led to a backlash against her and her son. Rhodes claims that the chúa had secretly decided that ‘all the life of our nuns was nothing more than an illusion of sorcery, and of magical art which fascinates the hearts and eyes of men, a calumny forged in Satan’s workshop since the birth of the Church.’42 Thus, although the arrival of the nuns ‘filled the other Christians with a unique consolation, God allowed that it was the root of trails and troubles for this wise Princess’.43 The chúa ordered her son to have her oratory torn down. If Rhodes was correct about the chúa’s fears over the development of new techniques of Christian geomancy and burial rites, the gift of the habit could also have enflamed tensions. We see several issues in tension here, then: the potential of women to play a leading role in the establishment and maintenance of Christianity, and the dangers posed to (and indeed by) them on the mission fields. This chapter will consider the particular problems posed by the evangelization and ministry to women, the role of women in the development of new forms of Southeast Asian Christianity, missionary attempts to regulate and circumscribe female religiosity, and the concomitant development of forms of vowed female religious life in Asia. The description of nuns interacting with the court women—being touched on their bald heads, and spending time cloistered together in private—raises another, broader methodological issue which needs to be addressed. In the bare lines of secondary description, written by male scribes excluded from the space and intimacy of the interaction, we catch a glimpse of an encounter between Christian and non-Christian, would-be proselytizer and curious observer. The lack of firsthand narrative by either party of this exchange is frustrating precisely because the encounter seems so unique and unusual. Yet the silence of the archive at this moment serves also to remind us more generally of limitations imposed by our normal dependence on missionary sources. In Tonkin and Cochinchina especially, where the majority of conversions were won by lay proselytizers convincing their

Santa Maria, ‘Carta’, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 55r. Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 113: ‘toute la vie de nos Religieuses n’estoit qu’illusion de socellerie, & d’art magique fascinant par là les curs, & les yeux des hommes, calomnie forgée dãs la boutique de sathan dés la naissance de l’Eglise.’ 43 Rhodes, Relation des Progrez, 116: ‘remplit d’vne singuliere consolation les autres Chrestiens, . . . Dieu permit qu’ell fust vne semence de trauaux & d’ennuys à cette sage Princesse.’ 41 42

168

Converts to Christianity

compatriots of the value of these new teachings, we are ordinarily excluded from the space and experience of conversion. Scholars examining Catholic conversion in Japan and China have noted the importance of female leadership and involvement in spreading the faith.44 This prominence could be surprising in several ways. First, many missionary orders recommended the exercise of extreme caution when dealing with women. Second, as Haruko Nawata Ward’s pioneering study of female religious leadership in Japan points out, local conditions could lead to ambivalent responses to Christianity. On the one hand, existing religious traditions may discriminate against women and Catholic missionaries could capitalize on this to facilitate some female conversions: this may have been the case for some female converts in Japan and China. Yet on the other hand, despite the misogynistic pronouncements of the foundation texts of some Buddhist and Confucian traditions, many women found that these traditions provided them with sufficient religious and spiritual support. Moreover, some women were also able to gain prominence and respect as religious practitioners, sponsors and patrons. The Christian century in Japan corresponded, Ward points out, with a ‘golden age’ of bikuni (Buddhist nuns), whose message about female salvation could prove more persuasive than that of the Christian missionaries.45 As a number of scholars have pointed out, the continuing importance of female deities and religious experts in China and Japan stood in counterpoint to the denigration of women in religious and moral literature.46 A similarly complex picture can be painted of gender relations and the position of women in Southeast Asia. Early modern European travellers and later scholars of the region long commented on the relative freedom and independence of women in many parts of Southeast Asia. Law codes, moral treatises and literature representing the rights and duties of women throughout Southeast Asia may have emphasized the strictures and limitations placed on their autonomy. Yet the relatively prominent role played by women in spheres including commerce, royal courts, medicine, ritual, cultural production and literature, the existence of bilineal or matrilineal inheritance and more egalitarian systems of property ownership, marriage and kinship rights seemed to make gender relations in the region distinctive and unique in the early modern world.47 Furthermore, in some places it even seemed that the binary distinctions of male and female were inadequate to describe the complexity of sex and gender roles in some Southeast Asian societies.48 For many historians of Southeast Asia, women have proven to be a key constituency in which to measure some of the impacts of the new religious currents and revival movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Working on the colonial Philippines, Caroline Brewer, for example, argued against a dominant 44

See esp. Ward, Women religious leaders, and the essays in Lutz, Pioneer Chinese Christian women. Ward, Women religious leaders, 14. Ward, Women religious leaders; Andaya, The flaming womb, 12–21; Lutz, ‘Women in Imperial China’. 47 Reid, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, I: 146–50, 162–72. Andaya, The flaming womb; Tran, ‘Vietnamese women at the crossroads’. 48 See esp. Peletz, ‘Transgenderism and gender pluralism in Southeast Asia’. 45 46

Catholic Women

169

historiographical model which saw the position of women as being ‘enhanced’ by the arrival of Catholicism. The picture she paints has many nuances, but on the whole the implantation of the faith re-cast women in line with binary Hispanic concepts of womanhood—put crudely as either virgins or whores. The spiritual agency of women within this spectrum was reduced to the submissive roles allotted to them under the control of the male hierarchy of the church.49 Other scholars have suggested more possibilities for women to retain or even obtain some measure of authority and power despite the imposition of new models of female submission. The work of Barbara Watson Andaya for example has uncovered the complexity of female experience and gender roles in Southeast Asia.50 The arrival of new movements of religious change or reform—Buddhist, Catholic, Confucian, and Islamic—coupled with economic changes, the centralization of authority, and population shifts, could lead to a decline in the status of women in some areas. However, Andaya demonstrates how, on the other hand, some women were able to carve out their own share of sacral power and authority, even on occasion using ostensibly misogynistic movements of religious change to bolster their positions. Nhung Tuyet Tran’s excellent study of women in early modern Vietnam similarly places female engagement with Catholicism within the context of broader patterns of female participation, patronage and leadership in Buddhist and Taoist traditions in the country.51 Female patronage to restore and construct religious buildings, and to fund the creation and distribution of religious and moral literature was a consequence of increasing levels of female prosperity, due to increasing commercial activity in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: such trade had been a largely female sphere.52 To such examples of female patronage we can also add the continued importance of female deities, spirits and ritual practitioners who survived and thrived in many areas, despite the promotion of more restrictive ideas about gender roles. In Vietnam for example cults of female deities and the importance of female ritual specialists such as bà đo`ˆng (‘mediums’ or ‘shamans’) could undermine Confucian models of female piety centred on the tam tòng (‘Three Obediences’: to her father, her husband and her son).53 As Tran has demonstrated, such female agency and authority could continue, even in some cases increase, under Catholicism. WOMEN AS DESCENDANTS OF EVE European missionaries were entering such societies with their own notions of the female position. Brewer uses Jesuit priest Pedro Chirino’s refutation of Filippino 49 50

pasts.

Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and colonialism. Andaya, The flaming womb; ‘Studying women and gender’. See also her edited collection, Other

Tran, ‘Vietnamese women at the crossroads’. See also her article. ‘Amantes de la Croix’. Tran, ‘Vietnamese women at the crossroads’, 3–5. 53 See esp. Dror, ‘Đoàn thi Điểm’s “Story of the Vân Cát Goddess” ’, and her Cult, culture and ˙ authority; Yu, Law and society, 66–7, 116–17, 124; Ta Van Tai, ‘The status of women’; and Whitmore, ‘Queen mother’. 51 52

170

Converts to Christianity

creation stories to illustrate the conceptual clash which could occur. Some Tagalog myths described how men and women were created at the same time. But, Chirino explained, following Thomas Aquinas, the Christian creation story shows that man must have been created first, because women are ‘defective men’ and so could not have been made in the first order of creation.54 It would be necessary for missionaries to ‘correct’ and reorient the most fundamental notions of gender relations to fit Christian assumptions. We can see a pattern in missionary narratives, where the women of Southeast Asia are depicted as the inheritors of the sinfulness of Eve in four interconnected ways. As with the women of early modern Europe their fallen nature is, we are told, evident in the threat posed by their sexuality, by their lack of reason, by their openness to spiritual corruption, and by the fragility and vulnerability of their virtue. In Cochinchina, some French priests of the MEP warned that sexual incontinence was widespread in the country and posed a problem for priests, catechists and especially for the young seminarians and students training under them: Ordinarily all the girls are in love with the students and some are brash enough to ask the missionary for one of them in marriage. There are even some amongst them who are mad enough to ask us to let them to dress up as male students, in order to be more easily with the men they demand to marry.55

Guillaume Mahot had reported that the men and women in his congregation fell suddenly and swiftly into sin, rather than ‘by degrees’: ‘There is no need for visits, nor love letters, nor presents, nor a long period of diligent attendance and favours, the opportunity alone suffices.’56 For many catechists, it is alleged, all it took to fall into sin was a stroll down a road with a woman who had called upon him to baptize her. This was not surprising, Mahot asserts, as the women rarely put up much of a fight if they were surprised on the roads by a man: ‘raising her arms only to give them some little blow, she consents soon enough to whatever he wants.’57 Moreover, he warns, the women of the country were very attractive, a point which priests should bear in mind when choosing assistants to go on mission with them: When I performed a baptism, which happened almost every day, I dared not often use my young catechists to hold the candles or the holy oils, because they had admitted to me that they felt transported when they saw so many young women . . . receiving baptism. For this reason I take the youngest of my scholars.58 54

Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and colonialism, 41. ‘Plan qui doit être présenté à la Sacré Cong.n’, AMEP 129, f. 120: ‘Ordinairement toutes les filles sont amoureuses des écoliers, et quelques-unes sont assez hardies pour demander au missionnaire un tel écolier en mariage, dans le temps qu’elles de confessent. Il y en a même d’assez folles pour prier qu’on les laisse travestir en écolier, afin d’être plus librement avec ceux qu’elles demandent en mariage.’ 56 AMEP 129, f. 121: ‘Il ne faut point de visites, ni de billets, ni de présents, ni une longue assiduité de services, ni de compliments, l’occasion suffit.’ 57 AMEP 129, f. 121: ‘en levant les bras seulement comme pour lui donner quelque petit coup, elle consent aussitôt à ce qu’il veut.’ 58 AMEP 129, f. 124: ‘Lorsque je baptisais, ce qui arrivait presque tous les jours, je n’osais pas souvent me servir de mes jeunes catéchistes pour tenir la chandelle ou les saintes huiles, parcequ’ils 55

Catholic Women

171

Figure 9. Temples and ritual practitioners in Tonkin, including ‘female magicians’. From Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Les six voyages de Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1713), vol. 5, opposite p. 296. Engraved by J. B. Desbruslin. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Réserve DS T23 1713 Av1 à v6.

In many parts of Southeast Asia, female ritual specialists were seen to be a major obstacle to evangelization. Figures such as the female ‘magicians’ (‘magiciennes’) illustrated in Tavernier’s account of Tonkin (Figure 9) could continue to be persuasive sources of spiritual assistance even to converts to Christianity. In Malacca, missionary complaints about women often concerned their non-attendance at church and their susceptibility to superstition: they were accused of being ‘very given to witchcraft and other pagan customs’.59 Baltasar Dias complained: ‘In this land it is not common to see married women in church on Sundays or holy days, and when they do come during Lent to confess, it is more due to the fear of excommunication and ecclesiastical censures than that they are motivated by zeal for their salvation.’60 In part, this was the fault of their husbands, who were ‘the m’avouaient qu’ils se sentaient tout transportés quand ils voyaient plusieurs jeunes femmes . . . recevoir le baptême.’ 59 Jerónimo Fernandes to his confrers, Malacca, 2 December 1561 in ABS I: 363: ‘mui sogeitas a feitiços e mais custumes gentilicos’. 60 Baltasar Dias to Jesuits of Portugal, Malacca, 19 November 1556 in ABS I: 239: ‘Hera cousa de que se muy pouquo usava nesta terra, virem as molheres casadas a igreia, aos domingos e sanctos, e

172

Converts to Christianity

main obstacles and impediments preventing their wives from coming to church, and where they should lead by example, encouraging them in this, they themselves miss Masses and prayers in order to give themselves over to sensual recreations, even on Sundays and holy days’.61 On the rare occasions that the women of Malacca attended Mass, their behaviour left much to be desired. Both ‘mestiza’ and ‘native’ women are, he alleges ‘very ignorant in the things of God and Christian doctrine’, and conversation, interaction and growing up among ‘moors and pagans’ in Malacca made an impression in their minds which made them reject ‘the sweet burden and the gentle yoke of the law of God and of the saints and of virtuous customs.’62 In Counter Reformation Europe the reform of female morals and spiritual lives at every level of society was often a key concern for missionaries. In addition to investigating and correcting the beliefs and practices of lay women, reformers were also keen to purify the female religious houses of Europe, enforcing a model of vowed female piety which emphasized complete separation from the world, obedience to the Church hierarchy and a spirituality centred on the sacraments. Yet pious women played an ambiguous role in the development of Counter Reformation spirituality in Europe. They had an undeniably important role as patrons and supporters of religious endeavours, including of missions to Southeast Asia. Rhodes acknowledges this in his Relation des Progrez de la Foy av royavme de la Cochinchine. He dedicates it to Princess Marie Leonor de Rohan, abbess of the royal Benedictine monastery of Sainte-Trinité in Caens and daughter of the Duke of Montauban: praising her charity and her work to ‘cooperate with the Saviour for the salvation of souls’ by extending to ‘the most distant lands of unbelief ’ her prayers and efforts, he entreats her continued support for the mission.63 Yet women’s role in imagining new forms of Catholic piety, and their direct spiritual experiences of the divine could be contested. On the one hand, the belief that women, as passive and irrational creatures, were more susceptible to divine visions and revelations meant that in many parts of Europe ecstatics and visionaries could achieve both a wide popular following and occasionally recognition from church authorities as mouthpieces of the divine. Yet these very qualities of irrationality, susceptibility and passivity could also leave women open to demonic influence: discerning the difference between these supernatural influences would be a difficult task for even the most well-trained and experienced priest.64

aynda quando vinhão, pela Coresma, confessar-se, era mais por temor de escomunhão e semsuras eclesiasticas, que movidas por zello de sua salvação.’ 61 ABS I: 239–40: ‘serem os seus maridos os proprios obstaculos e impedimentos de suas molheres virem a igreia, e donde lhe avião de dar exemplo, incita-las a/isso, elles mesmos deixavão as misas e as pregações, por irem tomar suas recreações sensuaes, naquelle mesmo tempo dos domingos e sanctos.’ 62 ABS I: 243: ‘quais ignorão muito as cousas de Deus e a doutrina cristã’, ‘não gostarem da doce carrega e suave jugo da ley de Deus e dos santos e vertuosos costumes.’ 63 Rhodes, Relation des progrez, dedication (n.p.). On female patronage of missions in China and Vietnam see also Hsia, Noble patronage and Jesuit missions. 64 See esp. Sluhovsky, Believe not every spirit.

Catholic Women

173

D EV O U T W O M E N , V I R G I N S , A N D M A R T Y R S Throughout the history of the church female saints and martyrs had established a number of models of acceptable female piety. The early church in particular had furnished a number of examples of pious Roman women providing space in their houses for clandestine priests to celebrate the sacraments, heroically guarding their chastity and dying nobly as martyrs for the faith.65 Some of these tropes are evident in accounts of female martyrs in Southeast Asia. Indeed many martyr tales from Asia ‘quote’ legends of suffering in the early centuries of the church. During the persecutions which followed the death of Narai in Siam, for example, Tachard reports that a number of Catholic women sought to disfigure themselves or their daughters with herbs, ‘not fearing to be seen ugly in the eyes of men as long as they were pleasing to the eyes of God’.66 One Portuguese mother even undertook a precautionary action to protect her teenage daughter ‘to which there is little in the history of the Church to compare it’: she burnt her body with a hot iron, a sign of shameful diseases. ‘And so by pain and infamy she retained her virginity, and was not slow to lose her honour before men to conserve it before God.’67 These acts recall the stories of early saints of the church such as St Ebba of England (d. 874) and St Eusebia of France (d. 731): two abesses who, faced with ‘barbarian’ invasions and the threat that their convents would be overrun by ‘infidels’ and the chastity of the inhabitants compromised, led their community in disfiguring their faces. In such stories, the saints often chose to inflict wounds which could echo punishments for immoral women in contemporary law codes, for example cutting by cutting off their noses and lips.68 Some tales drew on other popular Christian imagery of faith and fortitude. Jesuit Bartolomeo Resco, for example, wrote that the Biblical scene of devout youths Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being rescued from a fiery furnace by a figure (variously portrayed in Christian art as an angel or Christ) had been reenacted in Cochinchina.69 During the persecutions of 1644, he reported, soldiers seized an image of the Virgin and threw it into a fire. Three girls, Antonia, Giovanna, and Isabella, ‘jumped into the middle of the furnace, and like the children in the Babylonian furnace, playing in the flames, enjoying the company of a fourth who seemed to be to the son of God, they took the holy image out of the fire. The image was intact, and they were intact.’70

Ditchfield, ‘An Early Christian school of sanctity’. Tachard, ‘Memoires secrets’, ARSI JapSin 78, f. 101r: ‘ne se soucians pas de les voir laides aux yeux des hommes pourvueu qu’Elles fussent agreables aux yeux de Dieu’. 67 Tachard, ‘Memoires secrets’, ARSI JapSin 78, f. 101v: ‘Ainsi par la douleur & l’infamie Elle racheta sa virginite’, et ne feignit point de perdre son honneur devant les hommes pour le conserver devant Dieu.’ 68 Schulenburg, Forgetful of their sex, 145–51. 69 Daniel, 1–3. 70 ‘Relatione della persecutione che si solleuo nel Regno della Cocccioncina nel Decembre del 1664’, ARSI 70a, f. 64: ‘le quali trasportate dal fuoco più nobile dello spirito santo, saltarono in mezzo alla fornace: et, à guisa degli antichi fanciulli della fornave Babiloniese, gioiendo tre le fiamme, e 65 66

174

Converts to Christianity

The exemplary piety of many convert women led many missionaries to believe that female monasticism would play an important role in the future of Catholicism throughout Asia. Writing in 1651, Dominican Vittorio Ricci set the current dangers faced by Chinese Catholic women during the wars, against a utopian prediction for female religious life once the realm was converted. Many women had been menaced by the ‘impure will’ of Tartar soldiers and strove valiantly to protect their honour: one young woman had hidden underwater ‘risking her life so as not to lose her chastity’.71 ‘In this and in other cases . . . one can easily see the great inclination of women, aided by God’s grace . . . exceeding by a long way the men in fervour, goodness, chastity and other virtues. From which it is thought that once China converts, more monasteries of nuns will be founded here than in Europe, for their retreat and enclosure [from the world].’72 In Cochinchina and Tonkin, Jesuits reported an innate longing for a female religious order. Jesuit Antonio Barbosa wrote in 1639 that, Our Lord having moved some of these women to desire more perpetual things, they have already asked to offer to the priest their obedience in anything that he orders them to do, to leave what they have in their villages, and to live on the alms of Christians, doing works of charity, preaching to women who wish to receive the Law in their houses, and teaching Christians who are as yet uncultured, beseeching them in sermons. They do not lack the desire to be strict religious if they had the means.73

Indeed, many Jesuits praised their Tonkinese and Cochinchinese female converts for what they saw as an innate love of chastity and desire for perpetual virginity: conversion had helped the women to defeat their insatiable female sexuality. One convert, Benta, was typical. Young and much sought-after as a wife, she insisted on making a perpetual vow of chastity to God. The Jesuit she approached at first wanted to release her from the vow she had made: she was being pursued by some of the most important men in the village who were determined to marry her. However, ‘When he saw the firmity and the constancy of the fervent Christian, he no longer wanted to commute her vow.’ She then asked to be allowed to shave her head, ‘something which is held to be a great dishonour for women in this land’. The missionary at first refused, but the next time she came to confess, he saw she had godendo del la compagnia di un quarto simile al figlio di Dio; cauarono dal fuoco la sagra Immagine, intatte esse, et intatta quella.’ 71 Vittorio Ricci to PF, Philippines, 22 June 1651, APF SOCG 193, f. 13v: ‘impura uolantà dei soldati Tartari’ . . . ‘arrischiando la vita p’ non perder la castità’. 72 APF SOCG 193, f. 13v: ‘In quest’ et in altri casi . . . si riconosce facilm.t’ la buona inclinat.n dalle Donn’, auitata colla gratia Diuina . . . eccendono di grand’ lunga gl’huomini nel feruore, nella bonta’, nella Castità et altre uirtu . . . Laonde si crede che conuertendosi La China, piu monasterij si fondaranno quiui di Monache che nell’Europa p’ la loro ritiratezza e serramena.’ 73 Antonio Barbosa, to Antonio Fontes, ‘Pontos que recolhi em esta Provincia de Thin Hoa e Ké Bó’, 17 January 1639, 49-V-31, f. 438v: ‘ . . . foy Nosso Snor movendo a algumas destas mulheres a dezejarem couzas mais perpetuas, ja querião offerecerse a obediençia do Padre pera tudo o que lhes ordenasse, ja deicar o q’ tinhão em suas Aldeas, e viver das esmolas dos Christaons exercitandose em obras de Caridade, pregando as mulheres que quiressem receber a Ley em suas cazas, e ensinando as Christãos ainda rudes, rogando por en sermos: não faltarão com a vontade a serem estreitas Religiosas se tivessem cõmodidades.’

Catholic Women

175

done it anyway. Eventually he gave in to her repeated requests and allowed her to take a public vow of perpetual chastity.74 The spiritual value of female communities also led Pierre Lambert de la Motte to place the need for ‘a community of many little virgins’ above even the need for a hospital in Ayutthaya. ‘We will need for that one or two virtuous French women . . . it would not be very difficult to come here by sea, and they would need no more courage than the women of Portugal and Spain, the first of which go all over the Indies, and the others, as far as the Philippines.’75 There were French precedents: the Ursulines and the Congrégation de Notre Dame, established in Canada, and Congregations such as the Surs de l’Instruction Charitable, which also sidestepped the Tridentine insistence on enclosed female monastic life.76 In 1687 the spiritual director of the latter affirmed their willingness to go to Siam, to hopefully secure the conversion of Narai’s daughter, ‘she being won, they will draw many others to the true faith’.77 While little came of this project, Lambert did found a female institute: the ‘Amantes de la Croix’, after he heard that women already lived together in piety and continence in Tonkin and Cochinchina.78 An institute with simple vows, this was devoted to striving through their ‘tears, prayers and penances’ for the conversion of infidels, the instruction of young girls, the care of female sick, baptizing dying babies, and doing all they could to draw ‘debauched girls’ away from their bad lives.79 The lay initiative behind the creation of such communities was notable, perhaps reflecting local cultures of autonomous female religious organization. Groups of women living together in a ‘religious’ manner were ‘found’ by missionaries: ‘there 74 Martim Coelho, ‘Annua da Missão do Reyno de Annão do Anno de 1638’, 6 April 1639, BA, JnÁ, 49-v-31, ff. 451v–2r: ‘Vendo o Padre a firmeza, e constancia da fervoza Christãa, não quis commutarlhe o voto como de antes.’ ‘couza que nesta terra se têm por grande deshonra principalmente entre mulheres.’ 75 Pierre Lambert de la Motte to François Pallu, October 1667, AMEP 857, f. 224: ‘une communauté de plusieurs petites vierges nous aurions besoing pour cela de deux ou trois verteuses dames de France quy eussent grace pour cet employ; il ne seroit pas bien difficilé de uenir icy pour mer, et elles ne doiuent pas moins auoir de courage que les dames de portugal et d’Espagne, dont les premieres uont par-toutes les Indes, et les autres iusques aux philippines.’ They did not, however, reach Malacca. 76 On tensions over female mission in general, see Lux-Sterritt, Redefining female religious life, esp. 22–7; McNamara, Sisters in arms, 464–70; Hsia, The world of Catholic renewal, 36–8; Rapley, The Dévotes, pp. 27–67 and 169–74. 77 ‘L’Abbé de Montigny to M. de Chateauneuf (king’s secretary), 20 May 1687: ‘laquelle étant gagnée, [elles] en attirent beaucoup d’autres à la vrai foi.’ Cited in L’Institute des surs de l’instruction charitable, 141. Note that MEP priests Jacques de Brisacier (1642–1736) and Louis Tiberge (1651– 1730) were spiritual directors of the Congregation for fifteen years. 78 Pierre Lambert de la Motte, ‘Copie d’un lettre circulaire a celles qui ont fait vu de chastete et qui uiuent en commun depuis plusieurs années’ [c.1671], AMEP 677, f. 180. Note that Lambert himself followed the spiritual asceticism of the ‘Amateurs de la Croix’, upon which he based his rule for the female devotees. See Fauconnet-Buzelin, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères, 183–90. See also Tran, ‘Women at the crossroads’ and her ‘Amantes de la Croix’. 79 See also, ‘Raggioni con le quali si mostra chiaramente quanto si necesaria di nuoui Vescoui nel Tunchino e nella Cocinchina’, ASV Misc. Arm. VIII, 60, ff. 109v–110r: request for these simple vows to be conceded, with some indulgences.

176

Converts to Christianity

were also a good number of widows and girls, who without knowing what it is to be nuns, renounced marriage and unite in various places to live together. . . . In a word, that which you could read in the history of things practised at the birth of the Church is encountered here.’80 MEP priests in Siam also ministered to small groups of women living retired lives, but the Amantes failed to attract many adherents. Female religiosity in Malacca also stands in contrast: the women of the city who intended to lead a religious life travelled to the convents of Macao or Goa. For example sisters Catherina de Santa Monica, Ignes de S. Paulo, Philippa da Presentação and Christina de Jesus, all born in Malacca, were lauded for their devotion after becoming nuns in the Santa Monica convent in Goa.81 Yet alongside these developments of female monasticism, which echoed Counter Reformation ideals of female religiosity, a number of new forms of female engagement developed. Female religious leadership was particularly striking in Tonkin and Cochinchina, with women appearing in many early accounts as teachers, preachers, catechists and even heads (‘cabeças’) of churches. Literate women in particular took a leading role. For example Marta, a Christian executed in the Cochinchinese persecution of 1664, was lauded as a shining light in the Church. She had been allowed by Rhodes to begin taking the Eucharist only one year after baptism: the usually longer period of instruction was waived on account of her scholarship and virtue. Her piety and knowledge were particularly useful for the mission because she became an ‘excellent preacher’ in the absence of the Jesuits.82 We saw in Chapter 5 how Catherine, a noble convert, composed verse narratives to describe the faith which proved very useful to spread the message even amongst the illiterate. But her conversion did not only win a skilled writer for the church: she served effectively as a preacher too. A manuscript report about her conversion relates how ‘After baptism she became an Apostle, first recanting all falsity and foolishness and then preaching the true law which she had newly embraced. Many were converted in this way.’83 The conversion of her mother was also was ‘an essential acquisition to this nascent Church’.84 Prior to her conversion she had been respected for her learning in Buddhism, and was able to use the authority and credit she had as a teacher in her new religion. Rhodes explains that the ‘Buddhist monks called her Thay—that is to say “Master” [or mistress]—due to her ability to instruct others in these matters. Changing religion, she also changed the direction of her zeal, and has applied it ever since to the instruction of a number of young 80 Jacques de Bourges to his brother, Tonkin, 19 February 1670. AMEP 650, f. 195: ‘Il s’est trouver aussi un assez bon nombre de uefues et de filles, lesquelles sans scauoir ce que c’étoit d ‘estre religieuses ont renoncé au mariage, et se sont en diuers endroits unies pour uiure ensembles. . . . En un mot, ce que vous avez pû lire dans l’histoire des choses qui se pratiquoient dans la naissance de l’Eglise, se rencontre icy.’ 81 Santa Maria, Historia da fundação do real convento de Santa Monica, 476, 478–80, 756, 777–82. 82 ‘Relatione della persecutione che is solleuo nel Regno della Coccioncina nel Decembre del 1664’, ARSI 70a, ff. 58–9: ‘eccellente prediactrice’. 83 ‘Ragguaglio della Missione del Giappone’ ARSI JapSin 65, f. 70v: ‘Dopo il battesimo diuenne ella un’Apostola: ritrattando le falsita’, e sciocchezze in prima seguite e predicando la uera legge di nuouo abbracciata. Molti con questo mezo n’hebbe conuertito.’ 84 Rhodes Histoire Tonkin, 119: ‘ce fut une acquisition essentielle de cette Eglise naissante.’

Catholic Women

177

women’.85 Yet it was not only women connected to the court who proved important leaders in the church, nor did women restrict themselves to teaching women and children. In 1638, for example, Jesuit Antonio Barboza noted that the provinces of Thinh Hoa and Ké Bó had been mission lands for many years, but pastoral visits had been few and far between. In many places, it was the women of these communities who kept the flame of the faith alive. ‘In truth’, he asserted, ‘these devout Christian women have helped me a lot: their virtue confounds me.’86 In one village, it was a woman, Suzanna, who first provided him with a small house where he could live and hold services. This eventually proved insufficient for his needs, but another woman, Apolonia, was also able to provide for him. Apolonia not only material support for the church, she also led its people: it was she ‘who in the absence of any catechists has care of this church.’87 When missionaries or catechists were able to make a pastoral visit, such women offered crucial assistance and support. Barboza stated: ‘those who help me most here are usually Apolonia, and Bona, who was exiled for the Faith, Elena, who to keep the Faith well left her rich home [and] Anna, who is of good birth . . . who left home to serve God.’88 Anna appears several times in missionary accounts, often described as a ‘catechist’. Barboza describes her as being ‘of great prudence, noteworthy obedience, and great zeal to help souls and [she] knows well how to do this, because she knows something of letters’.89 Anna even accompanied Antonio on one of his missions to visit the remotest groups of Christians in the countryside. He reports that no Catechist had dared to go for a long time, but she had assured the Jesuit that she had made various trips into these regions, and knew the terrain well. ‘If she had not gone, it would not have been possible to visit these Christians,’ Antonio states, ‘something which I would have been very unhappy about.’90 This female leadership, mobility, and authority seem alien when measured against Counter Reformation ideals of female religiosity. Indeed, when the French priests of the Missions Étrangères arrived in Tonkin and Cochinchina, the role of women in the church became another source of contention. The foundation of the Amantes de la Croix can be seen as an attempt to impose a more regular norm of female piety on the mission fields, although we must not overlook the grassroots impetus which still seemed to characterize the formation of individual communities. Both the Jesuits and the MEP priests accused each side of inappropriate 85

Rhodes Histoire Tonkin, 119. Antonio Barboza, ‘Pontos que recolhi em esta Provincia de Thinh Hoa e Ké Bó pa a annua de 1638.’ 17 January 1639, BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 438v: ‘na verdade me ajudarão muito estas devotas Christãos, de cuja virtude eu me confundo.’ 87 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 438r–v. 88 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 438v: ‘Sam as que assistem aqui mais de ordinario Apolonia, e Bona desterrada pela Ley; Elena que por guardar bem a mesma Ley deixou huma Caza rica onde estava. Anna de boa gente . . . e deixou Casa e patria por servir a Deos.’ 89 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, ff. 438v–9r: ‘he de grande prudencia, notael obediencia, e muito zelo de ajudar as almas, o que sabe bem fazer, por que sabe algu˜ as couzas de letras.’ 90 BA, JnÁ, 49-V-31, f. 439r: ‘se ella não fora não se poderião vizitar estes Christaons, couza q’ eu mto dezejava.’ 86

178

Converts to Christianity

behaviour, ill-advised innovation or careless preaching where women were concerned. Jesuit Francesco Xavier Filupucci, for example, alleged that the French missionaries insisted in delivering ‘spiritual exercises’ to women in their own homes. He primly asserted that this was highly unwise, for ‘Who knows what the female sex in Tonkin is, other than that in every region such an undertaking is highly dangerous.’91 Several MEP priests accused the Jesuits of spreading such innuendo amongst converts. One sworn witness statement collected on the orders of Lambert de la Motte in November 1669 recorded the testimony of four lay people, named as Ludovico Rigaut (French), Ignatio Dono (Japanese), Maria Coelhea de Melos, and Felicina Coelhea de Melos (both Portuguese). The four attested to various enormities preached by the Jesuit Tissanier, but the women in particular detailed a calumny against the Amantes de la Croix: ‘The two women said that the father had preached that those widows who are withdrawn from the world to live religiously as nuns of the Parish of St. Joseph, place of the Apostolic Vicars, are deceived and lost women.’92 Yet other MEP priests shared similar concerns. In 1684 Guillaume Mahot took the step of dispensing the Amantes de la Croix of Cochinchina of their vows and telling them that they could go home to their families and marry if they wished. On the one hand, Mahot was worried that ‘with the first news that the mandarins had of these virgin girls, they would commit violence to have them and not finding anyone to protect them, the women would be dishonoured, as well as the religion.’93 Like the friars who accompanied the Poor Clare nuns to Cochinchina, he saw such an eventuality as a blow to the church as a whole. However, the danger did not only come from the mandarins. He also feared that his confrere, Jean Maguellon de Courtaulin, would lead the mission into disrepute: ‘he was shocked that M. de Courtaulin had had them come and stay near his house and that he visited them too often and too freely. Not only had some Christians muttered about this, but even the pagans had taken the opportunity to say that the fathers of the [Christian] law had wives.’94 Interestingly, by Courtaulin’s own admission, the rumours were not without foundation. In a heartfelt, desperate letter to his brother, written from Faifo in 1678, he recounted the struggles and trials he had undergone in the past year, when he had been possessed by three demons, ‘so terrible that they 91 Francesco Xavier Filupucci, Macao, 14 December 1683, APF, SC 3, f. 357r: ‘Che sà che cosa è sesso feminile in Tunchino, oltre l’essere in ogni parte simil’ tratto pericolosiss.o’ 92 Anon, [Summary of writings from the VAs], 1677?, APF SOCP 8, f. 256r: ‘Le due [ . . . ] Donne dicono, che quel Pre haueua predicato, che quelle uedoue, ch’erano ritrate dal mondo per uiuere religiosamente come Monache nella Parocchia di S. Gioseppe, luogho delli Vicari Apostolici, erano ingannate, e perdite Donne.’ 93 ‘Plan qui doit être présenté à la Sacré Cong.n’, AMEP 129, f. 112: ‘aux premières nouvelles que les mandarins auraient de ces filles vierges, ils feraient violence pour les avoir, que ne se trouvant personne pour les protéger, elles seraient déshonorées aussi bien que la religion.’ 94 AMEP 129, ff.112–13: ‘il était choqué de ce que M. de Courtaulin les ayant fait venir demeurer auprès de sa maison et que les visitant trop souvent et trop librement, non-seulement quelques chrétiens en avaient murmuré, mais encore les gentils en avaient pris occasion de dire que les pères de la loi avaient des femmes.’

Catholic Women

179

brought me to a state of not only wishing for death, but even of procuring it for myself, and if I had at some point found a knife, I would have sunk it in my stomach’.95 The demons’ main attack was on his sacerdotal chastity: ‘I ran after women like a madman,’ he confesses, although he assures his brother that by the grace of God that he never acted out his carnal urges.96 Women, then, were a paradoxical constituency for missionaries. Potentially they provided some of the most inspiring tales of success from the mission fields, evidenced by their frequent appearance in printed mission literature. Women were inherently the weaker sex and posed a number of dangers to missionaries. However, as devout converts, wise teachers of children and of other women, patrons of the mission, even as nuns and martyrs, Southeast Asian Christians could be shown to embody the virtues of idealized Counter Reformation Catholic womanhood. Yet like all converts, in many parts of Southeast Asia they were often left to develop their own forms of Catholicism without sacerdotal oversight. Amongst the relatively large Christian population of Vietnam we see how this could diverge from Tridentine norms: women led churches, preached, taught, wrote Catholic literature and formed their own devotional communities. Later in the seventeenth century, the regulation of female devotion increased, against a backdrop of anxiety over women on the mission fields. Yet even as female communities were brought under tighter ecclesiastical supervision we can see continuing intermittent sparks of female autonomy. For example, although Mahot had told them to disperse, the Amantes de la Croix in Cochinchina rather split into three smaller groups and continued to live together in religious communities.97

95 Jean de Courtaulin to M. Maguelonne, Faifo, 23 February 1678, AMEP 734, f. 284: ‘si terribles qui me mirent en estat non seul.t de souhaiter la mort, mais mesme de me la procurér, et si J’eusse trouué quelque fois un couteau, je me le fusse enfoncé dans mon ventre’. 96 AMEP 734, f. 284: ‘Je courois apres les femmes cõe un insense.’ 97 ‘Plan qui doit être présenté à la Sacré Cong.n’, AMEP 129, f. 113.

9 Freeing the Souls of Slaves Slaves are another shadowy presence in missionary accounts. With the exception of a few studies of Jesuit plantation holdings in South America and mendicant use of forced labour in the Philippines, the issue of missionary use of unfree labour has been largely neglected in the historiography.1 Yet not only did missionaries seek to convert slaves—indeed, as we saw, in Malacca Jesuit missionaries focused particularly on this group—many also used slaves on their missions. As with women, many missionary accounts discussed slaves with great ambiguity. Like female passivity, their state of servility was believed to leave them open to the dominion of sin. Yet much spiritual literature taught that total subjection to God was a path to liberation. The slave would be ‘free’ under Christ, just as the truly devout religious woman could, as St Jerome taught, ‘be called a man’.2 Slavery as a trope appears frequently in early modern spiritual writing especially in discussions of conversion. The ‘slave of Christ’ would also become an important self-descriptor for missionaries in Southeast Asia. As we will see, a perfect opportunity to play with this language and these ideas came when missionaries were accused of mistreating their own slaves, bondsmen, or servants. MISSIONARY U SE OF SLAVES In Europe, most theorists followed Roman jurist Florentine and St Augustine in seeing war (itself a result of the Fall) as the principal ‘cause’ of slavery.3 It was legitimate to enslave captives defeated in just war: thus Portuguese slaving in the West of Africa was legitimized by the papal briefs authorizing the king to ‘invade, search out, capture and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ . . . and reduce their persons to perpetual slavery’.4 The

1 Castro, ‘Schiavitú’, 1041; Negro and Marzal (eds), Esclavitud, economí a y evangelización; Cummins and Cushner, ‘Labor in the colonial Philippines’. 2 St Jerome, ‘Comment on the Epistle to the Ephesians, III’. Cited in Gold, ‘Gender fluidity and closure’, 244. 3 Buckland, The Roman Law of slavery, 1. See also Vogt, Ancient slavery and the ideal of man: Aquinas on slavery as a consequence of the Fall, 197. On Augustinian ideas: Garnsey, Ideas of slavery, 16–17; Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 35–6. 4 Dum diversas, Nicolas V, 16 June 1452. Confirmed and extended by Romanus Pontifex, Nicolas V, 8 January 1454; Inter caetera, Calixtus III, 15 March 1456; Aeterni Regis, Sixtus IV {?} 21 June 1481; and Praecelsae revotionis, Leo X 21 November 1514.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

181

connections between expansion of the faith, legitimate imperial conquests, and slavery were thus made in the founding documents of the Estado da India. As part of the imperial project, some missionaries also claimed rights of conquest to justify their involvement in the slave trade. We find one illustration of this in a controversy which erupted in the Jesuit college of Luanda, Angola, in the 1590s. The college received around 300 slaves per year as tribute and sold the surplus. In response to Father General Acquaviva’s order to end this practice, the rector of the college angrily responded that the Jesuits there had rights of conquest to these people by virtue of their military service (as chaplains) in Portuguese campaigns in the 1580s. It was eventually agreed that the missionaries would receive their slaves, but would exchange them with other Jesuit colleges in Brazil for necessities.5 However, in much of Asia, with their limited land and income, religious houses did not operate in the same way as the larger houses of the New World and even Goa: the Jesuit slave plantations of Brazil had no equivalent in Southeast Asia, nor did the well-endowed Augustinian convents of Goa. Yet slaves were useful commodities for convents, especially in regions where waged servants were expensive and scarce.6 Complaints about the difficulty of hiring servants for domestic tasks within the convent, or for porterage and interpreting on mission feature frequently in accounts by missionaries in Macao, Siam, Tonkin, and Cochinchina.7 Studies on wage labour in early modern Southeast Asia demonstrate that it was often cheaper to buy a slave than to pay a freeman to undertake the same work.8 Evidence from elsewhere in the Portuguese Indies can help to provide some context for the use of slaves in Southeast Asia. In the Acts of Augustinian convent Nossa Senhora da Graça in Goa, slaves were discussed alongside various issues of finance and personnel movement.9 The fathers of the Council debated, for example, whether they should swap recalcitrant runaway slave Diogo for a ‘slave by the name of Salvador, Bengali, for the service of this convent’ and whether they should sell or keep other individuals.10 Although short, each entry is revealing: some indication of the origin of the slave is usually given, with motives for proposing sale. Reasons range from the laziness of the slave in question and a surfeit of servants (‘seeing that the bicho (drudge) Bastião does nothing in the house and [already] having many bichos’) to the slave being ‘inclined to run away’.11 Connections between the Goan convent and Malacca are also revealed. Two slaves, 5

Quenum, Les églises chrétiennes et la traite atlantique, 142–3. Jacques Heers provides a useful survey of the history of the use of slaves by the clergy, Esclaves et domestiques au Moyen-Âge, 95–108. 7 e.g. AMEP 129 (Le clergé indigène) ff. 75–127, ‘Plan qui doit être présenté à la Sacré Cong.n le premier point consiste à faire voir la nécessité qu’il y a de faire un clergé dans les lieux des missions.’ f. 125–6 on difficulty of obtaining and retaining helpers: P. Nouette tied to the churches as there was no one to carry his altar. 8 Reid, ‘Introduction: slavery and bondage’, 15; Reid, ‘ “Closed” and “open” slave systems’, 168. 9 In the Historical Archive of Goa, transcribed by Alonso as ‘Libro de Actas’. 10 Alonso, ‘Libro de actas’, 209: ‘mosso, por nome Salvador, casta bengala, pera os serviços deste convento’. See also e.g. 25 June 1618 (231), 15 April 1625 (247), 26 January 1635 (273). 11 Alonso, ‘Libro de actas’, 273: ‘visto que o bicho Bastiam não servir na casa e aver muito bichos’, 247: ‘visto ser fujão’, See also slaves accused of laziness or described as not needed: 242; of being runaways: , 231, 209, 242. 6

182

Converts to Christianity

one described as ‘sneaky and never in the house’, and the other, ‘a Sri Lankan lad’ who is ‘of no use to us, and goes continually out of the house’ were sent to be sold in Malacca. The council specifies that the proceeds of the second sale should be spent on chinaware for the convent, which was to underwrite the risk of the voyage.12 Unfortunately, the Actas only cover the period 1604–46, with few entries after 1637, so such details are tantalizingly sparse. One argument in favour of elevated numbers of slaves in overseas convents was advanced by Agostino de Santa Monica, the Definidor Geral of the Discalced Augustinians.13 The Governor of the bishopric of Goa, Fr. Miguel Rangel, had limited the number of servant girls and slaves permitted to the female convent of Santa Monica in Goa to 120. This was too small, Agostino explained, ‘even if it seems great and excessive’ as ‘the female slaves and servants of India are so presumptuous, finical and inimical to work (no matter what nation they are from).’14 He urges his readership to understand that what would seem like decadence in a European religious house was mere necessity in the Indies: ‘where the styles are so different, like real life from a painting.’15 Equally, the Franciscan Confrária in Goa (which became the Jesuit college of Saint Paul) did not eschew the use of unfree labour. The ownership of slaves seems somewhat at odds with the order’s charism of humility and service. Indeed, many reformers had urged their brothers to reduce to a bare minimum the number of servants or slaves employed by each house, or even to avoid them all together.16 Yet when the Jesuits took over, Antonio Criminalis reported that there were around sixty youngsters there in 1545. Whilst some were there voluntarily to learn reading, writing and grammar, ‘others were donated here by their masters who had held them as captives; others were bought by Diogo [da Borba] and Paulo [de Santarem?] with alms. And so there are some who are here willingly and others unhappy, here a little against their will.’17 The Jesuits regularized the position of such slaves in the constitutions of the Goa college (1546). Details of children who were gifted, bequeathed to or purchased by the college should be recorded in a book, along with ‘all the obligations that the 12 Alonso, ‘Libro de actas’, 242: ‘furtivo e não estar numqua em caza’ ‘hum moso de casta chingala . . . nos não servir e andar de contino fora de casa’, ‘o procedido viesse empregado em louça pera o convento, e que de tudo tomavão o risco nas embarcações que viesse’. 13 Santa Maria, Historia da fundação. 14 Santa Maria, Historia da fundação, 263: ‘ainda se notou de grande, & excessivo,’ ‘são as escravas, & servas da India tão presumidas, preciosas, & inimigas do trabalho (de qualquer nação que sejão)’. 15 Santa Maria, Historia da fundação, 260: ‘aonde ha estylos tão differentes, como do vivo ao pintado’. 16 See Castelao and Estepa ‘Domestic service in Spain, 1750–1836’, 127–40. Cf. the theme of mendicant decadence especially in the Augustinian Order, see Webster, ‘La crisis de los Agustinos en el siglo XV’, 987–1013. 17 Antonius Criminalis to Ignatio de Loyola S.I., Goa, 7 October 1545, DI I: 12: ‘altri sono donati qua da suoi signori che li tenevano captivi; altri sono comparati da maiest[r]o Diogo [da Borba], e misser Paulo con elemosine. E così sono alcuni qui [che] stanno qua de buono voglia, altri mal contenti e uno pocho contra sua voluntà’,. According to Meersman, Paulo de Santarem was the Commissary of the Franciscans in India 1539–42 (authority before the erection of the Custody in 1542). Meersman, The ancient Franciscan provinces, 10. Criminalis is probably referring to him.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

183

house has towards the dead who left alms, and what they left, and also the ornaments and movables and slaves that there are in the house for the service’.18 It was envisaged that the college would need ‘male slaves for the garden and the burial of the poor, and to sweep and to cut firewood, and for the kitchen two to three’.19 As was the case in Portugal and Spain, slaves were also used to do the most dangerous and unpleasant work tending the sick and burying the dead.20 The Misericórdias and hospitals of the Estado, often under mendicant guidance, also made similar use of slaves. D. Manuel I established a regular supply of African slaves to hospitals across the empire as a form of alms.21 As slaves were often cheaper to maintain than waged labour, they could represent an efficient use of capital. Thus Xavier urged the Jesuits in Goa to add to their numbers in 1552: ‘buy a pair of washermen, who have charge of washing clothes. [Do] this soon, if you think it will be cheaper to buy washermen, than to send the clothes to be washed by the washermen outside.’22 Slaves were also used in the Jesuit general house, especially in the kitchens. In the Rules for the house drawn up by Gaspar Barzaeo in 1552, the ‘Mestre de Casa’ was urged to ‘take great care to look after the slaves of the house, that is, kitchen boys, cafres, and have them confess with Father António Vaz, and so provide them with what is necessary’. The man in charge of the kitchen must also do his part to set the example for the cafres (usually, but not exclusively, black Africans) who worked there: to teach them to pray before each meal and to speak to them kindly ‘so they do not take the opportunity to run away’.23 It is reasonable to suppose that occasionally slaves were brought into Jesuit houses when their masters entered, as seems to have been the case in the Augustinian order.24 On the other hand, liberating one’s slaves could be a great gesture of piety.25 Thus Fernandes Mendes Pinto freed his many slaves when he realized his Jesuit vocation, ‘ordering each himself that from now on they know only God as 18 ‘Constitutiones Collegii S. Pauli, Goae Erecti’. Goa, 27 June 1546, DI I: 122–3: ‘todalas obrigações que a casa tyver de defuntos que deixarem esmolas, e o que deixão, e asy os ornamentos e peças, escravos que ouver na casa pera ho serviço’. 19 DI I: 123: ‘Averá na casa somente os servidores que fforem necessarios pera o serviço de obrigação, porque ho sobeyo não serve e ffaz despesa sem proveito’ ‘seus escravos homens pera a orta e enterramento dos pobres, e varrer e partyr lenha, e pera ha cozinha de dous té tres’. 20 Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 121. 21 Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 67. 22 Schurhammer and Wicki (eds), Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii, II: 397: ‘que tenhão cargo de lavar a roupa. Isto logo se vos parecere que será mais barato comprando mainatos, que não dando a roupa a lavea aos mainatos de fora’. 23 Barzaei, ‘Regulae Collegii’, DI II: 361: ‘Tereis grande cuidado de oulhar polos scravos de casa, scilicet, cozinheyros, cafres, e fazê-llos confeçar com ho Padre Antonio Vaz, e asym provê-llos que for neceçario’, ‘pera que não tomem ocasiam pera fugir’. 24 e.g. ‘hum moço mallavar, por nome Antonio, que tinha cido do Padre Roderigo de Nanais’, Alonso, ‘Libro de Actas’, 231. 25 See recommendation that men in Goa be encouraged to liberate Christian slaves, ‘Instruição pera o Padre que [tiver] cuidado de pay dos cri[stãos] e pera o Irmão que o aju[dar, feita] pelo P.e Alexandre Valignano, vizitador desta Provincia da India, e por elle revista e emmendada visitando esta Caza em Septembro de 1595’, in Wicki, O livro do Pai, 22–3. Also indulgences for those who purchase slaves for the purpose of converting and freeing them: DI IX: 372.

184

Converts to Christianity

Lord’.26 Three of his freed slaves decided to follow him to Malacca, where they were received into the Jesuit college for instruction.27 We come across numerous descriptions of moços in the Malaccan house converting to Catholicism, such as the two Javanese Muslims who ‘converted here, something which undoubtedly consoled me’, wrote Luís Fróis, ‘when I remembered the price of the most precious blood with which they were redeemed’.28 Other Jesuits refer to questioning slaves from other parts of Southeast Asia in order to learn about their homeland. Baltasar Dias explains that his understanding of Papuan society and culture is ‘according to the slaves we have amongst us’ and uses their testimony to assess Papuan conversion potential: ‘they would easily accept the faith, if we had workers for it.’29 Some Jesuits took slaves with them on mission. Ricci was accompanied at least on the early stages of his travels in China by two slaves who may have helped him as interpreters.30 Using slaves could be acceptable even to the ascetic priests who founded the MEP seminary in Siam. Several such missionaries refer to purchasing men or boys whom they used to learn Siamese, carry their equipment and generally act as menservants. For example Lambert purchased ‘two little Siamese boys’, lending one to Louis Laneau ‘for him to improve in the language of this country’.31 The Directors of the seminary in Paris recommended that such boys be released from their servitude upon reaching the age of twenty-five, and not retained in ‘perpetual slavery’. In contrast, François Pallu presents Antoine Hainques’s voyage into Cochinchina as being undertaken with greater than usual asceticism, partly because he did not take any type of servant with him: ‘he carried his bag with him, in which were the ornaments of the church, bread and wine for the Mass, and holy oils. He was alone without a servant, and without any acquaintance. It would be difficult to imagine a state more abandoned to divine Providence.’32 The French MEP missionaries in Ayutthaya were also probably also presented with slaves when Narai built them a church. For the Jesuits, in addition to authorizing and funding the construction of ecclesiastical buildings, the king gave

26 Aires Brandão to Jesuits of Coimbra, Goa, 23 December 1554, DI III: 180: ‘mandando a cada hum por si que dali por diante a só Deos conhecessem por Senhor.’ 27 Aires Brandão to Jesuits of Coimbra, Goa, 23 December 1554, DI III: 180–1; receiving instruction in Malacca: Luís Frois to Jesuits in Goa, Malacca, 1 December 1555, DI III: 314. 28 Luís Frois to Jesuits in Goa, Malacca, 1 December 1555, DI III: 315: ‘dous moços jaos, mouros de naçam’ ‘se converteram aqui, cousa que sem duvida muito me consola, quando me lembra o preço de tam precioso samgue con que forem resgatados’. 29 Carta do Padre Baltasar Dias a seus confrades de Portugal. Malacca, 19 November 1556, ABS I: 254 : ‘segundo os escravos que qua ha entre nos,’ ‘facilmente tomarião a fee, se ouvesse obreiros della’. 30 Spence, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci, 209. See Ricci, Storia dell’introduzione dell Cristianesimo in Cina, I: 246 on how ‘black’ slaves from India frightened local villagers. 31 Pallu, Relation abregée des missions, 44: ‘deux petits garçons de Siam’ ‘pour le perfectionner en la langue de ce Pays’. 32 Pallu, Relation abregée des missions, 27: ‘il portoit son sac avec luy, où estoient les ornemens d’Eglise, du pain & du vin pour l’usage de la Messe, & les saintes Huiles; il estoit seul sans serviteur & sans aucune connoissance: il seroit difficile de se figurer un estat plus abandonné à la divine Providence’.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

185

the use of ‘one hundred captive slaves’.33 Slaves were important signs of patronage and diplomatic gifts in Siam.34 It was also common to provide honoured guests in the capital with a retinue. The precise status of these servants in Thai terms is hard to ascertain, but European accounts often refer to them as ‘slaves’. Chevalier de Forbin, second ambassador to Siam, bitterly sketches the poor lodging he was given in Louvo, which contrasts to the generous provision of servants to mark the prestige of the guests: ‘the king had me given a very small house; they put there thirty-six slaves to serve me and two elephants.’35 Gifts of slaves were also made to members of the French embassy in 1685. The Abbé de Choisy wrote that just before the departure of the delegation, personal gifts arrived from Constance Phaulkon: ‘M. Constance has just again sent the ambassador a present in his name: a little slave to make into a Christian. . . . He also sent me a little slave.’36 De Choisy’s slave was baptized as François Lin in 1687 at Saint Sulpice in Paris, but little is known of his fate after this point.37 Forbin also took a slave back to France, and refers to him as ‘a little Siamese slave that never wanted to leave me’.38 Gifts of slaves between the Siamese royal family and nobility were also marks of patronage and fealty. On their way back to Siam from France, the Siamese ambassadors purchased two ‘Tarisbos’ couples from the mountains of Madagascar to present to the queen.39 When Buddhist temples were built, slaves were frequently given as a part of the foundation.40 These individuals, in the use to which they were put (mainly producing food for the monks), the fact that an institution owned them, and in the relative harshness of their servitude bore striking similarities to the servi ecclesiae of the early church.41 Of course the existence of temple slaves does not necessarily mean that other religious foundations in Buddhist lands would be automatically endowed in the same way, but the custom makes it possible. There was an interesting case of a missionary using this custom across the border in Burma. 33 Francisco Barreto da Pina, ‘Relaçam uerdadeira de Morte de Rey de Siam’, HAG 64 Monções do Reino, 55B, f. 442r: ‘[o] Rey de Siam o qual deu de merce aos Pes da Compa sem escrauos captiuos’. 34 Turton, ‘Thai institutions of slavery’, 257; Quaritch Wales, Ancient Siamese government and administration, 60. Cf. similar customs in Vietnam: gifts of slave and free women to allies as diplomatic gifts by Tonkin—Goscha, ‘La présence vietnamienne’, 220 and n. 35; and Malacca: Matheson and Hooker, ‘Slavery in the Malay texts’, 199. 35 Forbin, Le voyage du comte de Forbin, 31: ‘le roi me fit donner une maison fort petite; on y mit trente-six esclaves pour me servir, et deux éléphants’. 36 Choisy, Journal, 14 December 1685: ‘M. Constance vient encore d’envoyer à M. l’ambassadeur un présent en son nom: c’est un petit esclave pour en faire un chrétien . . . Il m’a aussi envoyé un petit esclave’. 37 On the baptism of Lin and other Siamese boys sent to France with the embassy see Mathorez, Les étrangers en France, I: 378–9. 38 Forbin, Le voyage du comte de Forbin, 134: ‘un petit esclave siamois qui n’avait jamais voulu me quitter’. 39 Choisy, Lettre envoyé à monsieur l’abbé Marinet (pamphlet), 3. 40 Turton, ‘Thai institutions of slavery’, 258–60. Note there was also a category of freemen patrons attatched to temples—phrai wat/khun khon. Nunbhakdi, ‘Étude sur le système de sakdina’, 466. 41 See Fabbrini, La manumissio in ecclesia, 7–9, 237–8. These servi ecclesia in turn were similar to the temple slaves in ancient Israel. See Byron, Slavery metaphors in early Judaism and Pauline Christianity, 38.

186

Converts to Christianity

Jesuit Simon Rodrigues requested that the king grant him his entire Christian flock as ‘temple slaves’ to go with the allowance of land made for a church.42 It was clear that slaves were employed by the Missions Étrangères in many domestic tasks. A guide for superiors of the seminary offers detailed instructions for employing and managing servants, ‘either slave or free’. The guide echoes a common complaint about the unreliability of servants in the Indies: ‘it is an unfortunate necessity to be obliged to always maintain a great number of them here for the confusion and disorder which is almost inevitable amongst this sort of person.’43 However, servants brought from France could also be problematic and have to be carefully chosen If you wish to bring some lay Frenchmen, you must take good care that they are well trained, and hope to live always in the missions, otherwise you will have great trouble, and in the end they will marry and leave you and cost you even more to send them back, if they do not otherwise commit some scandal.44

Even if free, servants and helpers are potential sources of disorder and need to be kept in line. Superiors should turn to the scriptural wisdom of the Liber Ecclesiasticus for time honoured advice: To be well served, particularly by slaves and hirelings, it is necessary to follow three pieces of advice which the wise man has taught us. ‘Fodder and a wand and a burden are for an ass; bread, discipline and work for a slave. He works under correction and seeks to rest, let his hands be idle and he seeks freedom. The yoke and whip bend a stiff neck, and constant work bows a slave. (and then) Send him to work so he is not idle, for idleness has taught much evil. Set him to work as that is fitting for him. But if he does not obey, make him yield with shackles.’45

Badges of servitude—whips and chains, which establish a link between slave and beasts of burden—are also badges of wickedness proper to the disobedient and unsubmissive. Superiors also sought to legislate against other abuses. A general instruction by Jesuit Visitor Nicolò Pimento ordains that ‘the house’s slaves should not wash the 42

See Lach, Asia in the making, III: 1136. ‘Advis pour le Gouvernemt du Seminaire de Siam’, AMEP 129, f. 256 : ‘soit esclaue, soit libre’ ‘C’est une fascheuse necessité d’estre obligez d’y en entretenir touiours un grand nombre pour la confusion et le desordre qui est pres qu’ineuitable parmy cette sorte de personnes’. 44 Langlois, 1674 ‘Avis aux missionnaires qui doivent allerà Siam’, AMEP 856, f. 314 : ‘Si vous voulex amener quelques françois laicques, il faut bien prendre garde qu’ils soient bien morigerez et auec esperence de demeurer tousjours dans les missions, sinon ils vous donneront de tres grandes peines, et a la fin se marieront & vous quitteront & il vous coustera encore beaucoup pour les renuoyer, pourueu qu’encore ils ne commettent pas quelque Scandale’. 45 ‘Advis pour le Gouvernemt du Seminaire de Siam’, AMEP 129, f. 257: ‘Pour estre bien serui, nommement des esclaues et mercenaires, il faut necessairement garder trois aduis que le sage nous enseigne. Cibaria et virga, et onus asino, panis, et disciplina, et opus seruo. Operatur in disciplina, et quærit requiescere, laxa manus illi, et quærit libertatem. Iugum et lorum curuant collum durum, et seruunt inclinant operationes assiduæ. (et puis, apres = Mitte illum in operationem ne vacet; multam enim malitiam docuit otiositas. In opere constitue illum. Sic enim condecet illum. Quod si non obaudiuerit curua illum compedibus’. ‘Mercenaires’ here means ‘hired hand’. Liber Ecclesiasticus also known as the book of Sirach. This quote is from book 33, 25–30. Note he omits ‘servo malivolo tortura et conpedes’ (torture and shackles are for a wicked slave- v. 28), perhaps thinking this goes too far? 43

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

187

feet of the fathers and brothers . . . but it is enough that they bring the necessaries to a convenient place for the fathers and brothers to wash them themselves’.46 We begin to see how slaves could be connected with practices unsuitable for men of the cloth. THE DANGERS OF SERVILITY AND MINISTRY TO SLAVES There were various stereotypes of ‘the slave’ which could draw on ethnic identities (as a ‘barbarian’ or ‘outsider’) but could equally stress the debasing nature of the social condition of servitude. Slaves were deemed to be lazy, devious, concupiscent, immoral, and potentially internal enemies within the household, whatever their ethnic background.47 Such imagery fed into stock characters used by classical authors and provided an occasion to set into relief a ‘good’ slave as a noteworthy dramatic persona.48 These classical axioms passed into proverb in many European cultures; similar negative connotations could also attach themselves to servants and bondsmen.49 Describing someone as a slave could be as insulting as racially charged epithets. Thus Jesuit Nicolo Lancillotto recommended that Portuguese boys should not be admitted to the Society’s college in Goa, as they would tease and bully the other (nonEuropean) boys, saying, ‘You are black and I white, you are a captive and I freeborn.’50 Such linguistic subjugation was not limited to Europe. One decree in Siam, for example, established a fine for those who insulted others by calling them ‘slaves’, even if it were true.51 Indeed many synonyms for ‘slave’ or even ‘servant’ in various European languages could be used as insults and many were belittling even in their primary meaning. The Spanish or Portuguese bicho, for example, could mean ‘drudge’ but also ‘worm’ or, in the term mau bicho, a thoroughly nasty piece of work The need to convert and baptize slaves raised increasingly complex logistical and even diplomatic issues as the Portuguese slave trade increased. From 1516 the baptism of newly imported slaves in Lisbon was the responsibility of the Order of Christ, through their church Nossa Senhora da Conceição.52 Owners shared some

46 ARSI Fondo Gesuitico 721/II/3/3 f. 24v: ‘Os mocos de casa não lauem os pés aos nossos padres and irmãos . . . , mas bastava trazerselhes o necessario pera isso a lugar conuiniento pa elles mesmos se lauarem’. 47 See e.g. Vogt on ‘slave’ as term of abuse, Ancient slavery and the ideal of man, 129–39 and143; Garnsey on trope of vicious slave in Stoic writing, Ideas of slavery, 18; Finley, on negative images of disloyal slaves in classical literature Ancient slavery and modern ideology, 104–5. Harris, Slave of Christ, 43, 134–8; Wiedemann on the ‘conceptual inferiority’ of slaves, Slavery, 25. 48 Vogt, Ancient slavery and the ideal of man, 134; Kidd, The forging of races, 54–5; 77; See also Carneiro, Preconceito racial em Portugal e Brasil on importance of broader ideas of blood purity to the creation of racist ideologies. 49 Anderson, A place in the story, 51–61, for example, considers the ‘indignity’ of service, drawing examples from depictions of servants in Shakespeare. 50 Nicolaus Lancillottus to Ignatio de Loyola, Goa, 5 November 1546, DI I: 142 : ‘Tu es niger et ego albus, tu es captivus et ego ingenuus’. 51 Lingat, L’esclavage privé, 161 and n. 1. 52 Quenum, Les églises chrétiennes et la traite atlantique, 102.

188

Converts to Christianity

of the responsibility for catechizing their slaves at a basic level, being required in Goa, for example, to teach them the Pater noster and Ave Maria.53 However, missionary orders slowly began to involve themselves in evangelizing at slave markets and other holding points in Africa, Asia and the New World. Sea voyages also provided opportunities for such evangelical work. Ships transporting missionaries from Europe frequently stopped in Mozambique to purchase men and women: some missionary accounts relate attempts made to convert this captive audience. The ship bearing Matteo Ricci, for example, took on three or four hundred slaves, whom he and his colleagues prevailed upon to convert. Muslim slaves were made to demonstrate their conversion by spitting on the name of Muhammad.54 Tensions often developed between commercial and religious imperatives. Again the question arose, were the mass baptisms hastily arranged before slave ships sailed legitimate?55 Advice given by Franciscan Juan Focher in his early missionary manual suggested that slaves may need an even longer period of catechism before baptism to ensure pernicious customs (especially concubinage and polygamy) had been abjured.56 Should Christian slaves be allowed to remain in the hands of nonChristian masters if the alternative was to antagonize neighbours and merchants by their confiscation?57 The ruling by Viceroy Constantino de Bragança (1558–61), that Christian slaves from Portuguese-controlled territory should be freed, made the issue of conversion especially fraught.58 How was the missionary to ascertain the true intentions of a potential neophyte? Did he seek the liberation of Christ, or merely earthly emancipation? In Malacca this was a particular problem: it was necessary to ensure that converted slaves would not abscond, join the enemy then apostatize.59 While women and children could easily be baptized, adult male slaves had first to be examined by the bishop to ascertain their true intentions.60 On the other hand, however, some masters prevented their slaves from being baptized as this could devalue them.61 The Third Council of Goa established fines for owners who failed to baptize willing adult slaves within six months or children within one month.62 Missionaries in Portuguese Malacca had the advantage over their confreres outside the colonies as they could easily organize public preaching and processions. 53 See order given by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1513, which also obliged moradores to teach their wives the same things. Silva Rego, DI I: 178–9. 54 Spence, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci, 79. 55 See also Marzal, ‘La evangelización de los negros americanos’, 36–8 on debates in Spanish America. 56 Focher, Itinerarium Catholicum, 33v–4r (see ‘De servis sive negris nondum baptisatis debite baptizandis’). 57 No non-Christian to own Christian slaves: BP Appendix I: 10; see also documents of Pai dos Christãos, Wicki (ed.), Livro do Pai, 18–19, 32, 81–3, 86–9; problem this posed for commercial interests (‘perjuizo dos mercadores’) recognized, 89. 58 Thomaz, ‘A escravatura em Malaca’, 294–6. 59 See discussion in Decreto 20 of Third Council of Goa (1585). BP Appendix I: 69–70. 60 Decrees of First Goa Council (1567) BP Appendix I: 10–11. Discussed by Thomaz, ‘A escravatura em Malaca’, 294–6. 61 e.g. because of the potential enforcement of restrictions on selling them to non-Christians. 62 BP Appendix I: 72.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

189

Jesuits, following the lead of Xavier, arranged processions of slaves and children to march around the city singing, banging on drums and cymbals and reciting the catechism, ending in the church for instruction.63 Jesuit Melchior Nuñez in Malacca also went to the bazaar ‘where the slaves are gathered together’: ‘I even went at night to teach them for some time Christian doctrine.’64 Augustinian Felix de Jesus similarly describes the successes his order had in Malacca preaching in Malay. ‘Here, as well as confessing and praying, we convert many Malays . . . principally those who are bought by the Portuguese from the Javan islands, Malacca and the Moluccas.’65 Slaves received the sacraments of the church, but there was some anxiety over ensuring they had the ‘necessary capacity to receive so elevated and most divine sacrament’ of the Eucharist.66 Slaves were to be admitted to the sacrament only with a ‘chit from the confessor to whom they confess, which declares them capable of communion.’67 On the other hand, missionaries faced the problem of masters restricting slaves’ access to the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and marriage.68 Despite measures taken by the Councils of Goa to prevent this abuse, the situation continued, leading some to blame Portuguese losses to the Dutch in the seventeenth century on the impious intransigence of those who came between their slaves and God.69 Missionary accounts, trial records, and literature make it clear that slaves and even servants presented other pastoral problems: they could be a vector by which sin entered the community.70 It could be that servility itself depressed the spirit. Various early modern authors played with this concept as an axiom which could underpin satirical and paradoxical considerations of contemporary society. Rabelais’s description of the utopian Abbey de Thélème, for example, plays with 63 Numerous letters describe this, e.g. ‘Carta do Padre Baltasar Dias a seus confrades de Portugal. Malacca, 19 November 1556’, ABS I: 241; ‘Carta do Padre Baltasar Dias ao Provincial da Companhia doutor Miguel Torres. Malacca, 1 December 1559’ ABS I: 342. 64 ‘D’vna lettera di Lvgi [sic] Frois scritta in Malacca al primo di decembre 1555 al Collegio della Compagnia di IESV, in Goa’, in Avisi particolari del avmento che iddio da alla sua Chiesa Catholica nell’Indie, et spetialmëte nelli regni di Giappõ, cõ ïformatione della China, riceuti dalli Padri della Campagnia di IESV questo anno del 1558 (Rome: Casa della Compagnia de Jesu, 1558) (n.p.): ‘dove se radunano i schiavi’; ‘vado anche di notte ad insegnarli per vn pezzo la dottrina christiana’. 65 Felix de Jesus, ‘Primeira parte da Chronica E relação do prinçipio que teue a congregação da ordem de S. Augto nas Indias Orientais’, ANTT, Manus. Liv. liv 731, f. 18v: ‘Aqui alem de comfessarmos, e pregarmos, se comverte’ muitos Malayos . . . principal mte os q ue˜ comprados pellos Portugueses das Ilhas de Jaoa, Malaca, e Maluco’. Cf. problems of confession due to language difficulties discussed by Alonso de Sandoval: Marzal, ‘La evangelización de los negros americanos’, 34. 66 Decrees of the Third Council of Goa, 1585. BP Appendix I: 79. 67 BP Appendix I: 80: ‘capacidad necessaria para receber tão alto e divinissimo Sacramento’, ‘escripto do confessor, a quem se confessarão, en que declarem serem capazes para commungar’. Reiterated by decrees of Fourth Council: BP Appendix I: 102. 68 Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 104. 69 Decrees of Fourth Council: excommunication for those preventing their slaves accessing the sacraments or splitting up married couples BP Appendix I: 102. Theatine Antonio Ardizone Spinola preached in Goa and Lisbon, blaming the losses suffered to the Dutch on Portuguese masters preventing their slaves from receiving communion. See Winius, ‘Millenarianism and Empire’, 44–5. 70 On trial records: Mott, O sexo proibido, ch. 1; Pieroni, ‘Les inquisiteurs ont-ils aussi bani des esclaves?’, 185–7; Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 158–64.

190

Converts to Christianity

concepts of freedom, will and governance. The Abbey inverts all the usual features of the ideal convent (no walls, no Hours, inverted Vows) and the sole rule is ‘Do what you will’. Because free people, well born, well instructed, keeping good company, have by nature an instinct and a stimulus which always pushes them to virtuous acts and to withdraw from vice, which they call honour. Those who by a vile subjection and constraint are depressed and enslaved, divert the noble inclination which tends them exclusively towards virtue, to depose and disobey that yoke of servitude, as we always undertake forbidden things, and covet that which is denied to us. 71

The images were humorous and arresting, and his application of such themes to the convent context was provocative, but the sentiment which Rabelais expressed was not original. Many other authors had considered how servility laid the individual open to moral weakness as there were few opportunities for the slave to learn to be good. So much had been asserted by, for example, St John Chysostom: For both amongst themselves, and everywhere, it is admitted that the race of slaves is passionate, not open to impression, intractable, and not very apt to receive instruction in virtue not from their nature, God forbid, but from their ill breeding, and the neglect of their masters. . . . it is difficult for any slave to be good, especially when they have not the benefit of instruction either from those outside or from ourselves. They do not converse with free men of orderly conduct, who have a great regard for their reputation. For all these reasons it is a difficult and surprising thing that there should ever be a good slave.72

Moreover harsh treatment could lead the slave to commit sins of despair, immorality and even apostasy. Christians who had been taken captive and reduced into slavery by Turkish or Moorish pirates were considered particularly at risk: ‘there are none who are so malnourished, poorly clothed, poorly housed, badly treated, and above all that, under a continual temptation to become Turks [i.e. to convert to Islam] as the only means they have to free themselves.’73 These slaves faced two dangers which had the same outcome. The first was that their will would be broken and they would be forced through violence and fear to commit carnal sins or apostatize.74 The second was that they would be seduced into the sins of sodomy or apostasy through more insidious persuasion.75 71 Rabelais, L’Abbaye de Thélème, 23–4: ‘Fay ce que vouldras’, ‘parce que gens liberes, bien nez, bien instruictez, conversans en compaignes honnestes, ont par nature un instinct et aguillon qui tousjours les poulse à faictz vertueux et retire de vice, lequel ils nommoient honneur. Iceulx, quand par vile subjection et contraincte sont deprimez et asserviz, detournent la noble affection, par laquelle à vertuz franchement tendoient, à déposer et enfraindre ce joug de servitude; car nous entreprenons tousjours choses defendues et convoitons ce que nous est denié’. 72 From Homilies on Titus, cited by Garnsey, Ideas of slavery, 71–2. 73 Manuscript Relation of 1671 cited by Dutilleul, ‘Esclavage’, 484: ‘il n’y en a point qui soient si mal nourris, si mal vêtus, si mal couchés, si mal traités et par dessus cela, tous dans une tentation continuelle de se faire Turcs comme le seul moyen qu’ils ont de s’affranchir.’ 74 On medieval descriptions of dangers of apostasy due to despondency, see Brodman, Ransoming captives in crusader Spain, 6. Similar concerns expressed by Portuguese authorities: petition from the Pai dos Cristãos 1658, in Wicki, Livro do Pai, 268–9. 75 See Davis Christian slaves, Muslim masters for a discussion of Alfonso Dominici’sTrattato delle miserie (1647) and the supposed connection between sodomy and apostasy.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

191

On the other hand, those who bore their captivity and enslavement with fortitude could be compared to the martyrs, as they had overcome tremendous odds to profess their faith. Competing for financial support in Europe with the Trinitarians and Mercedarians who organized lavish ceremonies to display their redeemed slaves, some missionaries in Europe made direct comparisons between their own missions and the redemption of captives. You who consider yourselves blessed if you can free a poor Christian from slavery, will you be heartless when it is suggested to you to draw out of the slavery of the Demon not a single man, but cities, provinces, and entire kingdoms? Find me if you can a more efficacious manner to redeem your sins. [..] Blessed you will be if the Lord deigns to use you for such a holy design.76

Missionaries in Southeast Asia only occasionally bought Christian slaves back from their Muslim or ‘pagan’ masters. For example friars on Ternate saved several Christian slaves from being forced to apostatize by the king. Interestingly though, these redeemed captives were then sold on by the friars to ‘the Moors of Banda’, despite strict injunctions against selling Christians to non-Christians.77 Following the defeat of Malacca by the Dutch and the Sultan of Johor in 1641, a number of Malaccan citizens were claimed as war captives and carried back to Johor. Jesuits Mesquita and Henriques visited many in the 1650s. They reported unsuccessfully attempting to buy back some Catholic children, but had slightly more success persuading merchants to purchase older captives. It is unclear whether these individuals were then granted their complete freedom, or remained bound to their new Christian masters.78 Some non-Christian captives also approached these Jesuits, often showing an awareness of how to frame their petitions for redemption in language which would appeal to the priests. Thus one slave woman in Johor approached Mesquita and pleaded that he redeem her in order to save her soul. As he was considering her case he was informed that she was not a Christian. She countered this by throwing herself at his feet, asserting that she had always longed for baptism. He borrowed 600 palacas in order to buy her and sent her to his confreres in Malacca who sought alms to pay back the loan and arranged for her instruction.79 With Christian slave owners there was a further element of harm occasioned to the master’s soul when he committed acts of brutality and even murder: many writers warned that poor treatment of slaves was itself a sin.80 Jean Mocquet alleged 76 ‘Disegno dello stabilimento d’un seminario per la propagazione della fede nell’oriente sotta la protezzione di san Francesco Xaverio Apostolo dell’Indie: Introductione’ 1680s?, ARSI JapSin 78, ff. 8v–9r: ‘Voi vi stimereste fortunati se poteste liberare dalla schiavitudine un povero Cristiano: sarete voi insensibili, quando vi vien proposto di ritirare dalla schiavitudine del Demonio non gia un sol’ uomo, ma le Citta`, le prouincie, et i Regni intieri. Trouvatemi se potete un mezzo piu` efficace per redimere i vostri peccati? . . . Fortunati voi se il Signore si degna servirsi di voi per un disegno si santo.’ 77 Reported by Pedro Mascarenhas to P. Provincial Moluccas, 1562, cited by Villiers, ‘Trade and society in the Banda Islands in the sixteenth century’, 729. 78 ‘Relação da Nova Missão q’ fizerão os PP Pero de Mesquita e Mel Henriques mandados do Collode Macao a Cide e fortaleza de Malaca em 651’, BA, JnÁ, 49-IV-52, ff. 19v–20r. 79 BA, JnÁ, 49-IV-52, ff. 21r–v. 80 See Castro, ‘Schiavitú e «Captivitas»’, 1039–58.

192

Converts to Christianity

that the poor treatment Portuguese prisoners of war received at the hands of the king of Siam was because ‘they themselves use the same treatment towards their captives’.81 Mocquet reported the sad fate of a man, tied ‘like a beast against a ladder, and given so many blows from a cane that he was left all crushed and broken’. The Portuguese, he asserted, ‘will acquire a great reputation of making good Christians in this manner: because having baptized their slaves, they make them die miserably like this. Also the Japanese recognise their lechery and their insatiable greed . . . This is perhaps one of the reasons they martyred so many poor Jesuit fathers who were innocent of that.’ 82 In 1599 a royal decree ordered annual judicial enquiries in all Portuguese dominions into the ‘cruel tortures’ and murder of slaves by their masters, ‘who try to hide such evil deeds by burying the victims inside the houses and compounds’.83 Seven years later the Provincial Council of Goa declared a sentence of excommunication on those who tortured their slaves.84 Yet an Italian priest in Goa made similar complaints to the Propaganda in 1663 concerning the tortures suffered by slaves, of a severity ‘which the tyrants never used against the martyrs’.85 Pai dos Cristãos Ignacio Martins also requested further intervention by the crown in 1696, against ‘the rigor with which masters treat their slaves’.86 Missionaries did not escape criticism: ‘Ecclesiastics use slaves, and because many of them are of a bad nature, they are forced to punish them harshly,’ declared one account concerning the West Indies, ‘and the slaves through melancholy or anger poison or drown themselves, or not eating they die of hunger, due to which many fear that these ecclesiastics become irregular, for being the near cause of the death of these poor slaves.’87

81 Mocquet, Voyage à Mozambique & Goa, 130–1. These prisoners-of-war were mercenaries captured during the wars with Cambodia and Burma. Mocquet was a royal physician and collector for the king, and travelled widely in Asia and Africa at the beginning of the 17th cent. 82 Mocquet, Voyage à Mozambique & Goa, 131–2: ‘comme une bête contre un escalier et lui donnait tant de coups de bâton qu’il le rendait tout moulu et brisé.’ ‘acquirèrent beaucoup de réputation à faire de bons chrétiens de la façon: car après avoir fait baptiser leurs esclaves, ils les font ainsi mourir misérablement. Aussi les Japonais reconnaissant leur lubricité et leur avarice insatiable, . . . c’est peut-être une des causes qu’ils ont martyrisé tant de pauvre pères jésuites qui étaient innocents de cela.’ 83 Cartas de Alforria aos Escravos 26 January 1599, quoted by Pinto, Slavery in Portuguese India, 56. See also ‘Alvará de Sua Magestade pera se devaçar das pesoas que são crueis com seus escravos; e se venderem os que são castigados cruelmente’, 26 January 1599 Wicki, Livro do Pai, 270–2. 84 1606. Pinto, Slavery in Portuguese India, 58. 85 Lubelli, ‘Racconto ò Relatione del P. Lubelli Chierico Regolare Missioanrio Apost.co nell’Indie Orientali’ 6 February 1663, APF SOCG 231, f. 231v: ‘che i Tiranni usorono mai contro de Martiri’. 86 ‘Carta de El-Rey Dom Pedro 2.o pera o Padre Pay dos christãos, Ignacio Martins, sobre a mayor estimação que se deve fazer dos christãos do que aos gentios, e sobre o rigor com que os senhores tratão os seus escravos’, 30 January 1698: reply to Martins’s letter of complaint of 15 December 1696 (lost), Wicki, Livro do Pai, 318–19: ‘o rigor com que os senhores tratão os seus escravos’. The Pai dos Christaõs was appointed to look after the interests of converts in Portuguese India. 87 ‘Disordini, et abusi, che occurrono nell’Indie Occidentali’, APF SOCG 192, f. 5r: ‘Gl’Eccles.ti si seruono di schiaui, e perche molti di q.ti sono di mala natura, sono sforzati à castigarli grauem.te e li d.i schiaui per malinconia, ò per rabbia s’auuelenano, ò s’affogano, ò non mangiando si moriono di fame; onde da molti si dubita, che q.ti Eccles.ti diventino irregolari per esser causa prossima della morte di

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

193

In the Philippines, high court judge Salvado Gómez de Espinoso y Estrada caused a scandal with his treatise excoriating the abuses of the regular clergy towards the Filipinos. They who should suffer for and serve others turned right order on its head and made their charges suffer unjust enslavement and brutality.88 Similar criticisms had been levelled against the mendicants in the Philippines throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, although rarely in such a public manner.89 Dominican and Franciscan authors condemned the work, presenting it as another demonically inspired version of the ‘Black Legend’ propagated by Spain’s enemies.90 Large slave retinues or excessive numbers of servants could suggest vanity and decadence. Jesuit Lancillotto declared that these vices were endemic across the Estado, as the Portuguese ‘plunge themselves without restraint into the vices and customs of the land’ for example in ‘this evil custom of droves of male and female slaves, like sheep, big and small’.91 The Missions Étrangères warned that the custom of having large retinues of slaves would be inappropriate for missionaries to emulate. Bourges cautioned that the chief dangers and temptations facing the unwary priest were idleness (oysiveté) and laxity (relâchement) and offered advice in order to escape these: When one is in the Indies it is good to think that one is entering a country where the air has a marvellous power to corrupt the spirit with the contagion of bad example. It is no less useful to accustom oneself early to eschew many things which usage has made common, like often taking baths, walking in the streets and visiting the nobles with an entourage of slaves, spending much time smoking tobacco to entertain oneself, taking at all times of the day tea with preserves, chewing at all times, like the seculars, the leaf or mixture of areca.92

Each recommendation seems specific enough to be drawn from observation: was he criticizing the practices of the Portuguese religious as well as their secular countrymen in Ayutthaya? Other commentators, who admittedly sometimes had their own axes to grind, made similar references to missionary decadence in Siam. Claude de quei poueri schiaui.’ Irregular in the sense that they would be disqualified from administering the sacraments. 88 Salvador Gómez de Espinoso y Estrada’s Discurso Parénetico (1657) and the responses to it are discussed in Cummins and Cushner, ‘Labor in the colonial Philippines’, 179–201. 89 See e.g. letter of Archbishop Fray Ignacio de Santabañez concerning Augustinian decadence and unruliness 1 November 1596 in Benitez Licuana and Llavador Mira (eds), The Philippines under Spain, 260–8. 90 Cummins and Cushner, ‘Labor in the colonial Philippines’, 193–5. 91 Nicolaus Lancillottus to Ignatius Loyola, Coulano, 5 December 1550, DI II: 130: ‘se lançam aos vicios e custumes da terra muy desemfreadamente’ ‘este mao custume de comprar manadas de escravos e escravas, asi como d’ovelhas, grandes e piquenas.’ 92 Bourges, Relation, 211–12: ‘dés qu’on entre aux Indes il est bon de penser qu’on entre dans un pays dont l’air a un merveilleux pouvoir pour corrompre les esprits, par la contagion du mauvais exemple, il n’est pas moins utile de s’accoustumer de bonne heure à se passer de beaucoup de choses que l’usage y a renduës communes, comme sont de prendre souvent les bains, marcher par les ruës aller chez les Grands avec suite d’esclaves, employer bien du temps à évaporer du tabac pour se des-ennuyer, prendre à diverses heures du iour le Thé avec des confitures, mascher à tous momens à la façon des seculiers la fueille ou composition d’Areca’, The last point refers to betel chewing, which was widespread and an important part of sociability.

194

Converts to Christianity

Forbin, for example, asserts that whilst the missionaries there were for the most part good men, they had embraced the easy life and ‘it is not surprising that in distant lands, left to themselves, they lose a little the taste for piety’.93 Slaves were seen as part of the riches of Orient, with all the opportunities and pitfalls this presented. Jesuit Baltasar Dias described the rich variety of goods which passed through Malacca, adding, ‘however much his city prospers, . . . in the business of men seeking their salvation and reaching for the treasures of glory, it is one of the poorest and least fruitful vines of the Church of God, because here, men totally live and govern themselves more through the appetite of their sensuality’.94 As Dias hinted, with such abundance came temptations. Lancillotto demonstrated how the abundance of slaves led to serious sin. One finds many, many who buy droves of girls and sleep with all of them, and then sell them. There are many, many casados who have four, eight, ten slaves and sleep with all of them, and this is publicly known. So much so, that there is one in Malacca who has twenty-four women of various races, all his captives, and uses them all.95

Merchants would even take their ‘beautiful girls’ (belichas moças) with them on business.96 Lancillotto recommended a general indulgence to wipe the slate clean and then stiff penalties for any man who succumbed to such temptations again: any man who knew his slave carnally should lose her and confessors, ‘under pain of major excommunication, will not knowingly absolve such men without him first setting that slave free, and if he has sold her, have him pay the money to the Misericórdia’.97 As an aside, it is noteworthy that Lancillotto’s discussions of the pernicious facets of slave ownership are sandwiched between two rhetorical uses of servitude. The infidels who await conversion, ‘in all their actions and works are captives of various superstitions’ whilst he himself is the ‘worthless slave of Your Reverence’ (Loyola).98 The old bawdy stereotype of the priest or friar becoming sexually involved with his slaves or servants also crept into some accounts, such as Deydier’s depiction of the ‘fugitive friar’, Franciscan Bernardo in Cochinchina.99 Amongst various other 93 Forbin, Le voyage du comte de Forbin à Siam, 97: ‘il n’est pas surprenant que dans des pays si éloignés, livrés à eux mêmes, . . . ils perdent peu à peu le goût de la piété’. 94 Carta do Padre Baltasar Dias a seus confrades de Portugal. Malacca, 19 November 1556, ABS, I: 237–8: ‘conquanto esta cidade prospera . . . no negocio de pretenderem os homens sua salvação e alcansarem os tizouos da gloria, he das mais pobres e infrutiferas vinhas da Igreja de Deus, porque qua, os homens, totalmente vivem e se governão mais pello apetite de sua sensualidade’. 95 DI II : 130: ‘acham-se muitos e muytos que compram manadas de mosas e dormem com todas elas e depois a[s] vendem; sam muytos e muitos casados que tem quatro, outo e dez escravas e dormem com todas, e se sabe isto publycamente. Hé tanto isto, que se achou hum em Malaqua que tinha vinte e quatro molheres de varias castas, todas suas cativas, e de todas husava’. 96 Decrees of Fourth Council of Goa: attempt to stop this practice by fining captains of any ships carrying slave women used in this way—BP Appendix I: 102. 97 DI II: 130–1: ‘sô pena d’escumunham maior que nam asolvesem os tais omens em consciemcia, sem primeiro pôr a tal escrava em sua liberdade e, se a tiver vemdida, fazer-lhe pagar ho dinheiro pera a Misericordia’. 98 DI II: 128 and 131: ‘Em todos seus autos e obras sam cativos de varias superestiçõis’, ‘Inutile servo de V.R.’ 99 On this theme in Portuguese plays e.g. O pranto do clérigo, see Tinharão, Os negros em Portugal, 234–6.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

195

‘horrible scandals’ committed, ‘he went as far as to take a wicked woman (une uillaine) as his cook, and to lodge next to a bordello to satisfy more easily his sensualities, on which he spent (a thing so horrible that I dare not say it) everything up to his own silver chalice’.100 The implication of what was going on between him and his cook is clear in her designation as ‘une vilaine’—with its multiple meanings of servitude and immorality—and the grouping of the two accusations.101 Some expressions for slaves in the language of each of our slave-owning societies equated the state of slavery with childhood—terms used for slaves, including fullgrown men included puer in Latin and moço in Portuguese.102 The connection between slaves and children (and women) is evident in the number of accounts from Malacca which discuss their evangelization together.103 Like children their will was subject to another, they could not make decisions for themselves and could easily be led astray. Thus the state of slavery had long been considered an impediment to ordination.104 The ordination of a slave could technically free him: one could not be fully a servant of God and a slave of man at the same time.105 However, restrictions on slave entry to religious orders and the priesthood were elaborated by various medieval canon jurists and in the customaries of many religious houses.106 Without legitimate emancipation, the ordination might be illicit.107 In practice servitude was an effective bar to even minor orders and auxiliary offices (such as serving at the altar) in our period.108 Incidentally, there was a similar restriction on slave entry into the Sangha in Siam: a slave must both obtain legal manumission and prove to the community that he had freed himself spiritually from the condition of slavery (phon thatpawa) before entry.109 SLAVES OF GOD The slave was at once an apt simile for the devout and a wildly inappropriate comparison. On a basic level, the positive attributes of a loyal slave—obedience, abnegation of one’s will, being outside earthly society, devotion to the master—can 100 François Deydier to PF, 9 October 1669 (copy) AMEP 650, f. 161: ‘horribles scandalles’, ‘il en arriua iusques a prendre une uillaine pour sa cuisiniere et a se loger aupres d’un bordel pour plus aysement satisfaire a ses sensualitez a quoy il consomme (chose si horrible que ie ne l’ose dire) iusque a son propre Calice d’argent’. 101 Cf. the similar meanings of the English villeine, or villain, a position of feudal servitude, but also a base and wicked person. 102 Or, of course, the female equivalents, puella and moça. On Latin usage see Finley, Ancient slavery and modern ideology, 96. Cf. in Southeast Asian languages: Reid, ‘Introduction: slavery and bondage’, 9. 103 Cf. Briggs, Communities of belief, 246–52 on evangelization of women and children in Europe. 104 Summa Theologia: Impediments to sacraments (Supplementum Q 39, Art. 3); Tamburrino, ‘Impedimenti all’ingresso in religione’, 1657–8. 105 Practicalities of such manumission were discussed at Council of Orléans (511)—see Marsot, ‘Esclavage: Droit canonique’, 421. 106 See Castro, ‘Schiavitù’, 1043. 107 Marsot, ‘Esclavage: droit canonique’, 421. 108 Decrees of Fourth Council of Goa: banning slaves from serving as a treasurer or in any holy office, or serving at the altar, BP Appendix I: 101. 109 Turton, ‘Thai institutions of slavery’, 288–90.

196

Converts to Christianity

describe an individual’s obedience to God and singular application to his work.110 Vitæ of religious, secular clergy and pious laymen and women may use the formulation ‘servant’ of God, Mary, the church: the nuns in the first history of the Augustinian convent of St Monica in Goa are without exception entitled serva de Jesus Christo or serva de Deos; Luis Fróis frequently signs off as a ‘worthless slave of all’ (servo inutil de todos); André the catechist and Jesuit missionary Giulio Margico were both serviteurs de Dieu on account of their devotion to God’s work.111 On the whole these uses serve to emphasise the obedience, dedication and self-abnegation of the subject. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw an increase in the use of the complex trope of slavery in spiritual writing and devotions. Confraternities devoted to slavery to Christ or Mary, and works recommending the devotions to a wider readership spread from Spain across Europe; members of royal families, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and religious orders numbered amongst the adherents.112 François Pallu became interested in holy slavery through his connections with the Oratory and with Jesuits such as Jean Bagot who, along with cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, promoted the devotion in France. Pallu also defended Henri-Marie Boudon’s Le saint esclavage de l’Admirable Mère de Dieu when its orthodoxy was challenged.113 As slaves of God, missionaries declare themselves to be no more than tools, following Aristotle’s classification of slaves as organon.114 The conscientious declared themselves to deserve no praise, as St Luke admonished the Apostles: One cannot claim any thanks or rewards for this service, as the comparison with the slave’s reward shows: And for you, when you have done all that was commanded of you, are to say ‘We are your slaves, and worthless; it is our duty to do what we have done.’115

The true slave gave total submission and obedience to Christ. Laneau in his Divinisation par Jesus Christ, asserted, In the scriptures, we would not be so often called slaves of Christ if it was not imposed upon us like an ineluctable law to obey Christ and his spirit. This is why the Apostle, who gloried to be the slave of Christ, said, ‘Now, prisoner of the Spirit, here I am on my way to Jerusalem and I know not what will be my fate’. This true slave of Christ had delivered to Him his deeds of ownership, not partially, as many amongst us do, but entirely, over his body and soul: he no longer cared about himself.116 110 Cf. Vogt on the good slave in the parables: ‘The faithful slave’ in his Ancient slavery and the ideal of man, 143–4. 111 Santa Maria, Historia da fundação; Fróis to Rome, Malacca 15 December 1555, DI III: 365; Rhodes, Divers voyages, 185 and 43. 112 Boudon, Dieu seul. Le saint esclavage de l’admirable mère de Dieu, chs 1–4. Koehler, ‘Servitude (Saint Esclavage)’, 732–45. 113 Koehler, ‘Servitude (Saint Esclavage)’, 738–42; Guennou, ‘Monseigneur Pallu et la Sainte Vierge’, 433–8. On Henri-Marie Boudon (1624–1702), see Pourrat, ‘Boudon’, 193–4. Jean Bagot established and acted as spiritual director to the Association des Amis sodality in Paris, to which the first members of the Missions Étrangères were connected. See Vaumas, L’éveil missionaire de la France, 368–9. 114 ‘Instruments’, in The politics and the constitution of Athens, quoted in Garnsey, Ideas of slavery 122. 115 Luke 17:10. 116 Laneau, La divinisation par Jésus-Christ, 141: ‘Dans les Ecritures, nous ne serions pas si souvent appelés esclaves de Christ s’il ne nous était pas imposé comme une loi inéluctable d’obéir au Christ et à

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

197

Christ was owed obedience as he had ‘bought’ each individual: ‘If we have been bought, in all justice we no longer belong to ourselves.’117 Conversely, the impious follow the example of the worthless, disobedient slave by refusing to bend their will to that of God, becoming enslaved instead by sin, superstition, and infidelity: no slave can serve two masters.118 The metaphor also applies to the missionary’s task of conversion. He must ‘liberate’ the non-Christian trapped in the slavery of a ‘false’ religion: ‘I have myself seen the afflictions of these unfortunate peoples who live the miserable infidels’ life of slavery’ recounts one Jesuit in a typical appeal for funds to build a seminary. ‘I heard their groans, I was moved with compassion, and there are no hearts so hard that they would not be pierced.’119 Yet liberation was achieved by ‘reduction’, ‘subjection’, ‘submission’: ‘they submitted to the happy yoke of our Lord Jesus Christ.’120 The paradox of conversion is that the redemption purchased by Christ and accepted by the convert is a contract of subjugation: ‘The person who was free when called is a slave of Christ.’121 Moreover, missionaries and converts are not merely described as loyal servants in straightforward and positive terms. Franciscan Antonio de Santa Maria did not merely sign himself as the humble servant of the convent of the Poor Clares in Manila. He styles himself ‘this least drudge (bicho) in the margins or kitchen of this holy monastery’.122 Other accounts also develop the metaphor of the ‘indegno schiavo della Chiesa’, ‘escravo baixo de Jesus Christo’, ‘pauvre esclave de Notre Seigneur’ in ways which echo contemporary devotions and spiritual literature by emphasizing the negative connotations of the terms. Marks of subjugation became important themes in spiritual literature and pious practices. Just as slaves were sartorially distinct from the free population, poor son Esprit. C’est pourquoi l’apôtre qui se glorifiait d’être l’esclave du Christ, dit: « Maintenant, prisonnier de l’Esprit, me voici en route pour Jérusalemé je ne sais pas quel y sera mon sort » [Acts 20, 29].Ce vrai esclave du Christ Lui avait livré le droit de propriété, non pas à moitià comme plusieurs d’entre nous, mais en entier, sur son corps et sur son âme; il ne se souciait plus de lui-même’. 117 Laneau, La divinisation par Jésus-Christ, 141: ‘Si nous avons été achetés, en toute justice nous ne sommes plus à nous’. Citing 1 Corinthians 6: 20 and 1 Corinthians 3: 23. 118 Luke 16:13. Rhodes echoes this theme in his Vietnamese Catechism. Rhodes, ‘Catechismus’, in Phan, Mission and catechesis, 272. 119 ‘Disegno dello stabilimento d’un seminario per la propagazione della fede nell’oriente sotta la protezzione di san Francesco Xaverio Apostolo dell’Indie: Introductione’. ARSI JapSin 78, f. 5v: ‘Ho’visto ben’io l’afflizzione, di quei popoli sfortunati che passano una vita miserabile nella schiavitudine de gl’infideli’ ‘ho’intesi i loro gemiti, mi hanno commosso a’ compassione e non v’ e’ cuore tanto duro che non ne fosse pennetrato’, ‘Disegno dello stabilimento d’un seminario per la propagazione della fede nell’oriente sotta la protezzione di san Francesco Xaverio Apostolo dell’Indie: Introductione’. 120 Bourges, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Beryte, 195: ‘Ils se sont soûmis au joug aimable de Nostre Seigneur IESUS-CHRIST’. For the dual meaning of ‘yoke’ (collar for pulling the plough and symbolic doorway through which new slaves must pass as a sign of subjugation) see Lyall, Slaves, citizens, sons. Legal metaphors in the Epistles. 121 1 Cor. 7: 22. Willing submission and choosing one’s master was itself paradoxical: cf. juridicial status of slave in, for example Portuguese law: defined as one who cannot choose his own master. Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 114–15. 122 Antonio de Santa Maria to Melchona de la Trinidade OFClar., 1644?, ARSI JapSin 68, f. 49r:‘este menor bicho de la gueta o cocino de esse sancto monasterio’.

198

Converts to Christianity

clothing and rejection of footwear by religious orders signalled their commitment to poverty and service.123 More specifically the chains and even branding marks of slavery could be incorporated into devotions: from the fourteenth century, Spanish devotions made reference to the practice of branding runaway slaves on the forehead or face with the letter S and a nail (una S y un clavo—esclavo).124 Chains were used as insignia and instruments of devotion by some confraternities devoted to holy slavery until this usage was condemned as irregular by the Holy Office in 1673.125 Henri-Marie Boudon alleged that: ‘God’s spirit so strongly presses all sorts of persons to embrace [this devotion] that sometimes, as happened in Brussels in 1626, workers were hardly sufficient to make the chains with which these glorious captives loaded themselves.’126 Taking on the role of the spiritual slave was also a strategy of establishing authorial authority. A real slave’s word may require extra corroboration before a magistrate. Under Roman law slave testimony was only acceptable if it was obtained under torture.127 In Portugal, technically, like children, slaves had limited ability to testify in a court of law.128 We see slaves testifying before ecclesiastical courts, like ‘Luca’, described as ‘of Bengali race, slave of Pasquale da Costa’ in Malacca, who testified to a miraculous cure obtained through the intercession of Luís da Cruz during the 1622 beatification process. It was judged necessary, however, to have his master before the court to verify his evidence.129 Yet the word of a spiritual slave was given authority through his bondage. Hence one anonymous submission to the Propaganda Fide proclaimed itself to be an ‘Informative relation written by a worthless slave of the Holy Mother Church, Catholic, Roman and Apostolic’.130 Purporting to be an excoriating exposé of Portuguese crimes throughout the Padroado, the tract sets the spiritual authority of the author as a ‘slave of the Church’ in contrast to the sinful Jesuits whose subtlety and policies were drawn straight from ‘Tacitus and Machiavelli’, and whose aim was ‘to dominate in the shadow of the spiritual all the temporal’ at the cost of ruining the missions.131 The depths to which they had sunk is explored. Their 123 See Andaya, ‘The Portuguese tribe in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago’ on how clothing distinguished freemen from the ‘sea of slaves’ especially in Malacca, 130–48. 124 On such practices in Spain see Stella, ‘«Herrado en el rostro com una S y un clavo»: L’hommeanimal’. Devotions described by Koehler, ‘Servitude (saint esclavage)’, 731. On various practices of branding in Portugal see Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 118: usually for runaways, crown slaves, or Muslims. 125 Koehler, ‘Servitude (saint esclavage)’, 742. 126 Boudon, Dieu seul. Le saint esclavage de l’admirable mère de Dieu: ‘l’esprit de Dieu presse si fortement toute sorte de personnes de l’embrasser, que quelquefois, comme il arriva à Bruxelles l’an 1626, à peine les ouvriers peuvent suffire à faire les chaînes dont se chargent ces glorieux captifs’. 127 Buckland, The Roman Law of slavery, 86–8. 128 Saunders, A social history of black slaves, 116. 129 ASV Cong.Riti.Processus, 1647–1649, 1, ff. 212–13r: ‘Casta Bengalla. schiauo di Pasqual da Costa’. 130 ‘Relatione informatoria fatta per un indegno Schiauo della santa Madre Chiesa Catt.ca Romana, et Apostolica’, APF SOCG 191, Indie Orientali III, 1648, ff. 508–32. 131 ‘Relatione informatoria fatta per un indegno Schiauo della santa Madre Chiesa Catt.ca Romana, et Apostolica’, APF SOCG 191, Indie Orientali III, 1648, f. 508r: ‘di dominare all ombra della spirituale tutto il temporale’.

Freeing the Souls of Slaves

199

treatment of the Christians of Sant’Andrea and Porcà on the Coromandel coast ties in neatly with the author’s rhetorical theme: ‘This Christianity is populated by many fishermen and palm cultivators, who being free before conversion to our holy faith, afterwards remain slaves of these fine ministers.’132 Our ‘indegno schiavo’ diagnoses a canker which would slowly corrupt any missionary enterprise from within: the conversion of the missionary from a humble tool of God to a selfinterested, worldly slave of self interest. When such a conversion had occurred, he warns, there could be no hope that the missionary would promote the effective conversion of any region to the true faith.

132 APF SOCG 191, f. 519v: ‘questa Christianità è poplata di molti Pescatori, et Agricoltori de Palmari, che essendo liberi auanti della Conuersione della n’ra santa fede, dopò restano schiaui di questi buoni ministri’.

Conclusion Marini’s triumphal account of the Jesuit mission in Tonkin foretold the inevitable, imminent triumph of Catholicism in one corner of Southeast Asia: inevitable, as the Bible had promised that the word of God would be heard in the four corners of the world; imminent due to the diligence of the Jesuit priests and the divine favours shown to them and their converts in this fertile mission. Clowet’s frontispiece (Figure 1) reinforced the point that the subjugation of the rest of these ‘Indies’ to the law of the Christian God would soon follow. Furthermore, Southeast Asia would be a site of perfect conversion of missionary and neophyte alike. The figure of the Jesuit represented the ideal type of missionary and the lay people at his feet were exemplary converts. Marini had promised that the ‘new constellation’ placed in southern skies presaged the apotheosis of some such paragons: the most worthy would be granted the honour to die as martyrs for the faith.1 For the death and bodily torment of a missionary or convert spoke most eloquently of his or her true conversion—away from sin, heresy, self interest, towards God. There was no surer way, according to many missionary reports, of guaranteeing the ultimate success of the mission than such a performance of fidelity in a theatre of suffering. Reflecting on the persecutions in Faifo, Cochinchina in 1664, Louis Chevreuil recounts a story ‘that proves evidently that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians’.2 Despite a fearsome persecution which had already cost—according to his estimate—forty-three lives that year, Christians continued to attend church covertly. Moreover, Chevreuil relates, ten idolaters presented themselves to us, amongst whom was a man with a paralysed wife who he carried himself on his shoulders, and two little children, who came for baptism. As I wanted to test their faith, I asked them how they dared to embrace a Religion which was so persecuted, and of which the mere Profession was considered a crime worthy of death. They replied to me that it was for that very reason that they had wanted to become Christians, and that they would consider themselves very happy to give their blood for such a good cause.3

1

See Preface, xv–xvi; Introduction, 4–12. Relation des missions Français, 102: ‘qui prouve evidemment que le sang des Martyrs est la semence des Chrestiens’. 3 Relation des missions Français, 102. ‘il se presenta à nous dix Idolâtres pour estre instruits, entre lesquels il y en eut un qui ayant une femme paralytique, l’apporta luy seul sur ses épaules avec deux petits enfans pour recevoir le Baptesme. Comme je voulois éprouver leur Foy, je leur demanday comment ils osoient embrasser une Religion qui estoit si persecutée, & dont la seule Profession passoit pour un crime digne de mort, ils me répondirent que c’estoit pour cela mesme qu’ils avoient voulu se faire Chrestiens, & qu’ils s’estimeroient tres-heureux de donner leur sang pour une si juste cause.’ 2

Conclusion

201

Such deaths, then, boosted the mythic power of Catholicism amongst nonChristians. Martyrs’ blood converted the soil to hallowed ground; the seeds of the faith could not fail to set down enduring roots there. The martyr was relocated in history, removed from the anonymous march of time and placed amongst the pantheon of those who had died for the faith from the beginning of the Church. Southeast Asian Christians who died as martyrs would thus anchor the Church and its history in the land: they demonstrated the maturity and endurance of local Catholicism, tied now by blood to the earliest days of the faith. Martyrs’ deaths could also be used as an ultimate form of proof: the life and opinions of one who was chosen by God to die with such honour must surely be taken as exemplary. During mission-field conflicts and debates, the testimony of such witnesses must bear considerable weight. In January 1737 four European Jesuits—Vincente da Cunha (b.1708), Bartolomeu Álvarez (b.1706), Emmanuel de Abreu (b.1708), and Johann Caspar Kratz (b.1698)—joined the scores of lay men and women and several priests who had already been rewarded, as Marini had promised, with martyrdom. Their execution was represented in an engraving (Figure 10) published in a popular French series of Jesuit letters, the Lettres Édifiantes et Curieuses. The Jesuits in the engraving die serenely; sitting cross-legged, telling their rosaries, their necks fountain the blood which will grant further fertility to the land. The onlookers resemble the crowd in a Roman amphitheatre; the robes of some could even be taken for togas. The array of official spectators, and the pagoda-like dais upon which the officiants sit enthroned like Gods on an altar, suggest that this occasion is as significant to the Tonkinese as it is to the Jesuits. Through the publication of the image, the Jesuits of France would ensure that the testimony of these martyrs would echo in Europe, serving as triumphant proof of the heroism and rectitude of the missionaries of the Society. Like the frontispiece to Marini’s work, the engraving and the context of its production draw together many themes which have emerged in this volume concerning missionary practices and conversion to Christianity. The image of the execution can be read as the dark mirror to Marini’s frontispiece. This scene of death represents at once the culmination and triumph of the Jesuits’ mission as depicted in the Clowet allegory, and evidence to support all the claims that the latter image makes about the success, validity and perfection Jesuit methods. Dying as martyrs, they embody the ideal of exemplary missionaries. The imagery of the perfect missionary and the perfect convert was refined over the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The ideal missionary was persuasive and effective in his ministry, possessing the knowledge and skills necessary to embody the virtues of Christianity. Yet he was also humble: he surrendered himself entirely to divine will, shunned worldly means, and recognized that he was merely a simple tool through which God would operate. Ideal converts offered perfect obedience to the hierarchical church, as represented through its legitimate clergy. They were exemplary in their devotion to the sacraments and sacramentals of the church and possessed of a piety which allowed even the lowliest and most marginal to transcend the perceived meanness of their station.

202

Conclusion

Figure 10. The martyrdom of four Jesuits in Tonkin, 1737. From Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1780–83), vol. XVI, opposite p. 121. Engraved by Nicolas Ransonnette. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Réserve A 200 020.

Such fundamentals were widely agreed. Yet as we have seen, there could be intense disagreements over how missionaries and converts should perform in order to demonstrate that they fit these ideal stereotypes. A martyr’s death may be good evidence for the divine favour shown towards the mission and by extension the policies and behaviour of the missionaries there. But it was not incontrovertible. Not one of the four Jesuits in the engraving, nor any of those hundreds of men and women who died before and after them on these mission fields would officially be canonized until the 1980s. One the one hand this delay reflects the more cautious attitude of the Tridentine church towards ensuring rigour in the canonization

Conclusion

203

process. Yet discussion about these martyrdoms often also demonstrates how disputes between missionary groups influenced debates about sanctity and about sincerity of belief. Conflicts over jurisdiction and authority, and disagreements over the limits of licit adaptation could come to define the boundaries not only of ecclesiastical authority, but also of concepts of the sacred. As we saw in Part I, serious missionary conflicts often arose over jurisdiction. Like the Marini image, the engraving of the execution was published in a time of ongoing conflict over jurisdictional and organizational issues both in Europe and on the Southeast Asian missions. At the time these four Jesuits lost their lives, the mission fields of Tonkin were still riven by disputes between the missionary orders concerning jurisdiction, sacral authority and evangelic method. ‘To maintain the peace’, Dominican Father General Antonino Cloche had advised in 1713, all mission fields should ideally be clearly divided between the different orders, and each group forbidden from ‘going to establish themselves or even visiting or passing into a district assigned to another . . . without licence from the Vicars Apostolic and the consent of the missionaries of that district’.4 Such a recommendation—as we have seen—was not new, and reflected the frustration felt by many observers in Europe over the seemingly intractable conflicts between missionary groups in the region. To still the storm of missionary conflict, was this the only solution: to create separate missionary worlds, where each order could act out its own ideas of ideal evangelization? Militating against such a solution was the fear that certain missionary groups were not furthering the interests of the church, but were allowing heresies to flourish in the newly tilled mission fields. Conflicts over missionary methodologies, explored in Part II of this book, had at root a fundamental anxiety about the relationship between belief and practice. What impact would a sincere internal conversion have upon the behaviour of the convert? Missionaries in Southeast Asia, like their confreres in China and India, disagreed vehemently over this issue. They grappled with the problem of the legitimate extent of accommodation: how far missionaries and their converts could change the traditional behaviours and cultural accoutrements of Catholic belief and practice before orthodoxy was compromised and the convert ceased to deserve the title. Against Jesuit arguments for extensive cultural adaptation, the fruits of which had been celebrated in Marini’s account of Tonkin, other missionaries denounced many innovations as ‘contrary to the simplicity and purity of the True Religion’.5 Far from promoting true conversion in Southeast Asia, argued the Dominicans, the Jesuits had converted the religion, loaded it down with the weight of needless accretions which dragged potential converts into something approaching heresy.

4 Biblioteca Casanatense, MSS 3209, ff. 238v, 237r: ‘per mantenere la pace’, ‘andare à stabiliare ne tampoco à visitare ò scorrere nel distretto assegnato ad un altre . . . senza licenza de Vicarij Apostolici et il consenso de Missionarij di quel distretto’. 5 Memoria circa certi riti Tunchenesi, 3 (AUST, Seccion de Libros, tomo 8): ‘contrarie alla semplità e purità della vera Religione.’

204

Conclusion

By the time the engraving of the death of the four martyrs was circulating in France, it seemed as though the Jesuits had lost the argument. The papal bulls Ex Quo Singulari (1742) and Omnium Sollicitudinum (1744) reversed earlier decisions permitting converts in China, India, and in practice in some parts of Southeast Asia, to participate in a range of non-Christian rites. Henceforth the ideal behaviour of Catholic converts would be more closely modelled on European norms. Increasingly, it seemed as if support for certain accommodationist policies could be evidence of dangerous unorthodoxy. Contributors to the Jansenist Annales de la Société des Soi-Disans Jésuites—a compilation of feverish anti-Jesuit polemics—warn of the false sanctity of the Jesuits. The ‘evidence’ of their martyrs is dismissed: the only real martyrs in Japan, one article argues, had been the Franciscan friars who died sincerely for the faith. Conversely the Jesuits had participated in ceremonies spitting on and stamping on the cross: the only suffering they would have undergone for their beliefs would have been at the hands of the Inquisition, which should have condemned them justly to the flames for heresy. ‘Apologists for the mission and the missionaries of the Society, and you, who hold them as exemplary, this is the religion and the maxims of your saints, this is the cause of their martyrdom! But, you know, “It is not the punishment, but the cause, which makes the martyr”,’ the author warns.6 Like Marini’s work, this volume of the Annales also opens with a sign in the heavens: the falling star presaged by St John in his Revelation which opened the pits of hell and set loose a plague of locusts to torment the earth.7 The Jesuits might pretend that this prophecy referred to the plague of heresy unleashed by Luther and Calvin, but, we are told, really the character of the locust better fits the behaviour of the Jesuits.8 Their reach was global and the damage they could do unimaginable. Consider, we are invited, the Chinese missions. How can we examine the rites that they permitted to their converts and answer in the affirmative the question, ‘Is the God of the Christians the God of that Society of men, so-called of Jesus . . . ?’9 The polemics in this collection take the argument much further than do many critics of the Jesuits, but the contours of the criticism are similar. Not only Jesuit policies of accommodation but their motives and the orthodoxy of their faith are all challenged. Their evidence—of sincere converts and of martyrs’ blood—is dismissed as a charade. In the second half of the eighteenth century such calumnies would underpin the drive in many European countries—beginning with Portugal—to dissolve the Society of Jesus.10 Through the lens of Southeast Asia, this book has examined the conflicts and tensions which attended the conversion of early modern Catholicism into a global 6 Annales de la Société des Soi-Disans Jésuites, II: 765: ‘Apologistes des Missions & des Missionnaires de la Société, & vous, leurs Apothéotistes, voilà la Religion, les maximes de vos Saints, voilà la cause de leur Martyre ! mais, vous le sçavez, non pna, sed causa, facit Matyrem.’ 7 (Referring to Revelation 9: 1–6) Annales de la Société des Soi-Disans Jésuites, II: i–ii. 8 Annales de la Société des Soi-Disans Jésuites, II: ii. 9 Annales de la Société des Soi-Disans Jésuites, III: i: ‘Le Dieu des Chétiens est-il le Dieu de cette Société d’hommes, se disant de Jesus . . . ?’. 10 On the dissolution of the Jesuits see esp. Franco, O Mito.

Conclusion

205

religion. Part I uncovered the structures and networks erected and dismantled— often controversially—to promote and sustain the evangelic endeavour. Part II addressed the missionary tactics employed to persuade target audiences of the validity of the faith, while Part III looked in more detail at the lived experience of converts to Catholicism in Southeast Asia. The project to convert Southeast Asia may have had a relatively minor impact on the history of the region. Today in Southeast Asia, the population of the Philippines and of some islands in Indonesia are predominantly Catholic, but in other regions where missionaries have been operating for centuries only small minorities of the population have embraced Christianity. In some places, then, the Catholic Church managed to set down roots, but elsewhere its evangelical endeavours proved fruitless. Today in Vietnam around 6 million people are Catholic (just under 7 per cent of the population), while in Thailand less than 0.5 per cent of the population profess the faith (c.292,000 people). The memory of Portuguese Catholic Melaka is preserved in the tiny Kristang (from the Portuguese Cristão, ‘Christian’) communities of Malaysia and Singapore. Catholicism was not the only foreign faith to seek adherents. Non-Catholic Christian denominations, new strains of Islam, and other religions have been introduced into the region: voyagers from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas continue to bring their gods to this crossroads of the world and sometimes they find a welcoming reception. Considering the centuries of evangelization and the myriad of approaches tried by proselytizers of every stripe, Southeast Asia is an ideal testing ground for theories of what makes communities and individuals more likely to convert to a new religion. This book has explored the importance of factors such as colonial support for missions, the interest or acquiescence of local rulers in allowing foreign missionaries to enter their lands, the compatibility of local belief systems with Catholic interpretations of both transcendent and immanent divinity, and the ability of missionaries both to find themselves a space in society as holy men and to convey effectively their message. Yet the case studies of Tonkin and Cochinchina, Siam and Malacca demonstrate that whilst each of these factors could have an impact on the likelihood of securing adherents for a new belief system, they were not enough. If there was no space or need in local cosmologies for a new god, or a new explanation for and remedy for misfortune and disaster, Christianity would be rejected. Crucially, this book has highlighted the primacy of lay networks and leadership to the implantation and maintenance of the faith. Where ordinary men and women took charge of evangelization, and of translating Catholicism into the local context, Catholicism would claim more converts. Yet as we have seen, any claim to have secured the conversion of an individual or community to Catholicism could be challenged. Those areas where missionaries claimed the most success became the hotbeds of conflict over the nature and meaning of conversion. In modern times, the concept of conversion has become a battlefield of academia. Scholars wielding the methodological weapons of their disciplines—psychology, anthropology, sociology, literary theory, theology, and history—have struggled to define its boundaries and characteristics.

206

Conclusion

We can trace many of these modern debates back to the epistemological anxieties about the nature of belief and conversion in the early modern period, and especially to the encounter between Christianity and the civilizations of Asia. Conflicts between missionary groups in Southeast Asia fed into the increasing drive by many Catholic writers to describe and theorise the processes of evangelization and of conversion in early modern Europe. Certain tropes and images of conversion were crystallizing in the period, as the exemplary lives of saints were told and retold. The signifiers of conversion were increasingly settled as the narrative rules and semiotic conventions of conversion stories became more firmly entrenched.11 Missionary accounts of the implantation of Catholicism in Southeast Asia fitted well into these genres and echoed many of the themes of such narratives. Yet due to a complex web of contested jurisdictional authorities, and the ongoing conflicts over acceptable practices for both missionaries and converts, the Catholic missions in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Southeast Asia also illustrated how chimeral and easily contested the concept could be. Conversion on the mission fields was revealed to be not so much an event as a space in which ideas, beliefs, and practices came into conflict or coalescence. Sometimes the convert emerged from this space with changed beliefs and behaviours; more interestingly, sometimes the convert’s experience would force a missionary re-assessment of his own understanding of the fundamentals of Christianity. Due to missionary conflicts, definitions of conversion were constantly challenged, as were the boundaries of ideal practice for missionary and convert alike. Through these conflicts the voices of the laity frequently emerge as they appear in missionary texts as witnesses to signs of divine favour which may support one interpretation or another. In critical accounts, it is the zeal and orthodoxy of the converts themselves which puts the errant missionary to shame. In October 1737 bishop Elzéar-François des Achards de la Baume set off for Cochinchina, sent by the Pope to resolve the missionary disputes of that region. An account of his visit, wryly sharing a title with the Jesuit Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, relates that the laity of Cochinchina flooded to see him ‘from every part, to signal their zeal and their submission to the Legate of the Holy See’.12 They complained that many had been excluded for up to ten years from the legitimate sacraments of the church, especially Confession, in which they yearned to participate. When questioned they explained it was ‘for not wanting to practice in the Churches the ceremonies for the dead—those of the Pagans—which the fathers of the Society of Jesus permit. “You are” [the Jesuits] tell us, “obstinate sinners, scandalous people, schismatics: we have no wish to listen to you.”’13 By this account, the Jesuits had constructed a form of Vietnamese Christianity which was not only dangerously unorthodox, but also 11

See esp. Leone, Saints and signs. Favre, Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses sur la Visite, 28: ‘Ils acoutent de toutes parts, pour marquer leur zéle & leur soumission au Léga du S. Siége.’ 13 Favre, Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses sur la Visite, 29. ‘c’est pour n’avoir pas voulu pratiquer dans nos Eglises les cérémonies des Morts, celles des Gentils, que les Peres de la Societé de Jesus permettent; vous étes, nous disent-ils, des pécheurs obstinés, des scandaleux, des schismatiques; nous ne voulons point vous entendre.’ 12

Conclusion

207

unwanted by local converts who, despite the best efforts of the Jesuits, nevertheless were exemplary in their orthodoxy. For many observers in Europe. the evidence of these converts trumped even the ‘proof ’ of Jesuit perfection offered by the death of the martyrs in the same year as de la Baume set sail. On occasion the convert usurped the priest as guardian of the ‘truth’, refusing to accept that the priest knew better in spiritual matters. When God was seen to intervene directly, the lay man or woman could have equal claim to some measure of spiritual authority. We see a similar conviction in vignettes such as that painted by Jacob Ramsay, in his study of a twentieth-century miracle in Vietnam, when a statue of the Virgin Mary in Ho Chi Minh City was seen to weep. Ramsay reports the complaint of one woman that the hierarchical church was not taking the miracle seriously: the priests ‘simply don’t want to believe,’ she said.14 She, however, knew better. Whether or not they agreed with lay interpretations of Catholicism, or novel devotions, missionaries were obliged to understand and engage with such developments, either to combat them or to recognize them as divinely inspired. Catholicism after all is a revealed religion, with a history rich in visionary saints whose ideas for reform and renewal were frequently condemned before being accepted. Indeed the persecution or mistreatment of those who suggested new forms of piety was to be expected. ‘God’s treatment of His friends is terrible,’ St Teresa of Avila had written, during her struggles with the ecclesiastical hierarchy over her plans to reform the Carmelites in Spain, ‘though they have really nothing to complain of, as He did the same to His own Son.’15 Who knew whether innovations on the mission fields, which caused such bitter controversy, would not come to be similarly recognized as a new version of orthodoxy? Those who suffered to defend them, even against the very priests who originally brought the faith, offered their own martyrs’ proof as to the validity of their version of the truth. Southeast Asia, then, served as a crucible for the distillation of the essence of Catholicism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As on other mission fields around the world, the encounter between Christianity and local cultures forced missionaries and lay men and women to consider which parts of the religion were crucial for conversion. This experiment could have radically different outcomes, as missionaries from various religious orders and converts from different cultures sought to interpret the results. The conflicts between these groups helped to forge new identities on the mission fields, and further more would shape Catholicism as global religion.

Ramsay, ‘Miracles and myths’, 375. Teresa of Avila to Jerónimoo Gracián, 10–11 March 1578, The Letters of Saint Teresa of Jesus, ed. and trans. Peers, II: 538. 14 15

Bibliography PRIMARY SOURCES Manuscript Collections AGOP: Archivum Generalis Ordinis Prædicatorum, Rome. Vol. XIII-27.500–3 and Vol. XIII.56900. AHU: Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon. A.H.U. –MACAU cx. 1, cx. 2; and A.H. U. Cód. n˚ 1659. AMEP: Archives de la Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris. Vols. 129, 650, 656, 657, 665, 677, 678, 728, 729, 733–6, 850–8. ANTT: Arquivos Nacionais Torre do Tombo, Lisbon. Livros das Monções, liv. 35 and Manuscritos da Livraria, liv. 731. APF: Archivio Storico della Congregazione «de Propaganda Fide», Vatican City. Acta, vols. 18–20; Acta CP vols 1A and 1B; CP vols 23 and 30; Istruzioni diversi, anni 1623–38 and 1639–48; SC (first series), vols. 1–5, 40 and SC Miscellanea vols 1, 37, 57; SOCG vols 189–193, 230–3; SOCP vols 8–9. ARSI: Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome. FG Titulus VIII and Titulus XVIII; JapSin vols 12, 22, 45, 65, 68, 70a, 70a(II), 76, 78–80, 194. AUST: Archives of the University of Santo Tomas, Manila. Seccion de Libros, tomo 8. ASV: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vatican City. Archivio Consistoriale, Processus Consistoriales, vol. 30; Archivo della Nunziatura Apostolica in Lisbona; Armaria XLIV, vol. 13; Congregazione del Concilio, Relationes Dioecesium, vol. 481; Congregazione dei Riti, Processus, vols. 479, 1647–9; Fondo Albani, vol. 224; Fondo Borghese, serie I, 469–74; Fondo Carpegna, vol. 32; Fondo Confalonieri, vol. 31; Miscellanea Armadi VIII, vol. 60; Missioni, vol. 108. BA: Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon. Documentação Avulsa, 50-V-37; JnÁ, vols 49-IV-8, 49-IV-52, 49-V-5, 49-V-6, 49-V-7, 49-V-8, 49-V-13, 49-V-14, 49-V-18, 49-V-19, 49-V-31, 49-V-33. Biblioteca Casanatense. MSS 3209. BNF: Bibliothèque Nationale de France. MSS Espagnol 325, MSS Français vols 9773, 13515, 19533; MSS Portugais 33. BNC: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma. Fondo Gesuitico, vol. 1255. HAG: Historical Archives of Goa. Vol. 2779 and 64 Monções do Reino, vol. 55B. KCL: King’s College, University of London. Marsden Collection. PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES Acosta, José de De Procuranda Indorum Salute ed. and trans by G. Stewart McIntosh, 2 vols (Tayport, 1994). Acosta, José de Historia natural y moral delas Indias, en qve de tratan las cosas notables del cielo, y elementos, metales, plantas, y animales dellas: y los ritos y ceremonias, leyes, y gouierno, y guerras de los Indios (Seville, 1590). Aduarte, Diego, Historia de la provincia del Santo Rosario de la Orden de Predicadores en Philippinas, Iapon y China (Manila, 1640).

Bibliography

209

Alciato, Andrea, Declaracion magistral sobre las emblemas de Andres Alciato (Najera, 1615). Alonso, Carlos (ed.), ‘Libro de actas del convento de Ntra. Sra. de Gracia de Goa (India) (1604–1637). Archivo Estatal de Goa: Libro 2765’, Analecta Augustiniana, 61 (1998): 171–282. Alonso, Carlos, ‘Agustinos en la India. Relaciones y listas de religiosos inéditas (1624–1642)’, Analecta Augustiniana, XXXVII (1974): 243–96. Annales de la Société des soi-disans Jésuites, ou recueil historique-chronologique de tous les actes, écrits, dénonciations . . . contre le doctrine, l’enseignement, les entreprises et le forfaits des soidisans Jésuites depuis 1552 . . . jusqu’en 1763, 5 vols (Paris, 1764–71). Aquinas, Thomas, The Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican province (London, 1911–20). Augustine, St, The Confessions, ed. and trans. Maria Boulding (New York, 2008). Avisi particolari del avmento che iddio da alla sua Chiesa Catholica nell’Indie, et spetialmëte nelli regni di Giappõ, cõ ïformatione della China, riceuti dalli Padri della Campagnia di IESV questo anno del 1558 (Rome, 1558). Avisi particulari dell’Indie di Portugallo nuouamëte hauuti questo anno del 1555 dal li R. padri della Compagnia de Iesu, doue si hà informatione delle gran cose che si fanno per augmento de la Santa fede. . . . (Rome, 1556). Barbosa, Duarte, The book of Duarte Barbosa. An account of the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean and their inhabitants, written by Duarte Barbosa and completed about the year 1518 A.D., trans. Mansel Longworth Dames, 2 vols (New Delhi, 2002). Barros, João de, Ásia. Dos feitos que os portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquistados mares e terras do Oriente, ed. Hernani Cidade and Manuel Múrais, 4 vols (Lisbon, 1945). Bartoli, Daniello, Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù. L’Asia descritta dal padre Daniello Bartoli (Rome, 1653). Borri, Christoforo, Relatione della nvova missione delli della Compagnia di Giesv, al regno della Cocincina . . . (Rome, 1631). Bort, Balthasar, ‘Report of Governor Balthasar Bort on Malacca, 1678’, ed. and trans. M. J. Bremner, JMBRAS, 5 (1927): 1–232. Boudon, Henri Marie, Dieu seul. Le saint esclavage de l’admirable Mère de Dieu. Nouvelle édition (Paris, 1751). Bourges, Jacques de, Relation du voyage de Monseigneur l’Evêque de Beryte, vicaire apostolique du royaume de la Cochinchine, par la Turquie, la Perse, les Indes &c, jusqu’au royaume de Siam & autres lieux (Paris, 1668). Braga, J. M. (ed.), ‘The panegyric of Alexander Valignano, (reproduced from an old Portuguese codex). With an introduction and notes’, Monumenta Nipponica 5 (1942): 523–35. Brown, C. C. (ed. and trans.), ‘Sĕjarah Mĕlayu or “Malay Annals”. A translation of Raffles MS 18 (in the library of the R.A.S., London’, JMBRAS, 25, parts 2 & 3 (1952). Camões, Luís Vaz de, The Lusiads of Luiz de Camões, trans. Leonard Bacon, 2nd edn (New York, 1966). Cardim, Antonio Francisco, Batalhas da Companhia de Jesus na sua gloriosa Provincia do Japão, ed. Luciano Cordeiro (Lisbon, 1894). Castillo, Hernando de, Primera parte dela historia general de Sancto Dominco, y de su orden de Predicadores (Madrid, 1584). Chaumont, Alexandre de, Relation de l’ambassade de Mr. le Chevalier de Chaumont à la Cour du Roy de Siam, avec ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable durant son voyage (La Haye, 1733). Chirino, Pedro, History of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus, ed Jaume Gorriz i Abella, trans. José S. Arcilla, 2 vols (Quezon City, 2009–10).

210

Bibliography

Choisy, François-Timoléon de, Journal du voyage de Siam fait en 1685 et 1686 (Paris: S. Mabre-Cramoisy, 1687). Choisy, François-Timoléon de, ‘Lettre envoyé à monsieur l’abbé Marinet de Sanjaco, en l’Isle de Madagascar, par Monsieur l’abbé de Chois . . . (2 oct. 1685)’ (pamphlet, nl, nd). BNF. Costelloe, Joseph M., (trans. and ed.), The letters and instructions of Francis Xavier (St Louis, Missouri, 1992). Couto, Diogo do, Decadas da Asia, escritas por Diogo do Couto nesta ulttima impressão accrescentadas com indices etc (Lisbon, 1736). Darde, Jean (ed. and trans.), Histoire de ce qui s’est passé en Ethiopie, Malabar, Brasil, et les Indes Orientales. . . . (Paris, 1628). Davenport, Frances Gardiner (ed.), European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies to 1648, 4 vols (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917–1937). Deos, Jacinto de, Vergel de plantas e flores da Provincia da Madre de Deus dos Capuchos Reformados (Lisbon, 1690). Desfarges, Relation des revolutions arrivées a Siam dans l’année 1688 (Amsterdam, 1691). Edifying and curious letters of some missioners, of the Society of Jesus, from the foreign missions (nl, 1707). Eredia, Manuel Godinho de, Declaraçam de Malaca e India meridional com o Cathay/ Malaca, L’Inde méridionale et le Cathay ed. L. Janssen (Brussels, 1882). Favre, Pierre François, Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses sur la Visite Apostolique de M. de LaBaume Evêque d’Halicarnasse, a la Cochinchine en l’année 1740 (Venice, 1746). Fermanel de Favéry, Luc., Relation des missions des éveques françois aux royaumes de Siam, de la Cochinchine, de Camboye et du Tonkin &c. divisé en quatre parties (Paris, 1674). Focher, Ioannes, Itinerarium Catholicum proficiscentium ad infideles convertendos (Hispali, 1574). Forbin, Claude de, Le voyage du comte de Forbin à Siam, 1685–88 (Mayenne, 1991). Gervaise, Nicolas, Histoire naturelle et politique du Royaume de Siam. Divisée en quatre parties. . . . (Paris, 1688). Gobien, Carlo, and Carlo Giacinto Ferrarro (trans.), Istoria dell’Editto dell’Imperatore della Cina, in favore della religione cristiana. Coll’aggiunta d’alcune notizie intorno gli honori, che i CINESI rendono à CONFUSIO & à DEFONTI (Turin, 1690). Hamilton, Alexander, Alexander Hamilton: a Scottish sea captain in Southeast Asia, 1689–1723, ed. Michael Smithies (Chiang Mai, 1997). Jacobs, Hubert (ed.), Documenta Malucensia, 3 vols (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1974–84). Jesus, Felix de, ‘Chronica e Relação do Principio que teve a Comgregação da Ordem de S. Augostinho nas Indias Orientais e da Honrra e Gloria que seus primeiros Fundadores naquellas partes com coninuos trabalhos ganharão para Deos nosso Senhor na comverção das Almas. Escrita pello Frey Felliz de Jezus Religioso Proffesso da mesma Ordem’, ed. by A. Hartmann, Analecta Augustiniana XXX (1967), 12–147. Jesús, Tomás de, De procuranda salute omnium gentium, schismaticorum, haeriticorum, Iudaeorum, sarracenorum, caeterorumq infidelium (Antwerp, 1613). Jordão, Levy Maria (ed.), Bullarium patronatus portugalliæ regum in ecclesiis africæ, asiæ atque oceaniæ. Bullas, brevia, epistolas, decreta actaque sanctæ sedis ab Alexandro III ad hoc usque tempus amplectens, 3 vols (Lisbon, 1868). L’Isle, le Sieur de, Relation historique du Royaume de Siam (Paris, 1674). Laneau, Louis, La divinisation par Jésus-Christ, trans. by Jean-Paul Lenfant (Paris, 1987).

Bibliography

211

Laneau, Louis, Instructions pour ceux qui iront fonder une mission dans les royaumes du Laos et d’autres paus (1682), ed. and trans. André Marillier MEP, Documentation MEP, May 1965, 243–98 (independantly numbered 1–6) [In AMEP vol 1315F]. Launay, Adrian, Histoire de la mission de Siam: 1662–1811. Documents historiques, 2 vols (Paris: Anciennes Maisons Charles Douniol et Retaux, 1920). Launay, Adrian, Histoire de la mission du Tonkin (Paris: Librarie Orientale et Américaine, 1927). Launay, Adrian, Lettres de Monseigneur Pallu. Écrites de 1654 à 1684, ed. Frédéric Mantienne, reprint (Paris, 2008). Launay, Adrian, Histoire de la mission de Cochinchine 1658–1823: documents historiques, 3 vols, re-edition (Paris, 2000). Le Blanc, Vincent, Les voyages fameux dv sievr Vincent Le Blanc Marsellois. Qu’il a faits depuis l’aage de douze ans iusques à soixante, aux quatre parties du Monde (Paris, 1648). Lettere annve del Giapone, China, Goa, et Ethiopia scritte al M.R. Generale della Compagnia di Giesù da padri dell’istessa Compagnia ne gl’anni 1615. 1616. 1617. 1618. 1619. Volgarizate dal Lorenzo delle Pozze della medisme Compagnia (Milan, 1621). Lettres edifiantes et curieuses ecrites des missionsEtrangeres, par quelques Missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jesus, VIII Recueil (Paris, 1708). Li Tana and Anthony Reid, Southern Vietnam under the Nguye˜ˆn. Documents on the Economic history of Cochinchina (Đàng Trong) 1602–1777 (Singapore, 1993). Licuana, Virginia Benitez and José Llavador Mira (eds) The Philippines under Spain. Reproduction of the original Spanish documents with English translation. Book VI (1594–1602): An Interim period (Manila, 1996). Linschoten, Jan Huyghen van, The voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies, ed. P.A. Tiele, 2 vols (Cambridge, 2010). Loubère, Simon de la, A new historical relation of the kingdom of Siam (London: Tho. Horne, 1693) facsimile edn ed. David K. Wyatt (Oxford, 1986). Marini, Giovanni Fillippo de, Historia et relatione del Tunchino e del Giappone. Con la vera Relatione ancora d’altri Regni, e Prouincie di quelle regioni, e del loro gouerno politico. . . . (Rome, 1665). Martins, Afonso, ‘Carta inédita de Afonso Martins, primeiro Vigário de Malaca’ ed. Georg Schurhammer, in Orientalia (Rome, 1963). Memoires et instrvctions Chrestiennes, sur le sujet des missions étrangères, & particulierement de celles qui se font en Turquie, & autres pays de Leuant (Paris, 1644). Mocquet, Jean, Voyage en Éthiopie, Mozambique, Goa & autres lieux d’Afrique & des Indes orientales, ed. and pub. Xavier de Castro as Voyage à Mozambique & Goa. La relation de Jean Mocquet (1607–1610) (Paris, 1996). Morga, Antonio de, Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, ed. and trans. J. S. Cummins (Cambridge, 1971). Observations physiques et mathematiques pour servir à l’histoire naturelle, & à la Perfection de l’Astronomie & de la Geographie: Envoyées de Siam à l’Academie Royal des Sciences à Paris, par les Peres Jesuites François qui vont à la Chine en qualité des Mathemeticiens du Roy . . . (Paris, 1688). Olin, John C. (ed.), The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola. Reform in the Church 1495–1540 (London, 1969). Pallu, François, and Pierre Lambert de la Motte, Monita ad missionarios. Instructions aux Missionnaires de la S. Congrégation de la S. Congrégation de la Propaganda Fide (Paris, 2000). Pallu, François, Relation abregée des missions et voyages des evesques françois envoyez aux Royaumes de la Chine, Cochinchine, Tonquin, & Siam (Paris, 1682).

212

Bibliography

Peers, Allison E. (ed. and trans.), The letters of St Teresa of Avila 2 vols (London, 1951). Pires, Tomé, The suma oriental of Tomé Pires: an account of the East, from the Red Sea to Japan, written in Malacca and India in 1512–1515. The Book of Francisco Rodrigues, rutter of a voyage in the Red Sea, nautical rules, almanack and maps, written and drawn in the East before 1515, trans. and ed. Armando Cortesão, 2 vols (London, 1944). Rabelais, François, L’Abbaye de Thélème (Gargantua, cha LII–LVIII), ed. Raoul Morçay (Geneva, 1949). Relation des missions François aux royavmes de Siam, de la Cochinchine, de Camboye, & du Tonkin, &c. Divisé en quatre parties (Paris, 1674). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum ope sacræ congregationis de propaganda fide in lucem editum ab A. De Rhodes (Rome, 1651). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Histoire de la vie, et de la glorieuse mort, de cinq peres de la Compagnie de Iesus, qui ont souffert dans le Iapon. Auec trois seculiers, en l’annee 1643 (1653). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Histoire du royaume du Tonkin, ed. by Jean-Pierre Duteil (Paris, 1999). Rhodes, Alexandre de, La glorieuse mort d’André, catéchiste de la Cochinchine, qui a la premier versé son sang pour la querelle de Jésus-Christ en cette nouvelle église par le père Alexandre de Rhodes, de la Compagnie de Iesus, qui a toûjours esté present à toute cette histoire (Paris, 1653). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Relation des progrez de la foy au royaume de la Cochinchine vers les derniers quartiers du levant. Envoicé au R. General de la compagnie de Jesus (Paris, 1652). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Sommaire des Divers Voyages et missions apostoliques du R. A. de Rhodes . . . à la Chine et autres royaumes de l’Orient . . . depuis l’année 1618 jusques à l’année 1653 (Paris, 1653). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Tunchinensis Historiæ libri duo, quorum altero status temporalis hujus regni, altero mirabiles Evangelicæ prædicationis progressus referuntur. Coeptæ per patres Societatis Jesu, ab anno 1627 ad annum 1646 (Lyon, 1652). Rhodes, Alexandre de, Divers voyages et missions dv Alexandre de Rhodes en la Chine, & autres Royaumes de l’Orient. Auec son retour en Europe par la Perse & l’Armenie. (Paris, 1653). Ricci, Matteo , Lettere, ed. by Francesco D’Arelli (Macerata, 2001). Ricci, Matteo, Storia dell’introduzione dell Cristianesimo in Cina, ed. Pasquale M. D’Elia, 3 vols (Rome, 1942–9). Sa de Meneses, Francisco de, The conquest of Malacca, trans. Edgar C. Knowlton Jr (Kuala Lumpur, 1970). Sá, Artur Basílio de (ed.), Documentação para a história das missões do padroado portugûes do oriente: Insulíndia, 5 vols (Lisbon, 1954–8). Saccano, Metelle, Relation des progrez de la foy av royavme de la Cochinchine és années 1646 & 1647. . . . (Paris, 1653). Santa Maria, Agostino de, Historia da fundação do real convento de Santa Monica da Cidade de Goa, Corte do Estado da India & do Imperio Lusitano do Orient, fundado pelo illustissimo, e reverendissimo senhor Dom Fr. Aleixo de Menezes . . . (Lisbon, 1699). Santa Thecla, Adriano di, Opusculum de sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses. A small treatise on the sects among the Chinese and Tonkinese. A study of religion in China and North Vietnam in the eighteenth century, ed. and trans. Olga Dror (Ithaca, NY, 2002). Schurhammer, Georg (ed.), ‘Carta inédita de Afonso Martins, primeiro vigário de Malaca’ Studia 1 (1958): 111–17. Schurhammer, Georg, and Josef Wicki (eds), Epistolae S. Francisci Xaverii aliaque eius scripta, Part of Monumenta historica Societatis Iesu, 2 vols (Rome, 1944–5). SF I: Wyngaert, Anastasius van den, Sinica Franciscana. Volumen I. Itinera et relationes fratrum minorum saeculi XIII et XIV (Quaracchi-Firenze, 1929).

Bibliography

213

SF II: Wyngaert, Anastasius van den, Sinica Franciscana Volumen II. Relationes et epistolas fratrum minorum saeculi XVI et XVII (Quaracchi-Firenze, 1933). SF III: Wyngaert, Anastasius van den, and Fabiano Bollen, Sinica Franciscana. Vol. III. Relationes et epistolas fratrum minorum sæculi XVII (Quaracchi-Firenze, 1936). SF IV: Wyngaert, Anastasius van den, Sinica Franciscana. Volumen IV. Relationes et epistolas fratrum minorum seculi XVII et XVIII (Quaracchi-Firenze, 1942). Silva Rego, António da, (ed.), Documentação para a história das missões do padroado português do oriente. Índia 12 vols (Lisbon, 1947–60). Smithies, Michael (ed. and trans.), Witnesses to a revolution: Siam 1688 (Bangkok, 2004). Tachard, Guy, Second voyage du Pere ̀ Tachard et des Jésuites envoyés par le roy au royaume de Siam: contenant diverses remarques d’histoire de physique, de géographie & d’astronomie (Amsterdam, 1689). Tachard, Guy, Voyage de Siam des peres jesuites, envoyés par le roy, aux Indes & à la Chine. Avec leurs observations astronomiques, & leurs remarques de physique, de géographie, d’hydrographie, & d’histoire (Paris, 1686). Tanner, Norman, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols (London, 1990). Tellier, Michel le, Defense des nouveaux chrestiens et des missionnaires de la Chine, du Japon, & des Indes. Contre deux livres intitulez, La Morale pratique des Jesuites, & l’Esprit de M. Arnauld, 2nd edn (Paris, 1688). Trinidade, Paulo da, Conquista espiritual do Oriente. Em que se dá relção de algumas cousas mais notáveis que fizeram os Frades Menores da Santa Província de S. Tomé da India Oriental em a pregação da fé e conversão dos infiéis, em mais de trinta reinos, do Cabo de Boa Esparança até às remotíssimas ilhas do Japão, ed. Félix Lopes, 3 vols (Lisbon, 1962). Wicki, José (ed.), O livro do «Pai dos Cristãos» (Lisbon, 1969). Wiki, Joseph, and J. Gomes, (eds), Documenta Indica, 18 vols, part of Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (Rome, 1948–88). Yule, Henry and Henri Cordier (eds and trans), Cathay and the way thither, being a collection of medieval notices of China, 4 vols (London, 1913–16). SECONDARY LITERATURE Ackerman, S. E., ‘The language of religious innovation: spirit possession and exorcism in a Malaysian Catholic Pentecostal movement’, Journal of Anthropological Research, 37 (1981): 90–100. Agadjanian, Alexandre, ‘Aspects de la perception du Bouddhisme en Europe du XVI au XVIII siècle d’après les textes des missionnaires et voyageurs’, in T. A. Nguyên and A. Forest (eds), Notes sur la culture et la religion en peninsule Indochinoise. En hommage à Pierre-Bernard Lafont (Paris, 1995), 117–34. Ahmad, Abu Talib, and Tan Liok Ee, ‘Introduction’, New terrains in Southeast Asian history (Athens, OH, 2003), ix–xxv. Ahmed, Siti Nuraishah, Shanthini Pillai and Noraini Md, Yusof, ‘Rehabilitating Eden: Archetypal images of Malaya in European travel writing’, Journeys, 12 (2011): 22–45. Alberts, Tara, ‘Catholic written and oral cultures in seventeenth-century Vietnam’, Journal of early modern history, 16 (2012): 383–402. Albuquerque, Luís de and Inácio Guerreiro, Actas do II Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1985). Alden, Dauril, The making of an enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its empire, and beyond (Stanford, CA, 1996).

214

Bibliography

Alden, Dauril, ‘Some considerations concerning Jesuit enterprises in Asia’, in Nuno de Silva Gonçalves (ed.), A Companhia de Jesus e a missionação no Oriente. Actas do colóquio internacional promovido pela Fundação Oriente e pela revista Brotéria Lisboa, 21 a 23 de Abril de 1997 (Lisbon, 2000), 53–62. Almeida Rolo, Raul de, ‘Figura institucional de um convento Dominicano’, in Actas do III encontro sobre história Dominicana, 2 vols (Porto, 1991), I: 71–93. Almeida, Fortunato de, História da igreja em Portugal, 4 vols (Coimbra, 1912). Ames, Glenn J., ‘The perils of spreading the true faith in Asia: Fr. Ephraim de Nevers and the Goa Inquisition, 1650–1651’, Proceedings of the western society for French history, 23 (1996): 81–91. Amundsen, Darrel W., ‘The medieval Catholic tradition’, in Ronald L. Numbers, and Darrel W. Amundsen (eds), Caring and curing. Health and medicine in the western religious traditions (Baltimore, 1998), 65–107. Andaya, Barbara Watson, (ed.), Other pasts. Women gender and history in early modern Southeast Asia (Manoa, 2000). Andaya, Barbara Watson, ‘Political developments between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries’, in N. Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 1999), I/ii: 58–115. Andaya, Barbara Watson, ‘Studying women and gender in Southeast Asia’, International Journal of Asian Studies, 4 (2007): 113–36. Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Leonard Y. Andaya, A history of Malaysia, 2nd edn (Honolulu, 2001). Andaya, Barbara Watson, and Yoneo Ishii, ‘Religious developments in Southeast Asia, c. 1500–1800’, in N. Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 1999), I/ii: 164–227. Andaya, Barbara Watson, The flaming womb. Repositioning women in early modern Southeast Asia (Honolulu, 2006). Andaya, Barbara Watson, ‘Localising the universal: women, motherhood and the appeal of early Theravāda Buddhism’, JSEAS 33 (2002): 1–30. Andaya, Leonard Y., ‘The Portuguese tribe in the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in Francis A. Dutra, and João Camilo de Santos (eds), The Portuguese and the Pacific (Santa Barbara, 1995), 130–48. Andaya, Leonard Y., ‘The search for the “origins” of Melayu’, JSEAS 32 (3), 315–30. Anderson, Linda, A place in the story: servants and service in Shakespeare’s plays (Newark, 2005). Andrés, Heliodoro. La riforma tridentina en la Orden Agustiniana (Valladolid, 1965). Anh, Nguye˜ˆn Thế, ‘From Indra to Maitreya: Buddhist influence in Vietnamese political thought’, JSEAS 33 (2002): 225–41. Aung Thwin, Michael, ‘Prophecies, omens, and dialogue: tools of the trade in Burmese historiography’, in D. K. Wyatt and A. Woodside (eds), Moral order and the question of change. Essays on Southeast Asian thought (New Haven, 1982): 78–103. Azra, Azyumardi, The origins of Islamic reformism in Southeast Asia. Networks of MalayIndonesian and Middle Eastern ‘Ulama’in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Honolulu, 2004). Backman, E. Louis, Religious dances in the Christian Church and in popular medicine (London, 1952). Bailey, Gauvin Alexander, ‘Religious encounters: Christianity in Asia’, in Jackson and Jaffer (eds), Encounters. The meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500–1800 (London, 2004), 102–23. Baker, Chris, ‘Ayutthaya rising: from land or sea?’ JSEAS 34 (2003): 41–62.

Bibliography

215

Baldwin, Martha, ‘The snakestone experiments: an early modern medical debate’, Isis, 86 (1995): 394–418. Barbagallo, ‘Agostiniani scalzi’ in Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (eds), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, 10 vols (Rome: Edizione Paoline, 1974–2003), I: 404–15. Barbagallo, Ignazio, Sono venuto a portare il fuoco sulla terra. Lineamenti di spiritualità missionaria degli Agostiniani Scalzi (Rome, 1979). Barreto, Luís Filipe, Macau: poder e saber, séculos XVI e XVII (Lisbon, 2006). Bellini, L., ‘Medicine and scholarly knowledge in Portugal during the Renaissance’, Estudios Ibero-Americanos 27(2001): 43–74. Berdonces, J., ‘Fratelli Minimi (Obregoniani o Obregoni)’, in Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (eds), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, 10 vols (Rome, 1974–2003), IV: 665–6. Bernard-Maître, Henri, Aux portes de la Chine. Les missionaires du XVI siècle, 1514–1598 (Tien Tsin, 1958). Bernard-Maître, Henri, Les Iles Philippines du grand archipel de la Chine: un essai de la conquête spirituelle de l’Extrême Orient 1571–1641 (Tien Tsin, 1936). Biagioli, Mario, Galileo, courtier: practice of science in the culture of absolutism, 2nd edn (London, 1994). Biagioli, Mario, Galileo’s instruments of credit: telescopes, images, secrecy (London, 2006). Biermann, Benno, ‘Documenta quaedam initia missionum ordinis prædicatorum in India Orientali illustrantia (1503–1548)’, Archivium Fratrum Praedicatorum, 10 (1939): 132–57. Blackmore, Josiah, Moorings: Portuguese expansion and the writing of Africa (London, 2008). Blancard, ‘Frères hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Dieu’, in G. Jacquemet et al. (eds) Agustí, ‘Los estudios universitarios medievales entre los franciscanos: una aproximación’, in M. d. M. Graña Cid and A. A. Pérez (eds), El franciscanismo en la penißnsula Ibérica: balance y perspectivas: I congreso internacional, Madrid, 22–27 de septiembre de 2003 (Barcelona, 2005), 827–46. Boisset, Louis, ‘Typologie des missons Franciscaines’, in Alle frontiere della Cristianità. I frati mendicanti e l’evangelizzazione tra ‘200 e 300. Atti del XXVIII convengo internazionale, Assisi 12–14 ottobre 2000 (Spoleto, 2001), 203–16. Bonniwell, William, A history of the Dominican liturgy (New York, 1944). Borges, Charles J., ‘The Portuguese Jesuits in Asia: their economic and political networking within Asia and Europe’, in Nuno de Silva Gonçalves (ed.), A Companhia de Jesus e a missionação no Oriente. Actas do colóquio internacional promovido pela Fundação Oriente e pela revista Brotéria Lisboa, 21 a 23 de Abril de 1997 (Lisboa, 2000), 203–24. Borm, Jan, Bernard Cottret, and Jean-François Zorn (eds), Convertir/se convertir. Regards croisés sur l’histoire des missions chrétiennes (Paris, 2006). Borschberg, Peter (ed.), Iberians in the Singapore-Melaka area and adjacent regions (16th to 18th century) (Wiesbaden, 2004). Bossy, John, ‘Some elementary forms of Durkheim’, Past & Present, 95 (1982), 3–18. Bossy, John, ‘The social history of confession in the age of Reformation’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 25 (1975): 21–38. Boudinhon, A., ‘Ordinary’, in C. G. Herbermann et al. (eds), The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline, and history of the Catholic Church (London: Robert Appleton, 1907–22), XI: 284. Boxer, Charles R., ‘Portuguese and Spanish rivalry in the Far East during the 17th Century’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 (1946): 150–64. Boxer, Charles R., The Christian century in Japan (Berkeley, 1951). Boxer, Charles R., The Church militant and Iberian expansion 1440–1770 (London, 1978).

216

Bibliography

Boxer, Charles R., ‘A note on Portuguese reactions to the revival of the Red Sea spice trade and the rise of Atjeh, 1540–1600’, in Portuguese conquest and commerce in Southern Asia 1500–1750 (London, 1985), 415–28. Breazeale, Kennon, ‘Thai maritime trade and the ministry responsible’, From Japan to Arabia: Ayutthaya’s maritime relations with Asia (Bangkok, 1999), pp. 23–45. Brekenridge Carol A., and Peter van de Veer, ‘Orientalism and the postcolonial predicament’, in Orientalism and the postcolonial predicament: perspectives on South Asia (Philidelphia, 1993), 1–22. Brettell, Caroline B., ‘Introduction: travel literature, ethnography and ethnohistory’, Ethnohistory, 33 (1986): 127–38. Brewer, Shamanism, Catholicism and gender relations in colonial Philippines, 1521–1685 (Aldershot, 2004). Briggs, Robin, Communities of belief: cultural and social tension in early modern France (Oxford, 1995 (1st edn 1989)). Brockey, Liam Matthew, Journey to the East. The Jesuit mission to China, 1579–1724 (London, 2007). Brodman, James William, Ransoming captives in crusader Spain. The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic frontier (Philadelphia 1986). Buckland, W. W., The Roman Law of slavery. The condition of the slave in private law from Augustus to Justinian (Cambridge, 1908). Bulbeck, David, Anthony Reid, Lay Cheng Tan and Yiqu Wu, Southeast Asian exports since the 14th century: cloves, pepper, coffee, and sugar (Singapore, 1998). Burke, Peter, ‘The black legend of the Jesuits: an essay in the history of social stereotypes’, in Ditchfield (ed.), Christianity and community in the West. Essays for John Bossy (Aldershot, 2001), 165–82. Burke, Peter, and R. Po-Chia Hsia (eds), Cultural translation in early modern Europe (Cambridge 2007). Burke, Peter, The fabrication of Louis XIV (London, 1992). Burnay, Jean, ‘Notes chronologiques sur les missions jésuites du Siam au 17e siècle’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, XXII(1953): 170–202. Burns, Robert I., ‘Christian-Islamic confrontation in the West: the thirteenth-century dream of conversion’, The American Historical Review, 76 (1971): 1386–434. Byron, John, Slavery metaphors in early Judaism and Pauline Christianity. A traditio-historical and exegetical examination (Tübingen, 2002). Cadière, Léopold Michel, Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Viêtnamiens, 3 vols, 2nd edn (Saigon, 1955–58). Cadilhon, François, ‘Les processions jésuites en France au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, in Agostino Marc, François Cadilhon, and Philippe Loupès (eds), Fastes et cérémonies. L’expression de la vie religieuse, XVIe–XXe siècles (Pessac, 2003), 189–201. Cameron, Euan, ‘For reasoned faith or embattled creed? Religion for the people in early modern Europe’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 8 (1999): 165–88. Campbell, Mary B., The witness and the other world: exotic European travel writing, 400–1600 (London, 1988). Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge, ‘Iberian colonial science’, Isis, 96 (2005): 64–70. Cardon, R., ‘Portuguese Malacca’, JMBRAS, 12 (1934): 1–23. Cardon, R., ‘A Malay Tradition: Is Bukit Greja, near Malacca Pindah, the site of the old Portuguese settlement and the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Esperança mentioned by Eredia in his “Declaraçãm”?’, JMBRAS, 18 (1940): 108–45.

Bibliography

217

Carneiro, Maria Luiza Tucci, Preconceito racial em Portugal e Brasil colônia. Os cristãos-novos e o mito da pureza de sangue, 3rd rev. and extended edn (São Paulo, 2005). Carvalho, Rita Bernardes de, ‘La presence portugaise à Ayutthaya (Siam), aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles’, (Unpublished Mémoire de Master de Science Historiques, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 2006). Casparis, J. G. de, and I. W. Mabbett, ‘Religion and popular beliefs of Southeast Asia before c. 1500’, in N. Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 1999), I/i: 276–339. Castelao, Rey, and Inglesias Estepa ‘Domestic service in Spain, 1750–1836: the domestic servants of the clergy’, in Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux (ed.), Domestic service and the formation of European identity. Understanding the globalization of domestic work, 16th–21st centuries (Bern, 2004), 127–40. Castro, Agustín María de, and Manuel Merino (eds), Misioneros Agustinos en el Extremo Oriente 1565–1780. Obra inédita que con el titulo «Osatio Venerable» compuso el Agustino Agustin Maria de Castro Año de 1780 (Madrid, 1954). Castro, E., ‘Schiavitú e «Captivitas»’ in in Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (eds), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, 10 vols (Rome, 1974–2003), VIII: 1039–58. Cerutti, ‘Tailandia: I Antigua CJ (1607–1767)’, DHCJ, IV: 3688–91. Chappoulie, Henri, Aux origines d’une église: Rome et les missions d’Indochine au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1943). Chappoulie, Henri, Une controverse entre missionnaires à Siam au XVIIeme siècle. Le Religiosus negociator de Jésuite J. Tissanier, suivi de quelques documents concernant le commerce des clercs (Paris, 1943). Châtellier, Louis, The Europe of the devout. The Catholic Reformation and the formation of a new society, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge, 1987). Chutintaranond, Sunait, and Chris Baker (eds), Recalling local pasts. Autonomous history in Southeast Asia (Bangkok, 2002). Clossey, Luke, Salvation and globalization in the early Jesuit missions (Cambridge, 2008). Cœdès, G., The making of South East Asia, trans. H. M. Wright (London, 1966). Colless, Brian E., ‘Giovanni de’ Marignolli : an Italian prelate at the court of the South-East Asian Queen of Sheba’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 9 (1968): 325–41. Condominas, Georges, (ed.), Formes extrêmes de dépendance. Contributions à l’étude de l’esclavage en Asie du Sud-Est (Paris, 1998). Cooke, Nola, ‘Strange brew: global, regional and local factors behind the 1690 prohibition of Christian practice in Nguyeˆ˜n Cochinchina’, JSEAS 39 (2008): 383–409. Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica. Dictionnaire biblio dictionnaire bibliographique des ouvragesrealtifs a l'Empire japonais (Paris, 1912). Costa, Cosme Jose, A missiological conflict between Padroado and Propaganda in the East (Pilar, 1997). Costa, João Paulo Oliveira e, ‘The Brotherhoods (Confrarias) and lay support for the early Christian church in Japan’, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 34 (2007): 67–85. Cowan, C. D. and O. W. Wolters (eds), Southeast Asian history and historiography, essays presented to D. G. E. Hall (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1976). Cribb, Joe, Magic coins of Java, Bali and the Malay Peninsula (London, 1999). Cruysse, Dirk van der (ed.) Mercenaires français de la V.O.C. La route des Indes hollandaises au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 2003). Cruysse, Dirk van der, Louis XIV et le Siam (Paris: Fayard, 1991). Cruysse, Dirk van der, Le noble désir de courir le monde: voyager en Asie au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 2002).

218

Bibliography

Cummins, J. S. (ed.), Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish expansion to the East (London, 1986). Cummins, J. S. ‘Two missionary methods in China: Mendicants and Jesuits’, in Victor Sánchez and Cayetano S. Fuertes (eds), España en extreme oriente—Filipinas, China, Japon—Presencia Franciscana, 1578–1978 (Madrid, 1979), 33–108. Cummins, J. S., ‘Palafox, China and the Chinese Rites Controversy’, in J. S. Cummins (ed.), Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish expansion to the East (London, 1986), 395–427. Cummins, J. S., A question of Rites. Friar Domingo Navarrete and the Jesuits in China (Aldershot, 1993). Cummins, J. S. and Nicholas Cushner, ‘Labor in the colonial Philippines: the Discourso Parenético of Gómez de Espinoza’, in P. H. Kratoska (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history 6 vols (London, 2001), I: 179–201. Cummins, J. S. and C. R. Boxer, ‘The Dominican mission in Japan (1602–1622) and Lopo de Vega’, in J. S. Cummins (ed.), Jesuit and Friar in the Spanish expansion to the East (London, 1986), 5–88. Cunha Leão, Francisco G. (ed.), Macau e o Oriente na biblioteca da Ajuda (Lisbon and Macau, 1998). Daniel, E. R., The Franciscan concept of mission in the high middle ages (Lexington, KY, 1975). Davidson, N. S., The Counter-Reformation (Oxford, 1987). Davis, Robert C., Christian slaves, Muslim masters. White slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800 (Basinstoke, 2003). Debergh, Minako, ‘La première évangélisation du Japon au XVIe siècle: catéchismes sommaires, prédications, catéchèse graduée’, in Actes du 109e congrès national des sociétes savantes. Dijon, 1984. Section d’histoire moderne et contemporaine. Tome I: Transmettre la Foi: XVIe–XXe siècles. 2: Pastorale de la mer et missions extérieurs (Paris, 1984), 176–209. Delacroix, S. (ed.), Histoire universelle des missions catholiques, 4 vols. Vol. I : Les missions des origines au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1956). Delumeau, Jean, Rassurer et protéger. Le sentiment de sécurité dans l’Occident d’autrefois (Paris, 1989). Demiéville, Paul and Mark Tatz (ed. and trans.), Buddhism and healing. Demiéville’s article ‘Byō’ from Hōbōgirin (Lanham, 1985). DeMolen, Richard L. (ed.), Religious orders of the Catholic Reformation. In honour of John C. Olin on his seventy-fifth birthday (New York, 1994). Descamps, Le Baron du, Histoire général comparée des missions (Brussels, 1932). Deslandres, Dominique, ‘À quand une ethnohistoire des missionnaires’, Études d’histoire religieuse, 61 (1995): 115–24. Deslandres, Dominique, ‘L’impossible acculturation. Le converti et le convertisseur inconvertible au XVIIe siècle’, in J. Borm, B. Cottret, and J.-F. Zorn (eds), Convertir/se convertir. Regards croisés sur l’histoire des missions chrétiennes (Paris, 2006), 149–98. Deslandres, Dominique, Croire et faire croire: les missions francaise au XVIIe siècle (1600–1650) (Paris, 2003). Destombes, Paul, Le collège général de la Société des Missions-Étrangères de Paris, 1665–1932 (Hong Kong, 1934). Dhaninivat, Kromamun Bidyalabh, HRH, A history of Buddhism in Siam (Bangkok, 1960). Dhôtel, Jean-Claude, Les origines du catéchisme moderne, d’après les premiers manuels imprimés en France (Paris, 1967). Dinet, Dominique, ‘Le bon prédicateur, selon le père Nicolas de Dijon, capucin au XVIIe siècle’ in Actes du 109e congrès national des sociétes savantes. Dijon, 1984. Section d’histoire

Bibliography

219

moderne et contemporaine. Vol. I: Transmettre la Foi: XVIe–XXe siècles. 1: Pastorale et prédication en France (Paris, 1984), 183–96. Disney, Anthony, A history of Portugal and the Portuguese empire, 2 vols (Cambridge, 2009). Ditchfield, Simon, ‘An Early Christian school of sanctity in Tridentine Rome’, in S. Ditchfield (ed.) Christianity and community in the West. Essays for John Bossy (Aldershot, 2001), 183–205. Ditchfield, Simon, Liturgy, Sanctity and History in Tridentine Italy: Pietro Maria Campi and the Preservation of the Particular. Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge, 1995). Doyle, William, Jansenism: Catholic resistance to authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution (Basingstoke, 2000). Dror, Olga, ‘Đoàn thi Điểm’s “Story of the Vân Cát Goddess” as a Story of Emancipation’, ˙ JSEAS 33 (2002): 63–76. Dror, Olga and K.W. Taylor (eds), Views of seventeenth-century Vietnam. Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina and Samuel Baron on Tonkin (Ithaca, NY, 2006). Dror, Olga, Cult, culture and authority. Princess Lieˆ˜u Hanh in Vietnamese history (Honolulu, ˙ 2007). Duteil, Jean-Pierre, ‘L’opposition aux missionnaires catholiques en Extrême-Orient: Japon, Chine, et Dai-Viêt aux 16e et 18e siècles’ in J. Pirotte (ed.), Résistance à l’evangelisation. Interprétations historiques et enjeux théologiques. Hommage aux professeurs Maurice Cheza et Claude Soetens (Paris, 2004), 183–207. Dutilleul, J., ‘Esclavage’, in Vacant, Mangenot, and Amann (eds), Dictionnaire de théologie Catholique (Paris, 1924), V: 457–520. Dutra, Francis A., ‘Membership in the Order of Christ in the Sixteenth Century: Problems and Perspectives’, Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies, 1 (1994), 228–39. Dutra, Francis A. and João Camilo de Santos (eds), The Portuguese and the Pacific (Centre for Portuguese Studies, University of California, 1995). Elia, Pasquale M. d’, Galileo in Cina: relazioni attraverso il Collegio Romano tra Galileo e i gesuiti scienziati missionari in Cina (1610–1640) (Rome, 1947). Elliott, J. H., Empires of the Atlantic world: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830 (London, 2006). Elman, Benjamin A., On their own terms: science in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, MA, 2005) Elsner, Jaś and Joan-Pau Rubiés, ‘Introduction’, Voyages and Visions: towards a cultural history of travel (London, 1999), 1–56. Endicott, Kirk Michael, An analysis of Malay magic (Oxford, 1981). England, John C., Hidden history of Christianity in Asia. The churches of the East before the year 1500 (Delhi, 1996). Erler, Mary C., ‘Palm Sunday prophets and processions and Eucharistic controversy’, Renaissance Quarterly, 48 (1995): 58–81. Essen, Léon van der, ‘Les missions à l’époque des découvertes (fin du XVe siècle—début du XVIIe siècle), in Descamps, Histoire générale comparée des missions (Brussels, 1932), 301–37. Evans, Grant, ‘Between the global and the local there are regions, cultural areas and national states: a review article’, JSEAS 33 (2002): 147–62. Fabbrini, Fabrizio, La manumissio in ecclesia (Milan, 1965). Fauconnet-Buzelin, Françoise, Aux sources des Missions Étrangères. Pierre Lambert de la Motte 1624–1679 (Paris, 2006).

220

Bibliography

Fenning, Hugh, ‘The Dominicans and the Propaganda Fide, 1622–1668: A catalogue of the First Series of the SOCG, vols 1 to 30’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, XLI (1971): 241–323. Finley, M. I., Ancient slavery and modern ideology (London, 1980). Flores, Maria da Conceição Os Portugueses e o Sião no século XVI (Lisbon, 1995). Forest, Alain, and Yoshiharu Tsuboï, Catholicisme et sociétés asiatiques (Paris, 1988). Forest, Alain, Les missionnaires français au Tonkin et au Siam XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles. Analyse comparée d’un relatif succès et d’un total échec, 3 vols (Paris, 1998). Forest, Alain, Yoshiaki Ishizawa, and Léon Vandermeersch, Cultes populaires et sociétés asiatiques: appareils culturals et appareils de pouvoir (Paris, 1991). Forest, Alain, ‘La guerre et le militaire dans le Tonkin des Trinh’, in P. H. Kratoska (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history, 6 vols (London, 2001), I: 135–58. Forster, Marc R., Catholic revival in the age of baroque. Religious identity in Southwest Germany, 1550–1750 (Cambridge, 2001). Franch, Ramon Sugranyes de, ‘Raymond Lulle, ses idées missionaires’, in S. Delacroix (ed.), Histoire universelle des missions catholiques, 4 vols. Vol. I: Les missions des origines au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1956), 207–20. Lyall, Francis, Slaves, citizens, sons. Legal metaphors in the Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI, 1984). Franco, José Eduardo, O mito dos Jesuítas. Em Portugal, no Brasil e no Oriente (Séculos XVI a XX) 2 vols (Lisbon, 2006). Freedman, Paul, Out of the East. Spices and the medieval imagination (New Haven, 2008). Freitas Carvalho, José Adriano de, ‘De l’Observance et des observances de l’Observance à la plénitude de l’Observance au Portugal’, in Frédéric Meyer and Ludovic Viallet, Identités franciscaines à l’âge des réformes (Clermont-Ferrand, 2005), 143–64. French, Roger and Andrew Cunningham, Before science: the invention of the friars’ natural philosophy (Aldershot, 1996). Galbraith, G. R., The Constitutions of the Dominican Order, 1216–1360 (Manchester, 1925). Garnier, Derick, Ayutthaya. Venice of the East (Bangkok, 2004). Garnsey, Peter, Ideas of slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge, 1996). Gentilcore, David, From bishop to witch. The system of the sacred in early modern Terra d’Otranto (Manchester, 1992). Gentilcore, David, Healers and healing in early modern Italy (Manchester, 1998). Gillman, Ian, and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1999). Ginsburg, Henry, Thai manuscript painting (London, 1989). Giovanni, Francesca di, Sergio Pagano, and Giuseppina Roselli (eds), Guida delle fonte per la storia dell’Africa del Nord, Asia e Oceania nell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Vatican City, 2005). Gleason, Elisabeth G., ‘The Capuchin order in the sixteenth century’, in R. L. DeMolen (ed.), Religious orders of the Catholic Reformation. In honour of John C. Olin on his seventyfifth birthday (New York, 1994), 30–57. Gold, Barbara K., ‘Gender fluidity and closure in Perpetua’s prison diary’, EuGeStA, vol. 1 (2011): 237–51. Gonçales, Nuno da Silva, A Companhia de Jesus a a missionaçaõ no Oriente actas do coloßquio internacional promovido pela Fundação Oriente e pela revista Brotéria: Lisboa, 21 a 23 de abril de 1997 (Lisboa, 2000). Gonzales, Jose Maria, Historia de las misiones dominicanas de China 1632–1700, 5 vols (Madrid, 1955–67). Goody, Jack, The interface between the written and the oral (Cambridge, 1987).

Bibliography

221

Goscha, Christopher E., ‘La présence vietnamienne au royaume de Siam du XVIIème au XIXème siècle: vers une perspective péninsulaire’, in P. H. Kratoska (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history (London, 2001), I: 211–43. Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (Chicago, 1984). Gregory, Brad S., Salvation at stake: Christian martyrdom in early modern Europe (London, 1999). Griffiths, Gareth, ‘“Trained to tell the truth”: Missionaries, converts and narration’, in Norman Etherington (ed.), Missions and Empire, (Oxford, 2005), 153–72. Grove, Richard, Green imperialism. Colonial expansin, tropical island Edens and the origins of environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge, 1995). Gruzinski, Serge, Les quatres parties du monde. Histoire d’une mondialisation (Paris, 2004). Gruzinski, Serge, ‘«En tí se junta España con la China» ou l’Asie vue depuis Mexico’, in C. Castelnau-L’Estoile and F. Regourd (eds), Connaissances et pouvoirs. Les espaces impériaux (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles). France, Espagne, Portugal (Pessac, 2005), 335–51. Guennou, Jean, ‘Monseigneur Pallu et la Sainte Vierge’, Bulletin de la Société des MEP, 2nd ser., 80 (1955): 433–38. Guennou, Jean, ‘Vigueur nouvelle aux missions d’Indochine’, in in Joseph Metzler (ed.), Sacræ Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum. 30 anni a servizio delle missioni. 1622–1972 (Rome: Herder, 1972), I/ii: 572–81. Gutiérrez, David, The Augustinians from the Protestant Reformation to the Peace of Westphalia 1518–1648, trans. John J. Kelly (vol. II of History of the Order of St Augustine) (Villanova, PA, 1979). Haliczer, Stephen, Sexuality in the confessional. A sacrament profaned (Oxford, 1996). Hall, D. G. E. (ed.), Historians of South East Asia (London, 1961). Hall, D. G. E., A history of South-East Asia, 4h edn (London, 1981). Hargreaves, A. S., ‘Some later seventeenth-century book-trade activities’, Quadrat, 6, (1997): 3–6. Harris, Murray J., Slave of Christ. A New Testament metaphor for total devotion to Christ (Leicester, 1999). Hartmann, Arnulf, , ‘The Augustinians in golden Goa, according to a manuscript by Felix of Jesus, OSA’, Analecta Augustiniana, XXX (1967), 5–12. Harvey, Peter, An introduction to Buddhism. Teachings, history and practice (Cambridge, 1990). Headley, John M., ‘Spain’s Asian presence, 1565–1590: structures and aspirations’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 75 (1995): 623–46. Heers, Jacques, Esclaves et domestiques au Moyen Age dans le monde méditerranéen(Paris, 1981). Hefner, Robert W., ‘Introduction: world building and the rationality of conversion’, Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (Berkeley, 1993), 3–46. Heinze, Ruth-Inge, ‘Nature and function of some therapeutic techniques in Thailand’, Asian Folklore Studies, 36 (1977): 85–104. Helms, Mary W., ‘Essay on objects: interpretations of distance made tangible’, in S. B. Schwartz (ed.), Implicit understandings: Observing, reporting and reflecting on the encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era (Cambridge, 1994), 355–77. Henkel, Willi (ed.), Ecclesiae memoria: miscellenea in onore del R. Josef Metzler O.M.I., Prefetto dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Rome, 1991).

222

Bibliography

Hoàng Xuân-Hãn, “Girolamo Maiorica. Ses Œuvres en Langue Vietnamienne Conservées à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris”, Archuvum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 22 (1953): 203–14. Hodgen, Margaret Trabue, Early anthropology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Philadelphia, 1964). Hodges, Ian, ‘Western science in Siam: a tale of two kings’ Osiris, 13 (1998): 80–95. Hooker, Virginia Matheson, A short history of Malaysia. Linking East and West (Crow’s Nest, NSW, Australia, 2003). Houben, ‘Southeast Asia and Islam’ The annals of the American Academy of political and social science 588.1 (2003), 149–70. Hsia, Florence C., ‘Mathematical martyrs, mandarin missionaries, and apostolic academicians: telling institutional lives’, in Anne Goldgar and Robert I. Frost (eds), Institutional culture in early modern society (Leiden, 2004), 3–34. Hsia, R. Po-Chia, ‘Translating Christianity. Counter-Reformation Europe and the Catholic mission in China, 1580–1780’, in K. Mills and A. Grafton (eds), Conversion old worlds and new (New York, 2003), 87–108. Hsia, R. Po-Chia, Noble patronage and Jesuit missions: Maria Theresia von Fugger-Wellenburg (1690–1762) and Jesuit missionaries in China and Vietnam Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, ns 2 (Rome, 2006). Hsia, R. Po-Chia, The world of Catholic renewal, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 2005). Hudon, William V., ‘Two instructions to preachers from the Tridentine Reformation’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 20 (1989): 457–70. Hulme, Peter and Tim Youngs (eds), Cambridge companion to travel writing (Cambridge, 2002), 1–13. Hutchinson, E. W., Adventures in Siam in the seventeenth century (London, 1940). Huxley, Andrew, ‘Introduction’, Thai law: Buddhist law. Essays on the legal history of Thailand, Laos and Burma (Bangkok, 1996), 1–29. Irving, D. R. M., Colonial counterpoint: Music in early modern Manila (Oxford, 2010). Isaac, Peter, ‘Pills and print’, in Robin Myres and Michael Harris (eds), Medicine, mortality and the book trade (New Castle, Del., 1998), 29–49. Ishii, Yoneo, ‘Religious patterns and economic change in Siam in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Trade, power, and belief (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 180–94. Jack-Hinton, Colin, ‘Marco Polo in Southeast Asia, A preliminary essay in reconstruction’ Journal of Southeast Asian history, 5 (1964): 43–103. Jack-Hinton, Colin, ‘The political and cosmographical background to the Spanish incursions into the Pacific in the sixteenth century’, in P. H. Kratoska (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history, 6 vols (London, 2001) I: 9–41. Jack-Hinton, Colin, The search for the islands of Soloman 1567–1838 (Oxford, 1969). Jacq-Hergoualc’h, Michel, L’Europe et le Siam du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle: apports culturels (Paris, 1993). Jacques, Roland, ‘Le Portugal et la romanisation de la langue vietnamienne: faut-il réécrire l’histoire?’, Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer, 85 (1998): 21–54. Jacques, Roland and Nguye˜ˆn Ðăng Trúc, Các nhà truyền giáo Bo`ˆ Ðaò Nha và thời kỳ đa`ˆ u cũa Giáo hoˆi Công giáo Vieˆ t Nam/Les missionnaires portugais et les débuts de l’Église ˙ catholique au˙ Viet-Nam (Reichstett, 2004). Jacques, Roland and Michel Barnouin, ‘Quand l’Évangile débarque chez Confucius. Le dossier Alexandre de Rhodes’, in C. Paisant (ed.), La mission en texts et images, XVIe–XXe siècles (Paris, 2004), 79–102.

Bibliography

223

Jacques, Roland, De Castro Marim à Faïfo: naissance et développement du Padroado portugais (Lisbon, 1999). Jacques, Roland, Rita F. Uson, and Marguerite Uson, Portuguese pioneers of Vietnamese linguistics prior to 1650 (Bangkok, 2002). Johnson, Maxwell, The rites of Christian initiation. Their evolution and interpretation (Collegeville, MN, 1999). Johnson, Trevor, ‘Blood, tears and Xavier-Water: Jesuit missions and popular religion in the eighteenth-century Upper Palatinate’, in Bob Scribner and Trevor Johnson (eds), Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe (Basingstoke, 1996), 183–202. Jones, A. H., ‘Islam in Southeast Asia: problems of perspective’, in C. D. Cowan and O. W. Wolters (eds), Southeast Asian history and historiography, essays presented to D.G.E Hall (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1976), 304–20. Jones, Ann Rosalind, and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance clothing and the materials of memory (Cambridge, 2000 (2007 printing). Jorgensen, Kenneth J., ‘The Theatines’, in R. L. DeMolen (ed.), Religious orders of the Catholic Reformation. In honour of John C. Olin on his seventy-fifth birthday (New York, 1994), 1–29. Jotischky, Andrew, ‘The mendicants as missionaries and travellers in the Near East in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, in Rosamund Allen (ed.), Eastward bound. Travel and travellers, 1050–1550 (Manchester, 2004), 88–106. Kamperidis, Lambros, ‘Catechesis in East and West’, in G .R. Evans, A history of pastoral care (London, 2000), 201–19. Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘The Islamic City: Melaka to Jogjakarta, c. 1500–1800’, Modern Asian Studies, 20/2 (1986), 333–51. Keane, Webb, ‘From fetishism to sincerity: on agency, the speaking subject, and their historicity in the context of religious conversion’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 39 (1997): 674–93. Kelly, Henry Ansgar, The devil at baptism. Ritual, theology and drama (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1985). Kendall, Calvin B. et al., Conversion to Christianity. From late antiquity to the modern age: reconsidering the process in Europe, Asia and the Americas (Minneapolis, MN, 2009). Kersten, Carool, ‘Cambodia’s Muslim king: Khmer and Dutch sources on the conversion of Reameathipadei I, 1642–1658’, JSEAS 37 (2006): 1–22. Khalfaoui, Mouez, ‘From religion to social conversion: how Muslim scholars conceived of rites of passage from Hinduism to Islam in seventeenth-century South Asia’, Journal of beliefs and values, 22 (2011): 85–93. Kidd, Colin, The forging of races. Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge, 2006). Knapp, Gerrit J., ‘Slavery and the Dutch in Southeast Asia’, in Gert Oostindie (ed.), Fifty years later: antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit (Leiden, 1995), 193–206. Knecht, R. J, The rise and fall of Renaissance France 1483–1610, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2001). Koehler, Théodore, ‘Servitude (Saint Esclavage)’, Viller, Derville, Lamarche & Solignac (eds), Dictionnaire de la spiritualité. Ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire 17 vols (Paris, 1932–95), vol. XIV: 730–45. Koester, David, ‘The power of insult. Ethnographic publication and emergent nationalism in the sixteenth century’, in Richard Handler (ed.), Central sites, peripheral visions. Culture and institutional crossings in the history of anthropology. History of Anthropology, vol. 11 (Madison, 2006), 8–40.

224

Bibliography

Koizunu, Junko, ‘From water buffalo to a human being: women and the family in Siamese history’, in Andaya (ed.), Other pasts. Women gender and history in early modern Southeast Asia (Manoa, 2000), 254–68. Kowalsky, N. and J. Metzler, Inventory of the historical archives of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples or «de Propaganda Fide», 3rd edn (Rome, 1988). Kratoska, Paul H. (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history, 6 vols. Vol. I: Imperialism before 1800, ed. Peter Borchberg (London, 2001). Kratoska, Paul H., ‘Country histories and the writing of Southeast Asian history’, in A. T. Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee, New terrains in Southeast Asian history (Athens, OH, 2003), 104–20. Kuchar, Gary, Divine subjection: the rhetoric of sacramental devotion in early modern Europe (Pittsburgh, PA, 2005). L’Institute des sœurs de l’instruction charitable de Saint-Enfant-Jésus, dites de Saint-Maur. Esquisse Historique par une Religieuse du même Institute (Paris, 1920). Lach, Donald F. and Edwin J. Van Kley, Asia in the making of Europe, 3 vols in 9 parts (Chicago, 1965–93). Lagirarde, François, ‘Devotional diversity in Thai monasteries. The worship of the Fat Monk’, in Pierre Pichard and François Lagirarde (eds), The Buddhist monastery. A crosscultural survey (Paris, 2003), 149–68. Lamalle, Edmond, ‘La documentation d’histoire missionnaire dans le «Fond Gesuitico aux archives Romaines de la Compagnie de Jesus’, in J. Metzler (ed.), De archivis et bibliothecis. Missionibus atque scientiae missionum inservientibus (Rome, 1968), 131–76. Lang, Bernhard, Sacred games. A history of Christian worship (London, 1997). Lange, Claude, ‘La catéchèse au Vietnam aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles’, in Actes du 109e congrès national des sociétes savantes. Dijon, 1984. Section d’histoire moderne et contemporaine. Vol. I: Transmettre la Foi: XVIe–XXe siècles. 2: Pastorale de la mer et missions extérieurs (Paris, 1984), 211–30. Lasker, B., Human bondage in Southeast Asia (Chapel Hill, NC, 1950). Launay, Adrian, Histoire générale de la Sociéte des Missions-Étrangères, 3 vols (Paris (orig. pub. 1894). Laven, Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit encounter with the East (London, 2011). Laven, Virgins of Venice: enclosed lives and broken vows in the Renaissance convent (London, 2002). Lê Thàhn Khôi, Histoire du Viêt Nam des origines à 1858 (Paris, 1981). Legge, J. D. ‘The writing of Southeast Asian history’, in N. Tarling (ed.), The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 1999), I: 1–50. Leone, Massimo, Saints and signs. A semiotic reading of conversion in early modern Catholicism (Berlin, 2010). Lesaulnier, Jean, ‘Pallu, François’, in Jean Lesaulnier and Antony McKenna (eds), Dictionnaire de Port-Royal (Paris, 2004), 775–6. Lesaulnier, Jean, ‘Pallu, Victor’, in Jean Lesaulnier and Antony McKenna (eds), Dictionnaire de Port-Royal (Paris, 2004), 776. Lesserteur, E. C., Les premiers prêtres indigènes de l’Église du Tong-King (Lyon, 1883). Lestringant, Frank, Une sainte horreur ou le voyage en Eucharistie (Paris, 1996). Lestringant, Frank, ‘Le voyage, une affaire de religion’, in Sophie Linon-Chipon and JeanFrançois Guennoc (eds), Transhumances divines. Récits de voyage et religion (Paris, 2005), 13–31.

Bibliography

225

Lévy-Ward, Annick, ‘Rites hindous de consécration d’un roi bouddhiste en Thaïlande’, in Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière and Marie-Louise Reiniche (eds), Les apparences du monde. Royautés hindoues et bouddhiques de l’Asie du Sud et du Sud-Est (Paris, 2006), 225–63. Li Tana, Nguye˜ˆn Cochinchina: Southern Vietnam in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Ithaca, NY, 1998). Lieberman, Victor, ‘Transcending East-West dichotomies: state and culture formation in six ostensibly separate areas’, Modern Asian Studies, 31 (1997): 463–546. Lieberman, Victor, Strange parallels. Southeast Asia in global context, c. 800–1830. Vol. I: Integration on the mainland (Cambridge, 2003). Lingat, R., L’esclavage privé dans le vieux droit siamois. Avec une traduction des anciennes lois siamoises sur l’esclavage (Paris, 1931). Linon-Chipon, Sophie, Gallia Orientalis. Voyages aux Indes orientales, 1529–1722. Poétique et imaginaire d’un genre littéraire en formation (Paris, 2003). Lobato, Manuel, ‘Malaca’, in A. H. Oliveira Marques (ed.), História dos Portuguese no Extremo Oriente, 4 vols + índices. Vol. I/ii: De Macau à Periferia (Lisbon:, 2000), 13–74. Loenertz, R. J., ‘La societé des Frères Pérégrinants: étude sur l’Orient dominicain’, Archivum Fratrum Predicatorum, 45 (1975): 107–45. Loenertz, R. J., ‘Les missions dominicains en Orient au XIVe siècle’, Archivum Fratrum Predicatorum, 3 (1933): 5–55. Lombard, Denys and Jean Aubin (eds), Marchands et hommes d’affaires asiatiques dans l’Océan Indien et la Mer de Chine, 13e–20e siecles ̀ (Paris, 1988). Lopes, Fernando Félix, ‘Missões Franciscanas na India Oriental em 1595. Casas, pessoal e legislação’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 13 (1953): 165–210. Lopes, Fernando Félix, ‘Os Franciscanos no Oriente Português de 1584 a 1590’, Studia, 9 (1962): 29–142. Lopes, Fernando Félix, ‘Para a história da Ordem Franciscana em Portugal. Fontes narrativas e textos legais’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, Part I—vol. 5 (1945): 172–202; Part II—vol. 6 (1946): 528–61; Part III—vol. 7 (1947): 31–68. Lopez-Gay, J., ‘La consulta “Ad modum synodi” di Nagasaki, 1598’, in Willi Henkel (ed.), Ecclesiae memoria: miscellenea in onore del R. Josef Metzler O.M.I., Prefetto dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Rome, 1991), 251–66. Lopez-Gay, J., ‘Misionología: II–IV’, DHCJ, III: 2700–6. Loureiro, Rui Manuel, Fidalgos, missionários e mandarins. Portugal e a China no Século XVI (Lisbon, 2000). Lualdi, Katherine Jackson, ‘A body of beliefs and believers: sacramental confession and parish worship in Reformation France’, in Katherine Jackson Lualdi and Anne T. Thayer (eds), Penitence in the age of reformations (Aldershot, 2000), 134–51. Lualdi, Katherine Jackson and Anne T. Thayer, ‘Introduction’, Penitence in the age of reformations (Aldershot, 2000), 1–9. Lutz, Jessie G., ‘Women in Imperial China: ideal, stereotype and reality’, in Jessie G. Lutz, Pioneer Chinese Christian women. Gender, Christianity and Social mobility (Bethlehem, PA, 2010), 29–47. Lux-Sterrit, Laurence, Redefining female religious life. French Ursulines and English Ladies in seventeenth-century Catholicism (Aldershot, 2005). Lyall, Francis, Slaves, citizens, sons: legal metaphors in the Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI, 1984). Macgregor, I. A., ‘Review of Sĕjarah Mĕlayu or “Malay Annals” by C. C. Brown’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 16 (1954): 606–8.

226

Bibliography

Macgregor, I. A., ‘Some aspects of Portuguese historical writing of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on South East Asia’, in D. G. E. Hall (ed.), Historians of South East Asia (London, 1961), 172–99. Madeira Santos, Catarina, «Goa é a chave de toda a Índia» Perfil político da capital do Estado da Índia (1505–1570) (Lisbon, 1999). Maggs, Barbara Widenor, ‘Science, mathematics and reason: the missionary methods of the Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes in seventeenth-century Vietnam’, The Catholic Historical Review, 86 (2000): 439–58. Magnol, Pierre, ‘De la méthod naturelle et des Jussieu’, in Flourens (ed.), Recueil des éloges historiques lus dans les séances publiques de l’académie des sciences (Paris, 1857), 11–150. Manguin, Pierre-Yves, ‘Manpower and labour categories in early sixteenth-century Malacca’, in Anthony Reid and Jennifer Brewster (eds), Slavery, bondage and dependency in South East Asia (St Lucia, 1983), 209–15. Manguin, Pierre-Yves, Les Nguyen, Macau et le Portugal: aspects politiques et commerciaux d’une relation privilégiée en Mer de Chine (Paris, 1984). Manguin, Pierre-Yves, Les Portugais sur les côtes du Vieˆ t-Nam et du Campā. Étude sur les routes maritimes et les relations commerciales, d’après˙ les sources portugaises (XVIe, XVIIe, XVIIIe siècles) (Paris, 1972). Mantienne, Frédéric, ‘États et églises au temps de l’expansion européen en Asie (XVIIe– XVIIIe siècles)’, in Patrice Morlat (ed.), La question religieuse dans l’empire colonial français (Paris, 2003), 11–39. Mantienne, Frédéric, ‘Le recours des états de la péninsule Indochinoise à l’aide européenne dans leurs relations (XVIème–XVIIIème siècles)’, in P. H. Kratoska (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history, 6 vols (London, 2001), I: 55–84. Margiotti, Fortunato, ‘L’attaggiamento dei francescani spagnoli nella questioni dei riti cinesi’, in Sánchez & Fuertes (eds), España en extreme oriente—Filipinas, China, Japon—Presencia Franciscana, 1578–1978 (Madrid, 1979), 125–80. Marillier, André, Nos pères dans la foi: notes sur le clergé catholic du Tonkin de 1666–1765, 3 vols (Paris, 1995). Marin, Catherine, (ed.), Les écritures de la mission en Extrême-Orient. Le choc de l’arrivée, XVIIIe–XXe siècles. De l’attente à la réalité. Chine, Asie du Sud-Est, Japon. Anthologie de textes missionnaires (Turnhout, 2007). Marsot, ‘Esclavage: Droit canonique’, in G. Jacquemet et al. (eds), Catholicisme: hier, aujourd’hui, demain: encyclopédie 15 vols (Paris, 1948–2000), IV: 420–1. Martin, Dale B., Slavery as salvation. The metaphor of slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven, 1990). Martínez Cuesta, A., ‘Betancur (Betancourt, Béthancourt), Pedro de San José’, in Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (eds), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, 10 vols (Rome, 1974–2003), I: 1412–14. Marzal, Manuel M., ‘La evangelización de los negros americanos según el De instauranda aethiopum salute’, in Sandra Negro and Manuel M. Marzal, SJ (eds), Esclavitud, economía y evangelización. Las haciendas jesuitas en la América Virreinal (Lima, 2005), 19–41. Matheson, V., and M. B. Hooker, ‘Slavery in the Malay texts: categories of dependency and compensation’, in Anthony Reid and Jennifer Brewster (eds), Slavery, bondage and dependency in South East Asia (St Lucia, 1983), 182–208. Mathorez, J., Les étrangers en France: histoire de la formation de la population française (Paris, 1919). Maxwell, John Francis, Slavery and the Catholic Church. The history of Catholic teaching concerning the moral legitimacy of the institution of slavery (London, 1975).

Bibliography

227

May, John D’Arcy, Transcendence and violence: the encounter of Buddhist, Christian and Primal traditions (New York, 2003). McGinness, Frederick J., ‘Preaching ideals and practice in Counter-Reformation Rome’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 11 (1980): 108–28. McGinness, Frederick J., Right thinking and sacred oratory in Counter-Reformation Rome (Princeton, 1995). McNamara, Jo Ann Kay, Sisters in arms: Catholic nuns through two millennia (London, 1996). McPherson, Kenneth, ‘Staying on: reflections on the survival of Portuguese enterprise in the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries’, in Peter Borschberg (ed.), Iberians in the Singapore-Melaka area and adjacent regions (16th to 18th century) (Wiesbaden, 2004), 63–91. Meersman, Achilles, ‘The first Latin bishops of the Portuguese period in India’, Neue Zietschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 20 (1964), 179–83. Meersman, Achilles, ‘The provincials of the ancient Franciscan Provinces in India’, Archivium Franciscanum Historicum, 60 (1967). Meersman, Achilles, The ancient Franciscan provinces in India 1500–1835 (Bangalore, 1971). Meersman, Achilles, The Franciscans in the Indonesian Archipelago 1300–1775 (Louvain, 1967). Metzler, Joseph, ‘Il contesto storico: B. La situazione della Chiesa missionaria’, in J. Metzler (ed.), Sacræ Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum. 30 anni a servizio delle missioni. 1622–1972 (Rome, 1972) vol. 1/i: 15–37. Metzler, Joseph, ‘Indici dell’Archivio Storico della S.C. «De Propaganda Fide»’, in J. Metzler (ed.), De archivis et bibliothecis. Missionibus atque scientiae missionum inservientibus (Rome, 1968), 109–30. Metzler, Joseph, ‘Orientation, programme et premières décisions’, in J. Metzler (ed.), Sacræ Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum. 30 anni a servizio delle missioni. 1622–1972 (Rome, 1972), 1/i: 146–96. Metzler, Joseph, ‘The foundation of the Congregation “de Propaganda Fide” by Gregory XV’, in J. Metzler (ed.), Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum (Rome, 1972), I/i: 79–111. Metzler, Joseph, ‘Verso un Istituto missionario di sacerdoti secolari’, in Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum (Rome, 1972), I/i: 506–19. Meulen, W. J. van der, ‘Suvarn.advîpa and the Chrysê Chersonêsos’, Indonesia, 18 (1974), 1–40. Meyer, Frédéric and Ludovic Viallet, Identités franciscaines à l’âge des réformes (ClermontFerrand, 2005). Michaud, Joseph and Louis Gabriel Michaud (eds), Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, vol. VIII (Paris, 1854). Mills, Kenneth and Anthony Grafton (eds), Conversion in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Seeing and believing (Woodbridge, 2003). Mills, Kenneth and Anthony Grafton (eds), Conversion: old worlds and new (New York, 2003). Milner, A. C., ‘Islam and the Muslim state’, in M. B. Hooker (ed), Islam in South-East Asia (Leiden, 1983), 23–49. Moffett, Samuel Hugh, A history of Christianity in Asia, 2 vols (New York, 2003–5). Monter, E. William, Ritual, myth and magic in early modern Europe (Brighton, 1983). Moorman, John, A history of the Franciscan Order. From its origins to the year 1517 (Oxford, 1968).

228

Bibliography

Moran, J. F., The Japanese and the Jesuits. Alessandro Valignano in sixteenth-century Japan (London, 1993). Morán, Manuel and José Andrés-Gallego, ‘The preacher’, in R. Villari (ed.), Baroque personae (London, 1995), 126–59. Morrison, Karl F., Understanding conversion (Charlottesville, 1992). Mott, Luiz, O sexo proibido: virgens, gays e escravos nas garras da inquisição (Campinas, Brazil, 1988). Moussay, Gérard and Brigitte Appavou, Répertoire des membres de la Société des Missions Étrangères 1659–2004 (Paris, 2004). Moya, R., ‘Missiologia’, in Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (eds), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, 10 vols (Rome, 1974–2003), V: 1417–28. Mungello, D. E., ‘An introduction to the Chinese Rites controversy’, in D. E. Mungello (ed.), The Chinese rites controversy: its history and meaning (Nettetal, 1994), 1–14. Mungello, D. E., Curious land: Jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology (Stuttgart, 1985). Negro, Sandra and Manuel M. Marzal (eds), Esclavitud, economía y evangelización. Las haciendas jesuitas en la América Virreinal (Lima, 2005). Neill, Stephen, A history of Christian mission, 2nd edn rev. Owen Chadwick (Reading, 1986). Nguyeˆ˜n- hữu Tấn, La vie quotidienne dans le Vieˆ t-Nam d’autrefois (Brussels, 1983). ˙ Nguyen Khac Vien, Aperçu sur la litterature vietnamienne (Hanoi, 1976). Nguyen, Cuong Tu, Zen in medieval Vietnam: a study and translation of the Thiền uyển taˆ p ˙ anh (Honolulu, 1997). Nguyên, Thê Anh, and Alain Forest (eds), Notes sur la culture et la religion en peninsule Indochinoise. En hommage à Pierre-Bernard Lafont (Paris, 1995). Nguyên, Thê Anh, and Alain Forest (eds), Guerre et paix en Asie du Sud-Est (Paris, 1998). Nguyên, Tùng, ‘L’esclavage dans le Viêtnam ancien’, in Georges Condominas (ed.), Formes extrêmes de dépendance. Contributions à l’étude de l’esclavage en Asie du Sud-Est (Paris, 1998), 509–40. Nguyen-Long, ‘Trade and exchange’, in Nancy Tingley (ed.), Arts of Ancient Viet Nam. From river plain to open sea (London, 2009), 248–9. Như-Quỳnh, Cao Thi, and John Schafer, ‘From verse narrative to novel: the development ˙ of prose fiction in Vietnam’, Journal of Asian Studies, 47 (1988): 756–77. Nock, A. D., Conversion. The old and the new in religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford, 1933). Noirot, ‘Facultés’, in G. Jacquemet et al. (eds) Catholicisme: hier, aujourd’hui, demain: encyclopédie, 15 vols (Paris, 1948–2000), IV: 1049–50. Nunbhakdi, Suthavadee, ‘Étude sur le système de sakdina en Thaïlande’, in Georges Condominas (ed.), Formes extrêmes de dépendance : contributions à l’étude de l’esclavage en Asie du Sud-Est (Paris, 1998). Nuno da Silva Gonçalves (ed.), A Companhia de Jesus e a missionação no Oriente. Actas do colóquio internacional promovido pela Fundação Oriente e pela revista Brotéria Lisboa, 21 a 23 de Abril de 1997 (Lisbon, 2000). O’Connell, Marvin R., ‘The Roman Catholic tradition since 1545’, in R. L. Numbers and D. W. Amundsen (eds), Caring and curing. Health and medicine in the western religious traditions (Baltimore, 1998), 108–45. O’Malley, John W. (ed.), Catholicism in early modern history. A guide to research (Ann Arbor, MI, 1988).

Bibliography

229

O’Malley, John W., ‘Content and rhetorical forms in sixteenth-century treatises on preaching’, in J. W. O’Malley, Religious culture in the sixteenth century. Preaching, rhetoric, spirituality and reform (Aldershot, 1993), ch. 3. O’Malley, John W., ‘Form, content and influence of works about preaching before Trent: The Franciscan contribution’, in G. R. Evans, A history of pastoral care (London, 2000), ch. 4. O’Malley, John W., ‘The ministry to outsiders: the Jesuits’, in G. R. Evans, A history of pastoral care (London, 2000), 252–61 O’Malley, John W., ‘The Society of Jesus’, in R. L. DeMolen (ed.), Religious orders of the Catholic Reformation. In honour of John C. Olin on his seventy-fifth birthday (New York, 1994), 138–63. O’Malley, John W., Praise and blame in Renaissance Rome: rhetoric, doctrine and reform in the sacred orators of the papal court, c.1450–1521 (Durham, NC, 1979). O’Malley, John W., Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steve J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, (eds), The Jesuits. Culture, sciences and the arts 1540–1773 (London, 1999). O’Malley, John W., The first Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, 1993). Oakley, Kenneth, ‘Folklore of fossils parts I and II’, Antiquity, 39 (1965), 10–20, 117–25. Ocio, Hilario and Eladio Neira, Misioneros Dominicanos en el Extremo Oriente 1587–1835, 2 vols (Manila, 2000). Olin, John C., ‘The idea of pilgrimage in the experience of Ignatius Loyola’, Church History, 48 (1979): 387–97. Olival, Fernanda et al., Guia de fontes portuguesa para a história da Ásia, 2 vols (Lisbon, 1998–9). Olival, Fernanda, ‘Structural changes within the sixteenth-century Portuguese military Orders’, e-Journal of Portuguese History, 2 (2004): 1–20. Oliveira Marques, A. H. (ed.), História dos Portuguese no Extremo Oriente, 4 vols + índices (Lisbon, 1999–2003). Ollé Rodríguez, Manel, ‘Early Spanish insertion into Southeast Asia: the Chinese factor’, in Peter Borschberg (ed.), Iberians in the Singapore-Melaka area and adjacent regions (16th to 18th century) (Wiesbaden, 2004), 23–34. Olsen, Margaret M., Slavery and salvation in colonial Cartagena de Indias (Gainesville, FL, 2004). Ostrowski, Brian, ‘The nôm works of Geronimo Maiorica, SJ (1589–1656) and their Christology’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Cornell University, 2006). Ostrowski, Brian, ‘The rise of Christian Nôm literature in seventeenth-century Vietnam: fusing European content and local expression’, in Wynn Wilcox (ed.), Vietnam and the West. New approaches (Ithaca, NY, 2010): 19–39. Oury, Guy Marie, Mgr François Pallu ou les missions étrangères en Asie au 17e siècle (Paris, 1985). Paderberg, John W., ‘The third general congregation April 12–June 16, 1573’, in T. M. McCoog (ed.), The Mercurian project: forming Jesuit culture 1573–1580 (St Louis, 2004), 49–75. Pagden, Anthony, The fall of natural man: the American Indian and the origins of comparative ethnology (Cambridge, 1982). Paisant, Chantal (ed.), La mission en texts et images, XVIe–XXe siècles (Paris, 2004). Palazzo, Éric, L’espace rituel et le sacré dans le christianisme. La liturgie de l’autel portatif dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge (Turnhout, 2008).

230

Bibliography

Palmer, Richard, ‘Physicians and the Inquisition in sixteenth-century Venice’, in Ole Peter Grell and Andew Cunningham (eds), Medicine and the Reformation (London, 1993), 118–33. Paventi, S. M., ‘Congregazione Urbaniana “Super facultatibus missionariorum”’, Studia Missionalia, 7 (1952): 219–40. Pearson, Jo, ‘Islam, Christianity and the crusades’, John Wolffe (ed.), Religion in History: conflict, conversion and co-existence (Manchester, 2004), 42–67. Pearson, M. N., ‘Conversions in South-east Asia. Evidence from the Portuguese records’, Portuguese Studies, 6 (1990): 53–70. Pearson, M. N., Before colonialism: theories on Asian-European relations 1500–1750 (Delhi, 1988). Pearson, M. N., Pious passangers. The Hajj in earlier times (London, 1994). Pearson, M. N., The Portuguese in India (Cambridge, 1987). Pearson, M. N., ‘Creating a littoral community. Muslim reformers in the early modern Indian Ocean world’, in Charles H. Parker and Jerry H. Bentley (eds), Between the Middle Ages and modernity. Individual and community in the early modern world (Lanham, 2007) Peletz, Michael G., ‘Gender Pluralism: Muslim Southeast Asia since early modern times’, Social research, 78 (2011): 659–86. Perbal, A., ‘Projets, fondation et débuts de la Sacrée Congrégation de la Propagande (1568–1649)’, in S. Delacroix, Histoire universelle des missions Catholiques Histoire universelle des missions catholiques, 4 vols (Paris, 1956) II: 109–31. Peterson, Willard J., ‘What to wear? Observations and participation by Jesuit missionaries in late Ming society’, in S. B. Schwartz (ed.), Implicit understandings: Observing, reporting and reflecting on the encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era (Cambridge, 1994), 403–21. Phan, Peter C., ‘What is old and what is new in the catechism’, in Berard L. Marthaler (ed.), Introducing the catechism of the Catholic Church: traditional themes and contemporary issues (London, 1994), 56–71. Phan, Peter C., Mission and catechesis. Alexandre Rhodes and inculturation in seventeenthcentury Vietnam (New York, 1998). Phelan, John Leddy, ‘Some ideological aspects of the conquest of the Philippines’, The Americas, 13 (1957): 221–39. Phelan, John Leddy, The millennial kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley, CA, 1970). Pieroni, Geraldo, ‘Les inquisiteurs ont-ils aussi bani des esclaves? (Empire portugais, XVIe– XVIIe siècles)’, in Katia de Queirós Mattoso (ed.), Esclavages. Histoire d’une diversité de l’océan Indien à l’Atlantique sud (Paris, 1997), 173–91. Pinto Rema, Henrique, ‘Implantación del Franciscanismo en Portugal’, in M. d. M. Graña Cid and A. A. Pérez (eds), El franciscanismo en la penißnsula Ibérica: balance y perspectivas: I congreso internacional, Madrid, 22–27 de septiembre de 2003 (Barcelona, 2005), 213–34. Pinto, Jeanette, Slavery in Portuguese India. 1510–1842 (Bombay, 1992). Pirillo, Diego, ‘Il battesimo degli Indios: polemiche di fine Cinquecento’, in A. Prosperi (ed.), Salvezza delle anime disciplina dei corpi. Un seminario sulla storia del battesimo (Pisa, 2006), 425–48. Pirotte, Jean (ed.), Résistance à l’evangelisation. Interprétations historiques et enjeux théologiques. Hommage aux professeurs Maurice Cheza et Claude Soetens (Paris, 2004), 183–207. Pocknee, Cyril E., The Christian altar. In history and today (London, 1963).

Bibliography

231

Pombejra, Dhiravat na, ‘Ayutthaya at the end of the seventeenth century: was there a shift to isolation?’, in Anthony Reid (ed.), Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Trade, power, and belief (Ithaca, 1993), 250–72. Pourrat, ‘Boudon, Henri-Marie’, in G. Jacquemet et al. (eds), Catholicisme: hier, aujourd’hui, demain: encyclopédie, 15 vols (Paris, 1948–2000), II: 193–4. Prosperi, Adriano, ‘Battesimo e identità cristiana nella prima età moderna’, Salvezza delle anime disciplina dei corpi. Un seminario sulla storia del battesimo (Pisa, 2006), 1–65. Prosperi, Adriano, ‘Science and the theological imagination in the seventeenth century: baptism and the origins of the individual’, in S. Ditchfield (ed.), Christianity and community in the West. Essays for John Bossy (Aldershot, 2001), 206–31. Prosperi, Adriano, ‘The missionary’ in R. Villari (ed.), Baroque personae (London, 1995), 160–94. Ptak, Robert, ‘Reconsidering Melaka and central Guangdong: Portugal’s and Fujian’s impact on Southeast Asian trade (early sixteenth century)’, in Peter Borschberg (ed.), Iberians in the Singapore-Melaka area and adjacent regions (16th to 18th century) (Wiesbaden, 2004), 1–22. Puente, Heliodoro Andres, La riforma tridentina en la Orden Agustiniana (Extracto de la tesis doctorado ‘in utroque jure’) (Valladolid, 1965). Quach-Langlet, Tâm, ‘La compassion transcendendée. l’«Oraison pour le rechat des âmes abandonées» attribuée à Nguyên Du’, in T. A. Nguyên and A. Forest (eds), Notes sur la culture et la religion en peninsule Indochinoise. En hommage à Pierre-Bernard Lafont (Paris, 1995), 135–56. Quaritch Wales, H. G., Ancient Siamese government and administration (London, 1934). Quenum, Alphonse, Les églises chrétiennes et la traite atlantique du XVe au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1993). Rafael, Vincente, Contracting colonialism: translation and Christian conversion in Tagalog Society under early Spanish rule (Ithaca, NY, 1988). Ramsay, Jacob, ‘Miracles and myths: Vietnam seen through its Catholic history’, in Philip Taylor (ed.), Modernity and re-enchantment. Religion in post-revolutionary Vietnam (Singapore, 2007), 371–98. Rapley, Elisabeth, The dévotes: women and church in seventeenth-century France (Montreal, 1990). Reid, Anthony (ed.), Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Trade, power, and belief (Ithaca, NY, 1993). Reid, Anthony, ‘“Closed” and “open” slave systems in pre-colonial Southeast Asia’, in Anthony Reid and Jennifer Brewster (eds), Slavery, bondage and dependency in South East Asia (St Lucia, 1983), 156–81. Reid, Anthony, ‘Cosmopolis and nation in central Southeast Asia’ Asia Research Institute working paper series, 22 (2004): 1–13. Reid, Anthony, ‘Introduction: slavery and bondage in Southeast Asian history’, in A. Reid and J. Brewster (eds), Slavery, bondage and dependency in South East Asia (St Lucia, 1983), 1–43. Reid, Anthony, ‘Islamization and Christianization in Southeast Asia: the critical phase, 1550–1650’, in A. Reid (ed.), Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Trade, power, and belief (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 151–79. Reid, Anthony, ‘The Islamization of Southeast Asia’, in A. Bakar, A. Kaur, and A. Z. Ghazali (eds), Historia: Essays in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Department of History, University of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, 1984), 13–33.

232

Bibliography

Reid, Anthony, ‘The seventeenth-century crisis in Southeast Asia’, Modern Asian Studies, 24 (1990): 639–59. Reid, Anthony ‘Understanding Melayu (Malay) as a source of diverse modern identities’, JSEAS 32 (2001): 295–313. Reid, Anthony and Jennifer Brewster (eds), Slavery, bondage and dependency in South East Asia (St Lucia, 1983). Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the age of commerce 1450–1680, 2 vols (London and New Haven, 1988–93). Reuter, Amand, —— ‘Il Dicastero Romano per le missioni e le sue riforme’, in W. Henkel (ed.), Ecclesiae memoria: miscellenea in onore del R. Josef Metzler O.M.I., Prefetto dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Rome, 1991), 165–77. Reuter, Amand, ‘De iuribus et officiis Sacræ Congregationis’, in J. Metzler (ed.), Sacræ Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum. 30 anni a servizio delle missioni. 1622–1972 (Rome, 1972), I/i: 112–45. Reynolds, Craig J., ‘A new look at old South East Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies, 54 (1995): 419–46. Reynolds, Craig J., ‘Buddhist cosmography in Thai history, with special reference to nineteenth-century cultural change’, Journal of Asian Studies, 35 (1976): 203–20. Rivera, Luis N., A violent evangelism: the political and religious conquest of the Americas (Louisville, 1992). Rodao, Florentino, Españoles en Siam (1540–1930). Un aportación al estudio de la presencia hispania en Asia (Madrid, 1997). Rodinson, Maxime, Europe and the mystique of Islam, trans. Roger Veinus (London, 1987). Roest, Bert, Franciscan literature of religious instruction before the Council of Trent (Leiden, 2004). Romano, Antonella, La Contre-Réforme mathématique: constitution et diffusion d’une culture mathématique Jésuite à la renaissance (1540–1640) (Rome, 1999). Rouleau, Francis, ‘The first Chinese priest of the Society of Jesus: Emmanuel de Siqueira, 1633–1673’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, XXVIII (1959): 3–50. Rubiés, Joan-Pau, Travel and ethnology in the Renaissance. South India through European eyes, 1250–1625 (Cambridge, 2000). Rubiés, Joan-Pau, Travellers and cosmographers. Studies in the history of early modern travel and ethnography (Aldershot, 2007). Rubin, Miri, Corpus Christi: the Eucharist in late medieval culture (Cambridge, 1991). Rublack, Ulinka, Dressing up: cultural identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford, 2010). Ruiz-de-Medina, J., ‘Dojukus’, DHCJ II: 1133–4. Ruiz-de-Medina, J., ‘Vietnam’, DHCJ IV: 3953–68. Rule, Paul, ‘Towards a history of the Chinese Rites controversy’, in D. E. Mungello (ed.), The Chinese rites controversy: its history and meaning (Nettetal, 1994), 249–66. Saaida, Oissila, ‘L’évangélisation des musulmans: mission impossible?’, in J. Pirotte (ed.), Résistance à l’evangelisation. Interprétations historiques et enjeux théologiques. Hommage aux professeurs Maurice Cheza et Claude Soetens (Paris, 2004), 257–71. Sánchez, Victor and Cayetano S. Fuertes (eds), España en extreme oriente—Filipinas, China, Japon—Presencia Franciscana, 1578–1978 (Madrid, 1979). Sandhu, Kernial Singh and Paul Weatley, ‘From capital to municipality’, Melaka: the transformation of a Malay capital c.1400–1980, 2 vols (Oxford, 1983), I: 495–597. Santiago, Luciano P. R., To love and to suffer. The development of the religious congregations for women in the Spanish Philippines 1565–1898 (Quezon City, 2005).

Bibliography

233

Santos Alves, Jorge Manuel dos, ‘Christianização e organização eclesiástica’, in A. H. Oliveira Marques (ed.), História dos portugueses no extremo oriente. 1ª volume, tomo I: Em torno de Macau (Lisbon, 1998), 301–47. Santos Alves, Jorge Manuel dos, and Pierre-Yves Manguin, O Roteiro das Cousas do Achem de D. João Ribeiro Gaio: um olhar português sobre o norte de samatra em finais do século XVI (Lisbon, 1997). Saraya, Thida, (Sri) Dvaravati. The initial phase of Siamese history (Bangkok, 1999). Saunders, A. C. de C. M., A social history of black slaves and freedmen in Portugal 1441–1555, (Cambridge, 1982). Schneider, Roberta, ‘Mortification on parade: penitential processions in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France’, Renaissance and Reformation, 10 (1986): 123–46. Schulenburg, Jane Tibbetts, Forgetful of their sex. Female sanctity and society ca. 500–1000 (Chicago, 2001). Schultze, Fritz, ‘Islamizing Malay culture—the evidence of Malay court chronicles’, in Fritz Shulze and Holger Warnk (eds), Insular Southeast Asia. Linguistic and cultural studies in honour of Bernd Northofer (Wiesbaden, 2006), 131–40. Schurhammer, Georg, Francis Xavier, his life, his times, vol. III: Indonesia and India 1545–1549, trans. M. Joseph Costelloe (Rome, 1980). Schwartz, Stuart B., (ed.), Implicit understandings: Observing, reporting and reflecting on the encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era (Cambridge, 1994). Scribner, Robert W., ‘Ritual and popular religion in Catholic Germany at the time of the Reformation’, Journal of ecclesiastical history, 35 (1984): 47–77. Sella, Pacifico, Leone X e la definitiva divisione dell’ordine dei minori (OMin.): La bolla ite vos (29th Maggio 1517) (Rome, 2001). Selwyn, Jennifer D., ‘Schools of mortification: theatricality and the role of penitential practice in the Jesuits’ popular missions’ in K. J. Lualdi and A. T. Thayer, Penitence in the age of reformations (Aldershot, 2000), 201–21. Senn, Frank C., Christian liturgy. Catholic and evangelical (Minneapolis, 1997). Sherman, Willian H., ‘Stirrings and searchings (1500–1720)’, in P. Hulme and T. Youngs (eds), The Cambridge companion to travel writing (Cambridge, 2002), 17–36. Silva Rego, António da, Historia das missões do Padroado Portugês do Oriente (Lisbon, 1949). Silva Rego, António da, O padroado português do oriente. Esbôço histórico (Lisbon, 1950). Silva, António de, Trent’s impact on the Portuguese Patronage missions (Lisbon, 1969). Skeat, Walter William, Malay Magic. An introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula (London, 1965). Sluhovsky, Moshe, Believe not every spirit: possession, mysticism, & discernment in early modern Catholicism (London, 2007). Smail, John R. W., ‘The possibility of an autonomous history of Southeast Asia’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 2 (1961), 72–102. Smith, R. B., ‘England and Vietnam in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: an essay in historical comparison’, in C. D. Cowan and O. W. Wolters (eds), Southeast Asian history and historiography, essays presented to D.G.E Hall (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1976). Smith, Stefan Halikowski, Creolization and diaspora in the Portuguese Indies. The Portuguese world of Ayutthaya, 1640–1720 (Leiden, 2011). Smithies, Michael and Luigi Bresson, Siam and the Vatican in the seventeenth century (Bangkok, 2001). Snow, David A. and Richard Machalek, ‘The convert as a social type’, Sociological Theory, 1 (1983): 259–89.

234

Bibliography

Sousa Pinto, Paulo Jorge de, ‘Captains, sultans and liaisons dangereuses: Melaka and Johor in the late sixteenth century’, in P. Borschberg (ed.), Iberians in the Singapore-Melaka area and adjacent regions (16th to 18th century) (Wiesbaden, 2004), 131–46. Sousa Pinto, Paulo Jorge de, Portugueses e Malaios. Malaca e os Sultanatos de Johor e Achém 1575–1619 (Lisbon, 1997). Souza, Evergton Sales, Jansénisme et réforme de l’Eglise dans l’empire portugais 1640 à 1790 (Paris, 2004). Spence, Jonathan, The memory palace of Matteo Ricci (London, 1985). Spinks, Bryan D., Early and medieval rituals and theologies of baptism. From the New testament to the Council of Trent (Aldershot, 2006). Stella, Alessandro, ‘«Herrado en el rostro con una S y un clavo»: l’homme-animal dans l’Espagne des XVe–XVIIIe siècles’, in H. Bresc (ed.), Figures de l’esclave au Moyen-Age et dans le monde moderne (Paris, 1996), 147–63. Stoler, Ann Laura, Along the archival grain. Thinking through colonial ontologies (Princeton, NJ, 2009). Strathern, Alan, ‘Immanence and tolerance: ruler conversions to Islam and Christianity in Archipelagic Southeast Asia’, in Tara Alberts and D. R. M. Irving (eds), Intercultural exchange in Southeast Asia. History and society in the early modern world (London, 2013), 23–58. Strathern, Alan, ‘Os piedosos and the mission in India and Sri Lanka in the 1540s’, in R. Carneiro A. Matos (eds), D. João III e o império. Actas do Congresso Internacional commemorative do seu nasciamento. (Lisbon e Tomar, 4 a 8 Junho de 2002) (Lisbon, 2004), 855–64. Strathern, Alan, ‘Transcendentalist intransigence: why rulers rejected monotheism in early modern Southeast Asia and beyond’, Comparative studies in society and history, 49 (2007): 358–83. Strathern, Alan, Kingship and conversion in sixteenth-century Sri Lanka. Portuguese imperialism in a Buddhist land (Cambridge, 2007). Streit, Rob, Bibliotheca Missionum, vol. IV, ‘Asiatische missionsliteratur, 1245–1599’ (Freiburg, 1928). Suárez, Thomas, Early mapping of Southeast Asia (Singapore, 1999). Surakiat, Pamaree, ‘The changing nature of conflict between Burma and Siam as seen from the growth and development of Burmese states from the 16th to the 19th centuries’, Asia Research Institute working paper series, 64 (2006): 1–47. Swearer, Donald K., The Buddhist world of Southeast Asia (Albany, 1995). Ta Van Tai, ‘The status of women in traditional Vietnam: A comparison of the Codes of the Le dynasty (1428–1788) with the Chinese Codes’, Journal of Asian history, 15 (1981): 97–145. Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja, The Buddhist saints of the forest and the cult of amulets. A study in charisma, hagiography, sectarianism and millennial Buddhism (Cambridge, 1984). Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja, World conqueror and world renouncer. A study of Buddhism and polity in Thailand against a historical background (Cambridge, 1976). Tamburrino, G., ‘Impedimenti all’ingresso in religione’, in Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (eds), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione (Rome, 1977), IV: 1656–65. Tardieu, Jean-Pierre, Le destin des noirs aux Indes de Castille XVIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1984). Tarling, Nicolas (ed.), The Cambridge history of Southeast Asia. 2 vols (Cambridge, 1999). Taylor, Keith W., ‘Nguyen Hoang and the beginning of Vietnam’s southward expansion’, in Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Trade, power, and belief (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 42–65.

Bibliography

235

Taylor, Keith W., ‘Regional conflicts among the Viêt peoples between the 13th and 19th centuries’, in P. H. Kratoska (gen. ed.), South East Asia. Colonial history 6 vols (London, 2001), I: 109–33. Taylor, Keith W., ‘Surface orientations: beyond histories of nation and region’, Journal of Asian studies, 57 (1998): 949–78. Taylor, Philip, Fragments of the present: searching for modernity in Vietnam’s south (Honolulu, 2001). Taylor, Robert H., ‘Introduction’, in Sunait Chutintaranond and Chris Baker (eds), Recalling local pasts. Autonomous history in Southeast Asia (Bangkok, 2002), 1–7. Teixeira, Macau e a sua diocesa, 12 vols (Macau, and Lisbon 1940–63). Teixeira, Manuel, ‘IV centanário dos Dominicanos em Macau’, in Actas do III Encontro sobre história Dominicana, 2 vols (Porto, 1989), II: 331–4. Teixeira, Manuel, ‘Os Franciscanos em Macau’, in V. Sánchez and C. S. de Fuertes (eds), España en extreme oriente—Filipinas, China, Japon—Presencia Franciscana, 1578–1978 (Madrid, 1979), 309–75. Teixeira, Manuel, The Portuguese missions in Malacca and Singapore (1511–1958). Vol I: Malacca (Lisbon, 1961). Tellechea Idígoras, J. Ignacio, ‘Fray Juan Bautista Lucarelli. Misionero Franciscano en extremo oriente. Cinco cartas a Felipe II’, Archivo Ibero-Americano, 60 (2000), 385–98. Tentler, Thomas Nathaniel, Sin and confession on the eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977). Terweil, Barend J., ‘The battle of Nong Sarai (1593) and the relationship between the largest political units in mainland Southeast Asia’, in T. A. Nguyên and A. Forest (eds), Guerre et paix en Asie du Sud-Est (Paris, 1998), 39–54. Thayer, Anne T., ‘Judge and doctor: images of the confessor in printed model sermon collections, 1450–1520’, in K. J. Lualdi and A. T. Thayer (eds), Penitence in the age of reformations (Aldershot, 2000), 10–29. Thomaz, Luís Filipe Ferreira Reis, ‘A escravatura em Malaca no século XVI’, Studia, 53 (1994): 253–316. Thomaz, Luís Filipe Ferreira Reis, ‘Descobrimentos e evangelização. Da Cruzada à missão pacífica’, in Congresso internacional de história. Missionação portuguesa e encontro de culturas. Actas. 4 vols (Braga, 1993), I: 81–129. Thomaz, Luís Filipe Ferreira Reis, ‘Malaka et ses communautés marchandes au tournant du 16e siècle’, in D. Lombard, and J. Aubin (eds), Marchands et hommes d’affaires asiatiques dans l’Océan Indien et la Mer de Chine, 13e–20e siècles (Paris, 1988), 31–48. Thomaz, Luís Filipe Ferreira Reis, ‘The Malay sultanate of Melaka’, in A. Reid, Southeast Asia in the early modern period. Trade, power, and belief (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 69–90. Timmerans, Claire, Entre Chine et Europe. Taoïsme et bouddhisme Chinois dans les publications jésuites de l’époque moderne (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 1998). Tingley, Nancy, ‘Champa: riverine polities, ports of call’, Arts of Ancient Viet Nam. From river plain to open sea (London, 2009), 176–97. Tingley, Nancy, ‘Trade and exchange in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries through the prism of Hoi An: catalogue entries’, Arts of Ancient Viet Nam. From river plain to open sea (London, 2009), 270–313. Tinhorão, José Ramos, Os negros em Portugal: uma presence silenciosa (Lisbon, 1988). Todorov, Tzvetan, The conquest of America: the question of the other, trans. Richard Howard (London, 1984). Tóth, István György, ‘The correspondence of illiterate peasants in early modern Hungary’, in F. Bethencourt and F. Egmond (eds), Correspondence and cultural exchange in Europe, 1400–1700 (Cambridge, 2007), 313–32.

236

Bibliography

Trakulhun, Sven, ‘The widening of the world and the realm of history: early European approaches to the beginnings of Siamese history, c. 1500–1700’, Renaissance Studies, 17/3 (2003): 392–417. Tran, Nhung Tuyet, ‘Les Amantes de la Croix: an early modern Vietnamese sisterhood’, in Gisèle Bousquet and Nora Taylor (eds), Le Vieˆ t Nam au Féminin. Vieˆ t Nam: Women’s ˙ ˙ Realities (Paris, 2005), 51–66. Tran, Nhung Tuyet, ‘Vietnamese Women at the Crossroads: Gender and Society in Early Modern Đai Vieˆt’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (University of California, Los Angeles, ˙ ˙ 2004). Turton, Andrew, ‘Thai institutions of slavery’, in G. Condominas (ed.), Formes extrêmes de dépendance. Contributions à l’étude de l’esclavage en Asie du Sud-Est (Paris, 1998), 411–57. Üçerler, M. Antoni J., ‘Alessandro Valignano: man, missionary and writer’, Renaissance studies, 17/3 (Special issue: Asian travel in the Renaissance) (2003): 337–66. Üçerler, M. Antoni J., ‘The Jesuit enterprise in Japan (1573–1580)’, in T. M. McCoog (ed), The Mercurian project: forming Jesuit culture 1573–1580 (St Louis, 2004), 831–75. Vannini, Marco, Storia della mistica occidentale. Dall’Iliade a Simone Weil (Milan, 2005). Varisco, Daniel Martin, Reading Orientalism: Said and the unsaid (London, 2007). Vaumas, M. de, L’éveil missionaire de la France (d’Henri IV à la fondation du Séminaire des Missions Etrangères) (Lyon, 1942). Vickery, Michael, ‘The constitution of Ayutthaya. An investigation into the Three Seals Code’, in A. Huxley (ed.), Thai law: Buddhist law. Essays on the legal history of Thailand, Laos and Burma (Bangkok, 1996), 133–210. Villari, Rosario (ed.), Baroque personae, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (London, 1995). Villiers, John, ‘“A truthful pen and an impartial spirit”: Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola and the Conquista de las Islas Malucas’, Renaissance studies, 17 (2003): 449–73. Villiers, John, ‘As derradeiras do mundo: the Dominican missions and the sandalwood trade in the lesser Sunda islands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in L. de Albuquerque and I. Guerreiro (eds), Actas do II seminário internacional de história Indo-Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1985), 37–57. Villiers, John, ‘Trade and society in the Banda Islands in the sixteenth century’ Modern Asian studies, 15 (1981): 723–50. Vogt, Joseph, Ancient slavery and the ideal of man, trans. Thomas Wiedemann (Oxford, 1974). Vongsuravatana, Raphaël, Un Jésuit à la cour de Siam (Paris, 1992). Wake, C. H., ‘Malacca’s early kings and the reception of Islam’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, 5 (1964): 104–28. Ward, Haruko Nawata, Women religious leaders in Japan’s Christian Century, 1549–1650 (Farnham, 2009). Waterson, Roxana, The living house: an anthropology of architecture in South-East Asia (Oxford, 1990). Webster, Jill R., ‘La crisis de los Agustinos en el siglo XV’ in Lazcano (ed.), X congreso internacional de historia de la Orden de San Agustín. Conventos Agustinos. (Madrid, 20–24 de octubre de 1997) (Rome, 1998), II: 987–1013. West, Delno C., ‘Medieval ideas of apocalyptic mission and the early Franciscans in Mexico’, The Americas, 45 (1989): 293–313. Wheatley, The Golden Kersonese, Studies in the historical geography of the Malay Penninsula before AD 1500 (Kuala Lumpur, 1966). Whitmore, ‘Queen mother: origin of the early modern political structure in Vietnam’ in Gisèle Bousquet and Nora Taylor (eds), Le Vieˆ t Nam au féminin. Vieˆ t Nam: women’s ˙ ˙ realities (Paris, 2005).

Bibliography

237

Whitmore, John K., ‘Literati culture and integration in Dai Viet, c. 1430–c. 1840’, Modern Asian studies, 31 (1997): 665–87. Whitmore, John K., ‘Vietnamese historical sources: for the reign of Le Thanh-tong (1460–1497)’, Journal of Asian studies, 29 (1970): 373–94. Wiedemann, T. E. J., Slavery (Oxford, 1981). Wilhelm, Joseph, ‘Roman catechism’, in C. G. Herbermann et al. (eds), The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline, and history of the Catholic Church (London, 1907–22), XIII: 120–1. Winius, George D., ‘Millenarianism and Empire. Portuguese Asian decline and the “crise de conscience” of the missionaries’, Studies on Portuguese India, 1495–1689 (Aldershot, 2001), ch. 5. Winstedt, Richard Olof, The Malays: a cultural history (London, 1950). Witek, John W., ‘Everard Mercurian and the entry of Jesuits into China’, in T. M. McCoog (ed.), The Mercurian project: forming Jesuit culture 1573–1580 (St Louis, 2004), 815–29. Witek, John W., ‘With a view towards Japan: Alessandro Valignano and the opening of the college in Macau’ in Witek (ed.), Religion and culture. An international symposium commemorating the fourth centenary of the University College of St. Paul (Macau, 1999), 51–67. Witte, Charles-Martial de, ‘Aux origines de la «Congrégation» indienne de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs (1546–1580)’, Archivium Fratrum Praedicatorum, 37 (1966): 457–92. Witte, Charles-Martial de, ‘Lettres papales concernant l’expansion portugaise au XVIe siècle’, Neue Zietschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 40 (1984): 1–25, 93–125, 194–205; vol. 41 (1985): 41–68, 118–36, 173–87, 271–87. Wolters, O. W., History, culture and region in Southeast Asian perspectives, rev. edn (Ithaca, NY, 1999). Wyatt, David K., ‘Relics, oaths and politics in thirteenth-century Siam’, Journal of Southeast Asian studies, 32 (2001): 3–66. Wyatt, David K., ‘The “subtle revolution” of King Rama I of Siam’, in David K., Wyatt and Alexander Woodside (eds), Moral order and the question of change. Essays on Southeast Asian thought (New Haven, 1982), 9–53. Wyatt, David K., Thailand. A short history (London, 1984). Yalman, Nur, ‘The structure of Sinhalese healing rituals’, The Journal of Asian studies 23, (1964): 115–50. Yang, Baoyun, Contribution à l’histoire de la principauté des Nguyên au Vietnam méridional, 1600–1775 (Geneva, 1992). Yu, Insun, ‘The changing nature of the Red River Delta villages during the Lê period (1428–1788)’, JSEAS 32 (2001): 151–72. Yu, Insun, Law and society in seventeenth and eighteenth century Vietnam (Seoul, 1990). Zagorin, Perez, Ways of lying. Dissimulation, persecution and conformity in Early Modern Europe (London, 1990). Zhang, Qiong, ‘About God, demons, and miracles: the Jesuit discourse on the supernatural in Late Ming China’, Early science and medicine, 4 (1999): 1–36. Zika, Charles, ‘Processions and pilgrimages: controlling the sacred in fifteenth-century Germany’, Past and present, 118 (1988): 25–64. Županov, Ines G., ‘Twisting a pagan tongue. Portuguese and Tamil in sixteenth-century Jesuit translations’, in K. Mills and A. Grafton (eds), Conversion old worlds and new (New York, 2003), 109–39. Županov, Ines G., Disputed mission. Jesuit experiments and Brahminical knowledge in seventeenth-century South India (New Delhi, 1999). Zysk, Kenneth G. Asceticsm and healing in ancient India. Medicine in the Buddhist monastery (New York, 1991).

This page intentionally left blank

Index accommodation 92, 124, 159, 203–4 Æquum reputamus 19, 21, 22 n. 26 Albuquerque, Afonso d’ 17, 24, 48, 51–2, 110 n. 118, 188 n. 53 altars 74, 132, 137–8, 148–9, 150, 152, 153, 157, 181 n. 7 Amaral, Gaspar do 125, 142 Americas, missions in the 23, 91, 110, 121, 134, 147 n. 2, 180–1 amulets 69, 118, 151–2 asceticism 26, 44, 69, 93, 95, 99–100, 103–4, 142, 184 astronomy 105–8 Augustine, St 8–9, 126, 180 Augustinians 30–1, 75–8, 92, 93, 110–11, 139, 153, 182 Discalced Augustinians 31 Ayutthaya 6, 39, 57, 60–2, 70, 96, 97, 99, 104, 105, 110, 112, 125, 126, 138, 153, 184, 193 Bangayama, Juan Bautista 114 Bangkok 60, 68, 114 baptism 4, 9, 61, 64, 69, 82, 117, 127, 132–6, 144–5, 170, 176, 187–8, 191, 200 baptismal formula 133–6 mass baptism 134–5, 188 bishops 18–23, 32, 34–43, 46, 131–2, 136, 138 (arch)bishops of Goa 19–20, 21, 22, 27–8, 38, 132 bishops appointed by the Propaganda Fide 34–43, 79, 136–7, 140 n. 54, 154–5, 206 bishops of São Tomé of Meliapor 19 n. 13, 21, 37 n. 22 bishops of Malacca 20–2, 25 n. 52, 28, 29, 32 n. 93, 37–9, 53, 56, 188 bishop of Manila 24 bispos do anel 19, 35 Buddhist abbots compared to Catholic bishops 58 ‘native’ bishops 46 Papal refusal to ordain Portuguese bishops 35 bomor 56–7 Bonze, see Sangha Borba, Diogo 27–8, 182 Borri, Christoforo 9, 95, 101–2, 152 Bourges, Jacques de 40, 54, 61, 64, 67, 70–1, 79, 100, 176, 193 Buddhism 111, 145, 149, 155, 168, 169 Mahāyāna Buddhism in Tonkin and Cochinchina 6, 11, 44, 74, 83–4, 176

Theravāda Buddhism in Siam 6, 65–70, 92, 99, 139, 152, 156, 185 Burgos, Jerónimo 28–9 Buzomi, Francisco 10, 124 Cacham, see Tourane Cambodia 25, 28 n. 74, 37, 54, 60, 65, 75 canon law 22, 38, 99, 114, 195 Cardim, Antonio 81–2, 118, 125 Carmelites 34 n. 2, 138, 207 catechisms 120–8 catechists 44–5, 84, 117, 126, 127, 132, 134, 137, 142–3, 160, 170 women as catechists 127–8, 176–7 Catherine 127–8, 176 ceremonies 11, 44, 56–7, 66, 69, 70, 74, 84–5, 91, 93, 102–3, 118–19, 131, 133–4, 138–9, 145, 148, 155–9; see also Chinese rites controversy; Malabar rites controversy Cham 54, 73, 74, 83 Chevreuil, Louis 39–40, 112–13, 200 Chiesa, Bernardino della 112 children 10, 61, 77, 83, 112–13, 127, 144–5, 173, 177, 179, 182, 188–9, 191, 195 China 1, 4, 55, 82, 83, 84, 98, 107, 168 missions to China 5, 6, 17, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 37, 41, 89–90, 92, 100, 103, 105 n. 88, 120–1, 153, 156, 174, 184 Chinese rites controversy 155–6, 204 Choisy, Abbé François-Timoléon de 83, 185 clothing 5–6, 98, 101, 102 clothing as holy relics 55, 91, 167 of catechists 46 of converts 155, 198 n. 123 of missionaries 29, 89–103, 115, 183, 197–8 of nuns 162–3, 166–7 Clowet, Albert xv–xvii, 5, 7–8, 200–1 Collado, Diego 96 n. 34, 142 colleges, see Society of Jesus colonialism 7, 13–4, 17–19, 43, 48–53, 55, 91, 154, 155, 168–9, 193–4 commerce 1–4, 49, 51, 53, 70, 75, 78, 100, 169 missionaries engaging in trade, 100, 114 confession 24, 46, 112, 119, 132, 137, 140–4, 145, 165, 189, 206 confirmation 18, 20, 35, 36 Confraria da Conversão à Fé 28, 182 confraternities 110, 153–4, 198 Confucianism 5, 6, 11, 44, 73, 74, 78, 84–5, 90, 103, 104 n. 86, 149, 155, 168, 169 Congregação de Santa Cruz 25 conversion 7–12, 54–5, 108, 119, 135–6, 200–7

240

Index

conversion (cont.) conversion narratives 53, 84, 112, 117, 148, 152 conversion potential 47–85, 184 demonstrating true conversion 117, 119, 135–6, 148, 152, 174, 188, 201, 203 metaphors for 7, 109, 153, 181, 194–9 royal conversion 60, 63–4, 67, 75, 78 Councils: Lateran V 22, 26, 121 of Trent 21 n 24, 22, 39, 90, 93 n 16, 94, 96, 103, 121–3, 126, 131 n 2, 133, 135 n 22, 140 see also Goa Courtaulin de Maguelonne, Jean de 79, 84, 119, 153 n 27, 178–9 criticism of rival missionaries 40, 79, 96, 99–100, 102, 112, 116, 136–7, 139, 142, 144, 150, 154, 206 accusations of disobedience 24, 37, 79 allegations against Vietnamese priests 46, 137, 140–2 allegations of sexual impropriety 141–2, 178, 194–5 allegations of missionaries carrying false papers 36–7, 40, 154 see also laxity, Society of Jesus: criticism of Jesuits crusades 7, 17, 19, 49, 51 Cruz, Luís da 55, 198 Đà Nẵng see Tourane devil, the 58, 109, 117, 122, 144, 152, 166 Deydier, François 45, 46, 82, 100, 102, 119, 151–2, 194 quarrels with Jesuits 40–1, 79, 80, 142–3, 151 n. 18, 154 Dias, Baltasar 133, 141, 158, 171, 184, 194 divination 57, 105; see also astronomy Dominicans 23, 24–6, 37, 39, 42, 45, 46, 60, 61, 71, 75 n. 142, 93, 94, 96, 99, 100–1, 103, 108, 111 n. 127, 117, 142, 151, 153–4, 156, 158, 193 Dror, Olga 11–12 Dutch, the 2, 4, 77 n. 163, 81, 115, 143, 163, 189 Dutch Malacca 7, 37, 38, 93, 101, 148–9, 191 embassies 20, 42, 65, 68, 82, 108, 185 English, the 4, 38, 115 Espírito Santo, André do 94 Eucharist 119, 137–9, 140, 145–6, 176, 189 celebrating Mass 18, 46, 102, 115, 133, 137–9, 140, 166, 172, 184 frequent communion 140 excommunication 39, 56, 171, 192, 194 exorcism 56, 117–19, 144–5, 152

faculty 18, 19, 20, 24, 35, 38–9, 46, 109, 134, 141 Faifo (Hội An) 44, 78, 79, 83, 112, 149, 163, 178, 200 Ferreyra, Manuel 40–1, 100–1, 118, 143, 154 Forbin, Claude de 62, 185, 194 fossils 116 Franciscans 23, 26–30, 32–3, 41, 45, 75, 89, 92–3, 94–5, 103, 104, 108–9, 110–11, 112, 116, 122, 127, 134–5, 147 n. 2, 153, 156, 161–7, 182, 188, 193, 194, 204 Fuciti, Domenico 40, 102, 150 n. 12 Gaio, João Ribeiro 25 n. 52, 28 Goa 27–8, 30, 31, 32, 35, 39, 43, 52, 110, 124, 132, 138, 139, 176, 181, 182, 183, 187, 188, 192 Councils of Goa 113, 122, 188, 189, 192 see also Bishops of Goa; Inquisition of Goa Golden Chersonese, the 1–4 Hainques, Antoine 95, 184 hairstyles 6, 89, 101, 102 shaved heads on women 162–3, 165 heresy xvi, 7, 18, 35, 38, 40, 47, 52, 93, 96, 109, 114, 121, 137, 142–144, 146, 148, 151 n. 16, 203–4; see also Jansenism Hindu beliefs 5, 66, 69, 83 Hội An see Faifo holy oils 18, 22, 144, 170, 184 holy water 69, 117–18, 143, 147, 152, 153, 158 hospitals 53 n 26, 76, 110–12, 116, 183 images 54, 69, 119, 147–50, 151–4, 160 Inquisition of Goa 35, 39–40, 41, 52, 204 Islam 5–7, 10, 48–9, 51–6, 57, 68, 77, 83, 169, 190, 205 Jansenism 40, 126 n 41, 140, 156, 204 Japan i, 17, 24, 32–3, 39 n. 33, 44, 78, 81, 82, 83–4, 95, 96 n. 34, 100, 111, 124, 127, 132 n. 5, 150, 153, 192, 204 Japanese Christians 37, 43 n. 61, 60–1, 63, 77, 78, 141, 147, 149, 168, 178 Jesuits, see Society of Jesus João III 19, 20 João IV 161 Johor 77, 191 Kempis, Thomas à 124, 126 laity xvii, 11, 68, 98, 127, 134, 138, 153, 156–7, 201, 205–6 Lambert de la Motte, Pierre 36, 39, 64, 98, 108, 116, 134, 137, 142, 175, 178, 184 Laneau, Louis 36, 97–9, 125, 142, 156, 184 Divinisation par Jesus Christ 196–7 Langlois, Pierre 116, 125, 137, 144 Laos i, 37, 54, 98

Index laxity, accusations of xvi, 34, 55, 134, 139, 142, 193 leprosy 109, 110, 112, 140 liturgy 131, 133, 137 Loubère, Simon de la 42 n. 55, 58, 61, 67, 96 n. 33, 98, 105, 145–6 Louis XIV 39, 42 Loyola, Martin Ignácio de 28–9, 32 n. 97 Loyola, St Ignatius 20, 28 n. 77, 53, 194 Luanda, Angola, 181 Lucarelli, Giambatista 28, 89, 92–3 Macao, 12, 25, 28, 29, 75, 78, 79, 161, 181 Augustinians in Macao 30, 75, 111, 112 Bishops of Macao 21, 22, 29, 37, 38, 132 Franciscans in Macao 28, 29, 32 Jesuits in Macao i, 28, 31, 32, 40, 41, 101, 134 Misericórdia of Macao 110 Poor Clares in Macao 29, 161–2, 176 Madre de Deus, Rafael 75–7 Magalehães, Fernão de 3 magicians see ritual practitioners making merit 68, 70, 156 Malabar rites controversy 155–6, 204 Manrique, Sebastião 58–9, 91–2 Manuel I 19, 23 n. 37, 24, 183 Marini, Giovanni Filippo de i–xvii, 4, 6, 7, 14, 18, 31, 117, 141, 152, 200–4 Marques, Pêro 80, 81 Martins, Afonso 20, 52 Martins, Inácio 40, 102, 141 martyrs xvi, 6, 23, 58, 71, 77, 84 n. 206, 126, 132, 143, 150, 154 n. 33, 173, 191, 192, 200–4, 207 Mary, the Virgin 56, 110, 117, 124, 149–50, 157, 173, 207 mathematics 105–7, 160 Mayorica, Girolamo 124, 151 medicine 105, 168 missionary use of 108, 109–19, 137 MEP plans to abstain from medicines 99 see also exorcism; miracles; ritual practitioners; mendicants see Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans mental prayer 99, 104, 142, 151 n. 17 miracles 10, 92, 104, 105, 109 n. 113, 110, 112, 117–18, 128, 147, 150, 198, 207 Misericórdias 110, 154, 183, 194 Missions Étrangères see Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris Monita ad missionarios 64, 108, 116, 136 morality 7, 51, 55, 62, 67, 68, 73 n. 129, 84–5, 92, 104, 122, 124, 131, 168, 172, 190, 195 Morga, Antonio 3 Narai, King 6, 36, 60, 62, 67–8, 107–8, 113, 125, 173, 184 Naresuan, King 60, 65, 94

241

natural disasters 80, 82–3, 158 epidemics 110–11, 117 Nguye˜ˆn Phúc Chu 107 Nguyeˆ˜n Phúc Trăn 81 Nobili, Roberto 90, 96, 97 nuns 29, 161, 162–8, 174, 176, 178–9, 196 oath required by Vicars Apostolic 41–2, 109 Omnimoda 23–4, 42 n. 51 Ophir 1–3 Order of Christ 18–19, 21, 100, 187 ordination 18, 36, 43–6, 195 of non European priests xvi, 34, 36, 43–6 Ostrowski, Brian 11, 124–5 Padroado xvi, 17–19, 21, 22, 24, 31, 32, 34, 36–9, 41, 122, 198 Pallu, François 36–7, 39, 42, 64, 97, 100, 108, 111, 114, 116, 134–5, 137–9, 196 Papacy, control over missions xvi, 34–8, 40, 206 penance see confession Persia 2, 51, 54, 68 Phan, Peter 95, 113 n. 11 Phaulkon, Constance 67–8, 96, 185 Philippines 4, 5, 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 39, 41, 55, 111, 168–9, 180, 193, 205 Portuguese independence 29, 35, 161 Portuguese, criticism of the xvi, 34, 38, 43, 52, 53, 99–100, 138–9, 189, 192–3, 198 preaching 52, 65, 71, 120–3, 178, 188–9 licensing preachers 19, 35 lay preaching 127–8, 174, 176 primitive Church, comparisons to 4, 132, 134, 173, 185 prohibition of Christianity, in Tonkin 80, 82, 85, 100 Propaganda Fide’, Congregation of xvii, 31, 35–7, 39 n. 33, 41–2, 43, 45, 46, 47, 98–9, 103–4, 109, 111, 114, 123, 125, 154, 192 Pulocambi (Qui Nhơn) 81, 84, 161 reincarnation 67, 68 Rhodes, Alexandre de 2, 4, 11, 36, 46, 70, 71, 95, 117, 118, 125, 127, 132, 133, 134, 140, 142, 145 n. 84, 153, 156–7, 160–4, 166, 167, 172, 176, 197 n. 117 Ricci, Matteo 96, 103, 124, 184, 188 ritual practitioners 55–7, 69, 84, 108, 133, 164, 165–6, 167, 169, 171; see also bomor Romani pontifici 21 rosary 126, 133, 143, 150–1, 153–4, 201 Dominican Province of the Rosary, Philippines 25 Sangha 6, 58–9, 62, 65–70, 80, 83–4, 96–9, 100, 139, 195 missionaries dressing as members of the Sangha 96–8

242

Index

Sangha (cont.) ‘Talapoins’ and ‘Bonzes’—origin of terms 66 n. 88 forest monks 69, 96 n. 32, 104 Santa Cruz, Juan de 42, 101, 143 Santa Thecla, Adriano di 11–12 São Tomé of Meliapor, bishopric 19 n. 13, 21, 37 n. 22 Franciscan custody 29 seminary 36, 44–5, 46, 61, 79, 125–6, 184, 186, 197; see also Society of Jesus, colleges slavery 53, 65, 76, 180–99 ministry to slaves 104, 135–6, 187–95 missionary use of slaves 112 n. 131, 180–7, 189 slave trade 181, 187 spiritual slavery 65, 180, 195–9 Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris xvii, 36–46, 63, 97, 98, 102, 108, 111, 113, 114, 121, 125, 126, 135, 177, 186, 193, 196 proposed vows for missionaries 98–9, 116 Society of Jesus ( Jesuits) xvi–xvii, 19, 27, 28, 31–3, 34 n, 2, 36, 38, 40–6, 53, 55, 84, 89–92, 123–4, 138–9, 140–4, 196, 200–4 college in Malacca 33, 53 n. 26, 184 college of St Paul, Goa 182–3, 187 college of St Paul, Macao i, 31, 32, 41 criticism of Jesuits xvi, 96, 100, 141–4, 154, 178, 198, 203–7 in China i, 90, 100, 103, 134, 155 in Cochinchina 12, 29, 78–82, 95, 101–3, 105, 107, 117, 133–4, 137, 149–50, 152, 174 in India 44, 90, 97, 155, 182–3 in Japan i, 44, 90, 95, 100, 124, 192 in Malacca 2, 31, 32, 53–4, 101, 140–1, 148, 158, 180, 184, 189, 191

in Philippines 32, 169–70 in Siam i, 9, 12, 42, 57–8, 60–3, 65, 67, 96, 97–9, 105–9, 111, 113, 125 in Tonkin xvii, 40–1, 44–5, 71, 78–82, 95, 100–3, 105, 107, 112, 117, 118, 124, 128, 133–4, 141–3, 150, 152, 154–5, 174 martyrs 201 sorcerers, see ritual practitioners spirits 69, 74, 113, 144–5, 152, 156, 169 Sri Lanka 6, 27 n. 69, 28, 33 n. 95, 66 n. 87, 149 St Augustine convent, Goa 31 Tachard, Guy 42, 59, 62–3, 97, 106–7, 173 Talapoins, see Sangha Taoism 5, 6, 11, 74, 83–4, 145 n. 84, 149, 169 Tenasserim 2, 21 37, 60 Ternate 111, 191 Tissanier, Joseph 40, 100 Tourane (Đà Nẵng) 78, 82, 85 Trinh Căn 80 Tri˙nh Tac 82 ˙ Tri˙nh Tráng 157 ˙ Valguarnera, Tommaso 60, 65, 139 Valignano, Alessandro 32–3, 91, 95, 124 Văn Chiên, Jacques 115 Vasquéz, Fernando 24–5 Vaz, Miguel 20, 27–8 viaticum 138–9 visitation 18, 22–3, 37, 114–15 witches, see ritual practitioners Witte, Charles-Martial de 21, 24 n. 44 Xabim, Paulo 85, 157 Xavier, St Francis 19, 20, 27, 31, 55, 124, 132 n. 5, 151, 183, 189