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.

Music in Global Jesuit Missions, 1540–1773

2018 ◽  
pp. 597-634
Author(s):  
David R. M. Irving
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Global Missions ◽  
High Courts ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Pacific

The Society of Jesus has long been recognized for its global contribution to the study, practice, and dissemination of European music in the early modern period, and especially for its interactions with non-European music cultures. In Europe, Jesuit colleges played a seminal role in music education and the development of music in drama, major sacred works were composed by or for Jesuits, and treatises on music were written by Jesuit theorists. In the Americas and on islands in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, music served as a device for evangelization and conversion of indigenous peoples; in some of the missions, European music was cultivated to a level reported as comparable with standards of cities in Europe. Meanwhile, elite Jesuit scholars who gained access to high courts in Asia engaged in dialogue with local scholars, impressing powerful potentates and distinguishing themselves through their talent in music and their skills in astronomy, mathematics, cartography, languages, and diplomacy. This chapter surveys and critiques the diverse role of music within the global missions of the early modern Society of Jesus, with case studies drawn from Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

scholarly journals Jesuit Cardinals: An Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-525
Author(s):  
Robert A. Maryks
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Ignatius Of Loyola ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Historical Periods

The strong resistance of Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556), first superior general of the Society of Jesus (1541–56), to the promotion of his confrères to ecclesiastical offices of (arch)bishops and cardinals because such posts were contrary to the spirit of religious life, requires a brief explanation. Ignatius’s opposition was codified in the Jesuit Constitutions with a requirement that each professed Jesuit promise not to accept such dignities. Nonetheless, Loyola and his successors were occasionally pressured to acquiesce to possible papal appointments of different Jesuits to such offices. This issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies focuses on six of approximately forty-nine cardinals (the definition of Jesuit cardinal can be sometimes tricky for the early modern period). These six represent different historical periods from the late sixteenth until the early twenty-first centuries and different geographical areas, both of origin and of operation (they did not always coincide): Péter Pázmány (1570–1637), Johann Nidhard (1607–81), Giovanni Battista Tolomei (1653–1726), Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–86), Pietro Boetto (1871–1946), and Adam Kozłowiecki (1911–2007).

Financing Jesuit Missions

2017 ◽  
pp. 127-150
Author(s):  
Frederik Vermote
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Managerial Skills ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Jesuit Missions ◽  
State Patronage ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter outlines the less studied finances of Jesuit overseas missions in the early modern period, drawing from incomplete sources for Portuguese Asia and more substantial primary sources (and secondary literature) for Spanish America. It discusses several conceptual points: How did Jesuits and outsiders reflect on their wealth? How and why was the relationship between God and Mammon problematic? In what regions were the Jesuits wealthy, and was this a result of Jesuit managerial skills? The chapter provides an overview of Jesuit missions’ finances through four sources of income: state patronage, private benefactors, trade, and lands/properties. While it is impossible to exhaustively discuss the finances of every Jesuit mission through these categories, female donors and the finances of Jesuit missions in China are given special attention.

scholarly journals “Government in India and Japan is different from government in Europe”: Asian Jesuits on Infrastructure, Administrative Space, and the Possibilities for a Global Management of Power

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Markus Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Far East ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Global Management ◽  
Global Space ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Far East ◽  
The Difference

This paper investigates the influence of geographical distance on the practices and concepts of Jesuit administration in the early modern period. It discusses in particular select letters by Alessandro Valignano from East Asia, to demonstrate how loyal Jesuits in the Far East asked for administrative adjustments in order to overcome the enormous infrastructural difficulties involved in upholding constant epistolary communication with Rome. Valignano over and again stressed both the difference and the distance between Asia and Europe and thought that both factors necessitated an accommodation of the order’s organizational framework. This case study thus helps address the broader questions of how the members of the Society of Jesus conceived of global space. It becomes clear that, while they hoped for institutional unity and insisted frequently on procedural uniformity, they also openly acknowledged that due to distance and cultural differences there never could exist an entirely homogeneous, single global Jesuit space.

scholarly journals Jesuit Visual Culture: Communication, Globalization, and Relationships

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-195
Author(s):  
Alison C. Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Art And Architecture

The visual arts are a powerful tool of communication, a fact recognized and utilized by the Jesuits from the foundation of the order. The Society of Jesus has long used imagery, works of art and architecture, and other aspects of visual and material culture for varied purposes, and the five articles in this issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies explore how the art they commissioned exemplifies the ideals, goals, desires, and accomplishments of the Society. In particular, these five scholars examine a wide array of images and ideas to consider myriad relationships between the Society and works of art in the early modern period, and the implications of their increasingly global footprint.

Loyola's Bees

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasmin Haskell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Didactic Poetry ◽  
Scholarly Attention

This is the first dedicated study of the classical-style, Latin didactic poetry produced by the Society of Jesus in the early modern period. The Jesuits were the most prolific composers of such poetry, teaching all manner of arts and sciences: meteorology and magnetism, raising chickens and children, the arts of sculpture and engraving, writing and conversation, the social and medicinal benefits of coffee and chocolate, the pious life and the urbane life. The book accounts for this investment in so secular a genre by considering the Society's educational and ideological values and practices. Extensive quotation from the poems reveals their literary qualities, compositional methods, and traditions. The poems also command scholarly attention for what they reveal about social, cultural, and intellectual life in this period.

scholarly journals Meeting Henry Hills: Printer To The King's Most Excellent Majesty

Elements ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Violet Caswell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Oliver Cromwell ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Rare Books ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Printed Word ◽  
The Voice

<p>What does it mean to study a book? In the early modern period, the printed book became an essential catalyst for the dissemination of information, ideas, and culture. Especially in times of conflict, the realm of the printed word provided an important space in which the dissatisfied could make their voices heard or in which rulers could quell the rumblings of rebellion. It seems obvious that to study a book is to read a book, to seek out the voice of its author.</p><p>Yet books are more than the mere words they contain. Librarians, archivists, and conservators take pains to preserve early and rare books because they are important physical objects with their own unique and often surprising stories. Behind each book is a host of individuals: patrons and printers, authors and apprentices. </p><p>The following essay began with an examination of the John J. Burns Library's 1686 copy of <em>The Life of St. Ignatius, Founder of the Society of Jesus. </em>It relates the story of Henry Hills, the wily craftsman who managed to retain his position as official printer to the crown throughout the extraordinarly different reigns of Charles II, Oliver Cromwell, James II, and Queen Anne. </p>

The Expansion and the Archives of Rome – A Guide for Secular Historians of the Early Modern Period

Itinerario ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52
Author(s):  
George Winius
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
European Expansion ◽  
Modern Period

One of the paradoxes of early modern European expansion history is that the archives of Rome are not necessarily the richest source for information about the Catholic overseas missions. Nor, as one might hope, are they ideally suited for affording an independent view of the workings of the Iberian colonies. Moreover, there are puzzling gaps in the most valuable of the collections, those of the Society of Jesus, no doubt due to the dissolution of the first phase of order in the 1760s. As a consequence, researchers who concentrate primarily upon secular history, but who often use ecclesiastical sources, tend to gravitate toward Lisbon, Madrid and Seville, and to ignore the archives and libraries of the Vatican almost entirely, except for the excellent printed documents published by the Jesuits. In a way, this approach – or, rather non-approach – is justified.

Jesuit Theater

2018 ◽  
pp. 574-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Sophie Gallo
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Amateur Theater ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Theater Performances ◽  
Late Modern

The Jesuits were famous for didactic and college theater performances, but they also practiced other forms of theater in their scholasticates, close to the convent and amateur theater. Jesuit theater generally refers to the early modern period that corresponds to a specific moment in the Society’s history. But Jesuits continued to write and perform theater during the late modern period, even if the suppression of the Society of Jesus created deep changes in the Jesuits’ relation to theater. If Jesuit drama productions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are more limited and different in nature, they also reveal new accommodations the Society faced after the suppression and restoration. This chapter proposes an approach to Jesuit theater from a longue durée perspective that allows an understanding of how this practice has characterized Jesuit cultural identity in the early modern period but no longer in the late modern period, although a Jesuit theater still exists.

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