The Hermeneutics of Silk: China and the Fabric of Christendom according to Martino Martini and the Early Modern Jesuit “Accommodationists”

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-446
Author(s):  
Alice Yeh
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jesuit Missionary ◽  
Mission Field ◽  
Material Evidence

AbstractAs Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth-century China struggled to translate Christian theology into Chinese terms and categories, they embarked on a project of purifying the “political” from the “superstitious.” Their project was structured by the unmentionable: the proscribed luxury of silk robes that facilitated the encounters between the missionaries and the native elite they most sought to convert. This article examines the manifold functions of silk and the problem of “accommodation” by turning to theBrevis relatio de numero et qualitate Christianorum apud Sinas(“Brief report on the number and quality of Christians in China”), a booklet authored by the Jesuit missionary Martino Martini (1614–1661). Written for European circulation, theBrevis relatiotouted the triumphs of the mission by incorporating the conceptual imaginary of “China” into the cosmo-political confines of the Euro-Christian world. This article shows how the basic Christian metaphor of horticultural fruitfulness was used to interpret silk and sericulture as material evidence that the Chinese mission field prefigured and promised, both spiritually and commercially, a profitable harvest.

Becoming “Indians”: The Jesuit Missionary Path from Italy to Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-50
Author(s):  
Camilla Russell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Italian Provinces ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jesuit Missionary

The Jesuit missions in Asia were among the most audacious undertakings by Europeans in the early modern period. This article focuses on a still relatively little understood aspect of the enterprise: its appointment process. It draws together disparate archival documents to recreate the steps to becoming a Jesuit missionary, specifically the Litterae indipetae (petitions for the “Indies”), provincial reports about missionary candidates, and replies to applicants from the Jesuit superior general. Focusing on candidates from the Italian provinces of the Society of Jesus, the article outlines not just how Jesuit missionaries were appointed but also the priorities, motivations, and attitudes that informed their assessment and selection. Missionaries were made, the study shows, through a specific “way of proceeding” that was negotiated between all parties and seen in both organizational and spiritual terms, beginning with the vocation itself, which, whether the applicant departed or not, earned him the name indiano.

Stuart Succession Literature

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
British Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literature And Politics ◽  
Distinct Category ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Distinguished Group ◽  
Modern British Literature

Moments of royal succession, which punctuated the Stuart era (1603–1714), occasioned outpourings of literature. Writers, including most of the major figures of the seventeenth century from Jonson, Daniel, and Donne to Marvell, Dryden, and Behn, seized upon these occasions to mark the transition of power; to reflect upon the political structures and values of their nation; and to present themselves as authors worthy of patronage and recognition. This volume of essays explores this important category of early modern writing. It contends that succession literature warrants attention as a distinct category: appreciated by contemporaries, acknowledged by a number of scholars, but never investigated in a coherent and methodical manner, it helped to shape political reputations and values across the period. Benefiting from the unique database of such writing generated by the AHRC-funded Stuart Successions Project, the volume brings together a distinguished group of authors to address a subject which is of wide and growing interest to students both of history and of literature. It illuminates the relation between literature and politics in this pivotal century of English political and cultural history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the volume will be indispensable to scholars of early modern British literature and history as well as undergraduates and postgraduates in both fields.

scholarly journals The Perils of Accommodation: Jesuit Missionary Strategies in the Early Modern World

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-414
Author(s):  
Andrés I. Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Matteo Ricci ◽  
Jesuit Missionaries ◽  
Jose De Acosta ◽  
Christian Message

The notion of accommodation, or the adaptation of one’s message to one’s audience, has been regarded as a central feature of the Jesuit way of proceeding at least since the seventeenth century. In recent years, scholars have come to understand accommodation as a rhetorical principle, which—while rooted in the rules of classical oratory—permeated all the works and ministries performed by the Jesuits of the Old Society. By comparing the theoretical notions about accommodation and the advantages and risks of adapting both the Christian message to native cultures and vice versa, this paper shows how and under what conditions the Jesuit missionaries were able to translate this rhetorical principle into a proselytizing praxis. By focusing on the examples of José de Acosta in Peru, Matteo Ricci in China, and of those Jesuits working in the missions in Paraguay and Chile, this essay will show how the needs in the missionary field superseded and overruled the theoretical requirements set beforehand. They revealed the ways in which the political and cultural context in which the missionaries operated determined the negotiations needed in order to achieve a common ground with their would-be converts if their mission was going to happen at all.

Stancetaking in seventeenth-century prefaces on obstetrics

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Alonso Almeida ◽  
Margarita Mele-Marrero
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The Relationship

This paper deals with authorial stance in prefatory material of Early Modern English manuals on women’s diseases. Publications on this field from between 1612 and 1699 constitute our corpus of study. Original digitalised texts have been analysed manually to identify and detect structures concerning authorial identity and stance, according to the model developed by Marín-Arrese (2009). This model for the identification of effective and epistemic stance strategies enables us to describe both the relationship between the authors and their texts and, more specifically, the power relationship between the writers and their audience. One of the most important conclusions of this study concerns the strategic use of stance markers to enhance the quality of these books and make them appropriate for a wide variety of readers.

Cultures of collecting

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-164
Author(s):  
David Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Book Collecting ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Material Evidence

Studies of private libraries and their owners invariably talk about ‘book collecting’—is this the right terminology? After summarizing our broadly held understanding of the evolution of bibliophile collecting from the eighteenth century onwards, this chapter considers the extent to which similar behaviours can be detected (or not) in the seventeenth, drawing on the material evidence of bookbindings, wording in wills, and other sources. Do we find subject-based collecting, of the kind we are familiar with today, as a characteristic of early modern book owners? Some distinctions are recognized in ways in which medieval manuscripts (as opposed to printed books) were brought together at this time. The relationship between libraries and museums, and contemporary attitudes to them, is explored. The concluding argument is that ‘collecting’ is a careless word to use in the seventeenth-century context; just as we should talk about users rather than readers, we should use ‘owners’ rather than ‘collectors’ as the default term, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Todd Butler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Shared Attention ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
To Come

This chapter explains how the political changes of early Stuart England can be usefully examined from a cognitive perspective, with questions of authority and sovereignty being determined not just by what individuals or institutions do but also by how they are understood and expected to think, and in particular how they were expected to come to decisions. In doing so, it links early modern and contemporary understandings of state formation in seventeenth-century England to processes of decision-making and counsel, as well as the management of personal and public opinion, thereby explicating the mental mechanics of early modern governance. More than being simply a form of political thought or doctrine, intellection is presented as a shared attention to cognitive processes amidst historical moments in which we can see particular patterns of thinking—and attention to them as politics—begin to emerge.

Schütz's Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? and the Politics of the Thirty Years War

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-408
Author(s):  
Derek Stauff
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Devotional Writings

For early modern Lutherans Heinrich Schütz's Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? would have evoked fears of religious persecution. Its text, from the narrative of Paul's conversion in Acts 9, appears in seventeenth-century devotional writings and confessional polemics about persecution. Moreover, recently uncovered archival evidence shows that Schütz performed his concerto in 1632 at a state-sponsored political festival marking the first anniversary of the Battle of Breitenfeld, a major Protestant victory in the Thirty Years War. Here Schütz's concerto clearly stoked fears of persecution, because the celebrations touted the battle as a victory over Catholic oppression. The political context in 1632 might also explain some of the piece's most notable features. Its unusually brief text and vivid music do not illustrate the whole story of Saul's conversion but solely the moment at which Christ intervened to put a stop to persecution. Schütz's listeners would have heard in Saul's example a parallel to the victory they were celebrating in 1632 and the persecution they feared from their Catholic and imperial adversaries. This performance of Saul, the only one known from Schütz's lifetime, shows how his music partook in a broader campaign of Protestant propaganda designed to reinforce the confessional and political divisions that fueled this phase of the war.

Rectifying a Chronicle of Contradictions: The Political Context of Abraham Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-107
Author(s):  
Patrick V. Day
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Advisory Body ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
Divine Kingship

Abraham Wheelock’s first edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle appeared at the height of the First English Civil War in 1643, and it is often treated by modern critics as an appendix to the Old English Historia Ecclesiastica to which it is attached. This paper argues that the Chronicle participated in a larger royalist campaign to establish the West Saxons as the institutional forbears of the first two Stuart kings. The West Saxon genealogies authorize a seventeenth-century conception of patriarchal, divine kingship when they trace Alfred to the biblical Adam. Alternatively, the medieval Chronicle presents the advisory body of the Anglo-Saxons, the witan, as a potentially restrictive force upon the monarchy—an image incompatible with a royalist agenda. Wheelock mediates the contradictory presence of the powerful witan by diminishing its historical importance through excision, substitution, and inconsistent translation so that the Chronicle may more easily conform to early modern perceptions of absolutist kingship.

scholarly journals The Duke of Albany's Invasion of England in 1523 and Military Mobilisation in Sixteenth-century Scotland

2020 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Neil Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
French And English ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
First Time

In November 1523 a Scottish army, led by John Stewart, duke of Albany, invaded England for the first time since the battle of Flodden. While this was a major campaign, it has largely been ignored in the extensive literature on Anglo-Scottish warfare. Drawing on Scottish, French and English records, this article provides a systematic analysis of the campaign. Although the campaign of 1523 was ultimately unsuccessful, it is the most comprehensively documented Scottish offensive against England before the seventeenth century and the extensive records detailing the expedition advances broader understanding of military mobilisation in medieval and early modern Scotland. While the national mobilisation drive which sought to gather men from across the kingdom was ultimately unsuccessful, the expedition witnessed the most extensive number of French soldiers yet sent to Scotland. Finally, the article considers how an examination of the expedition enhances understanding of regency rule and the political conditions in Scotland in the years after Flodden.

Edward II as Political Exemplum

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kit Heyam
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Spectrum Analysis ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
Political Spectrum

This chapter discusses the continuing political relevance of Edward II’s narrative during the late sixteenth and seventeenth century in England and France. As the first English King to have been deposed, and a paradigmatic example of the dangers of overmighty favourites, Edward was a compelling precedent for writers across the political spectrum. Analysis of the ways in which writers deployed his example provides a valuable case study for investigating how historical examples functioned in early modern political discourse, and reveals the hermeneutic agency of political writers in the process of ‘using’ history, when examples such as Edward’s deposition could be interpreted as supporting either side of a political debate.

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