The Japanese and the Jesuits: Alessandro Valignano in Sixteenth Century Japan

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The Japanese and the Jesuits

The Japanese and the Jesuits examines the attempt by sixteenthcentury Jesuits to convert the Japanese to Christianity. Directing the Jesuits was the Italian Alessandro Valignano, whose own magisterial writings, many of them not previously translated or published, are the principal source material for this account of one of the most remarkable of all meetings between East and West. Valignano arrived in Japan in 1579. In promoting Christianity, while always seeking the support of the ruling classes, an important part of his strategy was to have the missionaries adapt themselves thoroughly to Japanese customs, etiquette and culture. He was insistent that they must master the Japanese language, and he brought to Japan a printing press, which turned out grammars and dictionaries of Japanese for the missionaries and works of instruction and devotion for Japanese Christians. Following Valignano’s death, Christianity was proscribed and missionaries banished from Japan. This, however, does not detract from his remarkable achievements. He understood perfectly well that by themselves foreign missionaries were not capable of converting Japan to Christianity, and one of his principal concerns was the training of Japanese Jesuits and priests and the breaking of barriers between them and the Europeans. Few people have ever been more acutely aware of, and grappled more determinedly with, the differences and problems of the Japanese-European relationship. J.F.Moran has taught at the Universities of Hiroshima, Sheffield, Tsukuba, Yamaguchi, Oxford and Tokyo. His Oxford doctorate is on the history of the Japanese language, and he has published textbooks of English for Japanese students, and learned articles on Japanese language and Jesuit history. J.F.Moran is now head of the Department of Japanese at Stirling University.


The Japanese and the Jesuits Alessandro Valignano in sixteenth-century Japan J.F.Moran

London and New York

First published 1993 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 1993 J.F.Moran All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-03633-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-22059-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-08813-5 (Print Edition)

Contents

Preface

x

Notes

xii

Maps

xiii

1

Orientation

1

2

The ambassadors

6

3

The Visitor

20

4

Full and complete information

29

5

Ships and sealing-wax

42

6

The enterprise

51

7

Friars from the Philippines

79

8

High and low

95

9

The alms from the China ship

115

10

Rich and poor

129

11

The press

145

12

Japanese Jesuits

161

13

The Japanese language

178

14

Conclusion

189

Appendix A:

How land is owned and income reckoned in Japan 193

viii THE JAPANESE AND THE JESUITS

Appendix B:

How and why we got the port of Nagasaki

201

Notes

204

Bibliography

230

Index

235


Preface

Very little of the work of Alessandro Valignano has previously been published in English, and much of it has never been published at all. This book includes substantial excerpts from his letters and treatises, published and unpublished. Translations are my own. The arrangement of the matter is thematic rather than chronological, and the themes are, for the most part, the same which preoccupied Valignano himself. My debt to Father J.F.Schütte, SJ, Professor J.L.Alvarez-Taladriz, and other scholars, will be obvious. I am grateful also to Kirishitan Bunko, Sophia University, Tokyo, for allowing me to consult their copies of the relevant parts of the Jesuit archives; to Father Edmond Lamalle, SJ, for kindly providing microfilms of some of Valignano’s letters; to Angela Newman, for help with the maps; and to Dr Michael Cooper, SJ, who answered enquiries, read the script, and offered valuable comments and suggestions. Here in Yamaguchi the labour of composition has been lightened by help and encouragement from colleagues and friends, especially Father Domenico Vitali, SJ, and Professor Nakamura T ru. J.F.Moran Yamaguchi, Japan


Notes

In Japanese names the Japanese order, in which the family name comes first, is retained. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century romanized spellings of Japanese words have been altered in most cases to the more familiar ‘modified Hepburn’ system. In a few well-known place names—for example Kyoto and Kyushu—long-vowel indicators are omitted. ‘Father’ is used to refer to Jesuit priests, ‘brother’ to refer to all Jesuits who are not priests, and ‘bonze’ to refer to Buddhist monks. The maps show the location of places mentioned in the book. The index includes an explanation of some terms not explained in the text (see, for example, mai, monogatari). With regard to currency units see also Chapter 9, note 19. Sources of information are indicated, as briefly as possible, in the notes, most of which are in the form of references to letters or to the bibliography. Abbreviations are explained on pp. 204 and 225.

Map 1 From Lisbon to Nagasaki

xiv

Map 2 Japan

xv

Map 3 Kyushu

xvi

1 Orientation

Funega Cuchinotçuye iruua, sate medetai cotoya. [The ship is coming into Kuchinotsu. Isn’t that splendid!] (from a lost monogatari quoted by João Rodrigues1)

‘The ship’ is the Portuguese trading ship making the annual voyage which since 1555 had brought Chinese silk from Macao to Kyushu, the most western of the four main islands of Japan. In 1579 the ship came to Kuchinotsu, in the district of Arima, West Kyushu. That was the year when, according to the Jesuit chronicler Luis Frois, there came from China to Japan the nao of Leonel de Brito, and in his company came Father Alessandro Valignano, a Neapolitan, a person highly qualified in letters and in virtue, and one of the most outstanding subjects of the Society ever to come to Asia.2 ‘The Society’ is the Society of Jesus, usually referred to as ‘the Jesuits’, founded by Ignatius Loyola and recognized by Pope Paul III in 1540 as a religious order within the Catholic Church. Francis Xavier, disciple and friend of Ignatius, was the first Jesuit sent to preach Christianity outside Europe. Three Portuguese traders whose ship was blown to Japan in a typhoon in 1542 or 1543 are the first Europeans known to have set foot there, and Xavier was not far behind them. He reached India in 1542 and Japan in 1549, and in 1552 he died on an island off the coast of South China. Alessandro Valignano was born in 1539, joined the Jesuit Order in 1566, and was the dominant figure among the Jesuits in Asia, and especially in Japan, during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The Jesuits were the only Christian missionaries in Japan until the 1

2 THE JAPANESE AND THE JESUITS

arrival of Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian friars in the 1590s and 1600s, and the number of friars never rose above a quarter of the number of Jesuits. There were 115 Jesuits in Japan in 1614, the year when all Christian missionaries were ordered to leave and the persecution of Christians began.3 Not all of the missionaries did leave, but the majority had to, and in a sense it was the end of the era which began with St Francis Xavier. Xavier came from Malacca to Japan in a Chinese junk, with a Chinese captain and crew. The Chinese captain died in Japan, in Kagoshima, and the saint wrote of him, sadly: ‘He was good to us throughout the voyage, but we were unable to do him any good, since he died in his unbelief; nor can we do him good after his death by commending him to God, since his soul is in hell.’4 For the most part the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century missionaries believed that those who had not heard the Christian message, as well as those who rejected it, would be damned,5 and accordingly that the work of evangelization, conversion and baptism was of extreme urgency. When Francis Xavier left Japan in 1551 his work was continued by a very small band of Jesuits under the Spaniard Cosme de Torres. Torres died in 1570, only a few months after the Portuguese Francisco Cabral had arrived to take over from him, and Cabral was still Jesuit mission superior nine years later when the Italian Alessandro Valignano first reached Japan. The number of missionaries in Japan had risen to thirty in 1576 and to no fewer than eighty-five, including twenty-nine Japanese Jesuits, by 1584.6 Reports from the mission had been very encouraging, with Christian communities established in many places in Kyushu and some elsewhere, and substantial numbers of converts, including some very prominent persons. One of these was the lord of Bungo, in Kyushu, who had met Francis Xavier in 1551, had favoured the missionaries ever since, and had himself become a Christian in 1578. The importance of the goodwill of persons in positions of power was obvious to Valignano, but experience continued to underline it—for example in 1587, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi, ruler of Japan, decreed (although the decree was not enforced) that all missionaries were to leave the country; and in 1597, when twenty-six Christians were crucified in Nagasaki on the orders of the same ruler.7 The Jesuit Order is divided into ‘provinces’, each province being governed by a ‘(father) provincial’, who is subject to the general superior (known as ‘Father General’ or ‘the General’) of the Order. A modern provincial serves one or two terms of three years each. In

ORIENTATION 3

earlier times the length of the provincial’s period of office was more variable, but always limited. The General was and is elected for life. From time to time the General may appoint a ‘visitor’ to conduct a tour of inspection, or ‘visitation’, of one or more provinces. The visitor represents the General and has authority over all others in the province, including the provincial. The first four Jesuit Generals were Ignatius Loyola, Diego Laynez, Francis Borgia and Everard Mercurian. Mercurian became General in 1573, and in the same year he appointed Alessandro Valignano ‘visitor of the East Indies’, with authority over all Jesuit missions and all Jesuits from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan.8 The office of ‘visitor’ was the highest possible, apart from that of General, in the Society of Jesus. Mercurian died in 1580 and his successor as Jesuit General was Claudio Aquaviva. Aquaviva, who was still General when Valignano died in 1606, was a fellow Neapolitan, a former classmate and a personal friend of Valignano. He made him provincial of the province of the East Indies (also known as ‘the Indian province’), and later reassigned him to his former post as visitor. The province of the East Indies had its headquarters in Goa, in Portuguese India, and Valignano arrived there in 1574. Except for the years 1583 to 1587, during which he was provincial, Valignano was visitor until his death in 1606—until 1595 visitor of the entire province, from 1595 of only a part of it, namely China and Japan. It was 25 July 1579 when Valignano stepped ashore at Kuchinotsu for his first ‘visitation’ of Japan. When the Visitor left Japan in 1582 he took with him four Japanese Christian boys from noble Kyushu families. They carried letters to the Pope from the lord of Bungo and two other Christian lords, on what was the first Japanese diplomatic mission to Europe. They did not return until 1590, when: there arrived in Nagasaki on the 18th day of July the nao of Henrique da Costa, and in it there came the Father Visitor with the four Japanese gentlemen who went to Rome, namely Dom Mancio, Dom Miguel, Dom Martinho, and Dom Julião.9 On 9 October 1592 Valignano sailed again for Macao and India. He reached Japan for the third time on 5 August 1598, reporting to Aquaviva that ‘Our Lord brought us safely to these kingdoms of Japan in 22 days, with a very good voyage’.10 Most voyages were


less pleasant. In 1580 Valignano had written to Mercurian asking to be relieved of his office, and mentioning that he would be glad not to have to spend the rest of his life on ‘these seas’.11 In 1598, conscious of advancing years and declining strength, the Visitor had decided to stay in Japan. Four years later the financial plight of the Jesuits there forced a change of plan, but he writes to Aquaviva in Rome: Your Paternity should understand that it is only the extreme urgency of our need which persuades me to set out yet again, at the age of sixty-four, over these so dangerous seas, and to leave the governing of this province, which Your Paternity has entrusted to me as visitor, in order to seek some remedy from the viceroy of India and from the Portuguese in Macao.12 On 15 January 1603 Valignano left Japan for the last time. On arrival in Macao, after a terrifying voyage, he was for two weeks close to death, but ‘with four bleedings and two purges, and with the prayers of Ours [Ours=the Jesuits], Our Lord was pleased to give me health’.13 In 1604 the Visitor is planning to return to Japan the following year, but again he asks the Father General to relieve him of his duties as superior. He is now sixty-five years old, weakening and tiring, and will probably be almost seventy by the time a reply reaches him. He asks particularly to be allowed to stay wherever he is when that reply reaches him, free from any obligation to undertake further voyages.14 A year later he writes that he will be able to leave for Japan in June 1606, ‘unless it please Our Lord to take me for the other life, which is what I would much prefer’.15 His prayer was heeded, there were no more voyages, and he died in Macao on 20 January 1606. Japan was a turbulent and fragmented country when Xavier landed there in 1549, and when Valignano left it in 1603 it was unified and at peace. The emperor, who for centuries had resided in Kyoto, had always held authority over the entire country. It was a distant and nebulous authority, which the emperor himself had no means of enforcing, but those who did wield power would from time to time claim that they ruled as instruments of the imperial will. Power was in the hands of an aristocracy until the twelfth century, but it was then taken over by the military class. Local allegiances, however, were usually much stronger than allegiance to any central régime,

ORIENTATION 5

and in the early and mid-sixteenth century central government, under the ‘lord of the Tenka’, controlled only the areas close to Kyoto, and the word Tenka, literally ‘(all) under heaven’, had come to refer only to those areas. Local daimy , hereditary military lords, often acknowledged no authority above their own, and desperate struggles for power and territory were common. Towards the end of the sixteenth century there were drastic changes, and three of the most celebrated figures in Japanese history dominated the political scene. Oda Nobunaga became lord of the Tenka in 1573, the year in which Valignano was appointed visitor, and when the Italian met him in 1581 Nobunaga was master of about half the country. Less than ten years later the whole of Japan was subject to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s lieutenant and successor. Hideyoshi died in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the victor at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, set about establishing the centralized system of government and control of the nation which was to last for over two hundred years.

2 The ambassadors

It was Valignano who arranged the first Japanese embassy to Europe. The ambassadors were It Mancio, Chijiwa Miguel, Hara Martinho and Nakaura Julião, the Japanese boys whom the Visitor had brought with him when he left Japan in 1582. Mancio travelled as legate of the lord of Bungo, Miguel as legate of the lords of Omura and Arima, and Martinho and Julião as their companions. In December 1583 the Visitor saw them off from Goa as they set out for Lisbon and Rome. In May 1587 he welcomed them back, and on 4 June 1587, in the Goa Jesuit College, Hara Martinho delivered a Latin eulogy of Valignano, linking him in rhetorical conceit with his namesake Alexander the Great, and proclaiming: Blessed are the eyes that see such things, and blessed are we who have seen them. But more blessed are you, Alexander great in virtue, for you were the principal cause of our participation in so much good.1 The comparison is even more explicit in the peroration: O Alexander greater far than Alexander the Great, you have conquered and pacified almost all India with the arms of Christ. There remains now only the world of Japan, no easy conquest to any other than Alexander…. Storm that country with the arms of God, conquer it with good works, wrest our fatherland from the enemy most cruel, and bring it to true freedom. [The cruel enemy is the Devil, and the reference is to spiritual conquest.] The Japanese call out to you, they long for you; the winds are favourable, the seas calm, the doors are open wide.2

6

THE AMBASSADORS 7

Valignano is often at pains to distinguish plain truth from rhetorical embellishment, but this particular scholastic exercise can hardly have failed to please him, for he was delighted at the success of the mission, and very relieved to have the boys safely back in Goa. In August 1586 word had reached India that they and a considerable number of Jesuits were in Lisbon at the beginning of that year, awaiting the spring sailings to India. In December 1586 Valignano reported to the General in Rome that in October four of the five ships expected from Portugal had reached India safely, but the San Felipe, with twenty-one Jesuits and the four boys on board, had not, and that he could only hope and pray that they were wintering in Mozambique.3 The San Felipe left Lisbon on 8 April 1586, but it was the end of August before it reached Mozambique. Prevailing winds made the Mozambique-Goa voyage almost impossible after mid-August, and the San Felipe had to turn back after an attempt to set sail for India in early September. Instead the ship headed back to Lisbon, leaving the boys and the Jesuits to spend the winter in Mozambique, with no ship to take them to India in the spring and no certainty that the 1587 ships from Lisbon would call at Mozambique in the summer. Meanwhile Valignano, fearing for their safety, had persuaded the Portuguese viceroy in Goa to send a small galleon to Mozambique. It arrived; they embarked on 15 March and were in Goa on 29 May, having managed to send word of their coming by another and faster Portuguese ship encountered at sea.4 There was joy, relief, and a splendid welcome from church and state, and only six days later Hara Martinho was giving his Latin oration in the Jesuit college. He and his three companions, boys no longer, are now usually ‘the gentlemen’ or ‘the nobles’ in Valignano’s letters. In December 1587 he writes: the Viceroy has been extraordinarily kind to the Japanese gentlemen,…and he sent each of them a fine Arab horse as a present…, and he has ordered each of them to be given 200 cruzados a month to cover their expenses. They have had many visits from all the gentlemen here, and all are so impressed with them that it is clear that this mission has been the work of Our Lord. They are now grown men, very satisfied with their experience, very full of the qualities and the greatness of His Holiness and of the other Christian princes, and very enthusiastic about our things [may afficionados a nuestras cosas]. And they have made such progress in virtue and are so eager to explain our things to the Japanese


and to help in the conversion of Japan that I assure Your Paternity that words cannot express the consolation they have brought me, And I have no doubt that when they arrive in Japan they will make every bit as great an impression there as they did in Europe.5 Valignano had good reason to be satisfied. His purpose in sending the boys was partly to impress them and eventually, through them, to impress Japan with the splendours of Christian Europe; and partly to present them to Europe, and in particular to the king of Spain and Portugal, to the pope, and to other Christian princes, as a living letter’,6 living proof of the reality, the importance and the needs of Christianity in Japan. The Visitor had intended to accompany the boys to Rome, but in October 1583 he had received letters from Aquaviva instructing him to remain in India.7 The priets who went with them when they left Goa in December were Nuno Rodrigues, delegated by the Indian Jesuit province to report to Rome, and Diogo de Mesquita, who had accompanied the boys from Japan. Valignano’s instructions to Mesquita explain his intention as follows: In sending the boys to Portugal and Rome our intention is twofold. Firstly it is to seek the help, both temporal and spiritual, which we need in Japan. Secondly it is to make the Japanese aware of the glory and greatness of Christianity, and of the majesty of the princes and lords who profess it, and of the greatness and wealth of our kingdoms and cities, and of the honour in which our religion is held and the power it possesses in them. These Japanese boys will be witnesses who will have seen these things, and being persons of such quality they will be able to return to Japan and to say what they have seen. Since the Japanese have never seen our things they cannot believe us when we tell of them, but these witnesses will confer proper credit and authority on us, and thus they will come to understand the reason why the fathers come to Japan. At present many of them do not understand; they think we are poor people, of little consequence in our own countries, and that we come to Japan to seek our fortunes, with the preaching of heavenly things as a mere pretext. For the first purpose to be achieved it seemed necessary that His Majesty, and His Holiness, and the cardinals and other lords of Europe, should meet the Japanese, so that seeing them and speaking with them they may realize how able and how excellent they are, and that what the fathers write about them is not

THE AMBASSADORS 9

invented or untrue, and so the princes may be moved to help Japan, So it seems good that these boys, so honourable and so noble, sent by the king of Bungo, and the king of Arima, and by Don Bartolomeu, should, in their names, visit His Majesty and declare their obedience to His Holiness, asking their help for the increase of our holy faith and for the conversion of Japan. For the second purpose to be achieved the boys must be well treated and favoured by the same princes. They should see and understand the greatness of their estates, the beauty and richness of our cities, and the universal credit and authority of our religion. And therefore at the court of His Majesty in Portugal, and in Rome, and in the other cities they pass through, they should be shown all the great and noble things, buildings, churches, palaces, gardens, and other similar things, such as silver bars, rich sacristies, and other things which can edify them, and they should not see or know anything which would have the opposite effect.8 The boys were to be kept busy studying Japanese, Latin, music, and so on. They were to stay in Jesuit colleges and to be given the best possible welcome and accommodation there, but without pomp or extravagance.9 They should see all the noble and great things of Rome and other cities, but should learn nothing except what the Jesuits wanted them to learn, and they should be shown nothing that might scandalize them. Wherever they went a Jesuit priest and a Jesuit brother were to go with them, and they should have no dealings with outsiders. Above all it was essential that they should come back edified, and with a high opinion of Christianty in Europe.10 In 1587 the plan seemed to have been entirely successful, and Valignano was understandably delighted. The Japanese boys had sailed from India in February 1584 on what was ‘without any doubt the greatest and most arduous voyage that there is in the discovered world’.11 There were thirty-two deaths on board before the ship reached Lisbon on 11 August, but it was considered an uncommonly agreeable voyage. The boys were in good health and spirits throughout, and we hear of them studying Latin, playing musical instruments and chess, fishing, saying their prayers, and enjoying the amenities of the island of St Helena.12 In September they crossed into Spain, and on 1 March 1585 they landed in Italy, at Leghorn. From 22 March until 3 June they were in Rome. They sailed from Genoa on 9 August, reached Barcelona on the 16th, and were back in Lisbon on 25 November. When they left for India and home in April 1586 they had met two popes, a


king, cardinals, dukes, archbishops, prelates, ambassadors, and a great number of other noble, powerful and reverend Europeans.13 In all this—and not least in the very favourable impression they received of the Europeans, and the Europeans of them—the Japanese were following the programme Valignano had drawn up for them. But there was one notable departure from the Visitor’s plan. Aquaviva, the Jesuit General, agreed that pomp and extravagance should be discouraged, and arrangements had been made for a private papal reception of the young Japanese legates. But the pope, Gregory XIII, decreed at the last minute that he would receive the Japanese at a public consistory ‘in honour of the ambassadors, and for the glory of the Holy See, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the confusion of heretics’.14 Over seventy publications concerning this first embassy from Japan to Europe appeared in various European languages before the end of the century,15 and the central event they describe is the consistory of 23 March 1585. Julião was ill and did not take part, but the other three, in full Japanese dress, each with his two swords, rode in procession through the centre of Rome. There was a salute from the 300 guns of Castel Sant’Angelo, huge crowds in and around St Peter’s Square, and, in the splendour of the papal palace, a great assembly of bishops, prelates, nobles and cardinals. At the ceremonial meeting with the aged pope in the Sala Regia, normally used only for meetings with kings and emperors, the youthful legates formlly presented letters from the Japanese lords who had sent them. Later the same day, and again two days later, the pope had private meetings with the ambassadors, and on 3 April he accepted presents from them, questioned them about the needs of Japan, and took them on a tour of his palace. Pope Gregory was extremely affable to the boys and solicitous for their welfare, providing money, magnificent clothing, and for Julião—who was still very ill—the services of his own physician. On the pope’s instructions and in accordance with his example they were everywhere received with ceremony—as for instance when they visited ‘the seven churches of Rome’ on 9 April. On that day the pope fell ill, and on the following day he died. Gregory XIII was succeeded by Sixtus V, who was crowned on 1 May 1585. The Japanese legates were present at the ceremony, and the new pope received them kindly at several subsequent meetings, public and private.16 In Rome the Japanese stayed at the Gesù, the principal Jesuit house, and they asked Aquaviva to allow them to enter the Jesuit novitiate in Rome. This was a development which does not seem to

THE AMBASSADORS 11

have been foreseen by Valignano, but his instructions were emphatic that they should not be detained in Rome in order to study, as they would be needed in Japan—he had promised their parents to bring them back without delay, and it was important that they should not see anything which might disedify or scandalize them.17 Aquaviva told them to put their request to Valignano after they returned to the East, and all four did in fact become Jesuits later, in Japan.18 Valignano had not wanted the Japanese to be received with public ceremony, and this was accepted in Spain and Portugal.19 In November 1584 Philip II had received them privately in Madrid,20 and had treated them with notable informality. The king agreed that there was no need for a large retinue to accompany the visitors, but great crowds turned out to see the boys in their Japanese dress, and some likened them to the Magi, the ‘wise men from the East’, of the Gospel,21 the ‘three kings’ of tradition. In September 1585 the choir of Zaragoza cathedral chanted for them ‘Reges Tharsis et insulae munera offerent…’, the Offertory verse for the mass of the Epiphany, which proclaims: The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents; the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts; and all kings of the earth shall adore Him, all nations shall serve Him.22 The Magi, kings from the East, personified the pagan or Gentile world, drawn now to the light and come to adore the universal Saviour. The Japanese, emissaries of Eastern kings, were Christians from the pagan ends of the earth, the fruits of heroic and saintly missionary labours, drawn to the centre of the universal Church. Among the pope’s reasons for giving them maximum publicity was ‘to deal a blow to the heretics, showing them how far the glory of the holy Roman Church extends’.23 And the Japanese too brought gifts: a folding screen, a bamboo desk, examples of Japanese varnish and lacquer, and two suits of Japanese armour. These were for the king, and there were presents also for the grand duke of Tuscany, the doge of Venice, and others. Most prized of all, and presented to Gregory XIII, was a folding screen with a depiction of Oda Nobunaga’s magnificent castle at Azuchi. Nobunaga, the most powerful man in Japan, had himself presented the screen to Valignano, even though, according to Frois, the emperor himself had seen it and had indicated that he would like to have it.24 Nobunaga was assassinated and Azuchi castle totally


destroyed in 1582, and attempts in modern times to find the priceless screen have been unsuccessful.25 Philip II went out of his way to make sure that the Japanese would want for nothing. There was royal accommodation at the Escortal, a royal coach and cart for the journey across Spain, a ship to take them to Italy, money, and instructions to his ambassador in Rome and his officials in Milan that they were to be accorded the best possible treatment. Jesuit colleges all along their route provided an enthusiastic though relatively simple welcome, as Valignano and Aquaviva had directed, but a succession of princes, ecclesiastical and secular—among them the archbishop of Evora, the duke of Braganza, the cardinal of Toledo, the grand duke of Tuscany, the duke of Ferrara, the senate and doge of Venice, the dukes of Mantua and Milan, and the regent of Portugal—offered sumptuous hospitality. A mural painting in the Vatican Library shows the Japanese legates in a procession at the coronation of Sixtus V; there are extant sketches of them by Urbano Monte, and Tintoretto, on the instructions of the Venetian senate, began a painting of the four, which has not been found and may not have been completed.26 The couplet on the mural painting, in a notable combination of ignorance about their provenance and satisfaction at their presence, reads: Ad templum antipodes Sixtum comitantur euntem/iamque novus pastor pascit ovile novum [The antipodeans accompany Sixtus on his way to the temple. Already the new shepherd is feeding his new flock] When Mancio, Miguel, Martinho and Julião were selected as ambassadors all four were pupils at the Jesuit seminary at Arima, of which Valignano writes: In the fortress at Arima we have an excellent place, where besides the house for Ours, with a very good church, we have made a seminary for noble boys, which although small (only large enough to take thirty) is very suitable and very well laid out.27 Valignano planned three seminaries, with about a hundred students in each: two for boys aged from ten to eighteen, the third for older students.28 The two for younger boys started in October 1580—one in Arima, the other at Azuchi, the site of Nobunaga’s new castle near Kyoto.29 It was intended that the boys should become teachers and preachers to their fellow countrymen, and that from their num-

THE AMBASSADORS 13

bers should come the Japanese Jesuits and also secular priests of the future. The Visitor left detailed instructions for the running of the seminaries. His ‘daily order for the young seminarians’ provides a timetable for every hour of every day, from rising at 4.30 in the morning until 8 p.m., when the seminarians are to ‘make their examination of conscience, say the Litany of Loreto, and go to bed immediately’.30 Latin, but also music, is prominent in the curriculum, at least three hours a day are devoted to the study of Japanese, and there is careful provision for adequate hours of recreation.31 The seminaries did eventully produce priests, but Valignano’s ambitious plans had to be drastically modified. In 1587 the two seminaries were combined, and from that time until the general expulsion of the missionaries from Japan in 1614 there was only one, in Kyushu.32 Each of the two seminaries began with twenty-two pupils. Frois speaks briefly of negotiations to recruit boys from various places— most of them sons of noble gentlemen—for the Arima seminary.33 He tells us more about recruitment for the seminary at Azuchi, in the Kyoto area, where the Jesuit superior was the Italian Organtino Gnecchi-Soldo, by all accounts one of the most able and enthusiastic of the missionaries, dedicated to his work, liked by his fellow Jesuits, and outstandingly successful in dealing with the Japanese:34 Father Organtino began to collect a number of boys, sons of gentlemen and noble persons, so as to make a start with the seminary. And since enclosure and recollection were things entirely new to them, never before seen and unheard of in those parts, it was necessary for the father to use many artifices and stratagems at the beginning in order to domesticate them and to calm their spirits, so as to remove the fear they felt at finding themselves thus enclosed; and no less industry was necessary to move and induce the hearts of their parents so that they would be willing to consent to their sons entering the seminary.35 And Frois retells the story in a later chapter of his História, with more detail about Organtino’s ‘artifices and stratagems’: Father Organtino wanted to have some boys of good family so as to begin the seminary with them. He found this very difficult, because their parents did not know what it would be like and were therefore strongly opposed to sending them. And the boys themselves feared to lose their liberty, and to have their hair cut.


They prize their hair highly, and to have it cut would mean being committed to a religious life, as it does with the Buddhist monks. And the father chose eight of the principal boys of that fortress, [Takatsuki, near Kyoto] and persuaded them to come to Azuchiyama for a feast. When they were in Azuchiyama he was so effective in urging them to stay in the Church that they resolved to follow his advice, and they cut their hair with their own hands. And since they were nobles it was feared that their parents would take it ill, so the father wrote a letter to Ukondono [Takayama Ukon, lord of Takatsuki and a very prominent Christian] telling him what had happened, and asking him to arrange things so that the parents would be content.36 It was done, and the parents were apparently mollified. Later the mother of one of the boys persuaded her son to leave the seminary, whereupon Ukon sent them both into perpetual exile.37 There was no further manifestation of discontent from Ukon’s vassals or their seminarist sons. Valignano notes that Organtino’s enthusiasm is such that to restrain it a little can be a problem for his superior, but in general he has high praise for Organtino’s attitude, ability and achievements, and there is no reason to doubt that he approved of his methods in this particular case.38 The Visitor stayed in West Kyushu from his arrival in Japan in 1579 until September 1580. He was in Bungo, East Kyushu, for the next six months; from March until September 1581 he was in the region of Kyoto, the capital; and in October, for two or three weeks, he was again in Bungo. Valignano was back on the west coast of Kyushu from November 1581, and on 20 February 1582 he took ship for Macao at Nagasaki.39 At this time the Jesuits’ most powerful patron in Japan was the daimy of Bungo, tomo Yoshishige, also known to the Jesuits as tomo S rin, Don Francisco, and ‘the old king’. He entrusted his nephew, It Yoshikatsu, then only nine or ten years old, to Valignano, so that the boy could be educated in the seminary at Azuchi, and the child entered the seminary in 1581.40 When tomo decided to send an envoy to Rome, his first thought was of this nephew, and it was only because the boy, ‘Don Jeronymo’, could not be recalled in time from Azuchi that he chose It Mancio,41 so it seems clear that the embassy had not been thought of before March 1581, when the Visitor left Bungo. He and tomo may have made the arrangements when Valignano reached Bungo again in October, or it may be that the whole thing was something of a last-minute decision, and

THE AMBASSADORS 15

that communication about it between Valignano and tomo was by letter only. With the daimy of mura and Arima, in West Kyushu, there were face-to-face meetings. Arima Harunobu, or ‘Dom Protasio’, was the nephew of mura Sumitada, or ‘Dom Bartolomeu’, and Chijiwa Miguel, the boy chosen to represent both of them, was a cousin of Arima and nephew of mura. Arima’s letter to the pope is dated 8 January 1582, tomo’s 11 January, and mura’s 27 January.42 The legates were treated as princes in Europe, and in some quarters there were accusations that the Jesuits had misled Europe into believing that they were heirs of kings. Valignano’s 1598 Apología, ‘which answers various calumnies written against the fathers of the Society of Jesus in Japan and China’, is a response to anti-Jesuit allegations by Franciscans, among them the contention that the envoys were not what they seemed and that none of them was a king, or a prince, or had anything to do with the kings of Japan. Valignano retorts that he did not present them as the heirs of kings, but as the first fruits of the Japanese seminary. He adds that he had insisted that they should have only one page each, and that he had not wanted a public reception for them, but that they should be treated as individuals and lodge in Jesuit houses. He also explains who the four were. Hara Martinho and Nakaura Julião went not as legates but as companions of the two legates, but they too were of the nobility. Martinho’s sister had married a brother of the lord of mura, and Julião’s father had at one time been lord of a fortress between mura and Hirado.43 Arima and mura are both within Hizen, one of the kuni (countries or ‘kingdoms’) of which there were nine in Kyushu and sixtysix in the whole of Japan. At the time of Valignano’s first visit to Japan the dominant figure in Hizen was Ry z ji Takanobu, and the lords of Arima and mura were lesser powers. In the kingdom of Bungo tomo S rin was still master, though with territory and authority much reduced by recent military defeat. It Mancio—who, as S rin’s envoy, was leader of the embassy—was related to him in that his uncle was married to S rin’s niece. Mancio’s grand-father, It Yoshisuke, had been the most powerful daimy in the kingdom of Hy ga, in central Kyushu, but in 1576, defeated in battle by Shimazu Yoshihisa of Satsuma, he had taken refuge in S rin’s kingdom of Bungo. The family regained power under Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587 and remained lords of Obi, in Hy ga, throughout the Tokugawa period.44 In October 1588 Valignano, in Macao but with upto-date information about Japan, notes with satisfaction in a letter


to Aquaviva that ‘Don Mancio is grandson of the king of Hy ga, and cousin of those who are now once more lords of half of the kingdom of Hy ga.’45 Valignano adds, correctly, that Chijiwa Miguel’s father is brother of mura Sumitada and uncle of Arima Harunobu.46 The four young men were neither nonenities nor princes, and the Visitor protests indignantly that he had made this very clear, but the celebrity which they achieved in a Europe avid for information and tales from exotic lands was no doubt based in part on misunderstandings about their importance in their own land, and about the power and influence of those who had sent them. Some degree of misunderstanding was inevitable, but Valignano, who was doing more than any other person had ever done to provide Europe with reliable information about Japan, did not take kindly to the suggestion that he was responsible for it.47 Mancio, Miguel, Martinho and Julião returned to Japan with Valignano in July 1590. There was a tremendous welcome for them at Nagasaki, joyful reunion with families, including the daimy of Arima and mura, relief among the Christians, and hopes that the coming of the Visitor signalled an end to the fear and harassment they had suffered since 1587, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi had issued edicts expelling all the missionaries and proscribing Christianity. Obedience to these edicts had not so far been enforced, but the uncertainty and anxiety remained. Valignano returned now as ambassador of the Portuguese viceroy of India, and he came with the express permission of Hideyoshi. The four boys who had been to Rome were a part of the spectacular embassy which set out for Kyoto from Nagasaki in December 1590, and accomplished its mission on 3 March 1591. Hideyoshi’s vassals were on the road to Kyoto to pay him the obligatory New Year visit. Valignano’s embassy was for some weeks at the Inland Sea port of Muro, awaiting permission to proceed, and notable figures who called on him there included Konishi Yukinaga, one of Hideyoshi’s generals and probably the most powerful Christian in the land; cousins of Chijiwa Miguel and of It Mancio; and tomo Yoshimune. Yoshimune was son and successor to tomo S rin, who had died in 1587. He had accepted Christianity in 1587 and then rejected it in 1589. He now approached It Mancio, asked him to act as mediator between himself and Valignano, and was reconciled to the Church, much to the Visitor’s gratification.48 On that memorable day in March 1585 the boys had ridden in splendid Japanese dress through the centre of Rome to meet the

THE AMBASSADORS 17

pope. Now, six years later, they rode in splendid European dress through Kyoto to meet Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who accorded Valignano and his embassy a magnificent reception. It Mancio was invited to stay in Kyoto with the ruler, who offered to favour him as he had his cousins in Hy ga. Mancio declined the offer, apparently without offending. According to Frois: since Dom Mancio had other ideas he answered very prudently that the Father Visitor had always brought up both himself and his companions as if they were his own sons, so that if he were to leave him now, even in order to receive such great favours, he could not but be branded as ungrateful. And Kampaku [Hideyoshi] answered that he was absolutely right.49 Hideyoshi also spoke to the other three, and wanted to know whether Chijiwa Miguel was related to Arima Harunobu. Miguel, fearing trouble for Arima, equivocated, saying only that he thought his father was some sort of relative of Arima. A devious answer to a man so powerful, shrewd and suspicious was no less dangerous than a direct one, and Hideyoshi remarked that the Kyushu lords seemed to be on very friendly terms with the missionaries and the viceroys, but in general it was felt that the meeting had gone extremely well. Hideyoshi had shown clear signs of interest and pleasure when the boys played Western musical instruments and sang, and again there was anxiety when it seemed that he really might insist that they stay with him. The moment passed, and the ruler turned his attention to the Arab stallion and other presents which the embassy had brought. Mancio—together with Brother João Rodrigues, who was Valignano’s interpreter—was required to answer many questions, and the same two were summoned again the next day, this time to explain to Hideyoshi the workings of the clock which was also among the presents. Once again, according to Frois, the possibility was raised that the four might stay with Hideyoshi, and once again Mancio was ready to deflect the unwelcome suggestion.50 It is idle to wonder what might have become of Mancio and the others if they had in fact welcomed Hideyoshi’s offer. As Frois noted, ‘Dom Mancio had other ideas’, He and the other three entered the Jesuit novitiate on 25 July of that same year, 1591, not without some opposition from their families, especially from the mothers of Mancio and Miguel, and with considerably more ceremony than was customary. Frois reports:


all four said that, for the sake both of their honour and of their souls, they could not be so ungrateful to God Our Lord, who had chosen them from among all the Japanese to see so many things in Europe and receive such honours, as to take up now in Japan any other office than to be witnesses to their fellow countrymen of the things they had seen, nor did they wish to endanger their souls, as they would manifestly be doing if they were to follow the vanities of the world and fail to serve God Our Lord in accordance with this vocation which they have.51 Valignano was in Macao in 1593 and 1594, and in those years he had a Jesuit college built there. The first Japanese Jesuits to study there came in 1595, and the catalogue for 1603 lists twenty-six Jesuit students in the Macao college, of whom eight, including It Mancio and Nakaura Julião, were Japanese. Hara Martinho was then at Nagasaki, still a student but known also as a preacher. Mancio and Julião returned to Japan in 1604, after three years in Macao, and they and Martinho were ordained priests in 1608. Chijiwa Miguel’s name does not appear in the 1602 or 1603 catalogue. He was granted permission to leave the Jesuit Order some time before that, and it seems that he subsequently abandoned Christianity.52 The Jesuit Pedro Morejón writes that Miguel left the Order because of illness, and that he never became a pagan or persecuted the Church.53 The Dominican Fray Tomás de Zumárraga and the Jesuit Afonso de Lucena, who had later encounters with him, both deplore his apostasy, but Lucena also makes the point that he became ‘a heretic or an atheist’ but not a pagan, because he ‘did not adore Shaka or Amida’.54 Diogo de Mesquita, who had been the boys’ mentor on their famous journey, implies that this might not have happened at all if Franceso Pasio, from 1600 the Jesuit viceprovincial, had given Miguel more encouragement and recognition in his studies and in his progress towards priestly ordination.55 Miguel was still a Jesuit in 159856 and probably in 1600, so it is likely that he left the Order while Valignano was in Japan, and that the Visitor as well as the vice-provincial had some say in the matter.57 Mancio died in Nagasaki in 1612, two years before the promulgation of the edict decreeing the expulsion of all Christian missionaries from Japan. Mesquita, who was rector of the Nagasaki college from 1598 until 1611, wrote to Aquaviva: He died giving the edification and good example that is to be expected from a religious who saw Europe and the holy city of

THE AMBASSADORS 19

Rome, with its popes, and also Your Paternity and other outstanding persons and things. He was always talking here about such things, and in this way he did much good. Fathers Martinho and Julião also produce much fruit in this way.58 Mesquita died on the beach of Nagasaki in November 1614, only a few days before the expelled missionaries finally left for Macao. Hara Martinho was one of those who went to Macao, and he never managed to return to Japan. He spent the last fifteen years of his life in Macao, preaching, hearing confessions, and living as a member of the Jesuit community. He was also given the task, together with João Rodrigues ‘the interpreter’, of compiling a history of Christianity in Japan. Rodrigues did write the history, but there is no evidence that Martinho, who was not in good health in his later years, contributed anything to it.59 He died in Macao in 1629. Nakaura Julião was one of those who stayed on in Japan after 1614, in disguise and in hiding, and he ministered faithfully to the Kyushu Christians, in desperately difficult circumstances, until his martyrdom in 1633.60 The Spanish Jesuit Pedro Morejón, a veteran of the Japanese mission, testified years later, in the course of a panegyric of Mesquita, that Mancio, Martinho, Julião, and Constantino Dourado (one of their Japanese companions on the journey to Rome, who became a Jesuit in 159561) ‘were outstanding religious and priests, and one of them, Nakaura Julião, was a glorious martyr’.62

3 The Visitor

Luis Frois was the interpreter when Valignano met Oda Nobunaga in Kyoto in 1581,1and among other things he recorded was that Nobunaga was much struck by the Visitor’s remarkable height.2 He was indeed an extraordinarily tall man, tall enough to turn heads in Europe and to draw large crowds in Japan.3 He was also a man accustomed to authority, both religious and secular. The Valignani were a prominent family in Chieti, in the kingdom of Naples, where Alessandro was born in 1539, and were close friends of Gianpietro Carafa, the local cardinal archbishop and future Pope Paul IV. Valignano himself met and corresponded with kings, popes, viceroys and cardinals.4 On his second visit to Japan he had the title of Ambassador of the Viceroy of India, and when Philip II of Spain and two popes received the embassy from Japan they knew that the legates were envoys of the Jesuit visitor as well as of the Japanese lords. Jesuits profess indifference to worldly honours and do not normally accept even ecclesiastical preferment, but the sixteenth-century Jesuits were men of their time, and could not but be aware of family, wealth and power. The news that a Borgia or a Gonzaga had become a Jesuit, preferring religious poverty and humility to wealth and worldly honour, was sensational inside as well as outside the Society. Valignano thanks Mercurian for sending such good men to India, especially Rodolfo Aquaviva, because of ‘his virtue and the nobility of his lineage, a thing held in high esteem among the Portuguese’; and he notes that Aquaviva, when he has had some experience of India, should make an excellent superior.5 Aquaviva was the son of the duke of Atri, and by the time that letter of Valignano’s reached Rome the Jesuit General was Claudio Aquaviva, Rodolfo’s

20

THE VISITOR 21

uncle, who had himself petitioned—unsuccessfully—to be sent to the Indies.6 Valignano was thirty-four years old when he was appointed visitor. He held a position of high authority for more than thirty years, and although he told both Mercurian and Aquaviva that he would be glad to be relieved of his responsibilities,7 it is abundantly clear that he considered himself better qualified to govern than anyone else in the Indian province. In a letter of 1584 to Aquaviva he lists the members of the province who might be suitable for appointment as superiors of some kind, and it is plain that he does not regard any of them as his equal. This was the period when Valignano was provincial of the Indian province, and as possible successors to himself in that office he proposes Nuno Rodrigues and Francisco Cabral. The former he characterizes as mature, prudent, well-liked, respected (indeed held to be a saint) and, although rather too mild and gentle, the best choice as provincial, provided that there is always a visitor in India. But he is ignorant and knows very little theology. Of Cabral Valignano says that when he had authority in Japan his methods were wrong, and he antagonized both Jesuits and non-Jesuits. He tends to be overbearing, yet he was rather successful as a rector in India, and he might do well as provincial. In the same letter he notes that Gaspar Coelho, whom he had appointed vice-provincial of Japan, is mature, respected and liked, and that as he is obedient and has been given detailed instructions, he may be all right for some time. Faint praise indeed—and Valignano goes on to say that Coelho is old and weak, does not know the language of the country, has little or no theology, and lacks authority and stature. And Luis Frois the historian, though very hardworking, is not always prudent in what he says, and is too timid when decisive action is required.8 Five years earlier Valignano had written that Frois lacks the courage which is needed in order to force a way through the hardships and dangers which confront us here, and to stand firm and make himself feared and obeyed by Ours when and in whatever way that is necessary.’9 He insists that superiors of the Society must govern with love rather than severity,10 and is bitterly critical of the harsh regime which he found in Jesuit houses in Portugal in 1573– 4,11 and in Japan under Cabral;12 and yet, as Wicki notes, ‘in these few lines Valignano clearly shows the idea he has of a major superior’.13 Major superiors, such as provincials or vice-provincials, were normally Jesuits ‘professed of the four vows’, who formed an elite


within the order. Others vowed themselves to poverty, chastity and obedience, the three vows common to all the main religious orders of the Catholic Church. The Jesuit ‘professed’ took in addition a fourth vow, of obedience to the pope. Only priests of proven intellectual accomplishment would normally be considered for profession. During Valignano’s first visit to Japan the only Jesuit there who was professed, apart from the Visitor himself, was the mission superior, Francisco Cabral. Pedro Gómez, a Spaniard who arrived in Japan in 1583 and succeeded Coelho as vice-provincial in 1590, was professed, as was the Italian Francesco Pasio (the first superior of Japan not to need an interpreter14), who became vice-provincial when Gómez died in 1600. Gaspar Coelho was never professed of the four vows. Luis Frois was professed of the four vows in 1591, but in 1580 the Visitor had allowed him to take only the three. Ability in foreign languages, as well as service within the order—and of course virtue—were matters taken into account in judging suitability for profession, but qualifications in the humanities and other recognized academic disciplines, in philosophy, and especially in theology, were of primary importance. Gómez, who had completed all his studies and taught both philosophy and theology in Portugal, was professed at about the age of thirty-three. Frois, a master of the Portuguese and Japanese languages, veteran of the mission, tireless worker, correspondent and historian, was granted the recognition of profession only in his old age. When Valignano himself was professed of the four vows and appointed visitor in 1573 he had been a Jesuit for only seven years. In 1557 he was already a doctor of law of the University of Padua, and two years later he was a canon of the cathedral of his native town, Chieti. Benefices conferred on him or offered to him at about this time included a parish and two abbacies, and he was for some time in the service of Cardinal Sittich von Altemps, cousin of the saintly Cardinal Charles Borromeo, but himself known for his worldly lifestyle. Valignano returned to Padua for further study in 1561, but his career came to a sudden halt on the night of 28 November 1562, when an altercation with one Franceschina Trona apparently ended with him slashing her in the face with a knife or a sword, inflicting a severe wound requiring fourteen stitches. Valignano was jailed and not restored to liberty until March 1564, and then only after the intervention of Cardinal Borromeo and the papal nuncio, together with payment of a substantial fine. We have no information about the conversion or sense of vocation which he must have experienced, but when Valignano turned

THE VISITOR 23

away from the world of patronage and power to enter the Jesuit novitiate in Rome in 1566 he was certainly a young man of unusual experience and qualifications. After one year as a novice he studied philosophy and theology in Rome, was ordained priest in 1570, was for a brief period the acting master of novices (one of the novices then being Matteo Ricci), and for a year held the post of rector of the Jesuit college at Macerata. Early in 1573 Valignano wrote to the General, Mercurian, asking to be sent as a missionary to the Indies (there were many similar petitions from other Jesuits), and in August he was called to Rome and told of his appointment as visitor. He protested that he did not have the ability or the experience the post would demand, but was overruled. Once appointed he quickly showed ‘the courage…to stand firm and make himself feared and obeyed’, and it seems probable that most of his subjects shared his view that they were not his equals, and stood somewhat in awe of him.15 It is the faith of the Jesuit that in carrying out the will of his Jesuit superior he is doing what God wants of him. In submitting himself to his superior he is trusting himself to God, and trusting God to make His will known to him through His Church and, within the Church, through the religious order to which God has led him. His superior will be his rector, his provincial (or vice-provincial), and the Father General. Their authority may also be delegated to others, as for example when a visitor is appointed as delegate of the General; and the whole order is obedient to and at the disposal of the pope. Letters to superiors provide them with some of the information they need in order to govern. The subject lays the problem before the superior, and then accepts with equanimity whtever he decides. Valignano explains the principle very clearly in his letter of 10 December 1579 to Mercurian. He asks the General for an answer: so that your decision being accepted as God’s resolution of the problem, Ours [Ours=the Jesuits] may in everything act in conformity with it, reassured with the certain confidence that what they are doing is in accordance with the will of God, made known through holy obedience, the true interpreter of the divine will.16 The principle was clear but the practical difficulties were considerable, not least when the subject was in Japan or Macao and the superior was in Rome. As visitor Valignano was subject only to the General, the pope, and God. It was his duty to provide the General


with the fullest possible information, and to strive to know and do the will of God by conforming himself to the will of his religious superior, namely the General. (Obedience to the superior is a means, obedience to God the end, so that if a superor should ever command a subject to do anything sinful—anything, that is, plainly contrary to the will of God—the subject’s obligation would be to disobey.) But the extreme difficulty of communication meant that the General’s information was never complete and was usually out of date, and the Visitor was therefore instructed to do not simply what the General had ordered or recommended but what, in the Visitor’s own judgement, the General would have recommended had he been present.17 Valignano therefore had to take into account whatever the General wrote, and then himself decide what was to be done. Usually he would follow the General’s instruction, but there were times when he rejected it. In October 1583 he received Aquaviva’s order that he should remain in India as provincial. ‘Even though you do not have full information’, he writes, ‘I must and shall take your order as from the hand of God and obey it…and not go to Rome.’18 But in February 1599 he informs the General that he will not be obeying his instruction to make Pasio the vice-provincial of Japan, and gives his reasons for judging it more prudent to have Gómez continue in that position.19 Valignano explicitly claims the right to overrule the General’s instructions and decisions,20 most notably the instruction from both Mercurian and Aquaviva that the Jesuits should take no further part in the Macao-Nagasaki trade. Mercurian instructed Valignano to withdraw totally from participation in the silk trade. On 6 August 1580 the Visitor acknowledges receipt of this order, but says that his more recent letters provide the Father General with further information, and that in the meantime no change will be made in the existing arrangements.21 Twenty-three years later he still rejects Aquaviva’s recommendation that (now that there were funds coming from the pope) there should be no more trading by the Jesuits, claiming that ‘the certainty that you would do the same and more if you were here allowed me in conscience to suspend your order and write to you about it.’22 Valignano writes that Frois does not have the courage [ánimo] which a major superior needs. Francisco Cabral uses the same word when he writes to the General: I say also to Your Paternity that as long as the Father Visitor is in Japan and is superior there I see no possibiity of an end to the

THE VISITOR 25

liberal spending, for God has given him such great and magnificent courage, and such lofty understanding, that he seems to be forever engaged in devising and planning tremendous schemes, and even important matters seem trifling to him. This is indeed a great advantage, making for constancy in the face of hardship and fortitude in adversity, and his qualities would be excellent in a great captain or prince, but in a religious they need to be accompanied by the spirit of poverty and religious humility.23 Disapproval is dominant, yet the admiration is not entirely feigned. In 1580 Cabral had petitioned the General to release him from his post of superior of Japan. One of the reasons he then gave was that the superior needs ‘great courage and a great heart in order to break through the many great difficulties’, and that since his own vigour and ánimo had declined he no longer had the heart, and was easily discouraged.24 In 1592 Pedro Martins, who had succeeded Valignano as provincial of India in 1587, was appointed to be the first bishop of Japan, and Cabral succeeded him as provincial. In Valignano’s letters to the General of 1593, 1594 and 1595 there is a great deal about Francisco Cabral, almost all of it uncomplimentary, and in November 1595 the Visitor is blaming himself for having nominated Cabral to succeed Martins. He had decided in 1581 that Cabral was not to continue as superior in Japan, as that would have meant that Valignano’s own plans for Japan would not have been put into effect as he wished, but he had been mistaken in thinking that it would be enough simply to send Cabral away from Japan. In 1583 Valignano appointed Cabral superior of the Jesuit house in Macao—mainly, he says, so that he could help Japan from there; but there were many complaints about him. From 1587 he was superior of the ‘professed house’ in Goa, and from 1592 provincial. Valignano accuses him of an extraordinary hostility to Japan, of exaggerating and criticizing the income of the Japanese vice-province, of dissuading Jesuits in India from going to Japan, and of maintaining that missionary effort and manpower spent on Japan is effort and manpower wasted. The Visitor’s grim conclusion is that Cabral would be glad to see the Japan mission end in total ruin.25 Valignano reached Goa in March 1595, having sailed from Macao the previous November. There were letters to be written to Malacca, the Moluccas, China and Japan, meetings with Luis Cerqueira, the second bishop of Japan, who was about to leave Goa for Macao, and then a systematic ‘visitation’ of the three Jesuit


houses in Goa. The main problem for the Jesuits in Goa, according to Valignano, is Francisco Cabral. His regime is harsh where it should be gentle. Harmony of spirit between superior and subject is sadly lacking, and resentment and bitterness are only too common. Some of the Jesuits were fearful that they might be dismissed from the Society by the provincial, and also that they might be imprisoned, as three of them actually had been.26 It is obvious that the Visitor strongly disapproves of Cabral’s use of secular sanctions to buttress the authority of one Jesuit over another, but it does not follow that he always rejects the use of secular power to achieve religious ends. In Japan in 1598 he has high praise for Bishop Cerqueira, who has been rigorous in excommunicating Portuguese involved in buying and selling captive Japanese, has also sent two Portuguese ‘new Christians’ (i.e. of Jewish stock), who were giving very bad example in Japan, to the Inquisition in Goa, and has had three others whose lives were a scandal sent to Macao. Valignano records with considerable satisfaction that some Portuguese, married and living in Nagasaki, who until then had had nothing to fear, had received a great and salutary shock.27 He also expected Portuguese secular power, in the shape of the great ship from Macao, to support Christianity by boycotting ports of anti-Christian lords, and had no hesitation in recommending the religious sanction of excommunication for those whose support was not forthcoming.28 Among the Visitor’s other complaints about Cabral is that he wants only Portuguese in the province, and that in documents sent from Goa to Rome in 1594 there was a petition that only Portuguese and Italians should in future come to India. Valignano considers this intolerable and disgraceful, adding that although Cabral made it look like a cost-cutting measure, the real reason was nationalism or xenophobia—insufferable in a religious order, where superiors should show a special love for foreigners. He points out that in any case the province of India comprises not one nation but many, and that although the Portuguese captured and hold forts on the coast of India and elsewhere, the countries themselves are ruled not by the Portuguese but by ‘pagan and Moorish kings’. The Portuguese fought to capture these lands and have fought to hold them, and in a way it is natural and perhaps best that Jesuit superiors in Portuguese towns should be Portuguese, but it should go no further than that, and is not a justification for disunion among religious, nor for excluding men from other nations.29 Outside the Portuguesedominated areas there is not much danger of disunity between Portuguese and others, since all have to leave their own languages and

THE VISITOR 27

customs and accommodate themselves to local custom and language, as can be seen in Japan. Whether the Jesuits are Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, or from other countries is irrelevant. The best are those who are most virtuous, those who learn the language best, and those who can best accommodate themselves to the place and the people.30 And the Visitor notes that the province has more than seventy priests who are not Portuguese, and could not do without them, and that as well as the Portuguese, Spanish and Italian Jesuits there are also five from the Low Countries and one from England,31 all of them well liked.32 The letters from Visitor to General containing these and other criticisms of Cabral are dated November 1595. Two months previously, on 21 September, the first ship of the 1595 fleet from Portugal arrived in Goa. It carried letters from Aquaviva for both Cabral and Valignano, and one of those to the provincial included the following: …since it seems appropriate to us to end the visitation of Father Valignano in India, leaving him with responsibility only for Japan, and we are informing him of this by this same post,33 and your reverence will keep this secret until our letter reaches him; and since the Father Visitor remains superior only of that viceprovince [Japan],… the provincial of that province [India], although not subject to him [Valignano], should take it upon himself to do everything possible…34 Valignano should have received notification of the change in a letter arriving on the same boat, but he did not. It seems that a mistake had been made in Rome, and no instruction relieving him of the post of visitor to India came in 1595. In a letter from the General to Francisco Monclaro, another of the Jesuits in Goa, however, there was this sentence: And Father Alexander, since he has finished his visitation, and is living in the remote Japanese regions, will no longer hold office as visitor of that province, and will devote himself to the important work of cultivating and visiting the Japanese vineyard.35 Both Cabral and Monclaro found it hard to believe that Valignano had had no notification, and in the end Cabral showed his letter to the Visitor, whose first reaction, according to his own account of the scene, was to kneel before Cabral as soon as he had read the first part of the passage quoted above, thanking God, and declaring to


the provincial that he was now his subject and no longer visitor of India. Cabral in turn knelt and embraced Valignano, saying that now more than ever he would be at his service.36 But that was by no means the end of the matter. Cabral’s interpretation of the General’s instructions was that Valignano was now vice-provincial of Japan, and therefore subject to the provincial of the Indian province. Valignano took the letters to mean that he was still visitor, but now only of the vice-province of Japan (which included Macao and China). Being no longer visitor of India, he no longer had any authority over Cabral, and indeed while in India would himself be subject to Cabral in matters which concerned India; but as visitor of Japan he could overrule Cabral in anything concerning Japan, Macao or China. The tableau of religious harmony and humility was followed by a scene in which neither Jesuit hid his dislike of the other. The next day Cabral called a consultation of senior priests. Valignano was not present but his view of the matter prevailed, and thereafter Cabral seems to have accepted that he had been mistaken.37 A year later Valignano reports that he has been leading a quiet life in Goa, but will be leaving for Macao and Japan in April 1597. He also says that the new visitor of India, Nicolao Pimenta, is being very successful, managing to intervene effectively yet without causing resentment.38

4 Full and complete information

If these things are not understood it is impossible for people in Europe to have any true idea of how things are in Japan, and they remain in a sort of confusion or perplexity… (Valignano1)

In his writings Valignano comes back again and again to the difficulty, if not impossibility, of getting Europeans to understand what Japan is really like. In Principio, for example, he writes: The properties and qualities of this country are so strange, the mode of government of the state so different, and the customs and ways of living so extraordinary and so far removed from our own that they are difficult to comprehend even for those of us who have been living here and dealing with the people for many years. How much more difficult, then, to make them intelligible to people in Europe.2 The Visitor warns that any writings about Japan by anyone who is not a Jesuit should be treated with suspicion, as no non-Jesuit has the experience which would qualify him to provide trustworthy information.3 He is not entirely happy even with the letters of his fellow Jesuits, and before he has been many months in Japan he is counselling that no more of them should be printed for circulation in Europe until his own history of Christianity in Japan is published.4 He explains the shortcomings of the published Jesuit letters as follows: They were not written in the form of history, nor with the clarity 29


and directness necessary if they were to be properly understood. They are letters written by Ours at various times and places about different things, in the familiar style of someone writing letters to his brothers. In some cases the writer had only just arrived in Japan, and put down what he heard from others, without knowing anything of the language, or having any knowledge or experience of the country…. The consequence is that full and complete information is not yet available in Europe about this nation of Japan.5 The legates, being a ‘living letter’, would bring the reality of Japan to the attention of Europe with an immediacy which even the best of the letters could not match. And many thousands did observe the Japanese in Europe, but usually without any clear understanding of exactly who they were or whom or what they represented. In Siena in March 1585 one Marco Antonio Tromei noted that they were ‘four princes from the New Indies,…kings of the new world’,6 and many other records refer to them as princes, if not kings. (Tromei also remarked on their attitude towards the two Jesuit priests who sat with them, of whom—or so he says—‘they were much afraid, and without permission from them they would not even raise their eyes’. Even if this behaviour was motivated by obedience and wellbred deference rather than fear, it suggests that Valignano’s instructions were being faithfully followed and that the Japanese youths were indeed learning only what the Jesuits wanted them to learn.) The Visitor was well aware that without an understanding of the linguistic, social and political structures to which they implicitly refer, any use of titles such as ‘prince’ or ‘king’ was bound to be misleading. He repeatedly emphasizes that assumptions valid in Europe are likely to be invalid in Japan. In 1601, in his last major work, Valignano again sets himself to provide the necessary background information. ‘We shall begin’, he writes, with the monarchy of Japan, explaining how a country which, as we have said, is not particularly large, can be divided into sixtysix kingdoms; how they can have so many kings, with the powerful armies which have been described in so many of these letters; and why it is that in those letters the lords of these kingdoms are sometimes called kings, sometimes dukes, and sometimes various other special Japanese names, because if these things are not understood…it is impossible for people in Europe to have any true idea of how things are in Japan, and they remain in a sort of

FULL AND COMPLETE INFORMATION 31

confusion or perplexity about the things they read, so that sometimes they find themselves unable wholly to believe them…. It has to be understood that the language and government of Japan are very different indeed from those which we have in Europe—there has never, after all, been any contact between them —and they also have different names for things. Now some of these names can in a sense be regarded as corresponding to our words, but they do not really match them very well, so that it cannot properly be said that they mean the same things. We use the titles emperor, king, duke, marquis, count, for certain ranks. In Japan they do not use these titles, and the titles which they do use do not correspond very well to the meaning which these words convey in Europe. But since in Europe the Japanese titles are not understood, the Portuguese and Ours, so as to be understood, use our words for these things when they speak or write to Europeans. In transferring titles in this way mistakes are frequently made, especially by those who do not really know the meaning of the words, and so it is essential to provide some explanation of this empire, and of the names and ranks of the Japanese lords.7 This he does in the remainder of the chapter, of which the following is a summary: Japan has always had only one king properly so called, who is known as tei , dairi or . Under him were two orders of nobles and lords, namely the kuge and the buke. The kuge, the higher order, had many noble ranks, the names of some of which are ch nagon, dainagon, daifu, daij daijin, kampaku. The buke also had many high ranks, the highest being kub and the next yakata, who had authority either over all the militia, as advisers to the kub , or over the militia in one of the sixty-six parts into which Japan is divided. If the king wished to favour any buke, giving him access to his house or a place in the government, he had first to raise him to the rank of kuge. As long as this order of things was maintained, the king was venerated and obeyed. But then the kuge and the king began to give themselves over to pastimes and enjoyment, neglecting both arms and learning, so that they were like women, and the buke little by little took over all administration and government, and eventually, just over 500 years ago, the kub who emerged victor in the Genji/Heike war usurped all power and authority, leaving the king and the kuge only the name


of their rank. The yakata too became great lords, because the kub apportioned various estates to them, and those who had the arms to do so occupied others; and they began to consider themselves absolute rulers, and to abandon their obedience to the kub . Thus, with everyone making himself lord of whatever he could, Japan fell into a state of continual wars and disturbances; and although those who were lords of Miyako and of the five kingdoms of the Gokinai [the five provinces surrounding Kyoto] always called themselves lords of the Tenka, that is, of the whole empire or kingdom, they came to have so little that they were not even lords of the Gokinai. Then in our own times came Nobunaga, who made himself lord of more than half of Japan, and after him Kampakudono, who finished the task of making himself absolute lord of the entire country. The lords of the Tenka have always upheld the titles of the king and of the other kuge in Miyako, but the dairi does no more than execute the wishes of the lord of the Tenka. And the dairi and the kuge lived very miserably until Nobunaga, and afterwards and much more Kampakudono, provided for them very well. When Father Xavier came to Japan the lord of the Tenka was not even lord of the Gokinai. He governed in the name of the kub , who had little power. The dairi and the kuge lived wretchedly, and all the kingdoms to the east of Miyako were held by various yakata and other lords, many of them more powerful than the lord of the Tenka himself. West of Miyako, uchidono [ uchi Yoshitaka] was yakata of the kingdoms of Ch goku, and in Kyushu the most powerful lord was the yakata of Bungo [ tomo Yoshishige], followed by the yakata of Satsuma [Shimazu Takahisa]. Almost all the kingdom of Hizen was controlled by the yakata of Arima [Arima Haruzumi]. The Portuguese, who seldom venture beyond the ports and know little of Japan, refer not only to these yakata but also to lesser lords as ‘kings’. Father Xavier called the lords of Satsuma, Yamaguchi, and Bungo ‘dukes’, reserving the title ‘king’ for the dairi and the lord of the Tenka, but some of the priests followed the Portuguese in calling all the lords ‘kings’, and calling the kub ‘the emperor’. Later they learned better, called only the yakata kings, and gave their proper titles to the lord of the Tenka, the kub , and the dairi himself. In those days, when the yakata were absolute lords of their territories, it was reasonable enough to call them kings. Nowadays all acknowledge the authority of the lord of the Tenka, and the


title yakata is no longer bestowed, so there is no one who can reasonably be called ‘king’. Even the lord of the Tenka is not known as ‘king’, but has adopted one of the highest titles from among those proper to the kuge, so that Nobunaga was known as daij daijin, Hideyoshi as kampaku, and the present ruler [Tokugawa Ieyasu] has the title of daifusama. In writing four chapters of general information about Japan— namely chapters 5 to 8 of Principio, in 1601—Valignano was merely rewriting a treatise which he had begun about twenty years earlier. It appears as chapters 17, 18 and 19 of his History of the Beginnings and Progress of the Society of Jesus in the East Indies, reappears expanded and amended as chapters 1 to 3 of the Summary of the Things of Japan, and is brought up to date in the first of the Additions to the Summary of Japan, which dates from the end of his second visit, Other major Jesuit treatises on Japan were included in the histories of the Church in Japan by Luis Frois and by João Rodrigues. Frois was an older contemporary of Valignano and Rodrigues a younger, the former the Visitor’s interpreter during his first stay in Japan, the latter during his second and third. Their histories lay neglected in Macao, but each of Valignano’s treatises was sent off without delay to Europe. In the prologue to Principio Valignano assures the reader that he will take great care to keep strictly to the verified facts, and that since the most exact and best-ordered writing on Japan is that of Father Gian Pietro Maffei, in his history and his Latin translations of Jesuit letters, he will often quote Maffei, adding, commenting and correcting. What Valignano does not mention is that Maffei’s information about Japan is taken, in large part, from Valignano’s own earlier treatises, so that in fact in Principio he is correcting, updating and supplementing Maffei’s elegant Latin translation and adaptation of his (the Visitor’s) own words. And from time to time he also quotes the work of Father Duarte de Sande (De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium; Macao, 1590), and this too is a Latin translation or adaptation of Valignano’s own writing. Maffei’s Historiae Indicae was published in sixteen volumes in Florence in 1588 and republished in more than thirty editions in various European languages, so that although Valignano’s treatises were intended for the eyes of Jesuit superiors and not for publication, some of the ideas about Japan current in Europe from Maffei’s time almost to our own have their origins in the Visitor’s earlier writings. One of these themes is that ‘they are very cruel and quick to


kill’.8 In Chapter 8 of Principio Valignano modifies his earlier comments very considerably.9 ‘It is undeniable that the Japanese are quick to kill’, he writes: soldiering is the profession of all of them, after all, and there are continuous wars. But all the same they cannot be called cruel or barbarous men, for their killings are in war, or by order and command of their lord, they being the executioners of his justice; for it is their custom that when the lord orders that someone be killed, any of his servants and vassals who is assigned to do the killing does it, without replying, and in the way the lord has commanded; nor indeed can they do otherwise, because if they did they themselves would be killed, and to do it is no stain on their honour. And since they do not allow themselves to be killed without doing their utmost to avenge themselves, it follows that many of them are killed treacherously, as Maffei writes. But apart from the killings ordered by the lords or in time of war, they live very peacefully, with no killing or fighting among them, except in very rare cases… In Principio, Valignano’s final attempt to provide ‘full and complete information…about this nation of Japan’, his attitude towards the Japanese is more tolerant than in the earlier versions of his treatise. And some of the information is new—notably in Chapter 6, ‘How land is owned and income reckoned in Japan’ (See Appendix A). This was, as he points out, information essential for an understanding of Japan. No one else provided it to the West before the nineteenth century,10 and Principio, though sent to Europe, was not published. Before he left Europe the Visitor already knew a good deal about Japan from the letters of Xavier, Cosme de Torres, Juan Fernández, and other Jesuit predecessors. In Mozambique, in India, and particularly in Macao he found further letters; besides, he had met, in Portugal and in India, missionaries who had returned from Japan. The letters which he read in Macao from Cabral, Frois and Organtino all expressed optimism. Recent converts included the lords of Arima and of Bungo, and there were high hopes of further conversions. But the reality which the Visitor found in Japan in 1579 was different. Andrés of Arima had died, and the power of Francisco tomo S rin of Bungo had been greatly reduced. There was persecution of Christianity in Arima, and in Bungo there were murmurings that S rin’s misfortunes were a consequence of his


Christianity.11 The people were devious and difficult to deal with, and the Japanese mission field by no means as ‘white for the harvest’12 as he had been led to expect. He was very disturbed to find the Jesuit letters and reports so misleading, and wrote to Mercurian: ‘the difference between what I have found through experience in Japan and what I learned about it in India and China from the information I was given…is like the difference between black and white.’13 The point had been made before. Francis Xavier, the model for all Jesuit missionaries, had charged them to avoid mention of anything disedifying in their letters,14 but Francisco Cabral, Jesuit superior of Japan from 1570 to 1581, complained in 1571 that the stress on edification had meant the suppression of real information about the situation in Japan.15 Valignano condemned the misleading style of reporting, strongly recommended a moratorium on publishing Jesuit letters, and insisted that nothing should be written that was not the plain truth.16 An annual letter, containing information from all parts of the mission, was to be arranged systematically, edited under the direction of the superior or of the Visitor himself, and forwarded to Jesuit headquarters in Rome. From 1579 onwards this was done, with some success, and the annual letters were published,17 but ‘the plain truth’ was always a little elusive. Decisions about what to include and exclude rested to some degree with superiors and editors, censors in Japan, Macao and Europe, translators and, in some cases, with Valignano himself. He writes to the General as follows about the annual letter which dealt with the years 1586 and 1587: Your Paternity will find an extended account, in the annual letter which is being sent with this, of the labours, dangers, and persecutions which this new Church of Japan has undergone during the past two years and is still undergoing now…. Father Luis Frois sent this annual letter written and divided up as five or six separate letters, each one of them as long as the one now being sent to you. And because he was writing things down as they were happening,…the information in them was so undigested, and written down with so little order, and with some letters referring to others, that they caused no little confusion and trouble, being so lengthy and detailed that it would have been impossible to have them copied and sent to all the places they should be sent to, nor would there have been anyone prepared to read such a quantity of writing.


And since the said father is much inclined to describe things fully and at length, and to be careless about checking whether or not everything he says is true, and in choosing what to put down and what not, it did not seem to me that I could simply forward the said letters without alteration. And so, because the matters dealt with in this letter are among the most important things ever to have happened in Japan, I decided to compose the letter myself here in China, incorporating into it the substance of the said letters, which I checked against private letters which I had received, and with the information provided by three brothers who came here from Japan to be ordained. I have tried to arrange it in such a way that people will be able to listen to it without becoming confused, and it can be circulated more easily to all the provinces. It is now clear and distinct, and has been checked against letters from individuals addressed to me personally, and all the ornamentation and superfluity which were in the original letters have been removed, so Your Paternity can rest assured that what is written in these letters is the truth.18 The Visitor goes on to say that he has retained the attribution of the letter to Frois, as the substance of it was taken from what Frois had written. This meant that the greater part of Frois’s own narrative would not be published, and that statements which Frois had not made would be published under his name.19 Valignano also notes, with displeasure, that Frois had sent another copy of the original letters to Aquaviva in Rome by a small Spanish ship which had been blown off course and made an unscheduled stop in Japan on its way from Macao to Mexico. He urges Aquaviva not to pass Frois’s letters on or allow them to be published, but it seems that Frois’s letters reached the General before Valignano’s, and published they were.20 The Visitor was determined to provide the General with a full and true account of all that came within his sphere of authority and responsibility. There was always a need for scribes and translators, but it was especially urgent in the weeks and days immediately before the departure of the ships, when Valignano would often be dictating from early morning until midnight. (He states that he usually goes to bed at midnight and rises at 3 a.m.21) In December 1585 time is desperately short and he has six brothers writing, three at a time.22 In October he notes that he has three people writing a letter in Spanish. Their handwriting is excellent, but one is Portuguese, one is Indian, and the third is Constantino, who is Japanese. They


all write well in Portuguese, but none of them has ever spoken or written Spanish, except for what he makes them write. There have also been letters to write in Italian and Latin, and this is even more difficult. Letters for the pope and Cardinal Carafa he is sending, open, to Aquaviva, so that the General can, if he approves them, have them translated and delivered.23 On New Year’s Day 1593 Valignano writes to Aquaviva that on his recent arrival in Macao he found about a thousand letters addressed to him, and a week later he tells another correspondent that he has almost a thousand letters to answer.24 Although there are 428 items in Schütte’s list of Valignano’s extant writings, most of his vast output has not been preserved. More than half the items on Schütte’s list are letters to the Jesuit General, kept in the Roman archives of the Society of Jesus, and there too are deposited copies of numerous rules, instructions, decisions and catalogues, laid down or compiled by the Visitor, who was also author, part-author, or compiler of at least seven substantial treatises or books. Valignano writes in his native Italian, in Latin, the official language of the Church and the Jesuit order, and in Portuguese, the language of the officials, traders, churchmen and soldiers in Goa, Cochin, Malacca, Macao, and the other Portuguese-held ports or territories, and of most of the Jesuits who sailed from Lisbon for the Indies. From 1577 onwards, however, most of the Visitor’s extant writings are in Spanish, and in a letter to Mercurian dated September 1577 he explains this as follows: With regard to my letters, I have so many things to attend to that I have no time to write them in Latin, especially as I am short of practice in it and cannot match the style of Father Possevino;25 and often I find myself in places where there are no scribes available capable of writing Latin. Italian might seem to be the best and most common language for me to write in, since although you and the Fathers Assistant26 are from various nations you have all been in Italy for a long time, so it would seem that I would be most easily understood in Italian, and for that reason I did write in Italian in years past. But now that too is no longer possible as they [the scribes] have left for various missions and I no longer have them available. This means that the most common and most intelligible language for me to write in is Spanish, and this Your Paternity will have to accept, with all its faults, for I dictate them in very poor Spanish, especially now that I use a confused mixture of three languages. I could dictate them better in


Portuguese than in any other language, but since Portuguese is not understood in Italy and is therefore useless, I am left with no option but to dictate them in bad Spanish. And what compounds the problem is that the scribes are all Portuguese, and many of them Portuguese who have never seen either Portugal or Spain, so that they are unable to correct mistakes in my Spanish, and they do not know how to write it except with Portuguese letters and spelling. Your Paternity must pardon me and the scribes if what we produce is not satisfactory.27 It would seem that Valignano is being overmodest about his command of Castilian, for which Alvarez-Taladriz has high praise,28 but good scribes and translators were frequently not available. From Cochin the Visitor writes in 1587 that the annual letter has been revised, but the translation of it will have to be done in Lisbon.29 In October 1599 there are even more letters to write than usual because of the tragic loss of the ship from Japan carrying the procurator, Gil de la Mata, on his way to report to Rome, and numerous letters.30 In 1590 the printing of De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium —the account, in the form of a Latin dialogue, of the four Japanese ambassadors’ journey to Europe—was completed in Macao. In the previous year Valignano had informed the General that he had finished writing the account in Spanish, and that Duarte de Sande, ‘the best Latinist we have here or in India’, had translated it into Latin. De Sande himself wrote to Aquaviva that he had had to recast Valignano’s Spanish version into dialogue form, and that the translation had been no easy task.31 In 1589 Valignano sent the pages which had been printed to Rome, but for lack of able copyists was unable to send the complete text or the Spanish original. And on 16 August of that year Brother Jorge de Loyola, the only Japanese Jesuit who had accompanied the legates to Europe, had died in Macao. The Visitor comments that his death was a great loss, and also that he had hoped to have Brother Jorge translate the book into Japanese.32 In late October 1583 the decision that he himself would not accompany the four boys to Rome prompted the rapid drafting of the Sumario de Japón, to provide the General with a clear account of the situation in Japan. On the 28th he writes that it is now complete, and is being translated in great haste (from Portuguese).33 And unexpected departures of shipping usually meant a flurry of writing and copying. In November 1597 Valignano’s Apología is not ready for a ship which has just arrived from Japan and will be leaving soon for the Philippines.34 The revised version of it is completed by


October of the following year, but there are only two copies available.35 In 1604 two copies of Principio, in Spanish, are being sent to Rome. He had meant to have it translated into Latin, but this had not been done, and he had not had the time or the source materials to be able to continue his account of the history of the Japanese mission beyond 1570, the year of the arrival of Francisco Cabral and the death of Cosme de Torres, who had come to Japan in 1549 with Francis Xavier.36 When Valignano fulminates against misleading, inaccurate, or indeed untrue reports, he is thinking partly about the stories told of Francis Xavier. He warns Aquaviva on a number of different occasions that these are exaggerated or worse,37 and recommends his own Historia Indica as the best corrective.38 Now in 1604 he stresses that his later Historia (Principio) is strictly factual, and begs the General not to allow it to be altered in any way. Luis Frois too had hoped that his magnum opus, the História de Japam, would be read unaltered in Europe. The historian Maffei, writing to Mercurian in 1579, had made the suggestion that Frois, ‘who writes very well’, should be asked to write an account of the progress of the Church in Japan.39 Frois had been in Japan since 1563, and in Asia since 1548. He had heard and met Xavier himself in Goa before the charimatic pioneer set out for Japan, and when he was assigned the task of writing the history of the mission he was uniquely well qualified for it. His experience of Japan was incomparably deeper than Valignano’s, and the choice of Frois as the Visitor’s interpreter during his first stay in Japan is proof of the excellence of his command of the language, whereas Valignano himself was never able to dispense with the services of an interpreter, and never heard a confession in Japanese.40 It is tempting, but probably a mistake, to look for a hint of irony between the lines when Frois invites to Aquaviva: ‘for all my years here I would not be able to give Your Paternity such complete information about Japan, and with such detail and precision, as I believe Father Alexandre Valegnano has provided, and for him to do this a mere two years’ stay sufficed.’41 This letter, dated October 1585, does not mention the História de Japam, but in January 1587 Frois writes that it is now two years since the order to write ‘the history of Japan from the time when Father Master Francis [Xavier] of holy memory came to these parts up to the present’ was relayed to him, and that he is now finishing the first part.42 In September 1589 he reports to the General: ‘this year, with the help of the Lord, I shall finish the history of Japan, so


that when the Father Visitor comes he will find it finished, and when he has seen it it will be sent to Your Paternity, and I hope that everyone will be pleased,’43 Four years later Frois is with Valignano in Macao. They have been there for over a year, but the Visitor has not yet managed to find time to deal with Frois’s history. His intention has been, so Frois tells Aquaviva, to revise and improve Frois’s work, and then to send it to Rome. But more recently the Father Visitor has said more than once that although the history could be very interesting and informative for the Jesuits in Japan, what is needed is a much shorter version, a résumé or compendium of the essential points, in one volume, and not much longer than one of the printed annual letters. Poor Frois! Without directly criticizing the Visitor’s judgement, and while making it very plain that he will accept whatever the General and other superiors decide, he indirectly begs Aquaviva to overrule Valignano and have the História de Japam sent to Rome unaltered.44 The General did ask for it to be sent, but in 1598, after Frois’s death, Valignano answers that there is so much of it (it is ‘opus immensum’) that it is not possible to send it for the time being.45 Frois himself had written in 1593 that there was a problem, in that it was all in Portuguese and there was only the one copy, in his own hand. To send the only copy would be unwise, to find someone to copy it would be very difficult, and he was now too old and infirm to be able to do it himself.46 In 1602 Francesco Pasio, Jesuit viceprovincial of Japan, explains to Rome that Frois’s history was not sent because there were many things in it that needed to be corrected, but the Father Visitor has in the past year written an authoritative and reliable history of the mission up to the time of Father Cabral, and this has been sent, and another copy of it will be sent shortly.47 Now, four hundred years after it was first commissioned, Frois’s História de Japam has been edited and published, and will rank as a major work of Portuguese literature as well as an essential source of historical information.48 Besides being a very prolific author himself Frois served as amanuensis to others, and especially to Valignano. In January 1593 he tells the General that in the three months since he and the Visitor came to Macao from Japan Valignano has been dictating and he writing for three or four hours every morning and three or four more every evening. He is over sixty years old, has in the past suffered pains in his arms and hands, and writes now with a trembling hand. His versions are no longer good enough to send, but they serve as the origi-


nal, which the Father Visitor keeps, and others make fair versions from them.49 This, no doubt, is the clue to understanding Valignano’s remark that he has people writing in Spanish who do not know the language. Their Portuguese will have enabled them to make copies in Spanish, but not to take dictation. Frois, on the other hand, knows Spanish and himself writes to Aquaviva in Spanish (also in Portuguese and Italian). Secretaries and interpreters of his calibre were rare indeed, which is why Valignano had Frois come with him to Macao in 1592. He was still writing for the Visitor at the end of 1593, and it was only consideration for his age and frailty which dissuaded Valignano from taking Frois with him when he left Macao for India in November 1594.50 Luis Frois returned to Japan in July 1595 and died there two years later.

5 Ships and sealing-wax

Sailing schedules followed the dictates of monsoons and other winds, so information, instructions and persons could be carried between Europe, India, Macao and Japan only when winds were favourable. Ships left Lisbon at the end of March, reaching Goa in September. Passengers for Macao left Goa in April of the following year and arrived in August, missing the connection for Japan by twenty-five or thirty days. There was an eleven-month wait at Macao, departure from there the following July, and the traveller would hope to step ashore in Japan in August, two years and five months after embarking at Lisbon. A letter from Europe therefore took about two and a half years to reach Japan, and an answer took as long again to arrive in Portugal. The return voyage started from Japan in the winter, too late for passengers or mail to catch the ships leaving Macao in November for Malacca and India. From Cochin in India the fleet sailed for Portugal in late December or early January, before the arrival of the ships from Malacca and Macao. The voyage from India to Portugal took about six months, ending at Lisbon in the summer. The journey of the four boys from Kyushu, for example, although unusual in some of its details, was typical enough in the time it took to go from Japan to Europe. They left Japan in February 1582, spent many months in Macao and many more in India, and arrived at Lisbon in August 1584.1 Five or six years was therefore a normal interval between sending a letter from Japan and receiving a reply from Europe. The writer in Macao—and, of course, in India—could expect more rapid results. Valignano usually sent three copies of every letter or document, each on a different ship, so that even if two of the three ships were lost the letter would still be delivered. Shipwreck was common. Gonçalo Alvares, Valignano’s predecessor as visitor, died in 1573 when his 42

SHIPS AND SEALING-WAX 43

ship sank in a typhoon just off the coast of Japan. Pedro Martins, Valignano’s successor as provincial of India and subsequently first bishop of Japan, was one of the very few survivors of a shipwreck in the Mozambique Channel in 1583. Gil de la Mata left Japan in 1592 as ‘procurator’ of the vice-province, charged with the task of reporting personally to Rome on the affairs of the mission. He survived a shipwreck between Italy and Spain and was back in Japan in August 1598, a year earlier than expected, the ship having travelled, in a feat both unprecedented and unintended, directly from Malacca to Nagasaki. Almost immediately Mata was again elected procurator, and accepted the unenviable appointment—unenviable because of the dreaded voyages—in the spirit of obedience and resignation. Valignano, veteran of many voyages, is sympathetic, although he also notes that one reason for selecting Mata is that his inadequate Japanese limits his usefulness in Japan.2 The junk carrying Mata, seventy Portuguese, many other passengers and crew, and a large quantity of silver left Nagasaki on 26 February 1599. It never arrived at Macao, and no trace of ship, passengers, crew or cargo was ever found.3 The next Jesuit elected for the same dangerous mission was Francisco Rodrigues, who left Japan in 1603, reached Macao and India safely, but died in 1606 when his ship was wrecked not far from Lisbon. From Lisbon each spring four or five carracks set sail for India. Many of them sank on the outward voyage and even more on the return trip, when the ships were frequently overloaded.4 And ships were also lost in other ways. On 29 July 1603 the carrack was fully laden in Macao harbour and ready for the Japan voyage. Two Dutch ships suddenly appeared and, in an almost incredible coup, captured the carrack and gleefully made off with it, leaving Macao suddenly impoverished.5 As the Visitor reported to the General the following year, the Dutch were now making the seas very dangerous for the Iberians.6 A decade earlier he had commented on the 1592 encounter in which English ships confronted the fleet from India as it neared Lisbon.7 Then in 1598 the fleet from Portugal did not sail because there was an English armada lying in wait for them,8 and in 1600 Valignano reports the arrival of one of the ‘English and Dutch ships’ in Japan itself, and relays to Rome an account of a meeting between a Jesuit and the English pilot of the ship. The ship, the Liefde, was Dutch, the Jesuit was Pedro Morejón, and the pilot was William Adams, the first Englishman to set foot in Japan.9 The financing of the Jesuits in Japan depended in no small degree on their share in the profits from the annual voyage of the ‘great


ship from Amacon’, the Portuguese ‘nao do trato’, which sailed from Macao in the summer to trade in Japan, returning in the winter.10 There were years when, for one reason or another, the carrack did not make the voyage, and this would affect the flow of information as well as funds.11 The Portuguese, of course, were not the only travellers, and Portuguese ships not the only bearers of information. In December 1585 the Visitor reports from Goa that two Italians have arrived overland from Ormuz, with news of the death of one pope and the election of another;12 in February 1588 that the letters have recently gone on the ships, but that the one he is now writing will be taken overland by a man who is going via Ormuz;13 and a year later, from Macao, that a Chinese has just arrived with news from Japan.14 The Goa route was not the only one from the Far East to Europe. The Spaniards occupied Manila in 1571, and from then on the galleons sailed from Manila to Acapulco, and from New Spain (Mexico) to Seville. Already in 1573 there were Chinese junks at Manila, and they continued to bring trade there for two centuries. The Spaniards and the Japanese had silver and wanted Chinese silk, and the Chinese were always ready to trade silk and other things for silver from either Nagasaki or Manila. There was no such commodity that the Philippines wanted from Japan or Japan from the Philippines, but there was a considerable amount of trade between Nagasaki and Manila in the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth. Japanese carried wheat flour, beans, salt meat and fish, silk goods, lacquer work, armour, swords, knives, copper, iron, and other goods to Manila. These they exchanged for silver, and this—or some of it—for Chinese silk. They left Japan in October or March, and returned with the June-July monsoon.15 In October 1591 Valignano asked Aquaviva to send a copy of all letters via New Spain and the Philippines, in addition to those sent by the regular Lisbon-Goa-Macao route, since letters to Japan via Manila arrived twelve to eighteen months earlier. The fleet from Seville to New Spain sailed in May, and the galleon from Acapulco to Manila in April, arriving in June. For the previous two years there had been regular trade between Japan and the Philippines, and this was expected to continue. Three boats were just then about to leave Nagasaki for Manila; some of those aboard were known to the Jesuits and would carry mail for them, and they would be back in Nagasaki in July of the following year. Letters via New Spain and Manila could therefore be in Japan only fourteen months after the ships sailed from Seville, Better still, there was a small fast boat sailing from Seville for New Spain every November or December. Let-


ters on this boat (and Valignano hoped they would include answers to his letters which would have arrived in Rome probably in October of the same year) would still be in time to catch the same galleon from Mexico to the Philippines, and the General’s letters could be in the Visitor’s hands in Japan nine months after leaving Rome. Letters in the opposite direction leaving Japan in October should be in Rome in under eighteen months, or approximately a year earlier than by the Portuguese route.16 In fact the letters seldom reached Valignano as promptly as he wished. In that same year, 1591, he had received eight letters from Aquaviva, four of them written in 1587 and four in 1589.17 He was back in Japan in August 1598, and before the end of that month the ship which brought Gil de la Mata and three other Jesuits a year earlier than expected also brought eleven letters from Aquaviva dated 1596. Ten more letters from the General, sent in 1597, had reached Japan via Manila in that same summer, but then between summer 1598 and summer 1602 there was not a single letter from Rome. In July 1602 the nao brought Aquaviva’s letters of 1598, 1599 and 1600, and one letter of 1601 came via Mexico and Manila.18 The delays were understandable, since no ships sailed from Portugal in 1598 and there was no Macao-Japan voyage in 1601, but Valignano enquires why no copies were sent via the Philippines, and requests that in future two copies should be sent by each of the two routes. In 1603, in Macao again, he is complaining to Aquaviva that there were no letters from him on the ships which left Lisbon in 1601 and 1602.19 And even from Macao the Manila-Mexico-Seville route would have been more efficient than the Portuguese service via Goa and Lisbon if there had been regular shipping from Macao to Manila. Since trade and communication between the Spanish and the Portuguese colonial dominions were forbidden,20 there was no such shipping, but in spring 1604 a small Spanish galleon arrived quite unexpectedly from Manila, and Valignano took the opportunity to write to Aquaviva and to the procurator Francisco Rodrigues, who had left Macao in February for Rome. (The galleon was in Macao to collect information and war materials in the wake of the October 1603 uprising of Chinese in Manila, which had been suppressed by a notable combination of Spaniards and local Japanese.21) The Visitor estimates that his letter via Manila will reach Rome a year or more before Rodrigues does.22 The efficiency of the postal service was not the only issue. There was ill feeling, if not hostility, between Portuguese and Spaniards, and between Jesuits and friars. The Portuguese padroado or (reli-


gious) patronage was the right of the Portuguese crown, proclaimed in papal documents, to supervise all missionary activity in the Orient.23 Spain acknowledged the padroado, but Spanish atittudes towards it were affected by two developments. The first was the voyages of Magellan and those who followed in his wake, Spanish voyages westward across the Pacific to the Philippines and the Moluccas. Charles V ceded the Moluccas to Portugal, but Philip II decided to colonize the Philippines, and Legazpi captured Cebu for him in 1565 and Manila six years later. The Portuguese had resisted Magellan and they objected, unavailingly, to Legazpi’s conquests, pointing out that the Philippines clearly came within what the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) had designated the Portuguese half of the newly discovered world.24 The second development, in 1580, was the ‘union of the crowns’ of Spain and Portugal under Philip II of Spain. It was agreed in Madrid and Lisbon that the two colonial empires should be separately administered, as before, but in Manila the Spanish authorities, both secular and religious, did not accept that the padroado was valid east of Malacca.25 Spanish Franciscan, Augustinian and Dominican friars were never content to be excluded from either China or Japan, and Spanish friars appeared in Macao in 1580 and in Japan, for the first time, in 1584.26 Both the governor of the Philippines and the Dominican bishop of Manila had asked that some Jesuits be sent to the Philippines, and in 1581 three arrived: the priests Antonio Sedeño and Alonso Sánchez, and the scholastic (in Jesuit parlance a ‘scholastic’ is a member of the order who is no longer a novice but not yet a priest) Gaspar Suárez, younger brother of Francisco Suárez, the celebrated Jesuit theologian. Philip II was recognized as king of Portugal by the estates of the realm in 1581, but Dom Antonio, bastard of the royal line and the only credible alternative to Philip, had disappeared, and some believed he might have made for Portuguese India. Governor Ronquillo of the Philippines was instructed to secure the sworn allegiance of the citizens of Macao before the possible arrival there of Dom Antonio, and the agent whom Ronquillo in turn instructed was Alonso Sánchez, who arrived in Macao, via Canton, in May 1582.27 This was the year in which the Jesuits succeeded for the first time in obtaining permission to reside in China, thirty years after the death of Francis Xavier and the birth of Matteo Ricci. Michele Ruggieri and Francesco Pasio, armed with a clock which Ricci had brought from Goa to Macao, made their way from Canton to Zhaoqing towards the end of 1582. The governor-general of the province


was pleased with the present and they were allowed to stay, but when he was replaced the following spring they had to return to Macao. In the late summer unexpected and welcome word came from the new governor-general that they could return, but in the meantime Pasio had been sent to Japan on the nao in July, and it was Matteo Ricci who arrived in Zhaoqing with Ruggieri in September 1583.28 Valignano had written the previous December that it was now three years since Ruggieri had come to Macao, that he and Ricci, who had arrived in 1582, were both doing extremely well in their study of Chinese, that they were to be assigned no other duties than to prepare themselves for work in China; and that in time four or five others should do the same.29 In Canton Sánchez met Ruggieri and Pasio, learned that Valignano was in Macao, and wrote to him with the news of the union of the crowns and an explanation of his mission. Valignano was expecting to accompany the four Japanese boys to Europe, and personally to inform Philip II about the great enterprise of the conversion of Japan to Christianity. The opportunity to be of service to the king in Macao was welcome and the Visitor co-operated willingly with Sánchez, making sure that the Spaniard and his message would be favourably received. (It was from Sánchez that Valignano learned of the death of Mercurian and the election of Claudio Aquaviva as his successor.30) In Macao Sánchez was discreet, promising no imposition of Spanish law, customs or persons, but an alliance against common enemies, and saying little about the support in Portugal for Dom Antonio the pretender, or about the sack of Lisbon by the duke of Alva’s troops. He was backed by the captain-major, the two resident bishops, the Visitor and other dignitaries, and Macao was persuaded, though nervous of Chinese suspicions, since for years the Portuguese had been warning the Canton authorities about the danger of Spaniards and their methods of conquest.31 Valignano and Sánchez saw eye to eye in this matter, but in little else. The Visitor wanted letters but not missionaries to be sent by the Philippine route, and it was his view that Spaniards should on no account be allowed into China. In 1585 he writes from Goa to the General about the dangerous possibility of Spaniards from the Philippines, both religious and secular, coming to Macao, an eventuality which could result in the expulsion of the Jesuits from China and Macao, which in turn would mean catastrophe in Japan and would also have disastrous effects on Portuguese trade in Malacca and even in India. Macao is now being fortified, and any Spaniards landing there will be taken prisoner and sent to Goa. And he asks


Aquaviva to write to the Jesuit provincial of New Spain and to the rector of the Philippines, in order to put an end to the extraordinary behaviour of Alonso Sánchez, who has twice come to Macao and has tried to get into China. He and others have been writing to Japan, Macao and Rome, saying that they will go from the Philippines to China and Japan, and it must be stopped.32 Valignano makes the same points to Sedeño, the Jesuit rector in Manila, complaining also that Sánchez disapproved of the Jesuit part in the Portuguese commerce with Japan, and of just about everything else— especially on his second visit to Macao, in 1584, when the Visitor was no longer there to restrain him—and that he interfered in affairs which were no business of his, wrote offensive and indiscreet letters to Jesuits in Japan, and stirred up trouble between Spaniards and Portuguese.33 Sánchez was a man not easily intimidated or restrained. In 1583 he was in Manila, campaigning for an armed Spanish expedition to China. In 1584 he was back in Macao; and in 1586, when a startling proposal for the conquest and conversion of China by a combined force of Spaniards, Visayan Indians, and Japanese was approved in Manila, it was Sáchez who was appointed to present it in Madrid.34 He did so in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, and perhaps not the best year for presenting new plans to Philip II; but although the proposal was not accepted, Sánchez himself was. Among those taken with him were the king and the Jesuit General. Valignano’s letters notwithstanding, Sánchez was in 1591 appointed visitor of Spain, and he seems to have had considerable success in this high office until his death in the following year.35 As Valignano noted, Sánchez was vehemently opposed to the Jesuit interest in the Macao-Nagasaki silk trade, and-he left the General in no doubt about his views in a long and extremely critical report, dated June 1584, about the Jesuits in Macao, whom he described as pampered, self-indulgent, and living in a style hard to reconcile with the spirit of their vow of poverty. As symptoms of this decadence he mentions servants, pets, silks, fine bedding, frequent baths and changes of underclothing, eating fruit between meals, singing, unnecessary talking, and visits from outsiders. And he lays some of the blame on Valignano, whom he describes as holy, helpful and co-operative, but also as a man who is in his element when dealing with great personages about weighty matters, but tends to neglect the details essential to organized religious life, among which he lists rules, the bell (summoning the religious to his various duties), silence, dress, and order.36


Sánchez’s portrait of Valignano is very similar to Cabral’s, and it is not unlikely that some of the points in Sánchez’s report had been brought up in discussion between the Spaniard and Cabral, who was superior of the Macao Jesuit house at the time. In December 1586 the Visitor is recommending the General to pay no attention to whatever Sánchez may say in his letters about luxury and extravagance among the Macao Jesuits. The accusations are simply untrue, and indeed could not be true under superiors like Cabral and Mexia, both of them very strict, so that he had to laugh at the absurdity of it when writing to Cabral about Sánchez.37 The Spaniard’s subsequent appointment as visitor of Spain, however, shows that Aquaviva’s estimation of him differed from Valignano’s. Valignano was neither Portuguese nor Spanish, and had no wish to bar Spaniards from Japan. One reason for his original appointment as visitor was the hope that under him the Indian mission would be less dependent on Portugal and more directly in touch with Jesuit headquarters in Rome, and his insistence on taking Spanish and Italian as well as Portuguese Jesuits with him when he sailed for the Indies in 1574 did not endear him to the senior Portuguese Jesuits.38 Valignano denies, however, that he has any predilection for Spaniards rather than Portuguese,39 and he regrets that only three nations are represented in the group that he is taking to the Indies.40 In one of his first letters from Japan the Visitor takes up the question of whether Spaniards should be prevented from coming to that country. He considers that those who are afraid of having Spaniards in Japan simply do not understand the situation there, as there is no question of any foreign power conquering Japan, a country with better defences and a more bellicose people than are to be found anywhere else in the world. And even if, per impossibile, Japan were to be conquered, the conquerors would never be able to hold on to their conquest, since even under Japanese masters, never mind foreigners, treason and revolt are so common that stability is unknown. Furthermore, Japan is so extremely poor that it would profit the king of Spain or of Portugal nothing to possess it, and to maintain the fortresses and armies which they would need would be impossibly costly. Valignano’s conclusion is that it does not matter which country the Jesuits come from, as there is absolutely no chance of Japan falling into the hands of either the king of Portugal or the king of Spain, nor of missionaries helping in any way in any kind of conquest. And he adds that all the Jesuits in Japan are wholly exiled from their native countries, and know nothing of recent events in


Europe; that the Japanese around them neither know nor care about the differences between their countries; and that the likelihood of illfeeling between Portuguese and Spaniards is less in Japan than anywhere else. China, however, is a much richer country and an altogether different matter.41 Valignano’s later writings give a rather different account of the instability and the poverty, largely because there were major changes in Japan in the intervening two decades, but his views on friars from the Philippines remained unchanged. His objection was not to Spaniards, but firstly to members of other religious orders coming to Japan, and secondly to any missionary coming to Japan from the Philippines. The first point had been considered in consultations the Jesuits had held during Valignano’s first stay in Japan, and the Visitor was aware of the arguments on both sides, but the unanimous conclusion had been that it would be better to maintain the Jesuit monopoly. In his Summary of the Things of Japan—sent to Rome in 1584, and setting out the main points about Japan which he would have made in Rome had he been able to accompany the legates himself—Valignano puts only the arguments against other orders coming to Japan. Any appearance of disunity among the missionaries in dress, customs, and the content of their religious or moral instruction should be avoided. Newcomers unprepared to accept Jesuit authority or advice would fail to adapt themselves to Japanese culture and customs, and would give offence and harm the Christian cause.42 The second point was that there would be fierce opposition from the Portuguese to any infringement of the padroado, so Valignano did not want even Jesuits to arrive in Japan, or indeed in any part of the province, by way of the Philippines.43 Friars from the Philippines were unwelcome on both counts, and there was a very real danger that their coming would rearouse old suspicions that the religious activities of the foreigners were a cloak for foreign designs of a more material kind on Japan.

6 The enterprise

No pagan is allowed to enter Amakusa. (Valignano: Adiciones1)

‘Your Paternity should understand that this is, beyond a doubt, the greatest enterprise that there is in the world today.’2 Thus Valignano to Mercurian in August 1580, and he makes the same point, insistently, in many of his writings. The ‘enterprise’ is the conversion of Japan to Christianity, and in the 1583 Sumario Chapter 6 is entitled The importance of this enterprise, and the great gains which are being made and can be made in Japan’. If we may summarize the Summary, the Visitor’s reasons for considering Japan the most important of all missions are: 1. It is a very large country, and the people are white, cultured, prudent, and subject to reason. 2. Japan is the only oriental country in which the people have become Christians for the right reasons. 3. In Japan, and only in Japan, the Christian converts include some of the highest in the land. 4. The Japanese have a natural inclination to religion, and hold their Buddhist priests in high regard. We, who teach the truth and have the help of grace as well as of reason, can expect a higher degree of respect and obedience. 5. The door is now open to the Gospel throughout Japan as it is nowhere else in the East. There will be obstruction and persecution, but the (Jesuit) Society is now known and, given manpower and material support, conversions are possible all over the country. 51


6. The Japanese will listen to reason, and they all speak the same language. For the Jesuits there is no comparison between Japan, where they can see the fruits of their labours, and all the other countries. They feel that in the one case they are among rational and noble people, and in the other among peoples base and bestial. 7. The Japanese mission, unlike all other missions, will eventually be self-supporting in both manpower and revenue, as the Buddhists are. It will produce excellent Jesuits and secular clergy, and the Society is and will be honoured in Europe for its work in Japan. 8. We are now very well established in Japan, and have overcome the worst of the difficulties. We have many here who know the customs and the language, and many Japanese [Jesuit] brothers. Our authority is high with the Christians and our reputation with the pagans because great lords and gentry are daily being converted. Our religion is increasing and all the other sects of Japan are declining. 9. Lastly, it seems that Our Lord has reserved this great enterprise in Japan for the Society alone, since other religious orders should not and probably will not be able to go there. And with the Society in charge of Christianity more will be brought to salvation in Japan, in time, than in any other place, and my conclusion is that the Society must devote all possible attention to this great work. Towards the beginning of his first stay in Japan, Valignano had been less optimistic. He had wanted native candidates to be trained for the priesthood, but had recommended that none should actually be ordained until Christianity had taken firmer root in Japan and there were kingdoms wholly Christian, with Church jurisdiction over clerics. And he had expressed doubts about whether Japanese should be admitted to membership of the Society of Jesus. On the one hand they were clever, honourable and noble, and the Society needed their mastery of the Japanese language. On the other they were deceitful, secretive, untruthful, and inclined to vice. Besides, they were very strongly attached to their own ways and customs, and this, together with their pride and wilful ness, made it unlikely that they would accept Jesuit obedience and Jesuit rules.3 Six months later, in June 1580, the Visitor’s emphasis is different. In order to satisfy and avoid upsetting the Japanese Jesuit brothers and non-Jesuit d juku (catechists and other assistants living in the

THE ENTERPRISE 53

Jesuit houses), and in order to foster love and concord between the Japanese and European Jesuits, the superior of Japan must treat his subjects with gentleness, showing a high regard for their talents, sympathizing with them in their difficulties, and on no account belittling them, calling them negros, or using other offensive or angry words to them. This warning was aimed especially at Cabral, who at that time was still the superior. His view, according to Valignano, was that the Japanese Jesuit brothers, and also the d juku, did not respond to love, and must be ruled with rigorous discipline. Cabral did not want any of the Japanese Jesuits to study for the priesthood, but Valignano now insists that Japanese who enter the Society are to have the same treatment as the foreigners in everything. The superior must therefore make sure that the Japanese Jesuits are not excluded from the study of Latin, of ‘cases of conscience’, and so on, and also that the boys in the seminaries learn Latin. And he goes a step further when he says that the Europeans must bear in mind that it is they who have to learn the Japanese customs, not the Japanese who have to learn theirs.4 The Japanese were not so pusillanimous, nor so stupid, as to allow themselves to be ruled by foreigners, and it was very clear to Valignano that the king of Spain was never going to have any dominion or jurisdiction in Japan. He is already making this point to Rome in 1579,5 and he makes the same point two decades later to the Jesuit superior in Manila, warning that the Spaniards in the Philippines should have no designs on Japan, the Japanese being incomparably more formidable than the natives of New Spain or the Philippines.6 In his Apología the Visitor ridicules the claim of Fray Martín de Aguirre that Japan could be captured, as Peru and New Spain were, with a mere handful of Castilian soldiers, ‘against Taik [Hideyoshi], who actually sent 200,000 soldiers to capture Korea and invade China five years ago!’7 The Korean campaign, however, had also shown that the Japanese were unlikely to be a threat to the Philippines, as their shipping had proved disastrously inadequate even for the relatively short crossing to Korea, and their navy humiliatingly inferior to the Koreans’. Frois states that the Japanese lost more than five hundred ships.8 Fray Martín also reported that Konishi Yukinaga would become lord of the whole of Kyushu, and that he would favour Spanish conquest of Japan. Valignano comments contemptuously that this shows just how little grasp the friar has of the real situation in Japan, and he adds—interestingly—not only that Konishi will never be lord of all of Kyushu, but that he is a foreigner there, being him-


self from the Miyako area; and that, like the rest of Hideyoshi’s ministers, he is hated by the local people and will be in mortal danger when Hideyoshi dies. Konishi is a friend, writes the Visitor, a believer, brought up among the fathers and devoted to them, but if he thought for one moment that they were trying to hand Japan over to Spaniards he would be the first to raise his sword against them.9 Since the Japanese were too proud and too clever ever to allow themselves to be ruled by foreigners, the only way to establish the Church in Japan was to educate native Japanese, and then leave it to them to run things themselves in their own way. The foreigners could earn the respect of the Japanese, and succeed in what they were trying to do, only if they learned to accommodate themselves to the Japanese way of doing things. All the Japanese behaved in the same way, as if they had all been educated at the same school, and they were so attached to their own ways that they were unwilling to accommodate themselves to the foreigners in anything what-soever.10 There was a great deal of discussion of questions of cultural adaptation, and detailed records are extant of the deliberations and conclusions of the officiai consultations of senior Jesuits which were held during each of Valignano’s three visits to Japan, and of the Visitor’s subsequent decisions and instructions. One matter demanding attention in 1580 and 1581 was food. Valignano forbade the raising of pigs and goats, the slaughtering of cows, the drying and selling of hides, at all Jesuit establishments in Japan. Hens and ducks might be kept, but only if enclosed and never permitted to enter the house. The missionaries were normally to eat Japanese food, with Japanese cooking, service, and table manners. The most remarkable thing here is perhaps that any such instruction should be necessary, but in fact there were areas—notably but not only Nagasaki—where by Valignano’s time Portuguese customs, including the eating of pork and beef, no longer startled or shocked the Japanese, and indeed were imitated by not a few of them. But these were exceptional places and cases. The Buddhist priests, models of decorum, abstained from meat and fish, and apart from the Europeans the only persons who had anything to do with butchery were, according to the Visitor, ‘some Chinese whom the Japanese consider to be very low and vile’.11 The Japanese, naturally enough, tended to judge the foreigners by what they could observe of their outward demeanour, and priests who did not match the Buddhist monks in decorum could hardly expect to match them in authority. Godliness without cleanliness was not acceptable; therefore dirty or stained tablecloths or napkins,

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greasy dishes, dirty kitchens, table manners uncouth or clumsy by Japanese standards—all these were hindrances to missionary work, The Christian daimy of Kyushu—in particular tomo S rin, a connoisseur in matters of aesthetics—had drawn the Visitor’s attention to the harm done to the Christian cause by the fathers’ failure to master and observe Japanese etiquette, and if absurd, boorish or disgusting behaviour was an embarrassment to allies it was welcome ammunition to hostile observers, such as those who spread the persistent rumours that the carnivores were also cannibals. (The Franciscans’ first attempt to set up a church and house in Osaka in 1595 was frustrated by local residents who suspected them of cannibalism.) 12

Valignano’s later writings constantly modify his earlier statements, both because he has had opportunity for further observation, and because Japan underwent drastic changes between 1579 and 1603. He notes in 1601 a considerable shift in Japanese attitudes and reactions to meat-eating, and this allows him to modify the rule that the Jesuits should abstain from meat. The need for decorum and for conformity to Japanese etiquette had not changed, but the Japanese themselves were now eating meat. One may doubt whether meat-eating can have been quite as common or as wide-spread, socially or geographically, as the following passage suggests, but it provides clear evidence of a change in attitude. (As usual, the reference to Maffei is really a reference to Valignano’s own earlier writings.) The Japanese used to have a great revulsion from eating any kind of meat except game from hunting, and there was also a universal abhorrence of our kind of food. They were scandalized, in fact, to learn that Ours ate the flesh of cows and pigs, so that for a long time it was necessary for us to abstain from those things and eat their food, which is such that, until one becomes accustomed to it, it is no less abhorrent to us Europeans than our food used to be to the Japanese. But what with the trade with the Portuguese, and the very long war which they have had in Korea, for some years past now the Japanese have been eating and enjoying poultry, pork, beef, and others of our dishes, so much so that there is hardly a banquet nowadays which does not include at least some of our things. It is their custom to invite each other frequently to parties, very splendid and ornate affairs, as Maffei says, but there is no doubt that at their ordinary meals even rich people and great gentlemen


eat very sparingly by comparison with Europeans, being content with very little, and putting to shame the Christians of Europe, who, abandoning the restraint which Our Lord taught us, go in search of so many dishes to satisfy their appetite that many of them seem to live to eat rather than eat to live. And the penalty consequent on this overeating is many serious illnesses, and also a shortening of their lives.13 Valignano’s Advertimentos, composed towards the end of 1581, is a handbook of decorum for the guidance of the Jesuit missionaries in Japan. Underlying all Japanese social behaviour was the assumption that each person knew his place in a hierarchical system, and must speak and behave accordingly. The Visitor noted that correct or polite Japanese speech had to take account of the social position of the speaker, the person spoken to, and the persons or things spoken about. Such distinctions of rank as the Jesuits had did not correspond to the Japanese distinctions, so it was difficult to determine what would be correct speech or behaviour where the missionaries were concerned. His characteristically bold solution was to assign Japanese-style ranks to his men, each of whom was to know his place and role, and to speak and act his part. The model of decorum and language which he chose was the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. The Jesuit superior of Japan should be regarded as having the rank of the superior of the Nanzen temple in Kyoto, this being the highest possible rank among Japanese Zen priests; the regional superiors of Shimo, Bungo and Miyako should be regarded as having the rank of the abbots of the Gosan, the other five great Zen temples of Kyoto, and other priests the high rank of ch r or t d . The brothers, the novices, and the d juku (who were not Jesuits) were also assigned ranks on the Zen model. The ranks assigned to the priests are the most exalted possible, and the treatise proceeds with remarkably detailed instructions about the ceremony and etiquette required of the missionaries in, for example, ‘receiving ambassadors and other distinguished persons’. The Visitor’s intention was to use the Buddhist system as a guide to Japanese etiquette, adapting it to Jesuit circumstances, but although both the detail of his instructions and the idea behind them are impressive, one wonders how many of the foreign Jesuits can have been sufficiently familiar with the language and etiquette of senior Zen priests to be able to use them as a model. Besides, Valignano’s initiative in matters of cultural adaptation was not always approved by Aquaviva in Rome, and doubts were expressed about the compat-

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ibility of Buddhist-type dignity and rank on the one hand and the Jesuit spirit of humility and poverty on the other. Valignano continued to defend his own policies in letters to Aquaviva and others, but when he issued a revised set of rules for the Jesuits in Japan in 1592 there was no longer any mention of the Zen rankings.14 It seems that the Visitor accepted that his bold initiative was almost bound to be misinterpreted in Europe, and that the General himself did not really approve of it. Besides, tomo S rin, an authority on Zen and himself holder of the rank of ch r , seems to have been behind the original idea,15 and it may be that there was less enthusiasm for it after his death. It could also be that questions of etiquette sometimes seemed a luxury in years when the Christians were threatened with persecution and the missionaries with expulsion. But in any case Oda Nobunaga and after him Toyotomi Hideyoshi had seen to it, as Valignano reported, that Buddhist power and authority were drastically reduced, and part of the reason for the abandonment of the Buddhist model is that the status of the Zen monks no longer seemed enviable. In 1584 word reached Goa that Oda Nobunaga had been assassinated two years previously. Valignano feared for the Azuchi seminary and the Jesuit house, for in such circumstances in Japan ‘they turn everything to fire and blood’.16 Nobunaga had indeed died amid blood and fire, and the seminary and the house were among many things destroyed at Azuchi. Accustomed though the Visitor was to disappointment, the sudden wreck of his plans was a severe blow. It was yet another of those setbacks which, as he explained shortly after first arriving in Japan, were causing himself and others no little doubt and perplexity, for: as soon as we begin to preach or make conversions anywhere, such strange events take place that it really seems as if Our Lord is undoing what we do, so that we not only gain nothing, but lose what had previously been gained with such effort.17 But every setback is also an opportunity to practise the virtue of hope, and in 1585 Valignano reported that the news from Japan was good. Takayama Ukon and other Christians had helped the new lord of the Tenka (Toyotomi Hideyoshi) to deal with Akechi Mitsuhide, Nobunaga’s assassin, and Hideyoshi was showing favour to the Christians and the Church. In Kyushu Don Protasio of Arima had had a welcome and very surprising victory over Ry z ji, his


great enemy. He had been to confession and communion before going into battle, and the vice-provincial had given him a rich reliquary from the pope. The grateful Arima had built a fine new church, there were now over 100,000 Christians in Kyushu, mostly in Arima and mura,18 and it was in this year that the idea of an embassy from the Portuguese viceroy of India to Hideyoshi was first put forward—by Vice-Provincial Coelho, who proposed it as a way of showing appreciation of the ruler’s favour, and requesting continued and further favour. The missionaries were mistaken in their belief that Hideyoshi intended to encourage Christianity. Much has been written about the events leading up to the decree of 27 July 1587, which ordered the foreign priests to leave Japan within twenty days. Historians may find the edict unsurprising, a consistent part of Hideyoshi’s strategy for bringing all Japan under his own centralized control,19 but to the missionaries it was a terrible shock. Valignano knew nothing about it until he reached Macao on 28 July of the following year. He had originally been sceptical about the idea of an embassy, but had come round to it and had himself been appointed ambassador, and it now seemed to him truly providential. In October 1590 he reported to the General that word of his embassy had greatly helped the cause of Christianity in Japan. Hideyoshi had been pleased at the idea of an embassy from 2,000 leagues away— something never before heard of in Japan; had acted as though he did not know there were still missionaries in Japan; and had ordered that Valignano and his embassy should come.20 In 1585 Valignano had welcomed instructions from the General that he should accompany the four young nobles on their return to Japan.21 He was confident that they would make a great impression there, as they had in Europe, and that their testimony would do much to convince the Japanese of the glory, greatness and power of Christianity.22 He now saw the hand of Providence even in the way they had been fêted in Rome, since an account of their triumphal progress through Europe might well make a favourable impression on the ruler of Japan.23 Hideyoshi’s reception of Valignano’s embassy was a spectacular and memorable occasion, and a triumph for the Visitor.24 Valignano was delighted, all concerned seemed satisfied, yet the outcome was disappointing. There were months of anxious waiting before Hideyoshi’s official answer to the viceroy was delivered to the ambassador. It decreed that ten Portuguese members of the ambassador’s train should stay in Nagasaki, nominally as hostages. This

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was taken to mean that ten priests could stay—although officially the only Jesuit with permission to stay was Brother João Rodrigues the interpreter25—and as a relaxation of the 1587 decree, and Valignano reported with relief that it was tantamount to tacit permission for the missionaries to stay in Japan, provided they were discreet and as inconspicuous as possible. They had hoped for better but feared worse. In Japan the granting of an audience meant restoration to favour, but letters from Organtino and Rodrigues—who were in or near the capital—and from various Christians had been very pessimistic, and it had been said that Hideyoshi doubted the genuineness of the embassy. Churches were disguised, crosses taken down, novices and seminarians sent to remote areas. Hideyoshi himself would be in Kyushu in the spring of 1592, upheavals were expected, and discretion was the better part of Christian valour. There will come another time for triumph’, writes Valignano,26 but for most of 1591, after returning from the capital to Kyushu but before receiving the official answer from Hideyoshi, he sounds subdued, if not down-hearted. In October he writes that Hideyoshi will probably take no action against the Christians until the embassy leaves Japan, which will be in March 1592, and expresses the rather forlorn hope that the tyrant will die within the intervening five months.27 Later in October, and again in March 1592, he is maintaining that Hideyoshi cannot live much longer, and that after his death there will be many conversions.28 Valignano would have preferred to stay in Japan, but in his ambassadorial role he had to be seen to carry Hideyoshi’s letter to the viceroy with all possible despatch, and he sailed for Macao in October 1592.29 He had expected to leave in March, but trading had not proceeded as usual and in March the ship remained at Nagasaki, its cargo (mostly silk) not yet sold. The lords of Kyushu had other things on their minds. The dreaded Taik (the title which Hideyoshi had now assumed) was bent on an invasion of Korea and China, and on 5 June he arrived at Nagoya, the port in north Kyushu from which his armada was to set out. In March Valignano had reported that no one liked the plan, but no one dared oppose Hideyoshi. All the yakata and other lords, including all the Christian lords, were preparing to go, and they were very fearful that the Taik would hand their lands over to his own followers. The Visitor comments that the difficulty of the enterprise seems over-whelming, and that Hideyoshi’s forcing of his own will on the reluctant but terrified Japanese lords is the most violent act he has ever known.30 Valignano stayed in Macao till November 1594, intending at first


to return to Japan as soon as possible. Hideyoshi’s Korean campaign was going so badly that revolts in Japan and an end to the Taik ’s dictatorship seemed possible, and in such circumstances the Visitor would probably have been able to return to Japan in 1593. Failing that, he proposed to lead another embassy to Japan in 1594, and he sent off Hideyoshi’s letter and present to India in November 1592, with a request to the viceroy to send another letter and another present.31 On 1 January 1593 Valignano gave the General a summary account of the war in Korea. Two hundred thousand Japanese, including all the leading Christian lords, had invaded Korea, and Hideyoshi himself was expected to go later with a further 100,000 men. The Japanese had advanced about a hundred leagues into Korea and captured the Korean capital, all the honour going to Konishi Yukinaga and the other Christian lords who were with him. On another occasion—and in a different context—Valignano speaks of ‘the unjust and cruel war waged on Korea, with the death and capture of an infinite number of Koreans, and the death also of 50,000 Japanese’,32 but here he says only that the king of Korea and his followers had retreated and the people had taken to the mountains, carrying with them all that they could and burning the rest. The Japanese armies suffered severely from lack of food and from guerrilla attacks, and besides, their ships proved no match for the large Korean ships, so that by October 1592, when the Visitor left Japan, Japanese confidence and Hideyoshi’s authority were weaker, and mutinies seemed likely. The Christian lords, who were in the van of the armies and had been able to capture better provisions than most of the other Japanese, would be in the rear of a retreat and in the greatest danger, and if they did not survive then their sons—all of them small children—would be at the mercy of the Taik . The Visitor again expresses the pious hope that Hideyoshi will die very soon.33 Meanwhile the ships were just about to leave Macao for India, and the Father Procurator (Gil de la Mata) for Rome. Among the documents which he carried to the General was the Adiciones del Sumario de Japón, in which Valignano brought up to date the information already provided in the 1583 Sumario. In the years between his first departure from Japan in 1582 and his second in 1592 there had been major changes in the country, so he has a good deal to add, Valignano notes that the political situation in Japan has undergone drastic change, and that Hideyoshi is now absolute master of the entire country. As proof of the dictator’s power he points to the abject obedience of all the lords of Japan to his command that they

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take part in his Korea campaign, where ‘they are meeting little resistance and winning great victories’. When the Visitor left Japan on 9 October 1592 he already knew that this account of Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea was misleading, to say the least, Adiciones seems to have been composed not long before his departure but before news of the Japanese setbacks reached him, and Valignano’s theme at this point is the absolute and ruthless power of the Taik —for which he shows considerable admiration—and its effects, in which he can find much to approve: …this Kampakudono, with his power, prudence, and masterful government, now has Japan reduced to perfect monarchy, with all the lords obedient to him and living wholly at peace with one another. None of them makes war with any other, because they all now know that they are his vassals and subjects, and that it is not for them to make war on others, but to have recourse to him as to their prince to settle their differences, and that if they did otherwise they would be very severely punished, and indeed would be destroyed by him. And so now Japan is completely at peace, and there are now none of those wars between various peoples, with uprisings, treasons, and deaths, and no more pirates on the seas, though formerly Japan was full of these things, and there are no longer the exactions and the violence and the insults which the lords used to inflict on those who passed through their lands, because Kampakudono put an end to all of that, so that everyone can go safely anywhere in Japan, by sea or by land. This does not mean that he took away from the tono or lords or anyone else the absolute authority that they have, with the right to kill and to impose taxes on those that are under their command. On the contrary, where their own lands and estates are concerned they are lords now more than ever they were, for Kampakudono taught all of them how they should exercise their authority, namely by crushing all the other tono and lords who live under their command so that they cannot resist or rebel, just as he took away from everyone the power and the strength to resist him or rise against him. And since all of them found that this teaching brought them benefits they all now follow it, and the ordinary people find themselves more heavily burdened and more oppressed every day. And may it please Our Lord to have this peace and this kind of government last for many years, provided that whoever is lord of


the Tenka is not opposed to our holy law, as for the past five years Kampakudono has been… With regard to the bonzes [Buddhist monks] and their religion, which were dealt with in the third chapter of the Sumario, things are now very different from what they were then. When the fathers first arrived in Japan, and for a long time after that, the bonzes had great power and were revered, and idolatry was triumphant. But later, as the fathers gradually exposed the falsity of their sects, and themselves began to gain credit and authority with the Japanese, the bonzes little by little lost credit and respect, until it came to the point that Nobunaga said publicly and many times that all these sects were false, and that it was unnecessary and indeed harmful to have in Japan so many bonzes, with such riches. And he launched such an attack on them, taking their lands and their power and giving them to the soldiers, that many of them began to resist, waging war on him, with the result that many of them were killed and destroyed, and in all the lands which he possessed idolatry and the bonzes were brought low, as was said in the Sumario. But Kampakudono, from the time when he began to reign, wrought such slaughter and carnage among the bonzes, and spoke against them so much to the other lords, that they came to utter ruin, because all the lords, throughout Japan, ceased to provide the bonzes with any income; and thus, partly because great numbers of them were dead, and partly because they had lost all credit and means of support, they were so reduced that of every hundred that there used to be there are not now four, and those few that there are are so poor, so harassed, and so discredited that each day their numbers diminish further, some becoming soldiers, some merchants, and some labourers, and this has contributed in no small measure to the acceptance and spread among the Japanese of our holy law. And although Kampakudono persecuted us too, and destroyed a considerable number of our houses and churches, with this [downfall of the Buddhists] the reputation of our holy law rose higher in the eyes of all the Japanese, and the fathers and brothers who have to spread it increased greatly in numbers and in reputation and in their preparedness to be in the future more apt instruments for the spreading of the holy Gospel, And Kampakudonoy by making many Christians into great lords, is preparing the way for the diffusion of our holy law. And it may be that, without his

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being aware of it, God is making him the instrument with which He will open the door to the holy Gospel in Korea and China too.34 And later in Adiciones the Visitor repeats the same optimistic assessment of the prospect for Christianity in Hideyoshi’s Japan, saying that although on the one hand he is a persecutor of Christianity and an enemy of the missionaries, he is also, without knowing what he is doing, preparing the whole of the country for a rapid conversion to Christianity, by destroying the Buddhist sects and by promoting various Christian lords and giving them great estates.35 It is true that Hideyoshi promoted various Christian lords, such as Konishi Yukinaga, Kuroda J sui and Gam Ujisato. But Gam , sonin-law of Nobunaga and friend of Takayama Ukon, regarded his promotion to vast holdings in the far North, in Aizu and later Mutsu, as a sentence of exile, and Ukon was demoted and lost his lands at the time of Hideyoshi’s anti-Christian edict of 1587.36 During the Visitor’s second stay in Japan the most powerful supporter of the missionaries and protector of the Christians in Kyushu, and perhaps in Japan, was Konishi Yukinaga, lord since 1588 of the southern half of Higo, including the islands of Amakusa: which, as was written in the Sumario, used to be divided among five lords, only one of whom was then a Christian, and where during this persecution much fruit has been produced, because the other four have been converted, together with all those in their lands, so that we now have more than 30,000 Christians in those islands…. And since these islands belong to the kingdom of Higo, of which Augustín Tsukamidono [Konishi] holds half, they are subject to him, and during the persecution, especially now that Kampakudono is here in Shimo, they have been a place of refuge for the Society, and very advantageous for the brothers, for besides the five residences there the college has been moved to Amakusa (and there was nowhere else where it could have gone), with more than fifty of the Society, some forty of whom are students attending to their studies. And since these islands are remote and Augustín is lord over them we can do what we want in them, as it were without anyone knowing what goes on there, because no pagan is allowed to enter Amakusa, so that there the fathers and brothers are free, and have things their own way, more than anywhere else in Japan.37


Cuius regio eius religio, clearly, and these 30,000 Amakusa Christians made up at least 10 per cent of the numbers of Christians claimed by the missionaries. There were larger numbers in mura, where the daimy , mura Sumitada, had seen to it as long ago as 1574 that, as Frois puts it, ‘all his vassals, that is 60,000 souls, became Christians’.38 The Sumario39 states that there are 70,000 Christians and no pagans in mura in 1582, and Adiciones40 claims that the same is still true a decade later, Hideyoshi’s 1587 edict notwithstanding. In 1597, after twenty-six Christians had been crucified at Nagasaki on Hideyoshi’s orders, the missionaries were in hiding, going about only at night or in disguise; but Afonso Lucena, who was in mura, says that such caution would have been unnecessary there, since the whole population was Christian, but for the danger of drawing the attention of non-Christian visitors from other parts of the country to the presence of foreigners or missionaries.41 In Adiciones Valignano claims that in Arima too there are about 70,000 Christians. In February 1580 the Visitor had himself baptized Arima Harunobu: and together with him almost all those in his lands became Christians, and all the temples of their idols were destroyed, and the few that are not yet baptized are now being baptized, and when the wheel turns, as we hope it will, all the rest of the people of Takaku will become Christians.42 Takaku was a larger area which included Arima. In 1580 Arima Harunobu controlled only a small part of Takaku, and after the baptisms there were about 20,000 Christians in his lands. There were hopes of an improvement in his fortunes, however, and improve they did. The explanation in Adiciones is as follows: Things are much better now than they were when the Sumario was written, because at that time Ry z ji had taken from Don Protasio [Harunobu] the greater part of that estate [Takaku], but now he has all of it, and all of it has become Christian; so that whereas previously we had about 20,000 Christians there we now have some 70,000.43 The advantages of this missionary method were very clear: convert the ruler, and his subjects would come flocking to the Church. The disadvantages, however, seem equally obvious: people who become Christians for the wrong reasons will be unsatisfactory Christians,

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and those who easily embrace Christianity at the behest of one lord will easily abandon it at the behest of another. Valignano sets out the problem for the General in his first batch of letters from Japan, noting that the great majority of Japanese converts do not have the right disposition for baptism, are inadequately instructed and tested, and are unimpressive or unedifying when they become Christians. But in the other pan of the balance he puts the points that although many are baptized for the wrong reasons there are also many other worthy cases, and besides, that there are many who become good Christians after baptism. He adds that it is hardly surprising that many of the Christians are not models of edification, as they often have neither churches nor any aids to devotion; they seldom see a priest, and when they do they cannot communicate with him; and if they lapse from their faith it is usually because not to do so would cost them their property or even their lives. Disenchantment and hesitation notwithstanding, the Visitor’s resolve is to proceed with the work of conversion, and he adduces further reasons—some purely religious, others concerning political and economic means to religious ends. To discontinue conversion for fear of the burden it imposes on the already overworked missionaries is to lack confidence in God; there are many children who die before they are old enough to sin, and are saved if and only if they are baptized; an increase in the number of Christians might lead to increased income, making it possible to establish seminaries, and so on; as Christianity expands there is hope that there will be some rulers who are good Christians, and will favour and promote Christianity in their kingdoms.44 This was always the Visitor’s aim: to have Christian rulers who would favour and promote Christianity in their kingdoms, as tomo S rin had done in Bungo, to which Valignano refers in 1590 as follows: In Bungo we had more than 50,000, but since more than a third of the people perished, so they say, in the wars, famine, and plague that they had in that kingdom, and there were also some who fell away in this persecution, it seems that there will now be approximately 30,000 Christians there. But since the chief people there are Christians, and the king wants to come back, or so they have written to me, and walk in the footsteps of good King Francisco, his father, who is with God, the whole kingdom of Bungo will easily become Christian.45


But the whole kingdom of Bungo never did become Christian again. In fact, nothing was ever quite the same again in Kyushu after 1587, the year when Hideyoshi came there at the head of a huge army, crushed and humiliated the Shimazu of Satsuma, and finally made it unmistakably clear that he was master of the whole of Japan. tomo S rin and mura Sumitada died in that year and Hideyoshi issued his decree of expulsion of the missionaries, and took for himself the port of Nagasaki, which the Shimazu had previously taken from the Jesuits. Takayama Ukon came with Hideyoshi to Kyushu. His lands at Akashi, and earlier at Takatsuki, were the most notable example of a ‘Christian kingdom’ outside Kyushu, and he lost them when he refused to abjure his Christianity when ordered to do so by Hideyoshi. This was the only case, according to Valignano,46 where the Taik actually ordered any particular individual to renounce Christianity, but it was a bold man who would even hint at opposition to Hideyoshi’s wishes, and the Visitor offers a sound defence of some who were not so intrepid as Ukon: …although it may seem that there was some weakness among some of the Christian lords in this persecution, in that they did not answer Kampakudono boldly, the answers the lords in question gave do not sound so bad to anyone familiar with the custom of Japan, namely never to give a face-to-face refusal of what is requested. This is how they normally behave,…and it may even be that we should think of it as Our Lord allowing them in their ignorance to answer Kampakudono in that way, they thinking that what they actually said was of little importance, since it was not what they really thought, so that thus the total destruction of Christianity in Japan would be avoided, and the fathers would be able to find some corner where they could take refuge. For if Arimadono and muradono had replied in the same way as Justo Ukondono did it would have meant death for them. It would also have meant greater glory and fame in Europe for the Christianity of Japan, but humanly speaking there is no doubt that Japanese Christianity would have been totally wiped out in the lands of Arima and mura, for those lords would have been exiled (or worse), and their lands would have been handed over to pagan lords who would have destroyed Christianity there, and there would have been nowhere for the fathers to withdraw to, and they would have been forced to take ship and leave Japan. In the lands of Arima there are now more than seventy of Ours,

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with the children from both the seminaries, the college, the house of probation, and all the best of the ornaments, the furnishngs, and the plate which we have in Japan. And the said lords, especially Arimadono, put themselves in great danger by receiving us in this way in their lands, against the edicts and the sentence of Kampakudono, and they gave such great proof of their Christianity that surely they should be pardoned for whatever fault they may have committed in answering as they did. And really I believe that in Our Lord’s eyes it was very slight, a very small fault in people who are so ignorant and so new, and whose intention was so good, as they afterwards demonstrated. And therefore, if Your Paternity approves, I think it would be well to request His Holiness to write a letter to Arimadono, praising him and thanking him for what he did in welcoming so many fathers in his lands in the time of this persecution, encouraging him, etc.47 A non-Christian lord would not necessarily persecute or even discourage Christianity, but the Christian lord would in effect impose Christianity on his subjects. This is not to say that the subjects accepted Christianity unwillingly, although there were certainly some unwilling converts. The point is rather that the authority of the lord was absolute, his will was law, and his jurisdiction did not stop short at the borders of an independent spiritual order. Valignano emphasizes the absolute character of Japanese authority on a number of occasions, for example in the following passage from a letter to Aquaviva of October 1600: …the lords who rule the land have such absolute authority over their vassals that they have no obligation whatever to give any account of it to any man, and the vassals have no way of escape from their authority and no appeal against it, so that the lords can, at will, take away their lives, their families, their honour, and their property, and they actually do so, and they need no other cause or reason than merely the desire or will to do it, and thus they are forever changing the houses, the fields, the income, and all the other property of their vassals, sometimes reducing them, sometimes increasing them, sometimes depriving them of them altogether and giving them to others, in fact doing with their property and their persons exactly as they wish; and there is no religious order and no religious that can match the resignation and the promptness with which all the Japanese everywhere obey the will of their lords, giving up their property, and living in


poverty, and adapting themselves to it. And since they depend so much on their lords for everything, they serve them in everything much more than they would if they were their slaves, and the lords impose such obligations and duties on their poor vassals that their position is impossible.48 Although the Visitor distinguishes between the spiritual and the secular order, and in any case has no conquistadorial designs on Japan because he is convinced that any attempt at conquest will fail, and will be disastrous for the great spiritual enterprise which he is directing, he has no hesitation about using secular means to spiritual ends, and no doubt about the importance of the lords’ endorsement of the Christian message. The Christian lords of Kyushu were constantly engaged in a struggle for power, authority and security (and it has often been argued that their Christianity was in fact a religious means to these secular ends), but from 1587 onwards it was plain that they were at the mercy of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. From Macao, in 1588, Valignano relays to Rome reports of a spirit of resistance to the Taik : Arimadono is now determined to fight to the death, together with the people in his lands, to defend himself against Kampakudono, if he carries on with this persecution and makes war against him, and the other Christian lords say the same. And although Kampakudono is so powerful and great, for the moment he is far away, and changes in Japan being so great and so sudden, these lords are hoping that they will be able to defend themselves for some time, and that in the meantime Our Lord will help them in some way, if some wars against Kampakudono start in the kingdoms of Miyako, or if perhaps some lord does to him when he least expects it the same thing they did to his predecessor Nobunaga…49 But back in Japan in 1590 he finds no such spirit, and in Adiciones (1592) he can only hope against hope, trusting in God (‘contra spem in spem debemos confiar en Dios’) that Hideyoshi will not carry out his threat to hand over the fiefs of Arima and mura to nonChristian lords.50 Elsewhere in Kyushu too, in Bungo, Hy ga and Chikugo, there are some Christian lords, but they have all been ordered to Korea, and whether they retain their fiefs depends entirely on the will of Hideyoshi.51 In the event neither Arima Harunobu nor mura Yoshiaki was

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dispossessed of his inherited fief at this period, but it was clear that the Church would need more substantial backing than they could offer. In the Sumario the Visitor had estimated that all or most of Japan would be converted to Christianity within thirty years, provided that the whole undertaking was not thwarted by lack of adequate funding.52 In Adiciones there is no such estimate. The entire country was now under the control of Hideyoshi, all the lords were his vassals, and the decree of 23 July 1587 laid it down that they could become Christians only with the permission of the lord of the Tenka, and that no lord was to force a retainer to accept Christianity. But the Visitor views this state of affairs with remarkable equanimity. The country is now at peace and incomparably more lawabiding than before, he says: and may it please Our Lord to have this peace and this kind of government last for many years, provided that whoever is lord of the Tenka is not opposed to our holy law, as for the past five years Kampakudono has been.53 God’s ways are not our ways, and often ‘it really does seem as if Our Lord is undoing what we do’, but to Valignano everything is part of God’s plan and providence, and it seemed to him that with Japan united and pacified—albeit under an anti-Christian tyrant— the way forward to the conversion of the entire country was clearer than before. One reason for optimism is the collapse of Buddhist power, and he returns to this theme in Principio: The bonzes used to have very large and rich universities and academies, and they themselves were so numerous and had things so well arranged for themselves that they enjoyed the best of the land, but after the pagan lords began, with the coming of the Gospel to Japan, to realize that they were being deceived by the bonzes, Nobunaga, and later Kampakudono, wrought such great destruction on them that they now have neither universities nor income. They have been so drastically cut down that there is now barely a twentieth of the number of them that there used to be. And in the same way Kampakudono killed and destroyed all the bonzes called negoros, so that their sect totally disappeared, and now there are none of them at all.54 The Visitor’s satisfaction at the humbling of the Buddhists is under-


standable, but his explanation of it is wishful thinking rather than plain truth. The humiliation of the Buddhist clergy was not brought about by the missionaries or the Gospel, and Nobunaga and Hideyoshi moved against them for political and not religious reasons, just as they moved against any political or military power that stood out against them. The annihilation of the Tendai monks of Mount Hiei in 1571 and of the Shingon monks of Negoro in 1585, and in the intervening years the subjugation of the ‘Bonze of Osaka’ and his devotees, were stages in the crushing of all resistance to their authority. Their target was not Buddhism as such but any opposition to or independence of central political control, and Hideyoshi’s way with the monks should perhaps have given Valignano cause for apprehension rather than satisfaction. Any challenge, any evidence of independent power or authority, risked a crushing response from the Taik . The Christian’s allegiance to a higher power, his declaration that he is ‘the king’s good servant, but God’s first’, was potentially seditious, because it was a claim to a degree of independence— a claim buttressed, in the case of the Jesuits, by their influence over powerful figures such as Takayama Ukon and Konishi Yukinaga, their hold on Nagasaki, and the fact that as foreigners they owed allegiance to and could perhaps call on support from powers totally beyond Japanese control. No wonder Japanese friends in high places were forever counselling caution. Valignano himself needed no reminding about 1587 and 1597, when the Taik had turned against the missionaries. He had written to Aquaviva that Hideyoshi’s persecution of 1587 was ‘not for love of the false gods of Japan, for he believes nothing, and has done more to destroy their temples and bonzes than we have’, but just because he suddenly fell into a rage, prompted by false information and suspicions sown by a former bonze who had the evil task of finding beautiful women for Hideyoshi, ‘even though he declared publicly that it was for preaching an evil law, destructive of the gods and buddhas and of the good and ancient customs of Japan.’55 This is similar to and presumably based on Frois’s account, and it is a far from satisfactory or convincing explanation of Hideyoshi’s action. Frois’s story is part of the annual letter for 1588, and then of his História, both of which were intended for publication and intended to edify.56 The events of 1587 are presented as scenes in the dramatic struggle between Christianity and servants of God on the one side, and the Devil on the other. The chapter in the História ‘About how Kampakudono began the persecution against the

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fathers, the Church, and Christianity’ begins with Frois setting the scene in characteristic fashion: Three days before the feast of St James, Justo Ukondono came to visit the father vice-provincial…, rejoicing at how well things were progressing for us with Kampakudono…And… he said to us, ‘Since the Devil is always trying to thwart the works of God, it seems to me that some great adversity and obstruction from the Devil cannot be long in coming…’ And the father vice-provincial enquiring if he knew of anything in particular that the Devil was plotting against us or against Christianity, he answered that he did not, but that he was totally persuaded that our great success in making conversions would be intolerable to the Devil, who would be working with all speed to put some great obstacle in our way. And that actually did happen the very next night. And for a clearer understanding of what happened it will help considerably to have first some information about the origin and character of this Kampaku, whom the Devil took as his immediate instrument in this persecution… Valignano shows scant respect for Frois’s epic manner, and would prefer him to spend more time checking facts and less time asserting eternal providence and justifying the ways of God to men, but at the beginning of Principio Valignano himself writes: I resolved to snatch some time from the many occupations of my office and devote myself to this task. The first thing strongly inclining me to this was the thought that I could not but be at fault if through pusillanimity or lack of confidence I should fail to manifest to the world things from which would result so much honour and glory to God, and so much edification for our neighburs…Add to this the obligation which I have to our least Society of Jesus, whose unworthy son I am, and to the virtue of obedience which I profess to the Society, an obligation in which I would be failing if I did not relate some of the many mercies which Our Lord grants to the Society, taking it for his instrument in the heroic enterprises with which it is entrusted here in the East, and governing it with such particular love and providence. This passage is taken from the prefatory letter of dedication to Aquaviva, and letters of dedication tend to be rhetorical rather than informative, but it shows that for Valignano as well as Frois history


chronicles the providence of God, and the purpose of historiography is to give glory to God and edification to one’s neighbour. There were times, however, when the Visitor found it difficult to reconcile this purpose with his determination to provide Rome and Europe with full and complete information about Japan. The plain truth was not always edifying. In November 1597, writing to Aquaviva from Macao about the martyrdoms, Valignano states that they have decided to give the facts in the annual letter, even though this means saying unpleasant things about the friars, and even though the annual letter is supposed to say only good things, because otherwise the Franciscan version of the events would become current, and it would seem that even the Jesuits accepted it.57 This would seem to imply that other annual letters did not always give the facts— especially, perhaps, in cases where giving the facts might have meant saying unpleasant things about any of the Jesuits. In two letters to the General, written within days of each other in October 1590, Valignano gives two different explanations of the reasons for Hideyoshi’s anti-Christian edicts of 1587.58 The same concern not to disedify, and especially not to say ‘unpleasant things’ about a fellow Jesuit, may explain why in the first letter (quoted above) the Visitor simply repeats Frois’s unconvincing explanation, whereas in the second he explains Hideyoshi’s behaviour as a reaction to the indiscretions of Father Francisco Coelho, which are not mentioned in the earlier letter. The first letter is in Spanish, and Valignano notes that it is being copied by a Portuguese, an Indian, and a Japanese. He adds that there have been other letters which had to be written in Latin and Italian, and that this has been very difficult—the difficulty presumably being, at least in the case of Italian, to find copyists. The only extant letter in Italian from that period is this second one. It is not in the Visitor’s own hand, but it seems likely that it is in Italian because he did not want his regular copyists to see the criticisms which it contains of Vice-Provincial Coelho. And it may be for similar reasons that his letter of 18 October 1598 is also in Italian.59 ‘You must pardon me,’ he says there, ‘for both I and the person writing this are no longer familiar with Italian style.’ Very few of the Visitor’s extant writings from this period are in Italian, and from 1598 this is the only instance, but this letter reports to the General about strained relationships between Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits in Japan, so it seems probable that Valignano did not want Portuguese or Spanish (or Japanese) Jesuit copyists to see it. The point is perhaps obvious, but it is rather disturbing to realize that frequently

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discretion will have made the Visitor hesitate to commit to paper, even in writings intended only for Jesuit eyes, information which he would have liked Aquaviva and his other correspondents to have. In his Italian letter of October 1590 Valignano writes that Coelho, a virtuous man and now dead, made some bad mistakes, interfering where he had no right to and disregarding advice. What he was doing was against the express orders of the Visitor, it left the Jesuits and the Japanese Christians aghast, and there is no doubt that it was the occasion of the persecution order. But Coelho himself believed he had done well. He had a fusta (a boat of some two or three hundred tons) constructed, bought some artillery for it, and travelled about in it, and three years ago he went to visit Hideyoshi in that fusta, flags flying as if he were some great captain. Hideyoshi personally inspected the boat, and Ukon, Konishi, and some of the fathers tried in vain to persuade the vice-provincial to make him a present of it. That night the bonze Tokuun spoke against the missionaries, and the Taik went into a rage and ordered the persecution. Coelho did not stop there. He tried to persuade Arima to resist Hideyoshi, and offered to provide guns and financial help. Arima and Konishi flatly rejected this suggestion, and fortunately it did not come to the ears of Hideyoshi. But then Coelho wanted to get about three hundred Spanish soldiers to come and set up a fortified area for the missionaries, and he wrote to the Philippines, to the bishop there and the Jesuits. They did not take him seriously, and Sedeño, the Jesuit superior, wrote reprehending him, but Coelho did not desist. In 1589 he sent Father Belchior de Mora to Macao to persuade the Visitor to bring two hundred soldiers to Japan, and with orders that if Valignano was dead he was to go to the Philippines, to Spain, and to Rome for military support. The other Jesuits knew about this, and it is remarkable that Hideyoshi did not get word of it.60 The Visitor states that he took Mora back to Japan with him, wrote to Sedeño to confirm that he was to ignore Coelho’s letters, and had the arms and munitions sold secretly and the artillery sent to be sold in Macao. And he made a public denunciation of Coelho’s behaviour in order to show his disapproval of it to the Japanese lords, both Christian and pagan, saying that if Coelho had been alive he would have punished him severely for disobedience, that his activities were not in accord with Jesuit policy, but that nevertheless he had meant well. And Valtgnano remarks that the edicts and Hideyoshi’s statements speak only of the ‘evil law’ of the Christians, but that Hideyoshi himself has also said many times that there is a


dangerous parallel between the Christians and the Bonze of Osaka. In conclusion he writes that total neutrality in wars in Japan is not possible, but that Coelho’s behaviour could not possibly be approved and did indeed provide Hideyoshi with the occasion for his actions. The vice-provincial was disturbed in his imagination and judgement, but it is nevertheless honourable and glorious for the Society to be persecuted in such a cause. The view of Murdoch,61 Elison,62 and others is that ‘the outburst of July 24th was merely stage-managed by Hideyoshi as the deliberate climax of a deeply-laid design of long standing’.63 Professor Boxer considers this explanation ‘as far-fetched as the alternative Jesuit one that the whole thing was a drunken whim, precipitated by his annoyance at the Portuguese refusal to bring the Great Ship round from Hirado to Hakata, and the repulse of his official pimp by some Christian damsels of Arima.’64 But Valignano’s Italian letter makes it clear that there was more than one Jesuit explanation. It also shows that the Jesuits were by no means unaware of the dangerous analogy between Buddhist and Christian power, and in particular of Hideyoshi’s pointed references to the Bonze of Osaka. The Visitor had already written to Aquaviva about Coelho from Macao, where discreet Jesuit amanuenses will have been more readily available. He accepts that there may have been other reasons than Coelho’s behaviour for Hideyoshi’s persecution, but is convinced that it was an important factor, and reports that ‘the tyrant himself said that, with the influence they had with the Christian lords, the fathers might attempt something against the monarchy of Japan.’ And the first mistake the vice-provincial made was to let himself become too involved in wars between Christian and Gentile lords.65 In Coelho’s defence, however, Valignano reflects that means tend to be judged by their results, and that Coelho had not been criticized for the help he gave Arima—help in forms which included guns and money—in his successful struggle against Ry z ji. Everyone had then wanted Hideyoshi to come and deal with Satsuma, and he did, but when he afterwards turned on Christianity Coelho was blamed.66 The position of the Christians in Japan was always precarious. ‘It’s all hanging by a thread, and there’s no way of knowing what the outcome will be’, writes Valignano.67 It is the duty of the Christian to believe that ‘all will be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’, but at times the Visitor finds it hard to remain optimistic. On 20 October 1600, the day before the Battle of Sekigahara, he writes to Aquaviva that there is a league against

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Ieyasu, that all the lords have taken sides or are about to do so, and that it looks as if there may be a return to the chaos of the bad old days before Nobunaga and Hideyoshi came to power. And the mission is even more desperately short of money than usual: ‘I still live, as always, with hope in God’s mercy, but it is extremely worrying. I am to blame, no doubt, for my lack of faith, but it really is very disturbing.’68 On 1 February the following year he starts his letter to João Alvares, the Portuguese ‘assistant’ to the General in Rome, by remarking that the ship which was to have carried the October letters was found to be unseaworthy, so now the letters from October 1600 and February 1601 will go together. Then he tells of the outcome of the battle, the ‘tremendous, almost incredible changes’ that have been taking place, the death of Konishi and the disastrous setback that has been to Christianity in Japan. His comments express the orthodox Christian reaction to adversity, namely resignation to the will of God; and this is an expression not of despair, but of confidence that ‘all will be well’. ‘Truly the Lord does not want us to rest in this world’, he writes, and trials are to be welcomed as opportunities to follow Christ. Persecution, after all, has been the lot of the Church since its beginnings.69 Valignano began work on Principio within a few weeks of writing this letter, but uncertainty about the future of Christianity in Japan does not affect the relish with which he recounts how Nobunaga and Hideyoshi cut down the pride and power of the Buddhist monks. Chapter 24 of Principio provides a lengthy account (much of it taken directly from Frois’s narrative) of Nobunaga’s destruction of temples and butchery of monks, and promises a similar account of the even more satisfying havoc wrought by Hideyoshi. In the event only the first part of Valignano’s history of Christianity in Japan was ever written, and that ends at the year 1570, so we hear no more about Hideyoshi, but Nobunaga is described as ‘truly the lash of the justice of God against them all’. As Alvarez-Taladriz points out,70 however, Nobunaga’s motives in his destructive attacks on Buddhism were very different from those of mura Sumitada, Takayama Ukon and other Christian daimy who set about destroying ‘the houses of the Devil and their idols of wood and stone’. They attacked those who opposed the will of God, whereas he attacked those who opposed the will of Oda Nobunaga. Frois, Valignano, Coelho—in fact, as far as we know, all the missionaries—looked on with undisguised Schadenfreude as Nobunaga terrorized the Buddhists and put an end to their mili-


tancy, and they encouraged the wrecking of temples and shrines in lands under the control of Christian daimy . Elison’s statement that ‘efforts at formal accommodation notwithstanding, the Jesuits were engaged in wholesale destruction of the Japanese tradition’71 is unsympathetic but not untrue. Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, for all their arrogance, ruthlessness and violence, were less radical in their ambitions. Frois states that Nobunaga, following the opinion of the Zen sect, holds that there is no other life and nothing other than what is visible,72 and Valignano notes: the bonzes outwardly give the people to understand that there is salvation, but inwardly most of them are persuaded and believe that there is no other life, and that everything ends with this world… And we are engaged in a continual war with them…73 Frois also records that in 1580, at a public and amicable meeting with Organtino and Brother Lourenço, Nobunaga expressed his doubts about the existence of God or the soul, and also his doubts about whether the Jesuits themselves believed in their hearts what they taught outwardly. He suspected that their position was not really very different from that of the Zen monks, who preach about the other life and salvation, have idols on their altars, and conduct ceremonies for the dead, but tell those who are advanced in meditation that all the outward show and ceremony is for the sake of governing the people and protecting the state, that there is no more to human existence than birth and death, and there is nothing beyond death, no other life and no other world.74 In yet another account of the 1587 persecution—this one in a letter to Pope Sixtus V beginning ‘I make so bold as to write to you about Christianity in Japan, as there is no bishop here and I am appointed visitor’—Valignano writes as follows: Kampakudono ordered that there should be no more teaching of Christianity or making of Christians, Christianity being an evil law, destructive of the kamis and hotokes and of the ancient laws and customs of Japan. He himself has no devotion to the kamis or hotokes, but he was persuaded by a bonze who has his ear.75 And two days later the Visitor, writing to Aquaviva, refers to Hideyoshi as ‘a pagan who cares only about this life’. Mindful as ever of his Jesuit obedience, he sends his letter addressed to the pope

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to Aquaviva, so that the General, if he approves of it, can have it translated and sent on to the pope.76 Valignano’s reasoning is that a man who has no belief in God or life after death, who has no piety, no devotion to the gods of Japan or to the buddhas, cannot mean what he says when he attacks Christianity for being destructive of the gods and buddhas and of the customs of Japan. The reasons for the attack must lie elsewhere, and the Visitor blames Coelho. But Coelho himself has something to say about the motives and concerns of both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, and he claims that the following is Hideyoshi’s own explanation: He exiled us because the law we preach is contrary to the kami of Japan, and it is so, he said, because it is directly destructive of the honour and reputation of the lords of Japan, for the kami are simply the lords of Japan themselves, those who have come to be adored as kami because of their greatness and their victories, and it is also the ambition of the present-day lords of Japan to become kami as those others did. And thus the law which the fathers preached, since it was contrary to the kami, was directly contrary to the lords of Japan.77 Even Nobunaga, the scourge of militant Buddhism, practised Buddhist devotion to his ancestors, always looked favourably on the Zen sect, treated Shinto shrines with respect, and himself had the great shrine at Ise, the central shrine in the cult of the kami, rebuilt— this being an initiative entirely consistent with his own eagerness to be recognized and venerated as kami.78 It is no doubt true that neither Nobunaga nor Hideyoshi believed in immortality in the sense in which Valignano used the word, but they were very far from being indifferent to fame, to what the world would think of them after their deaths as well as during their lives,79 And if, as Nobunaga suggested, the outward show and ceremony of religion had a part to play in governing the people and protecting the state, then an attack on the Japanese religious tradition would be tantamount to an attack on the state and the government. No religious beliefs would seem to Nobunaga or Hideyoshi to justify either that or what Hideyoshi saw as an attack on the lords of Japan. Iconoclastic they certainly were, but not to the extent of wishing to topple the whole tradition and value system within which they lived, ‘the ancient laws and customs of Japan’, of which the kamis and hotokes seemed to them a part. The Visitor fully intended to alter the religious tradition of Japan,


but he also hoped to avoid conflict with secular power. In Adiciones he looks forward to the death of Hideyoshi and the day when a Christian becomes lord of the Tenka.80

7 Friars from the Philippines

Your Paternity will already know about the benefits that followed on the arrival of the barefoot friars from the Philippines in Japan, (Valignano to Aquaviva1)

In April 1597 Valignano is at Cochin, on his way from Goa to Macao. Letters written in Japan in February 1596 have reached him, and he reports cheerfully that Kampakudono is upset about the outcome of his invasion of Korea and China, and is ill and unlikely to last long. There is no persecution, some prominent people have been converted to Christianity, and the Christian lords, who will soon be returning from Korea to Japan, are no longer afraid of losing their estates. Konishi is bringing ambassadors from China to Hideyoshi, and there are hopes that he will be promoted again.2 There was news of a different kind when they reached Macao in August—news of crucifixions at Nagasaki in February and of per secution renewed. Both bishops of Japan, Martins and Cerqueira were in Macao, and with their agreement Valignano composed an Apología to refute anti-Jesuit allegations made in two treatises by Fray Martín de Aguirre, one of the martyred Franciscans, and in other Franciscan reports.3 The lengthy Apología—written in hast in a few months at the end of 1597 and the beginning of 1598, am then revised and extended in Japan in 1598—is yet another testi mony to the industry of the Father Visitor, but it is also a relent lessly hostile tirade, which begins by noting bitterly that Fray Martín was martyred under Taik sama, and therefore is now a saint am knows the truth about the calumnies he wrote.4 It was not the way of sixteenth-century controversy to concede points to opponents, and Valignano makes Fray Martín out to be a 79


knave as well as a fool. Alvarez-Taladriz’s learned edition of the Franciscan’s own writings5 contends that he was neither. Since the friars were well aware that the bishop and the Visitor were intent on keeping them out of Japan, it is hardly surprising that in Japan they reciprocated Jesuit hostility and were not disposed to accept Jesuit advice. But their presence, their methods and their attitudes were a menace to Valignano’s plans for Japan, and his exasperation is understandable. A ship from Japan arrived at Macao on 9 November 1597 and was to leave shortly afterwards for the Philippines, so Valignano took time off from his apologetic labours to write to Aquaviva on the 10th. He notes that the Apología will not be ready in time to accompany the letter, but that it should be finished in time to go on the ships to India, which will be sailing within two months. The following passage from this long letter echoes some of the anger of the Apología: Your Paternity will already know about the benefits that followed on the arrival of the barefoot friars from the Philippines in Japan. They seem to have gone there simply in order to set themselves up in opposition to the Society, and to do all they could, with words, and letters, and everything else, to diminish and undo the things of the Society so as to magnify their own, and against the Society they put about such great lies that I was astonished when I heard of them, although I always felt that the truth would come out in the end, that they would not remain in Japan, that they would come to lose credit, and that the Society would end up better known and more highly esteemed than ever… And from the letters which the fathers in Japan have already written to Your Paternity…you will know about the arrival of a Spanish ship, heading for New Spain from the Philippines, and how it arrived in tatters in Japan, driven there by the force of the monsoon, and that Taik sama, lord of Japan, became very angry at the indiscreet fervour of the friars, and very suspicious of the Spaniards, knowing that Spaniards conquer other lands. And he ordered that the friars should be crucified, and also some other Christians whom they had in their house, and also three of our Japanese brothers who were rounded up with them. And although it was stated that there was no intention to harm any of Ours, persecution of our holy law began again and was enforced. The order was that all the friars were to be killed, together with a number of Christians, and all these were crucified either for

FRIARS FROM THE PHILIPPINES 81

preaching or for receiving our holy law against his orders. They died in a very honourable cause, and the deaths were good for them, but the consequences for the whole of Christianity there have been very unfortunate. The consequences he lists are renewed persecution, halting of conversions in the Miyako area, affliction and danger for Christians and Jesuits, and the fact that Bishop Martins has been obliged to leave Japan. The letter continues: The fifth thing was that Taik sama came to believe, and other Japanese lords with him, that the real aim of the missionaries in making Christians is nothing less than to hand over Japan to the king of Spain, persuading himself, as he clearly said, that that was why the friars had come, and also convincing himself that the same was true of us, and from this idea and suspicion, which was continually growing on him, what followed was that, after the ship had left, he declared that he did not want any more fathers anywhere in Japan other than in Nagasaki, and so Terazawadono, on Taik sama’s orders, put pressure on them, and they had to close the college and the seminary… And he has also determined to send the other fathers from Japan to Macao, and if the ship had gone this year he would no doubt have carried out this plan. And now many of Ours have withdrawn to Nagasaki, where they are oppressed and afflicted…. And this shows how right we were when we wrote, and we feared, that great harm would be done in Japan with the coming of the friars.6 Valignano could still see God’s providence in what had happened because no one, it seemed, had spoken out against the Jesuits to Hideyoshi, and many had spoken in their favour, and because Our Lord delayed Taik sama, so that he did not give the order which he later gave, that Ours were to leave Japan, till after the ship had gone. If he had given the order earlier then the fathers would have had no reason to delay, and at least a great many of them would have had no option but to leave Japan. The Japanese custom is to carry out the orders of the lords very efficiently at the beginning, but after some time has passed they are less prompt and less rigorous about it, so it was a great act of mercy by Our Lord to have the message come so late that the ship was


already gone… Our Lord ordained that the usual ship from China to Japan should not sail this year…since for a variety of reasons the Macao people could not agree, and also the mandarins in Canton did not send things in time. And if the ship had gone then, according to the letters I have received, the governors of Taik sama would without a doubt have forced many of those of Ours who were gathered in Nagasaki by his orders to embark. And since it will be the best part of a year before the ship goes from here, and then it will be in Japan for six months before the return voyage, time, which cures many things, will provide a remedy for this also. Either Our Lord will strip Taik sama of his life and his power, or the fathers who are now gathered in Nagasaki will leave it and again be dispersed and hidden among the Christians.7 Valignano reports from Japan on 4 October 1598 that he, Bishop Cerqueira, and four other Jesuits left Macao in July and reached Nagasaki on 5 August 1598. Two friars from the Philippines had arrived very recently and tried to go into hiding, but one of them had been discovered almost immediately and brought to Nagasaki. Terazawa Hirotaka, Hideyoshi’s governor of Nagasaki, was insisting that all priests were to leave Japan, and the Christians were alarmed rather than pleased at the coming of the Jesuits, but that very night, reports Valignano, Hideyoshi fell gravely ill, and Terazawa, on learning of this, became notably more accommodating. The Taik was going to die, and his plans to have his son succeed to his empire would fail. The Visitor would be ordering ten Jesuits to proceed from Macao to Japan the following spring, and they would all be needed for the great harvest which was coming. Meanwhile the folly of placing trust in any quarter other than providence had been underlined by recent events. A ship heading for Macao from Malacca had been blown to Nagasaki, and another, carrying eight Jesuits assigned to the Japanese mission, had fetched up in Brazil instead of India. And Valignano adds, in a postscript dated 16 October, the long-awaited news that Hideyoshi is dead.8 On the 25th he writes again, confirming that the Taik is dead (and adding that his soul is now buried in hell). And he returns to the theme of providence, saying that Hideyoshi was the instrument of providence in destroying the Buddhists, and that despite his persecution he had been unable to drive the Jesuits out of Japan.9 This last assertion, heavy with dramatic irony, seems dangerously close to a claim to know that God will not allow the Jesuits to be driven out.


And the Visitor makes a similar claim in a letter about China: namely, that no one, not the lord of the Tenka, not the emperor, has succeeded in making the Jesuits leave Japan, because God is stronger than they are, and the same will be true of China.10 In February 1599 he is enthusiastic about the excellent prospects, and is asking for more Jesuits to work in Japan, but he also stresses the need for caution, even though there is now, especially in Arima and mura, some rebuilding of houses and churches destroyed under Hideyoshi. Meanwhile the Christian lords of Kyushu have returned from Korea and gone to Miyako, where they will profess obedience to Hideyori (the five-year-old son of Hideyoshi), and when they return to Kyushu it will be possible for Christianity and the bishop to come out into the open.11 But Terazawa’s attitude took a sharp turn for the worse,12 and in March Valignano, Cerqueira, a number of other Jesuits, and the pupils of the seminary withdrew to the largest of the Amakusa islands—first to Kawachinoura and then, in August, to Shiki, on the north coast. The Visitor was back in Nagasaki in March 1600, and from Shiki and Nagasaki he wrote a series of letters to Father Ribera, the Jesuit rector in Manila. In the summer of 1599 at least six ships sailed from Manila for Japan, and one of them, belonging to Konishi Yukinaga, sank near Formosa. They brought several letters from Ribera to Valignano, and news in them included ‘information about the illness and death of good King Philip II’. Sung Mass was offered for him, with the offices of the dead, in both Nagasaki and Amakusa, and each priest in Japan was instructed to say three Masses for the dead monarch.13 Valignano’s information for Ribera includes good news about baptisms—about 40,000—but also the tragic news of the loss of the junk which had left Nagasaki for Macao in February. And the Visitor has a great deal to say about Fray Jerónimo de Jesús de Castro, the Franciscan from Manila, expelled from Nagasaki in October 1597 but back in June 1598. In December this friar was sought out by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had hopes of trade with the Philippines and Mexico. Ieyasu wanted Spanish ships to come to his Kant domains,and he gave permission for the friar to stay there and to set up a church, which he did in Edo in May 1599.14 In the Visitor’s view—expressed forcefully and at great length in Apología, a copy of which he sends with his letters to Ribera—no friars could come to Japan from Manila without flouting the orders of the pope, the king and the bishop. Any who came would also be outside the control of the Visitor and a grave threat to his carefully laid plans. He explains to Ribera that Daifu (Ieyasu) wants friend-


ship and commerce with the Philippines, and that although he is suspicious he is not afraid of Spaniards or friars. In the hope of making huge profits by getting a Spanish ship to come to his ports, and of getting his own ships licensed to go to New Spain as well as to the Philippines, he has allowed this friar to stay in his lands, but really he does not want friars, and will never give them permission to make Christians. And in Valignano’s opinion this will be so even if the friar succeeds in getting a Spanish ship to come to Kant , whatever Daifu may have said notwithstanding, for the Japanese are very good at dissembling with fine words. And now that the friar is finding that he cannot make good his promises to Ieyasu, and cannot make converts either, he is blaming the Jesuits and the Portuguese for thwarting his plans.15 Fray Jerónimo had suggested that Ieyasu send an ambassador to the governor of the Philippines, with a letter of recommendation from himself to the Franciscan superior there. On arrival in the Philippines this envoy, Goroemon, was arrested and imprisoned, as his credentials were deemed unacceptable, so that he did not return to Japan as expected.16 Another embassy was sent in November 1599 and yet another, this time including Fray Jer nimo himself and two brothers of Goroemon, in March 1600, The friar arrived in Nagasaki on 11 March, suffering severely from hunger, and took ship for the Philippines a few days later, promising, to Valignano’s disgust, to be back with more friars.17 Japanese pirates were famed and feared from China to the Philippines, and one point Ieyasu wanted his messengers to the Spaniards to make clear was that he strongly disapproved of their activities. Only a strictly limited number of ships, which would carry his ‘red seal’ authorization, were now permitted to trade from Japan, and pirates and unauthorized sailings would be punished severely, Ieyasu felt that an example was called for, and Valignano explains the circumstances to Ribera.18 Francisco de Gouvea of Nagasaki, a mestiço Portuguese, had gone off the previous year in his small ship, with a few Portuguese and a number of Japanese, ‘to help the king of Cambodia in some wars he was engaged in’, and to make their fortunes. (From other sources we know that eight Jesuits travelled as far as Macao in Gouvea’s ship.19) Two ships from Manila also arrived in Cambodia on the same errand. Gouvea and most of the Spaniards were killed, but four or five Portuguese or mestiços, two Spaniards and a considerable number of Japanese escaped in Gouvea’s boat and headed for Nagasaki, under a Japanese captain. En route they captured a boat from Malaya, with a Patani or possibly Chinese


crew, and brought it to Nagasaki (what became of the hapless crew is not recorded). There Terazawa had them arrested as pirates and sent to Ieyasu, who had all the Japanese crucified, some in Osaka and some in Fushimi; he summoned Fray Jerónimo to witness the spectacle, so that he would be able to report this exemplary punishment to the governor of the Philippines. And the Portuguese and Spaniards were to be sent to Manila so that the governor could have the satisfaction of dealing with them himself. There were forty crucifixions in Osaka and Fushimi, but Ieyasu also ordered the crucifixion of the wives and children of all the pirates, in Nagasaki, and also of the wife and children of Francisco Gouvea. There was an outcry from the Portuguese at the hideous cruelty and injustice of it, and the Jesuits, through Konishi, succeeded in having the execution of the order delayed and its severity somewhat modified, so that Gouvea’s family and some others were spared; but when Valignano reached Nagasaki on 18 March 1599 he found twenty-one persons on crosses, some of them wives and children of those crucified in Osaka and Fushimi.20 Meanwhile Konishi too was under orders to send pirates to Ieyasu and was doing so, and presumably they fared no better than those taken at Nagasaki; but Valignano states that Konishi, being a Christian, knows that wives and children are not to blame in such cases, and is not having families punished.21 The Visitor deplores the frightful cruelty of Ieyasu, but says that in this case the irresponsible promises of the friar are part of the reason for it, Ieyasu having become convinced that it is because of the reputation of Japanese pirates that no Spanish ship has arrived. And he adds that Fray Jerónimo has told Ieyasu that Jesuits and Portuguese are responsible for the thwarting of his plans to have a Spanish ship come, that they are also being accused of involvement in the imprisonment of his envoy, and that in Japan any such accusation, even if completely false, is very dangerous, because the Japanese lords do not hold an enquiry or listen to both sides of a case before sentencing to death. They may act on the first thing they hear, and when they do they kill people as easily as ants. The Visitor therefore gives Ribera secret instructions about the letters the governor should write to Ieyasu, to Terazawa, and to Fray Jerónimo.22 Instructions from Valignano carried weight, and he later reported to Aquaviva that ‘the governor, as we requested, wrote to Daifu that Goroemon had no proper papers, etc., and that that was why he was not well received’, but the unfortunate Goroemon had by then lost his life on the return journey to Japan. And according to the Visitor


the governor was not interested in Fray Jerónimo and his schemes but had written politely to Ieyasu, saying that he would have to ask the king, and would let him know when an answer came.23 On 15 October 1601 Valignano writes to Aquaviva that Fray Jerónimo returned to Japan in June with two other friars, and went straight to Miyako with letters for Ieyasu from the governor of the Philippines. Nine days later the Visitor has more news. Word has come from Miyako that the friar died on 28 September, apparently of dysentery. Valignano is wholly unsympathetic, commenting: ‘the Lord taught him a lesson!’24 Much has been written about relations between Jesuit and friar in Japan,25 and it would be pointless to try to cover the same ground again, but the Visitor’s view was—in brief—that religious orders other than the Jesuits had no right to be in Japan and therefore had no rights in Japan, and that it was the duty of the Jesuits to oppose them and to offer them no assistance. He takes his stand on the brief which Pope Gregory XIII had issued in January 1585, which forbade any other religious orders to enter Japan, and he justifies such help as the Jesuits did extend to the friars after that date—for example giving them textbooks to help them learn Japanese in Miyako, and offering them hospitality in Nagasaki—as being ‘to avoid scandal’.26 Thus he reports that the Jesuits visited Fray Jerónimo, and then helped with his burial ‘so as not to scandalize the Christians’.27 It does not seem to occur to Valignano that the absence of any hint of Christian charity in his attitude to the now dead friar, and the relish with which he recounts how ‘one of his two companions, who professed some knowledge of surgery, gave him a purge, which killed him in two days, echando hasta los higados en pedaços’,28 might scandalize Aquaviva or other readers. Chapter 9 of the Sumario, which argues ‘That other religious orders should not come to Japan’, convinced the king and the pope and led directly to the 1585 brief, and the instruction from the Portuguese viceroy in Goa which was sent to Macao with the brief actually quotes relevant passages from the Sumario.29 Adiciones does no more than refer to the Sumario, emphasizing that no change is to be made. But four friars came in 1593, on a diplomatic mission to Hideyoshi but with every intention of staying as mission-aries, and the 1597 martyrdoms brought them fame. Jerónimo returned with one companion in 1598, and then with two in 1601. Valignano’s opposition was always implacable, but in 1602 sixteen friars arrived from Manila, making it clear that the Visitor’s will was not going to prevail; and in 1608 Pope Paul V finally decreed that


religious of any order could be sent to Japan, and via either Goa or the Philippines. But by that time Valignano was dead, and the 1614 decree of expulsion of all missionaries was soon to come. In October 1602 the Visitor addressed a letter about the friars to Diego García, Jesuit vice-provincial of the Philippines, who had informed him that more than eighty religious, including some Jesuits, had that year arrived in the Philippines. In Japan too, says Valignano, many friars have arrived—Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians—at four different ports. And he prophesies disaster: …if His Majesty and His Holiness do not put a stop to the coming of so many religious by that route [Manila], the result without a doubt will be the ruin of Christianity here, and there will be no avoiding it. Either there will be another persecution, throughout all Japan, and it will be greater than the previous persecution, because there is now one lord of all Japan, or the division which will undoubtedly result in this new Church will be such as to do even more harm than a persecution. And I say that there is bound to be some persecution, for if, when we were the only ones in Japan, and we came from Macao, where there were no armies, and we had no power, and behaved with such consistency, and were so careful to provide no grounds for suspicion, accommodating ourselves to such an extent to the customs and the way of life of Japan, making ourselves like natives, and all of us having come with the resolve to stay here till death, and therefore setting ourselves with such diligence to master the language, and admitting into the Society so many native d juku, and given that by the same route there came to Japan all their riches and the things they needed on the Portuguese ship; if, I say, notwithstanding all this, since this is a land of pagan lords, and we are foreigners here, and we preach a law so contrary to their sects and to many abuses which they have, in the course of the fifty years we have been in Japan we have been persecuted many times, sometimes with local persecutions under particular lords, who exiled us, and destroyed the churches and houses which we had in their lands, sometimes with general persecutions which the lord of the Tenka inflicted on us, so that we had to go about in disguise, living in strange houses and without any secure place to stay; if this is how it has been in the past, what can we expect now that three other religious orders have arrived, and from a quarter that the Japanese view with such suspicion? They have no experience of the country, and therefore do not


adapt themselves to it as we do, and indeed they have no organization which would make it possible for them to adapt; and with their very distinctive religious habit they really are conspicuous in Japan. And if they give the habit to natives [i.e. accept them into their order], as they say they are going to at the end of the year, there really will be a total disaster, as the Japanese are not stable and sound enough to have religious life entrusted to them so soon. And if they do not give them the habit then they will be shunned and made unwelcome to a much greater extent than Ours are, especially as the Manila trade will not bring Japan the same benefits as the Portuguese trade does. And thus, as the number of friars begins to increase, and each of their orders separately tries to make conversions, with the kind of fervour which they bring with them, there will be no escaping a new and very great persecution, and it will become more severe as suspicion grows among the Japanese lords. I say also that there will be no avoiding a great schism, both because of the disagreements that there are bound to be among the orders (and for our sins there are plenty, even where you have the pope and other prelates, both within and outside the religious orders, and where you have kings who can use force), and also because of differences of opinion in dealing with cases of conscience, with regard to the promulgation of positive law, to dispensations, and to many other matters, and finally because they will want to govern this Church through the prelates and ordinaries of Manila, they being convinced that Japan falls within the zone belonging to the crown of Spain. And the bishop of Japan and Ours want it governed by prelates and ordinaries of Portugal, as something belonging to the crown of Portugal, and already in its possession. And it can easily be seen what confusion this will lead to in such a new Church, especially as it will mean that the rivalry between Spaniards and Portuguese over their voyages and commercial interests will manifest itself here, and there will be no end of it, and no solution. And if His Holiness and His Majesty do not remedy this I fear that the pagan Japanese lords will eventually provide the remedy, and it will mean no little dishonour for both nations, and ruin for the Church here. And in Manila they will imagine that since these religious are now here they are doing great good.30 Valignano’s 1591 embassy from the Portuguese viceroy in India to Toyotomi Hideyoshi was not without its effects—sometimes unex-


pected—on subsequent events. It reinforced the Taik 's megalomania, and is mentioned in his vainglorious letter of October 1591 to the governor of the Philippines.31 But for the embassy that letter might never have been sent, and but for that demanding and threatening letter the Dominican Juan Cobo would not have been sent as envoy of the governor to Hideyoshi in 1592, and the Franciscans would probably not have arrived the following year—although, as the Jesuit Pedro Ramón was already forecasting in 1587,32 they were going to come sooner or later, papal, royal and episcopal prohibitions notwithstanding. And in coming to Japan in diplomatic guise Fray Pedro Bautista Blásquez was taking a leaf out of the Visitor’s book. He arrived in 1593 as ambassador of the governor of the Philippines to Hideyoshi, and with his fellow Franciscans (initially three, with more arriving later) preached Christianity openly and boldly, most notably in Miyako, for more than three years. Six of them were arrested in 1596, taken to Nagasaki and, together with seventeen lay Japanese Christians and three Japanese Jesuits, crucified in February 1597. All twenty-six were immediately venerated as martyrs and later canonized as saints, but Valignano’s view of the Franciscans’ missionary activity is summed up in his comment that ‘they were putting themselves and all of Japanese Christianity in danger, and gaining nothing.’33 The Franciscan view, put by Fray Martín and quoted by Valignano, is that the Jesuits object because: we go about the business of conversion with too little caution, and they fear that Christianity here may suffer some harm because of our lack of discretion. And this is because they are exiled by command of the king, and they therefore go about in Japanese dress, and they say Mass and administer the sacraments only behind closed doors. But as we are here with the permission of the king, we say the Divine Office and Mass publicly, with the doors open, and we administer the sacraments and preach and teach the catechism to all who come, without the need to go about as cautiously as they do.34 ‘The king’ was of course Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Blásquez and the other Franciscans were delighted with the success of their diplomatic visit to him at Nagoya (in Kyushu) in 1593, and believed that they, unlike the Jesuits, had the Taik ’s approval and patronage of their missionary work. The 1597 martyrdoms seem clear evidence that


they were gravely mistaken, as the Jesuits repeatedly warned them;35 but at the same time the fact that they were active for more than three years on a large and very prominent site in Kyoto seems good evidence that, on the contrary, they were not entirely wrong.36 The Taik had been known to change his mind, after all, but not to tolerate open defiance of his orders, and besides, he hoped that the Franciscans ‘would prove a bait for the Manila traders in the same way as the Jesuits were considered to be part and parcel of the trade driven by the Great Ship from Macao.’37 The friars, for their part, were not entirely without hopes of converting Hideyoshi, and they even envisaged the more remote possibility of making a convert of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had sent them a message offering opportunities to preach Christianity in his domains as a quid pro quo for help with his pet project of trade with New Spain.38 Valignano dismisses such offers from Ieyasu, now and later, as worthless,39 but he has interesting information about possible reasons for misunderstanding between Hideyoshi and the friars, saying that both were deliberately misled by a Japanese adventurer named Harada, who had been to the Philippines as a merchant and then, in the hope of gaining favour with Hideyoshi, had reported to him, through one Hasegawa, that it would be possible to conquer the Philippines, and suggested that the Taik should send a letter demanding submission. And Hideyoshi did write a haughty and threatening letter to Gómez Pérez das Mariñas, Spanish governor of the Philippines, but did not accept Harada’s further suggestion that he should be appointed ambassador and carry the letter to the governor. Valignano in Nagasaki received a letter from Organtino in Miyako warning him that Harada was a determined and dangerous schemer, and sure enough Harada promptly presented himself in Nagasaki and tried hard to persuade the Visitor to write to the governor and the Jesuits in the Philippines that Harada was Hideyoshi’s ambassador. Valignano was polite to Harada but did not do as he wished, and instead wrote to warn the Philippines against him. Harada Kiyuemon, his ambassadorial ambitions frustrated, thought better of returning to the Philippines himself, and instead sent his nephew, Harada Magoshichir . Valignano’s letter had said that there was no real danger of a Japanese attack on the Philippines, but the governor took Hideyoshi’s threats very seriously, sent to New Spain for reinforcements, and, mainly to gain time, sent Cobo to Hideyoshi to ask for clarification of the message. Hideyoshi, with Hasegawa as his interpreter, repeated the threats he had made, but somewhat diluted their force by adding that nothing


would be done until Spain had been informed and an answer received. Cobo was shipwrecked and killed on the return journey, but Harada, now in favour with Hideyoshi and rewarded with an income of 500 bales of rice, headed for Manila—this time with the coveted title of ambassador of the Taik but apparently without papers of accreditation. In Manila the unscrupulous and irrepressible Harada told the friars that Hideyoshi would welcome them in Japan and presented to the governor in the name of Hideyoshi a memorial which he had himself composed, asking for peace, trade and friars. The governor was suspicious of Harada—especially as Cobo, with Hideyoshi’s letter, never returned; and this was part of his reason for sending Blásquez to Hideyoshi in 1593. The letter which Blásquez carried from das Mariñas to Hideyoshi confirmed that he had received Hideyoshi’s letter of 1591, but asked for further confirmation that it was genuine. The governor wrote that he had received a short letter from Cobo, his ambassador to Japan, telling him of the Taik ’s favour, for which he now expressed his thanks. Two ships had come from Japan, with Harada on one of them, but there was no sign of Cobo and no answering letter from Hideyoshi. Harada carried no papers of accreditation, but it was difficult to believe that he was falsely claiming to be Hideyoshi’s ambassador. The governor was sending Fray Pedro Bautista (Blásquez)—who was ‘grave, of much substance and quality’—to make things clear, and also because Harada’s memorial stated that Hideyoshi particularly wanted Franciscan priests. And the letter ended with mention of the governor’s accompanying gifts to Hideyoshi: a fine Spanish horse (‘and Spanish horses are the best in the world’), an ornamental mirror, and a suit such as he himself and the king his lord were accustomed to wear. When Blásquez met Hideyoshi at Nagoya, the interpreters were Hasegawa and Harada, and what Hideyoshi was told did not accord with the contents of the letter. They informed him that the governor offered him obedience as his vassal, and that there would be an embassy from the king of Spain, and presents of greater value, and they themselves added money to the governor’s gifts. The friars, like the governor, were warned by Valignano and the Jesuits that Harada and Hasegawa were deceiving them, but although the friars too had some suspicions they let themselves be misled about Hideyoshi, just as Hideyoshi was misled about Spanish intentions. Harada and Hasegawa were playing a very dangerous game, and were anxious that there should be no more meetings between the friars and the Taik in case the truth came out. They were rewarded


for their services, but of course there was no further word about the embassy from Spain, and as Hideyoshi’s suspicions grew, so did the unease of the scheming pair. They were very anxious about the friars’ public proselytizing, fearing that Hideyoshi would react with sudden rage to the flouting of his earlier orders, and that they as well as the friars would suffer. Eventually they decided that it would be more prudent to distance themselves from the friars than to be associated with them, and they were among the first to accuse them to Hideyoshi in the sequel to the celebrated affair of the Spanish galleon, the San Felipe.40 The twenty-six martyrs crucified at Nagasaki on 5 February 1597 included six Franciscans and three Japanese Jesuit brothers, According to Valignano, the Jesuits would have made their confessions to one of the Franciscan priests during the course of their journey from Osaka to Nagasaki, but because they had no common language they were unable to do so.41 The Visitor is emphasizing that the friars did not know Japanese, and says that Bishop Martins had forbidden them to hear confessions for this reason. One of the three Jesuit martyrs, Miki Paulo, had been a Jesuit for ten years, but it seems that even he could not communicate with the Spanish Franciscans. The catalogue of Jesuits in Japan composed by Valignano in January 1593 states that Miki knows Japanese literature very well, but although he has studied Latin for several years he has made very poor progress in it, and is now being allowed a respite from Latin studies.42 And Portuguese—if indeed Miki Paulo had learned any Portuguese—does not seem to have served as a means of communication with the Spaniards. In 1592 the Visitor writes that not one of the Japanese Jesuits has an acceptable level of Latin, and his remarks in Prindpio indicate that he does not think there has been much improvement by 1601, the year in which the first two Japanese Catholic priests were ordained.43 Of Hara Martinho, however, the 1593 catalogue notes that ‘although a novice and in the Society for only one and a half years, he has finished his Latin and is now studying the literature of Japan’,44 and he acted as interpreter for two of the same Spanish friars when they met Konishi Yukinaga in 1596.45 Valignano’s Apología was written mainly as a counterblast to the two treatises of Fray Martín de Aguirre (otherwise known as Saint Martín of the Ascensión), although Álvarez-Taladriz argues that criticism of Jesuit policy is not the Franciscan’s main purpose, and also that Valignano and the Jesuits had no right to read and comment on Fray Martín’s writings, which were meant for his own religious superiors and the Spanish civil authorities.46 The Visitor takes the friars


to task for praising themselves and blaming others, and rounds on Fray Martín for making judgements on the basis of totally inadequate information—provided, for the most part, by one Fray Gonzaio García (one of the six Franciscan martyrs and now, like the other 1597 martyrs, a canonized saint). When the Japanese first heard the Franciscans criticize the Jesuits it was in fact Fray Gonzaio whom they heard, he being the only one of the Franciscans who could speak Japanese; and when the Spanish friars heard confessions through an interpreter, as we know they did, their main—if not their only—interpreter can have been none other than Fray Gonzaio who, not being a priest, was not himself qualified to hear confessions. Valignano has contemptuous words for Fray Gonzaio, ‘a lay friar, and ignorant’. He was an Indian, from Comorin (and the people of Comorin are known in India for their untruthfulness!), who worked for the Jesuits in Japan for some years, in the kitchen and the dispensary, and knew no more than what he could pick up from the servants there, but he was devious and impudent. He was dismissed by the Jesuits in Japan, and so went to seek his fortune in the Philippines, and then—lo! He reappears in Japan a professed Franciscan, says the Visitor.47 Alvarez-Taladriz shows that Fray Martín and Fray Gonzaio were not together for more than a short time in Japan, and doubts whether Gonzaio was in fact the source of Martín’s information.48 But Fray Martín was in Japan only a matter of months before his martyrdom, and much of his information about the country (and perhaps also his treatises) will have been put together before his departure from the Philippines—some of it from the Japanese there, whose company he sought in an effort to learn the language,49 but most of it probably from Franciscan sources, of which the best was Fray Gonzaio. He was in Japan with the Jesuits from 1576 to 1584 and in 1590 he was already a Franciscan, and known in Manila for his ability in Japanese. When Fray Martín reached the Philippines in 1594 Fray Gonzaio was already back in Jaoan. but what the Franciscans of Manila knew about Japan will have been very largely what they had learned from him. Fray Martín’s information is sometimes wildly inaccurate—for example when he claims that the Jesuits can call on 30,000 Christian musketeers in Nagasaki.50 Valignano retorts that there are not 2,000 musketeers in the whole of mura, and that the friar’s dreams of military conquest of the whole of Japan are absurd.51 They were absurd, but if they were taken seriously by Europeans in Japan, the Philippines and elsewhere, it is not surprising that Toyotomi


Hideyoshi also took seriously the threat that Christians ambitious for power might pose. The Visitor ridicules the suggestion that the Jesuits were really more powerful even than the Bonze of Osaka, who had been lord of three kingdoms, adored by countless followers (indeed, held to be the person of Amida himself), apparently unassailable in his Osaka fortress, and allied to the enemies of Nobunaga. But he accepts that Hideyoshi had said that the fathers were more to be feared even than the Bonze of Osaka, and that supporting the fathers there was a ‘king’ (presumably Takayama Ukon) who would want to use Christianity as a means to take control of Japan.52 Any such accusation or suspicion, however ill-founded, was very dangerous in Japan, as Valignano well knew. Hideyoshi had more or less satisfied himself that the Portuguese were interested only in trade, he says, but from the Japanese who go to the Philippines every year to trade he knew that the Spaniards had conquistadorial designs on China and also on the ‘silver islands’ of Japan. The friars’ arrival from the Philippines rearoused his suspicions about the foreigners, and they were further aroused by statements made by Spaniards from the galleon San Felipe (making for New Spain from Manila, but forced by storms to Japan in October 1596)— statements that the Portuguese were subjects of the king of Spain and also, or so it was reported, that one of the reasons for missionaries and conversions was that the converts could assist in the subsequent Spanish conquest.53 And although Hideyoshi and the Nagasaki Christians themselves were unaware of it, Fray Martín was actually commending them to Spain as a military force ‘just as trustworthy as Spaniards, because they do not dare to do anything except at the prompting and command of the fathers’.54

8 High and low

Even those who persecute us also use great moderation. (Valignano1)

We do not dare not to teach them what Christ Our Lord taught us and ordered us to teach. (St Martín of the Ascension2)

Among the Visitor’s many complaints about the friars are that they expressed doubts about the genuineness of his 1591 embassy and spoke critically, and to a pagan lord (Terazawa Hirotaka), about the Jesuit policy of converting ‘gentlemen and lords’.3 But criticism of Jesuit policy is commonplace in Franciscan writings about Japan. The following is not untypical: And since the fathers wanted to make Christians quickly they did not think it important to deal with poor people nor that they themselves should be treated as poor men because, as one of them told me, that would mean not being accepted by the lords of Japan. And they make themselves like the lords of Japan so as to catch these big fish, and once they have become Christians they honour the Church and they make their vassals also become Christians, and they honour even the lay brothers of the Society. But the fathers do not appreciate that if they preach like lords they will fail to make known the poverty and the humility of Christ. And if the vassals are converted when the lord is converted then the necessary freedom will be lacking, and when the lord is changed—and in Japan this is a common thing—the reli95


gion will be changed as well. And indeed in this way countless Christians apostatized in the lands which belonged to Justo, who was a leading Christian, and valiant…4 There is no misrepresentation here. Valignano notes in Sumario that the Church does not have coercive jurisdiction in Japan but the lords do, so it is essential to put pressure on the people through their lords, and to make this possible authority and reputation are essential. Hence the need for the dignified behaviour, in accordance with Japanese etiquette, which he commends to his Jesuits in the Advertimentos. And hence the suggestion that Aquaviva get the pope to excommunicate Portuguese who take their ships to ports in the lands of anti-Christian lords, thus putting pressure on the Portuguese to put pressure on the Japanese lords.5 Within Japan coercion by Church authorities was not normally possible, but occasionally the bishop exercised among the Portuguese in Nagasaki the sort of authority which would have been his as a matter of course in Europe, Goa or Macao—as when Cerqueira sent two Portuguese to the Goa Inquisition, to the satisfaction of the authoritarian Valignano.6 A similar satisfaction at the reassertion of authority, at seeing upstarts put in their place (even though Hideyoshi was himself something of an upstart), is strongly in evidence in the following passage from the 1601 Principio. As usual, the reference to Maffei is a disguised reference to Maffei’s sources, namely the Visitor’s own writings of two decades previously: At the time when Maffei was writing the labourers were richer and better housed than the soldiers, because they very often deceived the lords when it came to the measuring of their lands, so they were also proud, and acted as if they too were soldiers. They would not suffer an injurious or discourteous word, and in a revolt of any kind they would have recourse to arms, and could at times match or even outdo the soldiers. But from the time when Kampakudono ordered such a strict measuring of the land, and made laws about what they had to pay, and took away their arms from all of them, the peasants have been so impoverished and humbled that now they barely manage to feed themselves, and they no longer have the confidence they used to have. They are now so subject to the soldiers that these can do with them as they wish, and they not only speak roughly to them, but also when it is necessary they beat them. There is no doubt that Japan has seen a great change in this regard. Nowadays many of the

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lords have prisons where they hold these common people when it is necessary, although usually there are only very few people held in them, and those are persons who are to be killed. In these matters Japan is now very much better than before, because formerly these labourers were intolerable.7 This passage shows no sympathy for the impoverished peasants. Valignano’s concern is with persons of position and power—because he believed that the way to convert Japan to Christianity was to convert its leaders, but also because that is where his interest naturally lay. He was himself patrician, and his attitude to the lower classes was mostly dismissive. It can be argued that Valignano’s general enthusiasm for Japan is based on a kind of class distinction. Long before he saw Japan Valignano knew, from the letters of Francis Xavier and from other sources, that the Japanese were ‘the best people yet discovered’. ‘It seems to me’, Xavier had written, ‘that among pagan nations there will not be another to surpass the Japanese,…a people who prize honour above all else…’8 By contrast, Valignano’s report on the people of the lands to which the Portuguese laid claim on the east coast of Africa dismisses them as being without talents, of low intelligence, incapable of understanding Christianity, lacking any culture, given to savage ways, and living like brute beasts: They are a race born to serve, with no natural aptitude for governing.’9 The Indians he ranks higher, but not by very much. Of them he remarks: ‘they are miserable and poor beyond measure and are given to low and mean tasks…They are all of a very low standard of intelligence… and are very ignorant (I am not speaking now of China or Japan).’ And they too, ‘as Aristotle would say,…are born to serve rather than to command.’10 In later writings he modifies considerably this contemptuous judgement of the Indians, noting that they are not without intelligence, culture and knowledge, but he still stigmatizes them as ‘vile and low’ [viles y baxos] compared to Europeans, and also as ‘extraordinarily untruthful’.11 Fray Gonçalo García—who was actually Eurasian, born in Bassein, in Portuguese India—is reviled by the Visitor as ignorant, as having been put to work in the kitchen and dispensary (‘low and mean tasks’), as untruthful, and as an Indian.12 The difference between India (never mind Africa) and Japan was like the difference between black and white. At the beginning of the Sumario we find: The people are all white, and very cultivated, and even the com-


mon people and the peasants are well brought up and marvellously polite among themselves, so that it seems as if they had been brought up at court; and in this they outdo not only the other peoples of the East, but us Europeans. They are very able and of good understanding, and the children are fully capable of taking in all our sciences and disciplines, and they recite and learn to read and write in our language much more easily and more quickly than European children do. And even the lower classes are not so uncouth and ignorant as ours are; indeed for the most part they are of good understanding, well brought up, and able.13 Twenty years later, as we have seen, Valignano is much less complimentary about the Japanese peasantry, and he also wants to take back most of what he has said about Japanese scholastic ability,14 but he still holds that ‘for the Jesuits there is no comparison between Japan…and all the other countries,’ that the Japanese are ‘rational and noble’, and other peoples (he does not mean the Europeans or the Chinese) ‘debased and bestial’.15 And after putting the peasants in their place in Principio he continues: From what Maffei writes it can be clearly seen how noble, polite and courteous the Japanese are, There is no doubt at all that none of our European nations can compare with them in this. And when it comes to war, although the lord of all Japan does not have at his disposal the cavalry, artillery, galleons and ships which kings in our countries have, in the power he has, the service he can command, and the greatness of the lords and vassals under him, he can easily equal the kings of Europe… Their customs are not rude and barbarous, but on the contrary very courteous and founded on reason,…and as correct, rational, and suited to the Japanese, as our customs are to Europeans… Thus in the way of eating, of arranging a party or a banquet, of receiving guests,…and in all other particular things, there is such an array of points of etiquette, and so many laws of courtesy, that it is truly astonishing to see how ordered everything is…. The fact that there are contradictions and differences between Japanese and European customs does not mean that the Japanese lack politeness and good manners, nor that they are in any sense barbarous, for barbarous truly they are not.16 Within Japan the Visitor’s concern is with the upper classes, but Japan itself—and in a different way China—are the upper classes

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among the non-European nations. Valignano was committed to this view of the Japanese before he ever left Europe, writing to Mercurian from Spain in 1573: They are a gifted, reliable people, not given to many vices…. After receiving baptism they are quite capable of appreciating spiritual things.17 And almost thirty years later his view is still that: The Japanese are a people all of whom are very much subject to reason, and who can readily be convinced by the reasons we give them for there being one God, sole creator and governor of this world, and rewarder of good and evil, and also by the reasons we give them for the immortality of their souls; and convinced by these reasons they are easily persuaded to accept our holy law, and to become Christians, with a great desire for salvation. And when they become Christians and begin to go to confession, they live very well, taking great care of their souls.18 The Jesuit view, reinforced now with the authority of the Visitor, that the Japanese were ‘a people noble and rational’, a different class of pagan, was widely accepted in Europe, where the Jesuit José de Acosta, and others following him, immediately interpreted it to mean that in the case of Japan the preaching of the Gospel did not require or justify interference with political independence or individual liberty.19 But Japan was also known in Europe (and again the source of information was Jesuit letters and Valignano/Maffei) for idolatry, cruelty, treachery, duplicity, drunkenness, sodomy, abortion and infanticide. In Principio the Visitor sets himself to reconcile these conflicting images of Japan by stressing the nobility, the rationality, the courtesy and the modesty of the Japanese, and by minimizing the vice. He introduces his theme as follows: There is no doubt that where knowledge of God and true religion is lacking, and idolatry reigns, there is always much evil and falsehood. But it can truly be said that no pagan people (including the Romans when they were pagans) were ever so modest and decent as the Japanese. For although there are indeed many sins among them, there is not the public and authorized immorality that there has always been among other pagan nations.20


Francis Xavier was startled and horrified when he became aware of the prevalence of pederasty in the Buddhist monasteries, and the shamelessness with which the monks would speak of it; and he also found, or had reason to suspect, that abortion was common in the monasteries or nunneries. Valignano lists and condemns the same vices in his earlier works but not in Principio, where instead he actually commends the bonzes: The sects of the bonzes do not tell any such stories of their buddhas as the immoral stories of Jupiter and Venus, and of Cupid, and of other very immoral gods whom even the Romans adored. They do indeed tell many fables about them, but they are all stories of virtue and morality, and in their sects they are emphatic in urging a rejection of sensuality and a turning away from the things of this world, and they also provide excellent moral precepts. And they do not hold in public any festivals or other things which seem immoral, as the Romans did with the feast of their goddess Flora, of Venus, of Priapus, of Bacchus, and of other indecent demons, for in Japan all their festivals are outwardly modest and decent.21 He has to admit that ‘this race is naturally very bellicose’ but, as we saw earlier,22 denies that the killing that goes on is cruel, barbarous or dishonourable. And in the following passage he even expresses approval, if not of suicide, at any rate of the motives for which Japanese commit suicide, pleads mitigating circumstances for infanticide and abortion, and claims that cases of killing a poor man merely to try out a sword are rare: They are not, then, cruel by nature, and although it does happen at times that someone kills a poor man to try out a sword, this is a rare occurrence, since there is a very severe penalty not only for killing a man, but even for coming to blows; and the trying of swords is on those who have been executed under the law. Killing of themselves they do not for cruelty, but for the sake of honour, and in order not to fall into the hands of their enemies, and also so that no harm is done to their wives and children, who would all be killed if the men tried to defend themselves. When men commit some crime, and make their escape, the lord lays hands on their children and their wives, to kill them instead of the men, but the Japanese are so admirable in this matter that every day cases can be seen in which men who were free and safe go of their

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own free will and give themselves up to their lords, knowing that they are going to their deaths, in order to free their wives and children; and beyond a doubt this is praiseworthy and shows great fortitude. As to the killing of newborn children, this is not a general custom, but one restricted to poor people, when they think they have no way of maintaining the children, and it seems less cruel to them to kill them when they are infants than to leave them to live all their lives in continuous poverty and misery and without any means of support. In fact abortion is more common among them than this kind of killing, and although that is bad enough, it is nothing new for those who do not believe in the immortality of the soul to kill themselves in order to escape trials and insults, and to commit these abortions and killings of small children… And among the Japanese are not found the cruelties which even the Romans practised when they were pagans. For their entertainment the Romans had the gladiatorial games,…and they took pleasure in watching this killing…. Nor in Japan do we see the lords of the Tenka, or other lords, perpetrate the cruelties, obscenities and outrages of which many of the Roman emperors were guilty; all of them, indeed, govern with great moderation, being jealous of their honour and careful to do nothing which would be generally condemned, and which would be taken as clearly unjust and unreasonable.23 In conclusion he reiterates the point that the Japanese are ‘the best people yet discovered’: I have not found a pagan nation more moderate and modest in their actions, and less evil and cruel, than the Japanese, nor more amenable to reason and capable of receiving our holy law, setting out on the road to virtue, and seeking salvation…we see the Japanese persuaded to become Christians simply by reason, without seeing the dead raised to life or any miracles performed, and with such respect for the preachers of this law that even those who persecute us also use great moderation. This was Valignano’s judgement as he neared the end of his life. Within a decade of his death the great persecution which he had himself prophesied had begun. Much has been said and could be said about the background and circumstances of this persecution, but there is no doubt whatever that it involved extremes of cruelty.


Francisco Cabral thought the Japanese proud, grasping, ambitious, hypocritical—in fact the worst people yet discovered. He writes that he has ‘never seen a people so haughty, avaricious, unreliable, and insincere as the Japanese’.24 The Franciscan Fray Marcelo de Ribadeneira charged the Jesuits—and especially the Father Visitor —with failing to manifest to the Japanese the poverty and humility of Christ, but the Jesuit Cabral had made the same point years earlier, writing: ‘the more we conform ourselves to the humility and poverty of Christ, the more He will favour us, and the more He will help us in this work of conversion.’25 There was no disagreement, however, between Valignano and Cabral about the importance of ‘catching the big fish’. Two years before Valignano’s appointment as visitor Cabral was already writing to the General, Francis Borgia, as follows: The best apostles [in Japan] are the lords and tonos, for the people in general live off the lands or the income which they get from the lords, and they are all so poor that they have nothing else except what the land provides them with when it is cultivated, and they are so utterly dependent on the lord that he is the only god they know; the result is that if the lords tell them to take up this or that religion they will readily do so, and will usually abandon the one they previously held to; and if the lord does not give them permission to take up another religion, no matter how much they want to they will not take it up. And I have had personal experience of this in several of the places I have been to this year, places where Our Lord produced much fruit in conversions; for in order to make many places Christian all that was required was for the lord to order them to listen to a sermon and then they all immediately became Christians; on the other hand there were others who had heard the things of God and had been enlightened and were extremely desirous of becoming Christians, and these asked me to obtain permission for it from their lord, and told me that without his permission it was not possible. And it has to be a real permission, so that it is clear that the lord grants it because he is pleased that it should be so. So they are Christians at a word of command from the tono, and also, if he then orders them not to be Christians, for the most part they cease to be Christians. Always, however, there are some among them chosen of God, who would rather lose their property and their lives than retreat.

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The Jesuits were under no illusions about the motives and attitudes of the lords, as the next paragraph of Cabral’s letter clearly shows: And the principal reason why these lords want the law of God in their land and desire to have fathers there is the temporal interest which they have, especially those who have sea ports where ships come…And when it comes to making Christians their stratagem is to be very willing to order the lower classes to become Christians, but very unwilling to allow the upper classes to be Christians, the reason for this being that when they order the lower classes to give up Christianity, for the most part they do give it up; but it is much more difficult for them to make the upper classes abandon Christianity, as generally speaking they understand more and have a deeper grasp of the things of God, and also because they look on it as a matter of honour…26 Dubious motives and stratagems notwithstanding, it still seemed to the Jesuits that the lords were ‘the best apostles in Japan’, The Franciscan attitude was different. In Ribadeneira’s words: The friars had no one they could ask favours of except God, so they dealt with the poor, and in the beginning those who came to them for baptism were poor people. And the fathers laughed at the friars because no nobles, but only the poor, came near them. And this meant there was no need for much discretion, and in fact one of the king’s governors told the friars not to make Christians of lords or soldiers, but that with poor people it did not matter.27 And according to Fray Martín the Franciscans, with the permission of the governor of Miyako, established two hospitals next to their convent there. They took in the lepers and other poor who generally died in the streets or were killed; they washed, catechized and converted them, and more than two hundred of them had died Christians. In addition they had rescued almost two hundred newborn children who would otherwise have been thrown in the rivers or left in the fields, at the mercy of the dogs and the birds, and they too had been baptized.28 Valignano grudgingly admits that this was good work as far as it went, but he accuses the friar of exaggeration, saying that the two hospitals were in fact one small house; and, coming dangerously close to disparaging evangelical values as well as Franciscan


achievements, he adds that these poor, sick and lepers were all the converts they made.29 And he mentions an occasion when the friars came to see the bishop with fifteen or twenty Christians whom he describes as ‘men so low and vile that they could not enter the room where some of our honourable and noble Christians were’.30 These men were probably outcasts, of the class commonly referred to in modern Japanese as burakumin.31 In 1586 Valignano explains to Aquaviva that in order to acquire the authority necessary for success in the work of conversion, the Jesuits could not rely simply on religious virtues, such as poverty and humility, as these were not respected in Japan. He refers the General to the Advertimentos,32 where he had described in detail the prudence, the self-control, the moderation, the composure, the cleanliness, and the mastery and observance of Japanese etiquette without which there would be no real respect for the missionaries, and insists that his concern was with these things and not with ostentation, or fine clothing, or numbers of servants or followers. He continues: I prohibited whatever damaged the credit and authority of the fathers, whatever would cause them to be dismissed as of no consequence, lacking prudence, culture or breeding, and things which would be considered grossly unsuited to their dignity, for example keeping pigs and goats, and selling the hides of the cows which they killed for food—and the Japanese have a horror of this —33 The business of butchery and skinning was left in Japan entirely to ‘some Chinese whom the Japanese consider to be very low and vile’.34 Valignano comments: …when it was observed that such things were done in our houses, where the prelates and preachers of the law of God lived, things so despised and of such ill repute, not only the pagans but also even the Christians were always very scandalized, for generally speaking they have a horror of such things. The result was that Christianity was brought into contempt, and we came to be regarded as dirty, low, vile Chinamen.35 Frois refers to the outcasts as ‘yetas, who are the most base, low, and vile people in Japan’,36 and the 1603 Vocabulario da Lingoa de Japam37 lists the terms yeta or yetta, chori, and kawaya, which is defined as ‘a person who skins dead animals and superintends the

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lepers’. Only outcasts would deal with lepers. Back in 1556 the Jesuits had started a hospital in Bungo, one part of which was for lepers, of whom there were many. The reaction, especially from the upper classes, was disgust and contempt.38 Cabral records that the hospital was both a most edifying work of mercy and a great obstacle to the spread of Christianity.39 It was Brother Luis de Almeida who had charge of the hospital, and Frois relates that Almeida—sent to evangelize Shiki, in Amakusa, in 1566—hoped to begin by converting the tono, because experience in Bungo had shown that it was not a good idea to start at the bottom.40 Commenting disparagingly on Fray Martín’s claims about the success of the Franciscan hospital in Kyoto, Valignano notes that the Jesuit brothers Almeida and Sánchez, in the Bungo hospital, had gained merit but no credit, that the Japanese thought they were doing that work because they were ‘vile and low’, that S rin himself had tried to persuade the Jesuits to give it up, and that in the end they had given it up so as to be able to devote themselves to the work of conversion.41 From the very beginning of the Jesuit mission in Japan there had been difficulties about reconciling the ideal of religious poverty and humility with the need for status and authority. In Europe the idea of religious poverty and humility was respected, but at the same time the bishops and other prelates, who were dignitaries if not princes themselves, had the status, the authority, and often the wealth to deal with princes or other secular dignitaries. Valignano is emphatic that things are different in Japan, telling the General that the arrangements which he has made in Japan are right, and that the General would have done the same if he had been the man on the spot:42 …for the fathers…honour is only a means to an end and it seems to me absolutely necessary…they have to do everything which prelates do in Europe…and they have to deal ceremoniously with the pagan lords, because they are in their lands and dependent on them,…43 For the Visitor, honour and respect for the missionaries and the Church are paramount, essential means to his end, which is the conversion of Japan to Christianity. For the sake of the reputation of the seminaries they are to accept only the upper classes [no tomando en ellos sino genre noble],44 and even the hospital—if there is to be one—since in any case it cannot take everybody, is to accept only upper-class Christians and must not accept lepers, whom the


Japanese find so disgusting [que son tan asquerosos a los Japones].45 The Franciscan Fray Juan Pobre writes of the deep impression which the friars’ care for the Kyoto lepers made on certain Buddhist monks,46 but Valignano’s point—that association with lepers and outcasts would harm the reputation of the fathers and the Church because it would be misinterpreted—is borne out, grotesquely but impressively, by the statement of another Franciscan that ‘since it is publicly said and rumoured among them that the Christians eat men, there were many who said that the friars made those hospitals in order to eat the bodies of the lepers’.47 Cabral characterized the Visitor as being ‘forever engaged in devising and planning tremendous schemes’, but as somewhat lacking in ‘the spirit of poverty and religious humility’.48 That he was devising and carrying through tremendous schemes is not in doubt. Without presuming to make judgements about the Visitor’s spirit of poverty and humility one can perhaps suggest that it is a spirit which would normally be accompanied by sympathy for the poor, the humble, the downtrodden and the suffering, and that there is not very much evidence of such sympathy in Valignano’s writings. His attitude towards the Japanese peasants has already been mentioned. It can be argued that the lot of the Japanese peasant under Hideyoshi and then the Tokugawas scarcely differed from slavery,49 but there were also slaves. There was slavery in Japan before the arrival and after the departure of the Portuguese, although never on a scale to compare with the slavery in the European colonies or the Muslim world,50 and the Europeans in the Kyushu ports found a ready supply of slaves at bargain prices. Slavery seems to have been much more common in Kyushu than elsewhere,51 the slaves sometimes being Koreans, Chinese, or others kidnapped by pirates or bandits, but more often children, mostly unwanted girls, sold by destitute parents (who also sometimes sold themselves). There were also those who were part of the spoils of war (usually women and children, the men having been killed). Frois reports that the Satsuma forces which overran Bungo in 1586 captured a great multitude of people, mostly women and children, treated them with extraordinary cruelty, and sold many of them in Higo and other parts of Kyushu.52 There was no official approval, however, of slavery as an institution, and there was a very strong undercurrent of disapproval of the idea of foreign enslavement of Japanese, disapproval which came to the surface in July 1587. Item 10 of Hideyoshi’s Notice reads: ‘The sale of Japanese to China, South Barbary, and Korea is outrageous. Add: In Japan trade

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in human beings is prohibited’,53 and among the questions put to the flabbergasted Coelho was this: ‘Why do the Portuguese buy many Japanese and export them from their native land as slaves?’54 According to Alvarez-Taladriz, ‘All the superiors of the Japanese mission, and the Visitor Valignano, condemned in word, and as far as they could in deed, the traffic in slaves’,55 and Elison notes that The Padres were not guilty of conniving at the Portuguese slave trade, which seems to have been substantial.’56 Boxer agrees that on the whole the Jesuits consistently opposed the Portuguese slave trade in Japan,57 but is not favourably impressed by their attitude towards the slaves of Japanese, which ‘was definitely on the side of the “haves” as against the “have-nots”. It forms a strong contrast to their more liberal policy in Brazil, where they opposed the enslavement of the Amerindians by every means in their power.’58 Part of the purpose of the Latin dialogue De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium (The Mission of the Japanese Ambassadors), which was printed in Macao in 1589 and 1590, was to ‘keep alive for ever the memory of this embassy’, and to ‘inform the Japanese about many things…about which they have many false and ignorant opinions.’59 Valignano compiled the book himself, in Spanish, basing it on the diaries which the boys had kept, but he then had Father Eduardo de Sande translate it into Latin and recast it into the form of ‘colloquia’, in which Linus, a son of mura Sumitada, and Leo, brother of Arima Harunobu, question their cousin Michael (Chijiwa Miguel) and the other three about their incredible journey. In Colloquium 14, after an account of the Christian triumph at Lepanto and the liberation of thousands of Christian slaves from the Muslim galleys, Valignano raises the question of slavery in general and in Japan. In the dialogue Michael explains that at various points in their journey they had themselves seen Japanese who had been sold into slavery, and had been unable to contain their anger against the Japanese who sold their own people as if they were cattle. The idea that Japanese would sell each other for money was shocking to the Portuguese, he says, and indeed to all the Europeans, and very damaging to the reputation of Japan. In Europe there is an ancient custom, a custom with the force of law, that there should be no enslavement of Christians. ‘With Muslims or Saracens, however, things are different. Since they are barbarians, and enemies of Christianity, they remain in perpetual slavery if they are taken prisoner after a battle.’60 Mantius (It Mancio) makes (for Valignano) the point that their cupidity in the matter of slavery is unworthy of the culture and humanity of the Japanese, and Martinus (Hara Mart-


inho) adds that it would be less intolerable if Japanese slaves were sold only to the Portuguese, who treat their slaves well and also teach them Christian doctrine. ‘But who can bear to see our people subjected to the misery of slavery, among people barbarous and black in colour, in such diverse kingdoms, by people of the lowest kind, and also fed with false and erroneous teaching?’ Leo points out that the Japanese disapprove of the sale of their countrymen, but tend to blame it on the Portuguese and the fathers— on the Portuguese because they are so eager to buy Japanese, and on the Jesuits because they do not use their authority to put a stop to it. Coelho had told Hideyoshi that the Jesuits did not approve of the Portuguese slave trade in Japan, but that it was up to the Japanese authorities to stop it,61 and Valignano now makes the same point. In a book intended partly as a sort of encyclopaedia of general information for the Japanese, partly as a record of a marvellously successful mission, and partly as a Latin textbook for Japanese seminarians, it would be remarkable if the Visitor had not defended the Jesuits, and it is perhaps noteworthy that he even mentions criticism of them. But he damages his case and his credibility when he has Michael state flatly that the Portuguese are in no way to blame [‘Lusitanorum prorsus nulla culpa est’] when, as merchants, they buy Japanese, and later make a profit by selling them in India or elsewhere.62 It was at the prompting of the Jesuits, as Michael does not fail to point out, that King Sebastian of Portugal had decreed63 that the acquisition of Japanese slaves was forbidden, but the decree was ignored and the Japanese went on selling their own countrymen, and even their own families, with such enthusiasm that the Portuguese were almost compelled to buy them.64 Valignano and the Jesuits were not in favour of the Portuguese trade in Japanese slaves, but it was sometimes difficult for them to distance themselves from it, as the following from the pen of Fray Martín implies: …the [Jesuit] convent at Nagasaki is like the custom house at Seville, where all the merchandise coming from the Indies is registered. There are so many things, and so much business and so many contracts of various different kinds, both with regard to the merchandise and to the slaves that go on the same ship,…that everything goes through their hands…65 The Visitor explains that before there was a bishop in Japan the

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fathers had, at the request of the bishop of Macao, examined the captive Japanese whom the Portuguese bought to see that they really were prisoners of war, so that injustice could be avoided as far as possible. This connection would have become considerably more uncomfortable when Hideyoshi expressed his objection to the slave trade in 1587, and Valignano notes that the fathers have not been involved since the time when Kampakudono took over Nagasaki.66 The Visitor contrasts the ‘rational and noble’ Japanese with other inferior peoples, ‘who, as Aristotle would say, are born to serve’.67 There were slaves in very large numbers in Lisbon, Goa and Macao, where it seems slaves outnumbered freemen five to one,68 and in 1578 Francesco Pasio, recently arrived in Goa, recorded that the ship he had travelled on from Lisbon had taken upwards of three hundred slaves on board at Mozambique.69 When Valignano came to Goa for the first time, he found forty-eight slaves in the Jesuit college there. He was concerned that no one should be kept as a slave unjustly—that is, if there was no satisfactory proof that the person was a slave—but he did not take the further step of declaring (or, as far as one can see, of thinking) that slavery itself was unjust, although that view was by no means unknown or even novel in the Church.70 At the Jesuit consultation in India in 1575 one of the questions put to the consultors was whether they could run the Jesuit colleges and residences without servants and slaves. The answer was that they could not, and this Valignano accepts, adding that there should be only as many as are absolutely necessary, and that they must be well treated.71 A priest is expected to provide moral guidance, to deal with ‘cases of conscience’, and in Japan there were moral problems for the Christian slave-owner. It was considered morally acceptable to hold as slaves prisoners taken in the course of a just war, but that principle was of very little use in practice, as the Visitor explains in Adiciones: It seems to me that for the most part only Our Lord and His angels could judge whether the wars which they make among themselves every day are just or unjust, and who is in the right. For the past five hundred years and more there has been so much confusion in Japan, with wars, and changing of estates and lords, each one occupying and taking from the others as much as he can, and they produce so many causes and justifications for making war, and even for rising against those whom they previously regarded as their lords, that often it is quite impossible to judge


which side is in the right, and consequently to judge which prisoners of war are justly held prisoner. Take the present case here. Kampakudono, with his power and his valour, has made himself lord of the entire country, and he is now waging war against the Chinese, and has already captured the kingdom of Korea. It seems perfectly clear that he had no reason to wage this war other than simply a lust for conquest, but how can we possibly oblige the Christians, who went into this war very unwillingly, but who would have lost their estates if they had not gone, to restore all the booty which they took in this war? And if it was legitimate to take other booty it would seem legitimate to take prisoners too.72 To recapitulate: Valignano considers slavery morally permissible under certain circumstances, and he mentions explicitly the case of prisoners taken in a just war. ‘Rational and noble’ races, such as the Japanese, are not to be enslaved, and Christians do not make slaves of Christians. Slaves are to be treated justly. In 1598 Valignano and Bishop Cerqueira resolved that the Portuguese should be prohibited, under pain of excommunication, from buying and selling Japanese, and the Visitor reports that the bishop has stopped the trade in captive Japanese, and the sin and injustice which it involved. Some of the Portuguese were upset because they had been intending to take many slaves to Macao that year, but the Japanese were very pleased.73 Valignano has no hesitation in laying down the moral law to the Europeans, but with the Japanese his intention is ‘to make our law easy and gentle for them, without imposing heavy burdens and precepts on them, contenting ourselves for the time being with teaching them, and persuading them to keep, only those precepts which are natural and divine’74 Positive laws, unlike natural or divine law, are binding only if promulgated, and Valignano is very insistent that the positive law of the Church—for example the law that Catholics may marry only other Catholics—should not at present be promulgated in Japan, ‘for…it is hard to believe that the Church wishes to impose such an obligation on a Christian community so distant and so new, when the decree has not been published, and indeed they have never heard that there is any such decree.’75 This particular problem had actually been put to the pope, who had ruled that there should be no dispensation from this law of the Church, and the Visitor had promptly told Aquaviva that he thought the pope was wrong.76 His general position is that no obligations should be imposed on the Japanese if the Church is not absolutely bound to impose them

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[‘todo lo que, salva la fe,se puede conceder, se debe por ahora permitir y conceder a los japones’77]. Among problems which become ‘cases of conscience’ Valignano mentions usury, slavery, idolatry, executions, taxation, seizure of property, ‘and many other things which, judged by the standard of our laws and customs, seem very unjust and tyrannical…but which can to some extent be justified and defended with other natural principles.’78 But the most intractable of all these problems arose from the clash between the Church’s teaching and the Japanese practice with regard to marriage, which the Visitor explains as follows: …all the Japanese lead a sort of gypsy life, with no security as to their lands or their dwellings, for there are constant switchings of estates and kingdoms among them, and this means the breaking up of countless marriages among the pagans, since the husbands who are exiled do not want to be taking women with them, and the women do not want to go with them to other lands. But given the duties which the soldiers have it is out of the question for them to live without wives, so wherever they go they marry again, and countless numbers of them are caught up in this circumstance. And I do not see how this doctrine can be published in Japan for the moment, that the pagans can in no circumstances leave their first wives and marry others, or that when they have married others they are not really married, and that if they become Christians they have to go back to their first wives. Publishing this doctrine would achieve nothing, and would be an impediment and indeed a disaster as far as the propagation and acceptance of our holy law is concerned. We would be abhorred by the pagans, for even to say that Christians can never leave their wives and marry others is without doubt the greatest impediment that we find in Japan to the acceptance of our holy faith. To them it seems completely unreasonable that, even if their wives are guilty of adultery and wicked, or such that there is no possibility of ever living at peace with them, they should never be able to repudiate them, and should be always obliged to keep them as their wives and not marry others. And what they find much harder to understand, for it seems to them completely unjust, is that often the wives leave their Christian husbands, without the husband being in any way to blame for this, and go off and marry pagans, and then the husbands have to do penance for the sin of their wives, since they are left unable to marry again, even though the obligations of the


Japanese to their lords are such that it is impossible for them to manage without wives to provide for them and govern their houses. And there is no doubt that this is very awkward and very hard to swallow even for the Christians, and in fact only those who wish to will actually swallow it, and there are very few or none of those, for in truth they cannot maintain themselves without wives.79 The indissolubility of marriage was a matter of natural or divine law, which made it a peculiarly awkward problem for the missionaries. In matters of positive Church law—for example the decree of the Council of Trent that a marriage was valid only if contracted in the presence of the parish priest or his deputy and two witnesses— Valignano is on much firmer ground. He recommends dissimulation, writing in Adiciones: ‘I am not suggesting that they should not all be married, as far as it is possible, in facie ecclesiae, as is laid down by the Council [of Trent],…but I am questioning whether it is appropriate to publish the decree of the Council about it…’80 The Franciscan Fray Martín accepts the point about positive law but draws the line at natural and divine law, saying that ‘we do not dare not to teach them what Christ Our Lord taught us and ordered us to teach’.81 And he is harshly critical of the Jesuit ‘dissimulation’, saying that the Japanese lords are tyrants, oppressors and robbers, even those of them who are Christians, and that the Jesuits fail to tell them that such conduct is forbidden by the law of God, and thus allow Christianity to be seen as supporting the strong against the weak. ‘And not to tell the Christians that these things are forbidden by the law of God is to say to them that there is punishment for the poor but none for the great.’82 Alvarez-Taladriz annotates this text as follows: Whether the missionaries said this to the Christians or not was not important; Christian doctrine, itself free of all discrimination between rich and poor with regard to the punishment of crimes and offenses against one’s neighbour, said it to them. This is the sense in which Christianity was radically subversive of the de facto situation…in the society of Japan at that time, and it explains why those in government persecuted [what they saw as] the threat that their abitrary authority might be overthrown and replaced by a régime shaped by a Christian conception of the world and of life, and above all of the value of the individual as a human being, the rights of man. Centuries later, the introduction

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of a formal, technical, codified juridical system, uprooted and totally separated from its (largely religious) ideological foundations,…rendered superfluous the introduction of a religion whose social and juridical results could be enjoyed without the encumbrance and the commitments of the principles of faith and conscience which inform them.83 This is nobly and yet misleadingly expressed. Christianity can and should be subversive of arbitrary power and authority, humbling the exalted, exalting the humble, and proclaiming an allegiance which transcends all secular power. But it is surely anachronistic to suggest that Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Tokugawa Ieyasu felt threatened by Christian ideas. They were acutely aware of threats of various kinds from various quarters, and Christians like Takayama Ukon or Konishi Yukinaga were powerful and therefore dangerous. The danger was of a special kind, because the Christian daimy had links with the exotic, profitable, distantly menacing world beyond Japan, and because the Christians, like the followers of the Bonze of Osaka, were a close-knit group, with their own peculiar motivation and allegiances, iconoclastic, and subversive of established religion and, potentially, of established political and social structures. Christian daimy and Christian kings certainly figured in the calculations of Hideyoshi and Ieyasu, but ideas about the rights of man or the value of the individual did not. They did not fear that their arbitrary authority would be replaced by ‘a regime shaped by a Christian conception of the world and of life’; they feared that it would be replaced by someone else’s arbitrary authority. Valignano is concerned about justice but he is no leveller, and in his attitude to the lower classes he in fact has something in common with Tokugawa Ieyasu and his class in Japan. Ieyasu did not want Christianity but he did want trade,84 and he tolerated the missionaries for many years in the belief that it would be to his commercial advantage to do so. Whether the common people became Christians or not was a matter of indifference to him, but he was not content to see prominent figures among his vassals committing themselves to Christianity, and after Sekigahara there were hardly any prominent figures in Japan who were not vassals of Ieyasu—for, as the Visitor remarked in 1602, Daifu was now in command and the Jesuits, like everyone else, were at his mercy.85 It would be unfair to suggest that whether the common people became Christians or not was a matter of indifference to Valignano, but his principal interest and target was always the ruling classes,


Ieyasu did not finally outlaw Christianity until 1614, when Valignano had been dead for eight years, but it is hard to see any way in which the aims of the two men could ultimately have been reconciled. Each of them intended, in his own way, to control the men who controlled Japan. Ieyasu’s way—and that of Hideyoshi before him—was to claim absolute authority and require total submission, recognizing no allegiance and no right of appeal to any kind of higher authority or principle; whereas the Christian’s ultimate allegiance to God entails the rejection of any man’s claims to absolute authority. Given the ambitions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu—ambitions which were largely fulfilled during their lifetimes and, in the case of Ieyasu, also after his death—the suppression of Christianity was only to be expected. For Valignano, Christianity in Japan was ‘the greatest enterprise in the world today’; but for both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu it was simply a part of the political scene in Japan, an exotic but not especially important part, one of many interests to be brought under control or, if found to be intractable, suppressed.86

9 The alms from the China ship

On 6 March 1599, Father General Aquaviva sent off to the heads of each of the thirty-two Jesuit provinces a letter which began: ‘Your Reverence will probably have learned through another channel that God Our Lord has brought about the promotion of Father Robert Bellarmine to the cardinalate.’1 The General’s letters of 1599 did not reach Valignano in Japan until July 1602, but already in 1601 the Visitor had indeed received word, via New Spain and the Philippines, of Bellarmine’s elevation, and was not slow to use the occasion which a letter of congratulation offered to draw the learned and saintly Jesuit cardinal’s attention to the needs of the vice-province of China and Japan, ‘Now that Our Lord has raised Your Eminence to that state’, he writes, I beg you in the name of all this vice-province to cast your eyes on it. Because it is so remote and so far from the minds of the Christian lords who could help it, its need is particularly great, and we ask Your Eminence the more earnestly to grant us that you will take it under your protection, and will speak in its favour with His Holiness and His Majesty…2 Valignano mentions to the cardinal the ordination to the priesthood in September 1601 of the very first Japanese priests (the Jesuits Kimura Sebastião and Niabara Luís), the Macao college where they had studied, and the ten Jesuits now working in China. There has been no ship from Macao to Japan in 1601 so his information is out of date, but he hopes that a Jesuit residence will by now have been established in the imperial city of Peking. (It was in fact in May 1601 that Matteo Ricci and his companions received permission to reside in Peking.) The Macao college has no regular income, and of 115


the residences in China only two have any, and that far from sufficient. The Visitor summarizes the recent momentous events in Japan, and gives some figures about the Society and the Church there: 107 Jesuits, at least 23 houses or residences, 250 d juku, 300,000 Christians. Then he launches into his appeal: To support all this machine3 in Japan, and it costs a great deal every year, all we have is about 2,000 ducats which the kings of Portugal gave us, and the income of 4,000 ducats a year which Gregory XIII of holy memory gave us…. And Sixtus V, at the beginning of his pontificate, added another 2,000 to this, but in fact in his time neither the 4,000 nor the 2,000 was paid. Afterwards the holy pontiff Clement VIII, who is now reigning, ordered that only the 4,000 a year which Gregory XIII had given us should be paid, and then in the end, four or five years ago, when Father Gil de la Mata went to Rome as procurator, he persuaded His Holiness to have the whole 6,000 paid. But we do not know if it is being paid, as we have received no letters either from Rome or from Spain since 1597, and we have still never received the money that was unpaid during the time of Sixtus V. We cannot support ourselves in Japan on less than 12,000 ducats a year, so the income we have is not enough, and moreover is not sure and certain, since sometimes it is not possible to get the officials who are supposed to pay it to do so, and sometimes it is lost at sea (this has actually happened several times), and since the places we are in are so remote and we have no one to turn to for help, and since the wars that there are in Japan and the switching of estates make losses an everyday occurrence, Ours are in want, and this is is a hindrance to new enterprises and missions which we could otherwise undertake for the conversion of the souls of these people. The whole of this vice-province is in very great danger of collapsing for want of support. Detailed reports have been given to our Father General about all this, and from those Your Eminence can obtain fuller information. And the Visitor goes on to request the cardinal’s patronage and advocacy for the Jesuits in Japan, and to summarize briefly the main points of his anti-Franciscan Apología.4 Bellarmine was a Jesuit and a saint (and, incidentally, on the best of terms with the Franciscans,5) and Valignano obviously expects that his appeal will be sympathetically received, but any letter to a

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prince of the Church was also an exercise in diplomacy, and the Visitor diplomatically refrains from mentioning Jesuit participation in the Macao-Nagasaki silk trade, which was in fact the most reliable source of funds for the vice-province. In 1576 Francisco Cabral had written to Valignano that Japan could not be satisfactorily financed from India or Malacca, as it could not be guaranteed that the money would arrive, and even if it did, it was not nearly enough. The best source of funding was the profit from the silk trade—or, in Cabral’s euphemism, ‘the alms from the China ship’.6 Church law forbade clerics to engage in trade. Dispensation from the law was duly granted in Rome, but the Jesuits’ involvement with the Macao-Nagasaki silk trade did not cease to generate unease, suspicion, envy and disapproval. Criticism—both inside and outside the Society, and both inside and outside Japan—began long before Valignano’s arrival in Japan, and was still continuing after his death. The Visitor did not accept the criticism, did not cease trading, and told the General in 1603 that the trade would be necessary until such time as the lord of the Tenka, and other great lords, were converted and able to support and provide for Christianity. In the meantime it would be folly for the Jesuits in Japan to abandon their trading rights, and it might even mean that some of them would starve.7 Seven years earlier he remarked that it was unfortunate if there were some who were scandalized at his methods of getting money for Japan and China, but there was no alternative, even if it meant that he was labelled ‘the merchant’.8 When Valignano wrote this he had not yet seen the Relación de Japón, by Fray Martín de Aguirre, which does call the Jesuits ‘merchants’.9 The friar was by no means the first to attach that label, and in writing that the Jesuits send more than 100,000 ducats a year from Japan to Macao, and that the previous year (1595) the Visitor had sent 60,000 taels from India to Japan,10 he was only repeating stories of a kind already current in Japan, Macao, India, the Philippines, and indeed Europe—where, as Valignano knew, the eversuspicious Philip II had many years previously ordered a secret investigation of the wealth of the religious orders in the Orient.11 In the Apología the Visitor comments that ‘the friar seems to have dreamt all this’, and adds that if only it were true, many of his problems would be solved. The friar claims that the Jesuits have 100,000 ducats in income from the ship, and as much again in other assured income. The truth, says the Visitor, is that they would be glad if their total income amounted to 12,000 a year.12 His own account of the trato is as follows:


…the fathers in Japan, from the time when they were first concerned with the conversion and the Christianity of that country, had for their support no more than 500 ducats a year, in alms which the kings of Portugal had ordered to be paid to them in Malacca, until in 1574 His Most Serene Majesty Don Sebastian ordered that the amount should be increased to 1,000 ducats, and he gave these for the founding of a college in Japan. And since the number of fathers increased greatly, until there were over 130 of them, as there are now, and there was also a seminary of Japanese pupils, and twenty houses of fathers and more than 250 churches, in various kingdoms, the 1,000 ducats did not cover even one eighth of the expense, without which they could neither maintain the great number of churches, nor take care of the Christians when they were converted, nor carry forward the conversion of the pagans, And although the kings of Portugal, and after them His Majesty, were always very pious and generous in coming to the assistance of the fathers in Japan, what with the great enterprises which they were directing, and with Japan being so far away, they were not able to provide them with the income necessary to cover such expenses. And so, from the time when the numbers of fathers began to increase, divine providence provided for them by means of a Portuguese merchant from China, a friend of the Society and devoted to it, called Luis d’Almeida. For several years he helped them and provided for them, and then, seeing the great fruit being produced in Japan, he was moved by God to resolve to enter the Society himself, and was accepted into it. And he gave away the property that he had, giving to the fathers of Japan some 4,000 ducats, with instructions that these were to be invested in silk for the Japan voyage, so that the fathers could have the profit for their support. And the capital was not to be spent, but to be allowed to increase, for he understood that their expenses would increase day by day, as the number of fathers and of converts to Christianity increased. And he also understood that the fathers needed some capital, since they had so little income, so that if the ship should fail to come one year (and this often happens) they would have something to live on. And he got other Portuguese merchants, friends of his, to buy silk in China with this money, and they themselves had this loaded on the ship and they sold it in Japan, the only involvement the fathers had being that they received from the hands of the merchants the profit from this transaction.


And it went on in this way for a number of years, and our Fathers General were kept informed about it. They always wished that the Society in Japan could see its way to disengage itself from this business, but they also understood that if it did, not only would the fathers be left without support, but also Christianity would be unable to support itself or to carry on the work of conversion, and they therefore left things as they were, trusting that Our Lord would provide some other help, some more fitting solution, and charging superiors to desist from it as soon as a way of doing so could be found, and in the meantime to exercise due moderation, so that it would be understood that it was permitted out of pure necessity and in order to allow them to fulfil the obligations to which in charity they were bound. And when I was sent from Rome by our Father General Everard Mercurian in 1573, as visitor of India and Japan, one of the tasks I was given was precisely to examine very carefully just how necessary this source of income was, and I was given powers to allow it or to forbid it, in whole or in part, as I judged necessary. Accordingly, when I arrived in Macao in 1578, and made enquiries as to what was happening about this, and found out that it was not possible at that time to manage without it; and when I saw that the fathers and Christianity in Japan were truly in great danger, because they did not have a steady or adequate income to cover their great, continuous, and unavoidable expenses, I asked His Holiness and His Majesty, through our Father General, to provide a solution. I also negotiated with this city of Macao so as to arrange for this trade to be in a definite and agreed quantity of silk, and with the co-operation and goodwill of the city, so that it would continue as a guaranteed source of income, there would be no changes in the arrangement, and it would be managed with due moderation and without giving the city any cause for complaint. And since they knew about the expenses of the fathers in Japan, and that they were unavoidable, and incurred for the sake of Christianity and conversions, they determined that in the quantity of silk which they collected in Macao for sending to Japan there should be included 50 piculs of silk for the fathers, to be purchased with money from the same fathers; and that these 50 piculs were to be regarded as having been sold at the price of the first pancada, this being the term they use for the first price agreed with the Japanese merchants, because here the Portuguese dealing with Japan use an association and an arrangement which


they call armación,13 according to which all the silk is sent together, and decisions about it are taken by those who govern the city. And the agreement is that not more than 1,600 piculs of silk are to be sent to Japan each year. Officials of the council apportion this among the merchants, giving each merchant the right to contribute the proportion assigned to him in this association, and in accordance with this each merchant buys his share and loads it on to the ship, handing it over to the factor whom the city has elected. And the factor is responsible for taking all this silk to Japan, and he sells it all on the same day, as something belonging in common to the whole city of Macao, and the individual owners of the silk are not permitted to take any of it from the ship to sell it themselves. And when the ship returns to this port they reckon up the accounts, and each one receives the money which is due to him and which corresponds to the proportion of the silk which he contributed. And if not all of it is sold then the appropriate proportion of the remainder is returned to each merchant. In this armación the city gave permission for 50 piculs belonging to the fathers to be included, and they also allowed them the advantage that, even if some of the silk remained unsold, the fathers’ portion was to be treated as having been sold. And this agreement was officially announced, so that neither the fathers nor the city could change it in any way. The usual profit on these 50 piculs was 1,600 ducats, because the silk is bought in China at roughly 90 ducats per picul, and sold in Japan for 140. Subtracting 10 per cent which goes in freight charges and another 3 per cent in tariffs, the price at which it is sold amounts to just about 121 ducats per picul. Never one for half measures, Valignano saw to it that this arrangement with the city of Macao was confirmed by the viceroy in Goa in 1584, approved by the Jesuit General, and approved also by Pope Gregory XIII. And he quotes a letter from Aquaviva, dated 10 February 1582, in which the General writes: ‘when I had given him full information about this business, with all the circumstances, His Holiness gave it his approval without any difficulty, and did not seem to have any objection, and he told me clearly that in his judgement this could not be called trade, since it was done purely out of necessity.’ Back in Macao the Visitor had the Macao council publicly confirm the arrangement once again in 1589.14 Official approval, both religious and secular, did not end the con-


troversy, and Valignano continued to defend his position, and to try to explain and supply the needs of the Japanese mission, for the rest of his life. Sometimes there is an attempt to argue that the business is not really trade at all, but much more often the point is simply that there is no alternative if the mission is to continue. In 1587 he puts it to Aquaviva as follows: …we neither can nor should withdraw completely, for the moment, from the trade with China, which in any case, in its present reduced form, cannot really be called trade, since all we send is 50 piculs of silk, which is as nothing compared to15 all the rest of the silk which the merchants send, and it is they who do the buying and selling, without our being involved in it at all, except for giving the money to buy it and getting the money from them after they have sold it; and we have withdrawn from any other form of trade, as I wrote to you last year. Your Paternity will understand the danger Japan is in, for if the ship is lost just once Japan will lose 12,000 cruzados, money which we need for our costs, and will have to use 12,000 of the capital which Japan has in order to support itself for that year, and if it has no more capital which can be used to send the silk for the next year then Japan will be past helping…I say all this to Your Paternity not for lack of trust in the providence of Our Lord, for I know that He loves Japan very much and wills to do great things there, but so that you should be aware of the difficulties we are faced with, and should not allow the assistance, little enough as it is, which His Holiness gives us, to be taken from us, and should not be persuaded, as some are writing to persuade you, that we can or should give up totally the trade in silk. Your Paternity must leave this matter to my conscience, because with the help of God I trust that I shall continue to think about it, and also to consider the good name of the Society in Japan and in China, and when it seems to me possible to do so I shall gradually reduce and finally abandon this trade.16 It never did seem possible to Valignano to abandon or even to reduce the trade. In the end it was not the chronic shortage of funds which forced the Jesuits to leave Japan; besides, in at least eight of the twenty years preceding the 1614 expulsion of the missionaries the great ship from Macao did not come; but the Visitor still considered the profit from the silk trade ‘the most sure and certain part of our support’, and in another letter to Aquaviva, written sixteen


years after the one quoted above, he explains once again the urgency of the needs of Japan and the importance of the ship: …there are in this vice-province 200 persons of the Society, and the number increases every year, with three colleges,17 and two seminaries, and more than twenty-seven other houses and residences in the kingdoms of various pagan lords, and more than 900 persons live there regularly at our expense, indeed more than 1,000 if those in China are included,…and all this great machine has no income in this vice-province. Support from it comes entirely from outside, part of it from the grant which His Holiness provides, and part from this trade, for what we have in India, both from the king and from the lands in Bassein, is barely enough for the costs which arise in India in connection with the Jesuits coming to us from Europe, and the costs of the wine, oil, and other provisions which they send us, and of the procurators who are in India, Portugal, Madrid and Rome, and finally of those who are sent as procurators from Japan to Rome… In addition to this grant which the popes gave for Japan it is essential that we have here, in cash, capital of at least 36,000 ducats if we are to be able to support ourselves, and even with that much we are never out of danger. And the reason for this is that we always have to risk 12,000 ducats on the voyage from China to Japan and from Japan to China. Three thousand of these are needed for the normal provision of all the things they send from China to Japan, and the other 9,000 are for the silk which they send to be traded, and if we did not have this money we could not make that profit, and would lose the most sure and certain part of our support. Besides that it is always necessary to have in Japan support for two years, so as to have something to live on in case the ship fails, and, as has been said before, for the last fourteen years there has been a voyage only every second year, and the expenses for two years are at least 24,000 ducats— 12,000 ducats per year—so altogether we need 36,000 ducats, or even more, for accounts here are in taels, and each tael is worth more than a Portuguese ducat, so that even if Japan has these 36,000 taels she is constantly threatened, for since we spend 12,000 each year, if the ship is lost then the 12,000 invested in it are also lost, and in that same year we use 12,000 more, and the remaining 12,000 are barely enough for the next year, and that means there is nothing left to send to carry on the silk trade the following year.


And this has actually happened this very year. When I set out from Japan I left in the hands of the Father Procurator and the Father Vice-Provincial rather more than 24,000 taels, and another 12,000 came to China on the ship, and since there was a little more which came from India last year we were sending, as we wrote, 15,000 taels. But since the ship was captured by the English,18 all of that was lost. In the meantime, although I thought they would use less than 12,000 taels in Japan over this past year, they have in fact used 16,000, which means that they will be left with only 8,000 for this year’s expenses, and that will not be enough, although for this year the Christians have promised help, according to letters brought back by the light boat which I sent there. And now we have here no capital from which we could send them help for the coming year, apart from the little which came to us from India after the ship had been seized, from the grant from His Holiness, which was…2,500 ducats. And from this you can understand the urgency of the needs of Japan.19 Of the 1,600 piculs of silk from Macao, the Jesuits’ 50-picul share at 90 ducats the picul would have cost only 4,500 ducats, but the Visitor’s 1583 Sumario,20 as well as the 1587 and 1603 letters translated above, says that they send 12,000 ducats to Macao; in the 1587 letter he stresses that they send only 50 piculs of silk from Macao, but in 1603 he adds that 9,000 of the 12,000 ducats are for silk. In 1595 one of Valignano’s many complaints about Francisco Cabral is that he objects to the Macao-Nagasaki trade, even though Cabral himself had arranged a larger volume of trade at a time when the needs of the mission were much smaller. In Cabral’s time the Jesuits purchased 100 or 120 piculs of silk, and other things, whereas now the arrangement is for 50 piculs.21 The figures are puzzling, but it is clear that the Apología does not tell the whole story. The agreement with Macao in fact allowed the Jesuits to buy 100 piculs of silk: 50 of them in the way described in the Apología and a further 50 from the unsold silk left behind by the factor when the ship sailed for Macao.22 Manoel Dias reports that they could buy 40 piculs of the unsold silk, but also notes that usually there was none left unsold.23 This is explained in a letter to the General, but not mentioned in Apología.24 In the 1590s the whole system was rearranged and the 1578 agreement no longer held, but the Jesuits’ right to the profits from 100 piculs of the cargo of silk continued to be recognized.25 Valignano, however, claims that Cabral hugely exaggerates the income of the Japan Jesuits, that he


has infected many others in India with his views,26 and that it is widely—and quite wrongly—thought that the Japan mission is rich.27 The Visitor was never free, even on his deathbed, of anxiety about financing for Japan.28 Even ‘the alms from the China ship’ provided only very uncertain support, and when the ship failed to come, as it frequently did, the financial position became desperate. Valignano says that he left Japan in 1582 in order to try to find some satisfactory financing for the mission, which faced ruin if the ship were to fail to come just once,29 and he gave the same reason when he left for the last time, in 1603. In each of those years the ship did fail to come, but the mission did not collapse. In 1582 the Visitor managed to collect 6,000 ducats in Macao, and in early 1583 another 3,000 in Malacca, which allowed the Jesuits to continue trading in 1583. 1603 was the year in which, on 29 July, the Dutch captured the great ship in Macao harbour.30 The total cargo lost was worth over 400,000 ducats, of which 15,000 (3,000 in cash, 12,000 in silk or other goods) was Jesuit property. And Valignano mentions the loss of a further 5,000 ducats, collected in Macao for the support of the college there and the residences in China. Some of this had been invested in the now lost carrack and some in another Portuguese ship which had left Macao in February 1603 with half a million ducats’ worth of cargo, and had been captured, again by the Dutch, in the Straits of Singapore. The Portuguese regained just a little of their lost ground by ambushing and capturing a small Dutch ship, which Valignano then bought for 200 ducats, and on 10 August Brother Pedro de Monteagudo left for Japan in this ship as Valignano’s messenger, after the Visitor had given the suspicious Macao authorities, always jealously protective of their monopoly of the Japan trade, the most solemn assurance that the ship carried no merchandise.31 The message Monteagudo carried was that drastic economies were required, so that the remaining capital, enough for one year, should be made to last three. The Jesuits in Japan were to disband the seminaries, the press and the paintery; to dismiss 200 of the 300 d juku and twothirds of the servants; to withdraw from the various houses to just two or three, from which they were to make sorties to the Christians as best they could; to stop all building work, and all but absolutely essential present-giving, and to reduce almsgiving, in order to bring total outgoings for the following twelve months down from 12,000 to 5,000 or 6,000 ducats. Monteagudo was back in Macao in October, reporting that some d juku and servants had been dismissed but most of the other mea-


sures had not been taken, because Pasio, the vice-provincial, had had a letter from Spain which led him to believe that there was now capital of 14,000 ducats—4,000 from the king and 10,000 from the pope —available in Macao. There was in fact no such capital fund, and Valignano prophesies that the mission will be in desperate straits by the following year.32 Only three days later, however, he reports that he has managed to collect 6,000 ducats33 in Macao, and then at the beginning of 1604 there was some assistance—totally unexpected— from none other than Tokugawa Ieyasu who, on hearing from Rodrigues the interpreter about the Jesuits’ plight, gave them 350 taels and lent them a further 5,000.34 Year after year the urgent requests for support went off to Europe, but very little ever came from Rome, Spain, Portugal, India or Malacca. What did come was the richly laden ship from Macao— so richly laden that Valignano once referred to its cargo, in an uncharacteristically extravagant phrase, as ‘the principal ornament and riches of Japan’.35 The Visitor never ceased to maintain that for the foreseeable future regular financial support from Europe was essential, and was never short of suggestions about where the money could come from. The king could donate one Macao-Japan voyage to the Japan mission, as he once did to the cathedral of Goa (the right to make the extremely profitable voyage was sold for about 15,000 cruzados); Cardinals Montealto and Esfondrado, who could easily afford it, should be asked for donations of 4,000 or 5,000 cruzados each; a few of the richer Jesuit colleges in Europe—Rome, Coimbra, etc.— could each contribute 500 or 1,000 cruzados without even noticing the difference; some of the money from the three Ponte brothers could be used, and Father Bernardo da Ponte told Father Gil de la Mata that he would be glad if it was. (In 1596 the Visitor told the General that this same Father Bernardo da Ponte—or de Puente—of Naples had arranged with his brothers there for an income of 1,000 ducats to be provided for a college in Japan.36) Valignano puts all these ideas to Aquaviva in his letter of 15 November 1603. He then adds that although they have been told that the king has ordered 10,000 ducats to be paid in India to the Japan mission, he won’t believe the money is coming until he actually sees it.37 Ten thousand ducats a year, plus a capital grant of 30,000 or 40,000, was the amount which Valignano had set down in the Sumario twenty years previously as the minimum required to allow the work of converting Japan to go forward smoothly, and there he had pointed out that what he was asking for the whole of Japan was


no more than the pope had already granted in Rome to the German College and the Roman College.38 For the remainder of his life Valignano found it exasperating, and almost incredible, that even such a relatively modest sum was never provided for the Japan mission, which he considered ‘the greatest enterprise in the world’.39 In his last extant letter from Japan, written in January 1603, he reports to Aquaviva that he has had some very bad news from Father Balthasar Barrera, the procurator at the court of Spain. The papal stipend of 4,000 ducats has not been received for the last four years, and Barrera now tells him that it will not be coming in 1603 either, as the ships left Portugal in April 1601 without it. What is worse, the papal treasurer has written that from now on only 4,000 ducats, not 6,000, is to be paid, and that only if a renunciation is made, on behalf of the Society in Japan, of all the backlog owed to them, and of the 2,000 ducats which Sixtus V added to the 4,000 from Gregory XIII.40 ‘The news’, says Valignano, ‘has left all of us frozen and bloodless.’ [‘Quedamos con estas nuevas todos elados y sin sangre.’] And he adds an unusual rebuke to Aquaviva: that although it may seem temerarious on his part to say so, the matter cannot have been put properly to the pope, because if it had been His Holiness could not have allowed this to happen.41 If criticism of the General is very rare in the Visitor’s letters, criticism of other Jesuits is not. Valignano, like Cabral before him,42 complained not only of lack of financial support but also of lack of understanding and lack of concern about the plight of the Japan mission. ‘In India and Europe’, he writes, ‘they just don’t feel the needs and sufferings of Japan’,43 so he himself set about obtaining funds for the mission, and with considerable success. It was Valignano who enlisted the help of Cardinal Carafa, who was instrumental in persuading Pope Gregory XIII to make the original grant of 4,000 ducats,44 and when the Japan mission was more than usually short of capital Valignano, on a number of occasions, raised substantial sums in Macao. At the end of 1594 he left Macao for India, which he had not seen for seven years. In Macao between 150 and 200 Chinese had been building the Jesuit college for almost eighteen months,45 and with that project near completion Macao no longer offered adequate outlet for the Visitor’s energies. An immediate return to Japan now seemed inadvisable, and in any case the decision had been taken in Macao that there was to be no Japan voyage in 1595. The journey to India he considered ‘no small mortification’ but unavoidable, and he hoped to raise money there for the Macao college and for Japan.


There had been no support for several years from Rome, and only four China-Japan voyages in the last eight years, but unexpected assistance—including legacies of 1,500 cruzados in Japan (from Konishi Yukinaga’s father) and 1,000 cruzados in India—had amounted to some 5,000 ducats, just about enough to compensate for there being no voyage in 1594 either.46 Valignano’s estimate here of the Jesuits’ profit from the silk trade is roughly the same as in the Sumario,47 where he speaks of an income of 5,000 or 6,000 ducats; and at the 1581 Nagasaki consultation he reckoned that if they had another 100 piculs of silk they could make a further profit of 6,000 or 7,000 cruzados.48 But this was in a ‘normal’ year, in which the great ship duly arrived, there was silk left behind when it sailed away, and they were able to sell it. In 1581 and 1582, for example, there was not enough silk, and Valignano reports that this left the Jesuits poorer by almost 6,000 ducats (3,000 each year) than they would otherwise have been.49 Nevertheless, it seems clear enough that the Apología figure of 50 piculs of silk, giving a profit of about 1,600 ducats, was only part of the story, the version offered to the General for publication, and differed considerably from the fuller account given to him in the reports and the letters. According to Cooper the Jesuits made a profit of about 4,000 ducats a year from the silk trade, and Boxer puts it at between 4,000 and 6,000 ducats.50 The proceedings of the Jesuit consultation held at Katsusa in August 1590 confirm the figure of 12,000 cruzados sent to Macao, of which 9,000 is spent on ‘50 piculs of silk and some gold’.51 To their considerable embarrassment (not only because it was awkward and unbecoming but also because, for the sake of the all-important trade monopoly, Portuguese were forbidden strictly, and sometimes under pain of excommunication, to bring to Macao any silver belonging to Japanese52) the Jesuits frequently found themselves obliged to act as intermediaries for Japanese daimy who wanted to exchange Japanese silver for Chinese gold in Macao or Canton, but they also traded in gold themselves to some extent—gold which cost about half as much in China as in Japan. The Chinese wanted silver, the Japanese wanted gold as well as silk, and the carracks plied between Macao and Nagasaki, the Portuguese merchants risking their lives, supplying their customers and doubling their money. Valignano is unrepentant about his part in this, claiming, as we have seen, that there is simply no alternative. When Father ViceProvincial Coelho—desperately short of income, and also no doubt believing that there was no alternative—attempted to buy much


more than the agreed quantity of silk, the Macao authorities objected, and Valignano, from Goa, forbade any commerce except as stipulated in the contract, but he ordered that the money which Coelho had wanted invested in silk should be changed into gold and taken to Japan.53 And the Visitor himself did not always confine his mercantile activities to the regular Macao-Japan voyage. Gold-mining in Japan put an end to gold exports from Macao to Japan,54 but meant an increase in exports to India. On 10 April 1597 Aquaviva wrote a pained letter to Valignano, charging him to have no commercial dealings of any kind other than in the usual 50 piculs of silk because there had been a complaint from Philip II of Spain, who had been informed that silk and gold sent by the Macao Jesuits had been traded in Goa, and ‘although Your Paternity may think that it was all done very secretly, the viceroy and other persons knew all about it’.55 In Goa, as in Macao, private enterprise of this kind was officially forbidden,56 and there had also been scandalized reports about the Visitor’s involvement with commerce from some of the Goa Jesuits; but Valignano, brushing his armchair critics aside, maintains that it was done discreetly, through third parties, and, because there had been no voyage to Japan, out of necessity.57

10 Rich and poor

Even to me it formerly seemed that the country was poor indeed.1 They conceive and imagine that we have mountains of silver.2 Generally speaking, you have to send them something worth twice as much as whatever they have sent to you.3 (Valignano)

The immense distance to Europe, and the years that intervened between the sending and receiving of any letter, inevitably blunted the urgency of the messages coming from Japan, but this was only part of the reason why ‘in India and Europe they just don’t feel the needs and sufferings of Japan’. Francisco Cabral complained when he was superior in Japan of the lack of financial support from abroad, but later, when he was provincial in India, he was himself critical of the alleged wealth of the Japanese vice-province.4 It was known that the Jesuits had an interest in the great ship from Macao, and besides, their edifying letters frequently referred to impressive numbers of conversions, the converts including nobility and indeed— or so it seemed—kings, whose noble and exotic Christian ambassadors were fêted in Rome in 1585. It was only natural that Jesuits and others, in India and Europe, should from time to time ask why Christianity in Japan could not support itself. From time to time Valignano set about providing an answer and, as we have seen,5 attempting to dispel the confusion about titles such as ‘king’. Chapter 28 of the Sumario, ‘The cause and reason why the Christian lords cannot provide for the fathers and their churches in Japan’, explains that although there are considerable numbers of Christians of the upper classes, including several kunishu, none of the really great and powerful has so far become a 129


Christian, the sole exception being tomo S rin, now in retirement and with wealth and power much reduced; that the Japanese are very poor, even the upper classes having little or no disposable income, and those of them who are Christians having been so for such a very short time that it is difficult to make demands on them; and that it is pointless to make comparisons with the wealth of the Buddhist monasteries, with their lands, their network of family connections, and their assured and long-established place in Japanese society. Valignano had already explained about the poverty of Japan in the first chapter of the Sumario:6 In some places the land yields a plentiful supply of rice, which is their staple diet, and there is also wheat; in other kingdoms it is barren and mountainous, and, as a whole, Japan is one of the most barren and poorest countries in all the East; for they do hardly any trading, except in the silk which they use for their clothes, and that the Portuguese bring them from China. And they have no cattle, and no techniques for making the best use of the land; nothing, indeed, except for that little bit of rice that they live on. And so for the most part both the common people and the gentry are very poor, but they are not ashamed of their poverty, and indeed in a sense they are not even conscious of it, because with that little which they have they keep themselves very well turned out, and the gentry are held in great esteem, and normally go about with the retinues due to their quality and position. He goes on to describe the system of government in Japan, under which every man has absolute authority over the life and property of all those under him, who are under an obligation to serve him,7 and then returns to his point about poverty: From this it follows, first, that although the kings are very great and lords of many kingdoms, nevertheless, since all their land is distributed in this way, and the only thing which their vassals give them is the ordinary service which they are obliged to give, and the kings have no other taxes or tribute or income other than the little bit of rice that they get from the land which they keep for themselves, they usually have very little money, and in that sense they are poor.8 Two decades later, in Principio, the Visitor comes back for the last

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time to these themes, taking issue with those, including his earlier self, who have stressed the poverty of Japan: It is true that although the land, with the very frequent rains, is naturally fertile, the Japanese, partly for lack of technique, and not knowing how to get from it the harvest they could get if they fertilized it as we do in Europe, and partly because of the continuous wars and the system of government which they have, which stops the land from getting the attention which those who hold land and property as their own would give to it, do not take full advantage of it or produce as much from it as they could, being content merely with the rice and other grains which they sow. And a striking testimony to the fertility of the land is the fact that, despite continuous wars for five hundred years, more or less, and with almost no trading with other nations, there has still been enough to feed everybody in this heavily populated country… It has been written often, in various letters, that this is a very poor country, and it is true that the Japanese who live in it are usually so poor that one almost wonders how they live at all, and what they live on, for many of them survive for the greater part of the year on the roots of plants and some little ferns which are to be found in the hills, and even men of good family and gentlemen have little enough, and suffer real poverty and want. The lords squeeze and suck to such an extent that there is little wealth left for anyone else, and the mode of government, making them so dependent on their lords, who make such ceaseless changes and switching about in their lands, makes them much poorer still, So the poverty and want in Japan is very great, and even to me it formerly seemed, considering how little they have with which to support themselves, that the country was poor indeed, and it is not surprising that much should have been written about its poverty. But at the same time Japan cannot really be said to be poor. Apart from the natural fertility of the land, about which we have already spoken, there are in Japan very many great lords who over the past few years have greatly increased their incomes, and are proceeding to amass treasures, and in various parts of the land there are very rich silver mines. If they knew how to make use of them, and how to get the silver out with mercury,9 and with other techniques which our Europeans use, they could perhaps be as rich as the mines of Peru, or so some Spaniards maintain, and that is why the Spaniards call Japan ‘the silver islands’.


But the silver that they do mine is enough to allow the Portuguese to take every year to Macao more than half a million ducats in silver in exchange for the merchandise they bring in their ship, and each year the Japanese use more than fifteen hundred piculs of silk for clothes and finery, plus a very great number of satin and velvet damasks, and other kinds of silk, which the Portuguese bring, along with a great quantity of musk, eaglestone, aloeswood, and other articles of great value. A kingdom which can afford all this, and from which there comes such a quantity of silver, cannot be called poor. They also have some gold, which for some years past they have been finding and purifying in daily increasing quantities, and because of the amount of gold now produced from within Japan itself the Portuguese, who used to bring two thousand loaves of gold10 every year, have not brought any gold at all for the past eight years and more; and if the Japanese knew how to make better use of their mines they could produce much more gold, just as they could, as we said, produce much more silver from their silver mines. There are besides many copper mines, and a great amount of iron, and supplies of these go to the Philippines and New Spain, and there is also tin, sulphur and saltpetre, from which they make very fine gunpowder. Japan is also a country with abundant cotton and hemp, of which the Japanese keep some for their own needs, but also send a large amount to other countries. And I say nothing here of the rice, wheat, barley, and other kinds of vegetables with which the natives feed themselves without any kind of provisions coming from abroad; in fact in the new trade which they have with the Philippines there are many ships leaving Japan loaded with beans, meat, and food of other kinds. From all this it will be clear that Japan is a naturally rich rather than poor country, although, as has been said, its people suffer great hunger and poverty, because of the oppression of the lords and the continuous changes and wars. The tono are not as rich in gold and silver as they are in other things…They used to be very poor in silver, and they despised money, so that all the military class and the lords, without exception, professed to know nothing of silver, and refused to touch it with their hands. But since Nobunaga and Kampakudono became lords of the Tenka, and learned from experience that money wins wars, and because, in addition, they began to send people into exile, and to order these very frequent changes of kingdoms, the

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lords and samurai have opened their eyes, and now they are all trying as hard as they can to accumulate silver…In the last few years they have changed totally, and now the lords and the samurai and even the lord of the Tenka himself are the very first to treat of commerce, and to amass as much silver as they can, and they send someone to buy the silk and other stuffs that the Portuguese bring to Japan in their ship.11 This is a very different estimate of the resources of Japan from the standard judgement of the Jesuit letters, repeated in Sumario and relayed to Europe by Maffei, that ‘Japan is one of the most barren and poorest countries in all the East’. Already in 1592, in the Adiciones, Valignano considerably modifies his earlier report, noting that although there is a great deal of actual poverty in Japan the country is potentially not poor at all, and he mentions the silver and gold mines, the fertility of the land, the excellence of the harbours, the possibility of trade with China, and the dedicated and cost-free service which the Lord receives from his vassals.12 None of this potential wealth, however, could be transformed into an actual contribution to mission expenses. The Jesuits remained desperately short of income, yet at the same time, and although they were religious vowed to poverty, they continued to be regarded by the Japanese not as poor but as very rich. The Visitor explains why this is so: Wherever Ours go they have to carry with them what they are going to eat, what they are going to wear, the bed they sleep on, and everything else which is necessary, because there is no other way to obtain these things. But at the same time to travel with such a quantity of baggage, which looks like property, seems at first sight somewhat inconsistent with evangelical poverty…. And among the Japanese, both pagans and Christians, we are not thought of or taken to be poor men, but on the contrary very rich, …and that for various reasons. Firstly because of the great and extreme poverty which there is among all of them, and because they eat so little, a thing which when you see it seems incredible; and because from childhood they are used to making light of cold, hunger, and toil. And what they eat is so little by European standards, and they wear so little clothing to keep out the cold, that although the Japanese make light of it, we Europeans cannot possibly manage in the same way, and in order to sustain life and avoid contracting various


illnesses we have to treat ourselves differently from them in food, clothing, and all the other necessary things. Secondly because it seems to them that all the Portuguese are rolling in silver, both because of the rich merchandise that they bring in the ship, and because of the way they spend money, so different from the Japanese way. And when they see the Portuguese treat the fathers with such respect, and see how much we spend, on the construction of houses, and on the rich ornamentation of the churches, and the upkeep of the seminaries; and when they see the great number of people in our houses, and the alms and gifts and presents which we are obliged to give, and when they see that we meet all these expenses simply by paying money, constantly buying things and constantly spending silver, without having any lands or any other income in Japan, they conceive and imagine that we have mountains of silver. And it is only natural that they should, for King Francisco of Bungo told me that even when he was at the height of his prosperity and lord of five entire kingdoms he did not spend in a year half of the silver which we spend every year. And that is no exaggeration, for the Japanese lords buy almost nothing, and everything is done for them by their vassals as kuyaku, to use their term, which is to say, as a matter of obligation, and without any payment, whereas we can get neither service nor anything else unless we pay for it with silver. Thirdly, there are the norms set by the bonzes and by Japanese custom, to which we have to conform. They insist that we keep our houses very clean, with all the necessary services, as the bonzes have always done; also that we observe the customs of Japan in the welcome and the courtesy to be shown to visitors to our houses, and indeed this is necessary; and finally that we follow the custom of Japan in the matter of presents and gifts. And if this is all done properly it means no appearance of poverty or lack of anything in our houses; and if it is done in any other way it means no peace indoors or out, because in the house the Japanese brothers and d juku totally refuse to accept it and do nothing but complain, and in the end they would never settle down and would even leave the house; and outsiders are even worse, criticizing and calling us dirty and ill-mannered, and being unwilling for this reason to have anything to do with our houses. And all of them, inside or out, are at one in saying that if we wish to live and produce fruit in Japan we have to accommodate ourselves to their customs and their ways of doing things.13

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Not all the missionaries were agreed about the question of ‘accommodation’, or content that there should be ‘no appearance of poverty or lack of anything in our houses’. (In 1580 the Jesuits considered the possibility of investing some of their precious capital in the purchase of some rice-producing land, and their first reason for rejecting the idea was that ownership of land would be seen as wealth by the Japanese.14) The Franciscan Fray Martín is in favour of accommodation ‘wherever it is necessary for the sake of converting the natives’, but claims that the Jesuits have gone too far;15 and the Jesuit Cabral, even long after he has left Japan, does not cease to protest that the lavish spending required by the Visitor’s concept of accommodation is not compatible with Jesuit poverty and humility.16 Cabral denounces with especial vehemence the extravagance of the presents which Valignano carried to Hideyoshi on his 1591 embassy. This was no doubt a special case (although the Japanese, who failed fully to appreciate the distinction between the wealth of the foreign merchants and the poverty of the foreign religious, could hardly be expected to distinguish clearly between Valignano the magnificent ambassador and Valignano the humble Jesuit), but how to ‘follow the custom of Japan in the matter of presents and gifts’ was a recurring problem, both cultural and financial, and the Visitor returns to it later in the Adiciones. In setting out, once again, the expenses of the mission he lists the cost of maintaining 136 Jesuits, 170 d juku, more than 300 servants and others, 20 houses or residences, and more than 180 churches. There is besides very considerable expenditure on hospitality—for example on accommodation for the many Christians who travel to see the priests—and on assistance and alms for the Christian poor, especially the widows, orphans, exiles and destitute, victims of the continuous wars and the ‘changes of kingdoms’; also, of course, the terrible cost of fire, war and shipwreck. His other main category of expenses is the cost of presents, about which he writes: The fourth kind of expense is on the presents which we are continually obliged to give, and there are two reasons why this is necessary, the first the universal custom and etiquette here, which we spoke about [in the Sumario], the second the pressures to which we are subject in these violent times and under the persecution of Kampakudono. With regard to the first, this custom of giving presents is so general and so universal in Japan, that it seems that one cannot visit or send a visitor to any person deserving of respect without tak-


ing and sending in advance a present of some sort, befitting the quality of the person, the occasion, and the time. And although this is customary even among the closest of friends and relatives, the less familiar one is with the person one is visiting, and the higher his position, the more obligatory it is to give a present, and the higher the quality of present required. And this being the universal custom, it seems that it is out of the question for anyone to present himself as a visitor before anyone of any kind of standing without bringing something with him. And that is how the Christians behave towards us, no matter how poor they are and no matter how well we know them, bringing without fail some fruit, or a bird, or a fish, or something else from among the things which are customary with them. And when the two parties involved are in some sense equal in rank and honour there is also an obligation to respond in due time with a comparable or a better present, and to pay a return visit. This being the universal custom it follows that the Society in Japan is burdened with a great, costly and troublesome obligation, and this applies particularly to whoever is the overall superior, for he is continually receiving visits or letters or messages, from many lords both Christian and pagan, and he has to visit or correspond with many of them in the same manner. And we being European and they Japanese, a custom came into being right at the start, when the Society had only just come to Japan, a custom which the Japanese regard as a fixed law, that they have to send us things which can be found in Japan, and we have to send them things from India and China. And since the Japanese, partly because of their poverty, partly because of their nature, are concerned with profit, and our things are of more value than theirs, we gain nothing and lose much by these visitings and revisitings, and the superior is burdened with these things, and has to concern himself constantly with procuring them and having them sent to various places. This would not matter very much if it was only the Christian lords that we had to deal with, for there are not many of them, and they have so arranged things that these visits and presents are required only for the tono and great lords who are heads of their domains, and not for other Christians who are their vassals; and they themselves, when they have reached the stage where they love and understand our things, repay us very well with many gifts. But the concern of the pagan lords in dealing with us in these presents is simply their own advantage, and they make sure

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that they end up with a profit. Generally speaking you have to send them something worth twice as much as whatever they have sent to you, and if you do not they are displeased, and take offence, and make this clear to you in word and in deed. And since the lords of Japan have absolute power in their territories and can do whatever they wish, and it is essential for us to have their benevolence and friendship, in order to keep the Christians who are subject to them and to make further conversions in their lands, there is absolutely no escape from the round of presents and visits. And if we did not keep up the presents, and compliments, and visits, they would take it as an insult and an affront, and we would find them not friends but vindictive enemies. This custom of present-giving is very deeply ingrained. On several occasions I discussed it with the Christian lords, putting it to them that it meant a very heavy burden on the Society, and that at least in relations between the Christians and the fathers we should do away with this abuse, so that we could visit each other without any presents. They were emphatic that in dealing with the pagan lords it would be quite impossible to do without the presents, but agreed that between the Christian lords and the fathers it would be perfectly possible for the present-giving to stop. However, although I believed that we had agreed to act accordingly, not only do they for their part continue to bring presents, but they are also offended if we visit them, on certain occasions and at certain particular times, without taking a present. And when I asked them why it was that, even though we had that agreement, they still brought and expected presents, they answered that they have no alternative but to say that they will do what the fathers want, but that actually to do it is out of the question. The custom of Japan is such that it would be discourteous, and besides, the love that ought to exist between the Japanese and the fathers has to be expressed in deeds, and as a sign of that love something has to be given, and in Japan without this giving the love would be love in word but not in deed. And when I replied that that is not how it should be with the fathers, both because they are poor and because they are fathers of all of them, they answered that what I say seems reasonable, but that all the same this universal custom has such force that if the superior fails in this matter they cannot but be upset, since they feel that he is treating them discourteously and failing to show love for them, and that even if they were prepared to accept this the impression given to their servants and vassals would be that the


fathers make little account of their lords. And if this is how it is with the Christians, Your Paternity can see how it would be with the pagans. But when all is said and done, this first kind of present-giving, on the occasion of a visit, although troublesome and expensive, is not intolerable, for after all there is some recompense, and it is a matter of courtesy and politeness. What has become intolerable in these days is the second kind, that is, having to give, by way of donation or tax, very substantial and expensive presents to those who persecute us and are our enemies, for they are pagans and terrible adversaries to us, such as the presents given to this Kampaku, to Yakuin,17 and to many others who surround him and have his ear. Necessity, and the times, and also the Christian lords, oblige us to give them fat presents every year, and what we hope to gain from them is simply that they will not harm us any further, or bring accusations against us, or bring about the total ruination of Christianity. And in fact experience shows that although the cost is great, these presents do work, because although they are pagans and proud and bad, they do have this quality, that when they receive presents and see us humiliate ourselves and commend ourselves to them, they do what they can to favour us, or at least they cease to persecute us and bring trouble on us. And since in these times of persecution it is more a question of protecting the Christians and lords who have us in their lands than of protecting ourselves, we must continue to ingratiate ourselves with many pagan lords with these presents. And this is what the Christian lords themselves do, giving substantial gifts to those who defend them and act as advocates for them before Kampakudono, and also to those who they fear may do them harm if they do not placate them with visits and presents. And they urge us to come forward, for it seems to them that that is the best policy, that this is a time not for economies but for bold spending, for want of which both we and they could be lost, and that would mean we would have lost everything through our unwillingness to go to a little expense over these presents. But we hope that with the death of Hideyoshi we will be free of this second sort of present-giving.18 The connection with Portuguese trade was very troublesome, but at the same time, as the Visitor does not fail to point out, the belief that the fathers were necessary for trade was extremely useful. On

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the one hand the Japanese were on the whole convinced that without the fathers they would not be able to negotiate with the Portuguese,19 and Valignano seems to have been adept at reinforcing this conviction;20 on the other hand most Japanese—Christians included—expected some material advantage from their dealings with foreigners—missionaries not excluded. Cabral reported to Valignano in 1576 that the missionaries should not expect to receive alms from the Christians, at least in Kyushu, because the Japanese want to receive and not give, and although some were much struck by the Jesuits’ selflessness, by the fact that they were not seeking personal gain, others believed that the missionaries’ long-term aim really was material advantage, and others again that they had come to Japan because they could not make a living in their own country.21 In the Sumario22 Valignano makes much of the point that the lords in Miyako, unlike the lords in Kyushu (with S rin always the honourable exception), seek no material advantage from the missionaries, and therefore make much better Christians, but in Adiciones23 he writes: …it was so then, but now everything seems to be changing, for with Kampakudono having made himself lord of Shimo [in Jesuit writings Shimo=Kyushu minus Bungo] as well, and having taken the port of Nagasaki for himself—and he will take whatever other port the ship goes to—and having given various territories here in Shimo to certain lords from the Miyako area, the kamishu (which is what they call those from the Miyako area) themselves have begun to have a taste for the advantages and benefits to be gained from the ship, and as a consequence they too look to us for material benefit. The benefits he lists are presents, helping and favouring the said lords in their purchases from the ship, and trading for them in Macao—especially trading their silver for gold (an extremely awkward business, because the Portuguese in Macao forbade it, but the Japanese lords would take no refusal). They were now learning to hoard money, and especially gold, as insurance against possible exile and in order to pay Hideyoshi, who demanded gold and had also raised the price of gold considerably.24 Very shortly after this, however, the importing of gold from Macao in fact came to an end, and the Jesuits found themselves free of this particular imposition, though by no means free of requests that they act as traders.25 Year after year Valignano strove to provide for the Japanese mission, and


he did provide for it, even though the future never looked secure. On 6 April 160426 he writes to Aquaviva that he is now sixty-five years old and growing weaker, so that any illness may finish him off. Whoever takes over his responsibilities will have a desperately difficult time, for he will not have the experience and authority to be able to find the necessary financing, unless the Father General can arrange things now so that the vice-province has adequate income. He appeals again to Aquaviva not to fail them, not to delay, not to await the arrival of the procurator,27 to act immediately and ‘find the remedy now’.28 There was never a year when Valignano did not write about money. His tone on this subject is frequently—and perhaps understandably—indignant, and we end this chapter with an extract from one of the letters, a characteristically exasperated protest at the nonarrival of funds from Europe and India. The letter, to Aquaviva, written in Nagasaki, dated 27 October 1591 and signed by Valignano, is in Spanish and in a clear and beautiful hand (not the Visitor’s own). It is about 7,000 words long (many of Valignano’s letters are much longer), and the passage translated below takes up one page out of its seven. The entire letter is of interest, and a summary will serve as a reminder that the material support of the mission was far from being the Visitor’s only responsibility or concern. He writes that he will not be sending anything by the Goa route, as the one ship which is leaving will be too late for the connection at Macao, but he has sent a letter to the Macao rector—two copies by two different Chinese ships—and that may perhaps be forwarded to the General. There are some Japanese ships leaving shortly for the Philippines, so he is sending this letter by that route, and with it a sort of summary—in Portuguese because it has not been possible to find time or people to translate it—of the not yet completed annual letter. They are still anxiously awaiting the official reply from Hideyoshi to the viceroy’s embassy. The Visitor feels that if the indications are that there is going to be real persecution then he will have to stay in Japan, but if Hideyoshi opts to leave the Christians more or less undisturbed then Valignano, as ambassador, will have to leave, bearing Hideyoshi’s reply, and go at least to Macao. After reporting to Aquaviva that he is as fit as a thirty-year-old but wants no more voyages than are absolutely necessary, and would rather stay in Macao than go again to India, Valignano takes up various points raised in the eight letters from Aquaviva—four from 1587 and four from 1589—which had arrived on the 1591 ship. He is emphatic that the law that Christians are not to marry

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pagans, and other such positive laws, should not be published in Japan, and that the pope himself, if he was in Japan, would agree.29 On the question of the motivation required of postulants applying to enter religious orders he remarks that it is very hard to find anyone at all in Japan whose motives are purely spiritual. Their motives are usually mixed,30 and he himself has been very cautious about admitting anyone into the Society of Jesus, and indeed on this second visit to Japan has admitted only the four who went to Europe, but he suggests that the General could urge the pope to take a rather more liberal attitude towards the Japanese. Valignano then returns to his favourite wishful thought, that Hideyoshi will not live long, and prophesies that after his death there will be many conversions, and the burden of work will be too great for the Society alone. Native secular priests, and a bishop to ordain them,31 will be needed. Religious from other orders will do no good, but he understands from the Jesuit rector in the Philippines that they are determined to come, brief or no brief. The Franciscans have been to China, Siam, Cochin-China, Pegù, Macassar, Java and Cambodia. In every case they have given up within about two years and gone back to the Philippines, and the Augustinians did not succeed in the Moluccas, nor the Dominicans in their recent attempt to get into China. The Visitor has no time for these other orders, and urges Aquaviva to do what he can to keep them away from Japan as long as possible. He thanks the General for not ordering him back to Europe for, religious obedience and resignation apart, the voyages are abhorrent to him. Although he continues to do the best he can, he is tired in spirit as well as in body, and has a feeling that he is not doing as well as he might, nor as well as he used to, in visiting, encouraging and consoling those placed under him. He would be glad to be released from his responsibilities, but nevertheless is not requesting a release, because there is a lack of people capable of governing well. The last paragraph of the letter concerns three Spanish ships—one from Peru, one from New Spain and one from the Philippines—all of which had arrived at Macao, to the deep displeasure of the Macao authorities, who were holding them pending receipt of instructions from the viceroy. Their displeasure and suspicions also embraced the Jesuits—partly because a Spanish Jesuit had arrived on the ship from Peru, but perhaps also because they had got wind of the 200,000 ducats in gold that the Spaniards were hiding and suspected, correctly, that some of it was in the Jesuit house. The Visitor urges the General to forbid Jesuits to go to Macao from Peru, New


Spain or the Philippines, and ends his letter, as usual, by asking the Father General’s blessing, and signing himself ‘Your Paternity’s useless son in the Lord, Alexo. Valigno’.32 One can imagine something of the feelings of relief and hope as the great ship hove into view on the Nagasaki horizon, and something of the Visitor’s desolation at finding that ‘this year they have not sent me a single real from Portugal’. In the middle of the same letter he airs his indignation: With regard to what Your Paternity wrote to me about the alms from His Holiness, and that for that year he had already granted that 4,000 ducats should be paid, and that Your Paternity was writing to the procurator of Portugal to tell him to borrow that amount and send it, I say first that this year they have not sent me a single real from Portugal, and the procurator wrote to me that borrowing was difficult, and besides, the consultation there considered that because of what they had heard about the English the seas were very dangerous, and that it would therefore be better not to send the money, especially as there would have been so much difficulty about borrowing it. And although we appreciate that they will have done this with the best of intentions, nevertheless, if they were here, or if they were concerned about our needs in the way that we here in Japan are, they would not have been so ready to take a decision not to send us the money, and would have persisted in diligent attempts to borrow it. For if such numbers of people risk the voyages, and risk also such quantities of gold, of merchandise, and of money, surely Ours could also have risked 4,000 ducats, distributed among four ships, if they had been diligent in seeking to borrow that sum. So Your Paternity should not be surprised that in the rules which I sent to the procurator of Portugal I included a command with regard to money matters. For although I did not lay obligations on him about other matters dealt with in the rules, nor was it my intention to bind him with any rule, and, as Your Paternity writes, those who are given that responsibility will always be virtuous and obedient, persons in whom the Society can have confidence, the fact is, as experience to date has shown us, and as experience always will show us, that when it comes to sending money either from Portugal or from India to Japan, unless there is a very express order to send it Japan never receives it promptly, and never receives all of it. For they always manage to produce reasons which persuade them to do what seems best to them,

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without offending against virtue or against obedience, unless they are bound by a strict command; and to those who are so far away, and conscious of the necessities which are present there to them, and not of the danger and the suffering that there is here, what seems wrong and foolish here can easily seem right and sensible. And that is what has happened in this present case. The ships all arrived safely, but we are left without support and without money. Then there is the father provincial of India. I had left him a command under holy obedience, and according to Your Paternity’s order, that no money coming from Portugal for Japan should be held back there in India, and I had also written to him very insistently from China about the urgency of the needs of Japan, because of the great destruction which it had suffered, and because, for various reasons, there had been no ship from China to Japan for two years in succession, with the result that the fathers had used up almost all of the little capital which they had here. But the father provincial did hold back, in India, more than 1,000 ducats which were left from the father bishop, together with all the vestments which he had brought, and he wrote me that he was keeping them for the next bishop who would come, or for whatever His Holiness might command, even though that amount of money could have been paid either from the alms which is paid in Madrid, or from the income which Japan has there in India, and that would have provided help which is now desperately needed in Japan. And so, because of this, and because of other things which have happened in connection with this money, Your Paternity must understand that things will be far from satisfactory unless we give orders under obedience. The college in Goa, for example, owes more than 10,000 ducats of this money to Japan. Part of this the last procurator borrowed in Portugal, and he sent it to the Goa College, so that from there it would be paid to Japan, but it has never been possible to recover it from there; and part of it was borrowed in India. And the college in Malacca owes Japan more than 1,700 ducats which the rectors there have borrowed from money being sent to Japan. And may it please Our Lord that with these considerations and resolutions which they make in their consultations in those places about the money for Japan, Japan may not end up in such a condition that help arriving later from Your Paternity or His Holiness will be of no avail. And in the midst of all this there are letters going off every day


complaining that the fathers in Japan are involved in business and trade in China. And I do not understand how it is that, although they know that we have in Japan at present twenty-three separate houses, plus college, novitiate and seminary, with 142 of the Society living in these, and more than 180 d juku, and just over 300 others, servants and those who look after the churches (and even after all the destruction there has been there are still more than 150 churches), and our costs are so high, with all the gifts we are forced to make to the pagans, especially in these times, they can think that we can spend all this without having any income here, nor receiving any alms here, and they can think that the little that comes to us from other countries is somehow a great deal. And if His Holiness does not see to it that the alms is paid, then I say, and indeed protest, before Our Lord, before His Holiness, and before Your Paternity, that the Society will be unable to carry this enterprise forward, and that if perchance even one ship is lost, with the little capital that goes in the ship every year, the Society will fall into such a state, and into such need, that the seminary will have to be disbanded, and many other things too will have to be abandoned, to the great scandal and great harm of all the Christianity of this country; and that even if His Holiness should want to set them up again it will prove impossible to do it, because the time and the distances involved will make it impossible, and Your Paternity can see the reason for this in Chapter 29 of the Summary of Japan. And I cannot cease to write about this as long as no solution is provided, although I hope in Our Lord that His Holiness will change his mind and will not dismantle this noble and fruitful Christianity of Japan, especially given the care and solicitude of Your Paternity, on whom Japan depends so much.33

11 The press

The seventeenth-century Jesuit historian Daniello Bartoli records that on 23 July 1626 ‘a mountain’ of Jesuit publications was burnt at Nagasaki,1 Tokugawa Iemitsu, grandson of Ieyasu, had succeeded his father Hidetada in 1622, and the worst years of the persecution had begun. The aim was the total eradication of Christianity, and in the execution of that policy there was little room for mercy and plenty for cruelty. With people being burnt—and, increasingly, subjected to tortures more horrific even than burning—the incineration of a pile of books was in a sense no great matter, but the symbolic implications of the holocaust will not have been lost on the persecutors, and certainly not on the Christians or the missionaries. The equipment with which the books had been printed went into exile with the Jesuits who had to leave for Macao in 1614.2 By 1620 hopes of a prompt return to Japan were fading, and the press was unpacked and used in Macao to print João Rodrigues’s second grammar of the Japanese language, the Arte Breve da Lingoa Japoa, which comes thirty-fifth and last in Laures’s list of works printed by the Jesuit mission press and preserved in at least one copy. Laures also lists the titles of twenty-two works which were certainly printed but of which no copies have been discovered, and of five probably and a further nine possibly printed; and he shows that there were other works printed whose titles have not come down to us.3 It is not known how many copies there were of each book, but it is known, for example, that enough copies of Father Vice-Provincial Gómez’s treatise on martyrdom were printed to allow free distribution of it to the Christians.4 With even moderate success in hunting down the output of the press, the pursuivants would indeed have had ample fuel for a memorable bonfire. The first publication of the Jesuit press in Rome, an expurgated 145


edition of Martial’s epigrams, appeared in 1559,5 by which time there was already a Jesuit printing press in India, brought in 1556 by João Nunes Barreto, patriarch-designate of Ethiopia, who also brought Father João Rodrigues, Jesuit and printer. In Goa twentyone years later, in the last months of his life, Rodrigues taught what he knew of printing to the Jesuit lay brother Giovanni Battista Pesce, who thereafter, for the rest of his life, worked with the press Valignano had ordered for Japan—which, like the returning envoys and Brother Pesce himself, reached India in 1587.6 The catalogue of November 1592 lists, among the Jesuits in Amakusa, ‘Brother Joam Baptista, Italian’, with a note that he is ‘printer in our letters’ and knows very little Japanese; and also ‘Brother Pedro, Japanese’, who deals with the printing in Japanese script, and knows only Japanese. The last mention of Brother Pesce in the catalogues is in December 1623, when he is described as being sixty-seven years old, fortythree years a Jesuit, sound in health, and a printer. Barreto’s press was used in Goa in the 1550s and 1560s to print works in Portuguese and in Latin, but there does not seem to have been any printing in Indian languages until Valignano arrived in 1574, and immediately began arranging and planning with his usual boldness. There were to be catechisms, confessionaries and lives of saints, and he himself composed two short catechisms, distributed them to the various mission stations, and ordered that they should be translated into the native languages. By 1577 sheets providing a summary of Christian doctrine were being printed in Tamil by Father Rodrigues.7 The Visitor reports this development to the General with some satisfaction, and in the same letter expresses optimism about the idea of a printing press for Japan.8 There had been a formal Jesuit consultation and congregation at Chorão, near Goa, in 1575, following which Valignano had sent off to Rome an account of his various recommendations and decisions. It was summer 1580 before the Visitor, now in Japan, received Mercurian’s reply, which included an endorsement of his ideas on the study of native languages, the training of native priests, and the printing of religious books in native languages.9 The General’s letter also stipulated, absurdly, that books should be sent to Rome for examination, but Aquaviva later revised that ruling, and in September 1589 Valignano writes to him as follows about the De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium: And they [Fathers Nicolao de Avila, Lourenço Mexias and Diogo Antunez] have seen and carefully examined the said dialogue, and

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after the proper forms had been gone through I ordered the book printed here, in virtue of the powers which Your Paternity conferred on me for that purpose. I would have been glad to have had it seen and approved by Your Paternity before it was printed, as is the custom in the Society, but for various reasons it seemed to me that we should not interpose so much time before having it printed, and that Your Paternity will be glad that we have had it printed straight away here. The first reason is that it seems very appropriate now that the Japanese gentlemen should take with them as they return to Japan a complete account of what they did and saw on this embassy, for everyone will be eager to know about it, and will be impressed if it is immediately imprinted on their souls, but if we had to wait until the dialogue was sent to Rome and then brought back again it would be too late, and out of season, and to have thrown away such a good opportunity would have been foolish. His second reason is that the Latin of the book, being by Father Duarte de Sande, ‘who is known here and also in Portugal as a great humanist’, needs no further approval, and that the book was made very carefully and for Japanese readers, with a lot of incidental information to help and satisfy the Japanese, and ‘touching on some of their things in a way that cannot give offence’. And with his third reason the Visitor is back to his bêtes noires the friars: The third reason is that, as I have already written on other occasions, some friars and other persons who were not very pleased at our success have been putting it about here and there that this embassy was all a pretence, that the gentlemen were not what they were said to be, and were not sent by the Christian kings of Japan, and it seemed to me that there was no better way to refute these lies than to make and publish this dialogue for Japan. Since it was made and published for the Japanese themselves even the most obtuse would understand and would be convinced that these gentlemen really are who they are, and that they were indeed sent by the said kings, because if it were otherwise then they and all the other Japanese would hold us to be false and liars, and would have proof of this in the very dialogue which we ourselves have written for them; and it is especially for this reason that I am sending with this the pages and chapters of the dialogue which have so far been printed, and I am sending them also to Portugal, so that if any of those who have been publishing these


lies should appear before His Holiness or His Majesty, they can be convicted by this same book which is being printed.10 The date on the title page of De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium is 1590, the year in which the printing was completed. In the same letter Valignano assures Aquaviva that it will be of great benefit to Japan, because really the Japanese know very little about our European things…So using this occasion to provide them with an account of this embassy,… I treated of all the things which seemed to me necessary and suitable for Japan. And they will read this gladly, because… it is an account of [the doings of some of] their own people, and I am confident, in Our Lord, that Japan will greatly benefit from it, for the children in the seminary will be taking in doctrine and knowledge of our things with their mother’s milk, so to speak. And as well as keeping alive for ever the memory of this embassy it will inform the Japanese about many things which until now they have not known, and about which they have many false and ignorant opinions. I hope it will contribute a great deal towards that so necessary union which we must always promote between the Europeans and the Japanese, they being so different in their character and so contrary to us in their customs, and having little knowledge or idea of our things, so that it is very difficult for them to unite themselves with us and subject themselves to us.11 We have also printed here this year a book made and printed in Spain, by Father Juan Bonifacio, which treats De Christiani Pueri Institutione, since it seems to us very suitable for the seminaries and schools in Japan, but with some things taken out and many others added, things which seemed more appropriate for Japan… And some copies of this book too, printed, are being sent to Your Paternity. And with these two books, together with the catechism which Your Paternity had printed in Lisbon, the boys in the seminaries, and the others who study in Japan, will have, for the present, sufficient instruction and sufficient means to learn sound doctrine together with elegant Latin, so that they will be from an early age well instructed in good customs and attached to our things…And in this way, with the help of God, we shall go on each year providing good books, and books appropriate for the Japanese, taking into account their ability and their newness in religion. When I reach Japan I intend to have made, as quickly as may

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be, a sort of Calepino [dictionary]12 with which it will be possible to learn both Latin and Japanese, and also a grammar because, of the books which can be made at present, those two are the most needed, both to help us Europeans to learn the Japanese language easily, and for the Japanese to learn our Latin language. And since it is now more than eight years since I ordered them to work on these, preparations are now advanced to a point where I am confident in Our Lord that within two years of my arrival in Japan, if Our Lord grants us life, it will also be possible to print these two books. Meanwhile we hope that Your Paternity will send us a good summa of philosophy and theology, with the controversies and other opinions which for the moment it is better that the Japanese should not know about taken out, so that we can have those printed here as well (if Your Paternity does not send them already printed), and to make them more acceptable to the Portuguese it would probably be a good idea for Your Paternity to send to Portugal and have them made by some of their most learned men. (No summa ever arrived from Europe, it seems, and the textbook eventually used in Japan was the compendium of Catholic doctrine composed by Pedro Gómez.13) Valignano also asks the General to get papal permission for books to be published in Japan without referring them first to the Inquisition in Goa, because sending them to Goa is a great waste of time, and if the books are in Japanese or Chinese it is also entirely useless, since the inquisitors can’t read them. Besides, the books to be printed in Japan for many years to come will be pious and easy books, of no great profundity and without scholastic controversies, so that there will be no danger of erroneous opinions.14 The imprimatur problem continued to trouble the Visitor, and in 1604 he states that publication of the catechism in Chinese was delayed for eight years because of it.15 It was one of the points which Father Procurator Gil de la Mata took to the General in Rome in 1595, and in that year papal exemption was granted from the obligation to submit manuscripts to the Goa Inquisition.16 It seems that that was not the end of the matter, however, for nine years later Valignano is writing to the next procurator, Francisco Rodrigues, instructing him to put the very same point to the General,17 even though there was a bishop in Japan from 1596. One book with the bishop’s imprimatur was in fact later condemned by the Inquisition. The Aphorismi Confessariorum, a text-


book of moral theology by the Portuguese Jesuit Manuel Sa, was published in Venice in 1595 and reprinted, with the imprimatur of Bishop Cerqueira, at Nagasaki in 1603, The book was attacked by Domingo Bañez, the famous Dominican theologian, banned by the Inquisition in Europe in 1603, and when word of this reached Japan it was duly withdrawn from circulation there.18 Aquaviva had offered to send another press, and in 1589 Valignano welcomes this offer and gives details of what would be most useful—for example a fount of italic type, and another similar to the types used for the main text of the De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium which, because the types are old, has not come out as clearly as had been hoped.19 When Mata left Rome in 1595 he took with him two printing outfits provided by the General for Japan, but although the procurator survived a shipwreck between Italy and Spain the printing equipment did not, and no more help of that kind came from Europe.20 There was no point in sending books in Japanese to Goa since, as the Visitor remarked, the inquisitors would be unable to read them; but one wonders how much point there was in sending books in Latin to Japan, since few if any Japanese would be able to read them. In Adiciones21Valignano notes with disappointment and some disgust that not one of the Japanese Jesuits has more than a smattering of Latin, so although it was no doubt gratifying to have the four legates return to Japan carrying a printed account of their experiences in the world beyond Japan, the Visitor’s expectations about the efficacy of the book seem totally unrealistic. It might have been a different matter if they had brought back a book in Japanese about their adventures, but Valignano already knew that was not going to be possible when he wrote: The printing will be continued and finished, with the help of God, in February or March, and we shall be taking it with us to Japan. I had then intended to have Brother Jorge de Loyola translate it into Japanese, and that we should take the translation with us, but Our Lord willed that he should be afflicted with an illness, become daily more emaciated, and on 16 August be called to the other life, which was certainly a great loss for Japan. He was a very good son, and he was also the only one of all the Japanese brothers who had seen Europe and had a good understanding of the things of Europe.22 It has sometimes been claimed that the book was also published in a

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Japanese translation, but Laures considers it probable that no translation was published at all, and certain that the Visitor and the four legates took no such translation with them to Japan in 1590.23 Valignano says in his Sumario that ‘the children learn to read and write in our language much more easily and in less time than our children in Europe’,24 and that in the seminaries they quickly learn to read and write romanized Japanese as well as Japanese written in the way they normally write it;25 and the De Missione has it that some of the boys in the seminaries have learned to read and write ‘the European elements’ in one or two months.26 The Visitor, of course, was by no means the first or the only one to make these points. Already in 1549 Francis Xavier was impressed by the numbers of Japanese who could read and write;27 in 1561 Brother Juan Fernández comments on the Japanese ability to remember things, and considers that the Japanese learn what they are taught more readily than Spaniards do;28 and in 1584 Mexia, who had accompanied the Visitor on his first visit to Japan and returned with him to Macao, writes: And because the Japanese sleep and eat so little they have excellent judgement and intelligence, and they learn our letters in less than two months. They have great powers of memory, for any child will pass on a message, even a complicated one, exactly as he receives it, and adults are able to preach about our things within a year of becoming Christians, just as if they had been brought up to it.29 Valignano is confident that when the Latin grammar with explanations in Japanese is ready, and when they have the dictionaries and other suitable books which there are going to be,30 and they begin to get to grips with Latin, the seminarians will be excellent students, not inferior to the Europeans and perhaps superior. It is true that in the Sumario the Visitor also warns that attempts to teach Latin to those Jesuit brothers who are already mature men, and very busy, will not succeed, but he hopes and believes that the children in the seminaries, who have the necessary time and opportunity, will master Latin within a few years, ‘and then we’ll be able to make something of them’.31 In this he was to be disappointed, as the following passage from Adiciones makes clear: …it has not been possible to do more than thin out many vices and erroneous concepts which they brought with them from


paganism. And I say thin out32 because there is truly a great deal to be done in order to free them from their ignorance and to mould them to the perfection which we wish for them.33 So far the most any of them has done is to acquire a very crude knowledge of Latin, and they are continuing their studies without yet knowing any moral theology34 nor any other sciences by which they could be enlightened and freed from the ignorance and the false concepts which they have in their minds.35 When Valignano returns to the question of Latin in 1601, he follows his usual practice of apparently taking issue with another writer, but in fact revising and clarifying his own earlier views or statements.36 In Principio he writes: Maffei says that in intelligence and memory the Japanese surpass not only the other orientals but also the Europeans, and that they learn Latin and other subjects more quickly than Europeans do, but this kind of comparison is odious, as I have said; and in fact he goes too far, because although it is true that, as Turselino says, ‘Japonica porro gens si cum Indis conferatur colore alba, natura bellicossima, caeteras nationes nuper apertas virtute, ac probitate longe antecellit’ [‘Compared to the Indians the Japanese are white in colour and by nature extremely bellicose, and they are far ahead of the other recently discovered nations in virtue and probity’], and although it is also true that the Japanese are a people of very good intelligence and good memory, nevertheless, because up till the present they have had no sciences, so that their minds are not exercised in speculation about them as those of Europeans are, one can certainly not say that they are more intelligent or clever at learning them than Europeans are. It is enough to say that they have the ability to learn them. It is true that they are very clever with their hands, and very industrious, and since they use shapes and characters when they write, and write with pens which are strictly speaking paintbrushes, and have fingers naturally slimmer and more sensitive than ours, they learn to paint, and to write our Latin script, more easily than Europeans usually do. It may be that there has been a misunderstanding here. It has been written of Japanese children that they learn to write our letters more easily than Europeans do, and this may have been misinterpreted to mean that they learn Latin and also other subjects more rapidly than Europeans do.37

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In October 1591 and again in January 1593 the Visitor notes that the Latin of the Japanese Jesuits has improved,38 but in Adiciones, although he still maintains that Japanese would learn Latin just as easily as Europeans if only they would apply themselves to it willingly,39 he admits that they have actually made very poor progress in Latin, and it is perfectly clear—although it does not seem to have been clear to Valignano—that the Latin of his 1586 catechism, of Bonifacio’s De Christiani Pueri Institutione, and of the De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium will have been incomprehensible to most of the Japanese boys, even though, when the press brought out a Latin grammar, they would break seminary rules in order to pore over it at midnight.40 The press made the journey from Macao to Nagasaki on the junk which accompanied the great ship in June–July 1590. By early autumn of that year it was in operation at the Jesuit college, the house of studies for the trainee Jesuits, which had just been moved to Katsusa, in Arima. In May 1591 the college was transferred again, and the press with it, to Kawachinoura, in Amakusa. The Amakusa college was closed down in September or October 1597; college and press returned to Nagasaki and, after a year of uncertainty ending with the news of Hideyoshi’s death, remained there until 1614. Frois, writing on 1 October 1592, states that ‘many books, in the Latin and Japanese languages’, have already been printed, and the labours of the missionaries thereby considerably lightened;41 and in the same year Valignano writes that ‘the press has been moved there [to Amakusa], and every day there are new books coming out, both in our letters and in the letters of Japan, and this is very helpful for Ours and for the Christians.’42 Extant copies of products of Valignano’s mission press are extremely rare books. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, for example, holds the only copy of the 1591 Sanctos no Gosagy no uchi Nukigaki43 (‘Extracts from the Acts of the Saints’) and one of only two extant copies of the 1596 Contemptus Mundi,44 and also of Rodrigues’s first grammar; and in the British Library, London, is the only extant copy of the 1593 romanized Japanese version of Aesop’s Fables (entitled Esopo no Fabulas).45 But the books—for example the ‘Doctrine in Ten Chapters’, which has not survived but which Frois named in 1595 as the most popular of the Christian books46— were printed in substantial numbers. In 1599 there were over thirty Japanese working full-time for the press, and the year after that— perhaps because of a shortage of suitably trained Japanese Jesuits, but possibly also to reduce costs and at the same time avoid further


accusations of Jesuit involvement in commerce—printing in Japanese characters was delegated to the Japanese Christian layman Thomé S in Got .47 With many books distributed free to the Christians the press, though highly successful, was a drain on mission finances, and it is not surprising that the drastic economies recommended by the Visitor in 1603 included closing it down.48 In fact the press was not shut down, but the scale of its operations may well have been reduced, and this could be why the printing of the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam, Rodrigues’s first grammar, begun in 1604, was not finished until 1608.49 The Visitor’s first experience of the Japanese writing system had led him to make the following recommendation in the Sumario: In each of these houses there is to be a school for boys, where they are to be taught to read and write in Japanese, and then in due time they have to be taught to read and write in Latin, so that they can read our books, which will have to be printed in their language but in our characters, since there can be no printing in their characters, because of the innumerable multitude of them that there are.50 Here ‘Latin’ clearly refers to the script, the Roman alphabet, not the Roman language. Valignano has been talking of three different kinds of Jesuit houses in Japan: the first colleges where the Jesuits will study; the second as it were small colleges, staffed by eight or ten Jesuits (one of these to be established in the principal castle town, the seat of the lord, in each totally Christian district, in order to serve as a pastoral centre for that district); and the third kind small, with just one priest and one brother, to be set up in districts not yet Christian. It is only houses of the second kind which are to have schools attached to them.51 Elison is critical of extravagant claims about the number and the curriculum of Christian primary schools in western Japan in the 1580s, but is himself mistaken in saying that Valignano ‘vaguely and casually mentions in the Sumario that primary schools should be founded at each Jesuit residence’.52 Valignano’s idea was that they should be founded not ‘at each Jesuit residence’ but only at one kind of Jesuit house and in districts wholly Christian, and he explains why in the passage to which Elison refers: Since these boys were pagans it was the custom to have them brought up in the monasteries or houses of the bonzes, and that

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was where they learned their letters and Japanese-style good breeding. So when we oust the bonzes from their lands there is no one to teach the boys, and the Christians are not slow to complain about this, so it is necessary not only to make these seminaries, but also to have schools in our houses for the boys.53 Since there were never very many districts wholly Christian, and since the houses to which the schools were to be attached were each to have eight or ten Jesuits,54 Valignano’s recommendation did not lead to the establishment of large numbers of schools. In fact, as Elison points out, we know of only two, both in Nagasaki and both established after 1600. To say this, of course, is not to deny that there will have been sermons, instruction sessions, and catechism lessons of some sort in most of the places where Mass was said or confessions were heard. Valignano changed his mind about the possibility of printing in Japanese characters. Already in 1583 and 1584 he is hopeful of printing in katakana (one of the two Japanese syllabaries, phonetic writing systems of which each unit represents a syllable), and when he returned to Japan in 1590 he in fact brought a printing outfit, with carved wooden types, for the language and characters of Japan’. It seems probable, though definite evidence is lacking, that these were made in Macao between 1588 and 1590.55 For kana (representing syllables) and for kanji (Chinese/Japanese characters) the press was already using improved wooden types in 1591, and from 1598 had the metal types used in, for example, the dictionary of kanji printed in that year and entitled Rakuy sh .56 Even for Latin and Portuguese, and for printing Japanese in romanization, the equipment brought from Europe was not satisfactory, but, with necessity the mother of invention, new types were produced in Japan, and the results can be seen in the Emmanuelis Alvari e Societate Iesu De Institutione Grammatica Libri Tres—the Latin grammar, with some explanations in Japanese, printed at Amakusa in 1594—and in the Dictionarium Latino Lusiianicum ac Iaponicum, Ex Ambrosii Calepini Volumine Depromptum, the Latin-Portuguese-Japanese dictionary which appeared the following year.57 These two books were, respectively, the grammar and the ‘Calepino’ which the Visitor had mentioned to the General in his letter of 25 September 158958—Ambrosio Calepino’s Latin dictionary being so famous that his name survives to this day in the Portuguese word calepino, meaning vocabulary or notebook; and the Amakusa edition of Alvares’s Latin grammar being one of many edi-


tions and adaptations of a textbook familiar to generations of students.59 And for the student of language the press went on to produce, as well as the Rakuy sh in 1598 and the Arte Breve da Lingoa Japoa60 in 1620, a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, the Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam (Nagasaki, 1603) and a grammar of Japanese, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam (Nagasaki, 1604–8), both of them remarkable and deservedly famous works. It has sometimes been suggested that there may have been other grammars of Japanese printed before the 1604–8 Arte of João Rodrigues, but Rodrigues himself, although he acknowledges that he has ‘made use of some notes which some of our fathers had put together in handwritten form about these matters’, also states: For a long time past the superiors of the…Society in Japan have been wanting to commission and have printed a grammar…, but the heavy pressure of the work of conversion…provided no opportunity for the work to be carried out earlier.61 Professor Boxer writes that ‘when the Spanish friars from the Philippines settled in Kyoto in 1593, Valignano states categorically that the local Jesuits gave their unwelcome colleagues a printed grammar and dictionary…’,62 but Valignano’s words63 are in fact ambiguous. He says clearly that the Jesuits gave the Franciscans other books printed in Japanese, and that they gave them a grammar and a dictionary, but it remains unclear whether or not the grammar and dictionary were printed, and from Rodrigues’s foreword it seems certain that at least the grammar was not. The Franciscans, at any rate, were unimpressed. Fray Martín says that they made good progress in the language but it cost them a tremendous effort, because (and this statement Valignano dismisses as gross ingratitude) they had no satisfactory vocabulary or grammar book.64 Valignano was of course by no means the first to consider the question of textbooks for the study of Japanese. Frois, for example, records that Brother João Fernández—with some help from Frois himself, then newly arrived in Japan—did what he could for seven or eight months of 1563 and 1564 to put together a grammar of Japanese, and some Japanese-Portuguese and Portuguese-Japanese vocabularies, and that although these were in no sense finished works they were useful for the grammar and vocabulary which were later based on them.65 But it was in Valignano’s time, and under his instructions, that these works were completed. Mexia notes that a proper grammar was made in 1580, and in February 1582 Coelho,

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in the annual letter, writes to the General that ‘the grammar of the Japanese language has been finished this year, and a vocabulary and some treatises in the Japanese language have also been made.’66 In 1599, four years after the printing of the ‘Calepino’ was finished and five years before the printing of Rodrigues’s first grammar was begun, Valignano writes that if anyone in Manila wants to learn some Japanese the d juku Augustino, who is going there, can do some teaching. He is taking with him to Manila a grammar, a LatinJapanese vocabulary, and some little books [librillos] which the Jesuits in Japan use to learn Japanese. These little books were probably some of those colloquial mai and monogatari quoted by João Rodrigues in his earlier grammar but excluded from his later Arte Breve da Lingoa Japoa, where he dismisses them as follows: The books to be-used in learning should on no account be our books translated into Japanese, not even if they are literary in style, for the phrasing is not correct, being altered to suit our concepts; even less should they be dialogues in colloquial style, such as those printed under the title of Colloquial Monogatari; and much less should they be classical Japanese books transposed into colloquial style by our Japanese Jesuits so that the Europeans can learn the language, such as the colloquial mai and the colloquial Heike Monogatari, written in our letters, and dialogues composed in colloquial style, and Japanese books in written style put into the same [colloquial] style.67 Of the mai and monogatari only the Heike Monogatari, printed at Amakusa in 1592–3,68 is extant, but quite a number certainly were printed, at least some of them before 1599,69 and it seems likely that these were the little books which Augustino took with him to Manila, and very likely that the Latin-Japanese vocabulary was the 1595 ‘Calepino’. Valignano’s letter of 20 October 1599 to Father Ribera, the Jesuit rector in Manila, provides material for the case history of one particular seminarian, and also touches on problems of language, training and manpower. The Visitor is concerned, as always, for the future of the mission, but he is also solicitous for the welfare of the seminarian.70 Ribera had asked if a Japanese-speaking priest could be sent to the Philippines, to help in dealing with the Japanese there. There were no priests to spare and the request was refused,71 but Valignano now writes that the d juku Augustino will be going instead,


sailing for Manila in the ship of Antonio Garcés (a prominent Portuguese merchant in Nagasaki72). Augustino had been in the seminary since childhood, but his Latin studies were interrupted when he was appointed to serve Bishop Martins, who took him to Macao in 1597. On returning to Japan in 1598 with the Visitor he went back to the seminary because, although he studied cases of conscience in Macao for several months, his Latin was very weak. He has learned the sermons from the catechism in order to catechize the pagans, and has used them with some success, several persons having been converted. He has also given talks to Christians in the villages, with the priests telling him what points to make, but not too well. He would be much better at it if he had had a chance to study the whole of the compendium of philosophy and theology, as his classmates in Japan did when he was in Macao. Most of the preaching is done by the Japanese, and given the numbers of Christians and the shortage of workers there is no option but to use not only the Japanese Jesuit brothers but also the d juku, who live in the Jesuit houses and want to join the Society. (In Japan, as Valignano told Aquaviva, it was out of the question to insist that the preacher must always be learned.73) They are not ready to study speculative philosophy and theology, and anyway there are no priests to spare to teach them, so Father Vice-Provincial (Gómez) made a compendium or summa, which they have in both Latin and Japanese, of some of the main points about the powers and the immortality of the soul, and with theology in the form of positive lessons rather than scholasticism, and the priests use this to teach the brothers and the d juku, and to instruct them about preaching to the Christians.74 It works reasonably well, and besides there is no alternative, and there will be no alternative until the Lord provides enough Japanese able and willing to study Latin, philosophy and theology. Augustino has also studied Japanese language and literature to some extent, says Valignano, and he writes Japanese tolerably well; and since he also knows Portuguese and Latin, he should pick up Spanish all right if someone can be found to teach him. Valignano goes on to say that Augustino can interpret whatever Ribera wants to say to the Japanese, and if he is given an outline of what to say he can give talks to them, developing the points himself in his own way. He can also read and write letters in Japanese, but any letters from the lords or governors of the Tenka are written by learned bonzes, in Chinese style,75 which is very hard to understand.

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And Augustino will not be able to translate by himself letters written to the governor of the Philippines by Daifusama (Tokugawa Ieyasu), which are actually written by bonzes, although he probably will be able to read letters written by Ieyasu’s secretaries. The Visitor charges Ribera to take good care of Augustino, who hopes to enter the Society and whom the Jesuits in Japan will gladly accept when he returns to Japan in three or four years. In Manila he should live in the Jesuit house, dressed as a student (in Japan he dresses in soutane and cloak), and as well as being of service to Ribera he should study cases of conscience. He is a courteous young man, and accustomed to courteous treatment, and given that he has already spent two years in Macao he should not cause any difficulty. Augustino should have a priest to whom he confesses frequently, and should make his prayer and his evening examination of conscience as the d juku do in Japan. He should be provided with a room76 to himself and be well looked after (some financial help will be provided from Japan if that is necessary), and it should, of course, be borne in mind that he is going to be a fellow Jesuit, and that Ribera’s example will be an important influence on him. The Visitor adds that Augustino, though not an experienced teacher, could also teach Japanese, which is not an easy language to learn.77 ta Augustino was born about 1574 in Urakami, near Nagasaki, and he entered the seminary in 1585. He was in Manila from late 1599, or perhaps 1600, interpreting for the Jesuit rector and preaching to the Japanese there; and he became a Jesuit shortly after his return to Japan in 1602. In 1614 he was sent to Manila, and in 1620 from there to Macao. He is still in Macao in 1627, and not yet a priest, but it seems that he returned once more to the Philippines, and that he was ordained priest there some time before his death in 1631. A not uneventful life, and it is recorded in 1627 that ‘he has done excellent work in the Japanese vineyard’.78 Another who was exiled in 1614, ordained priest late and abroad, and closely involved with the Visitor, was the Japanese Jesuit known as Constantino Dourado. (The surprising surname remains unexplained.) Frois’s chronicle of the journey of the four young Japanese legates to Rome mentions, as well as the Japanese Jesuit Brother Jorge de Loyola (who was there to ensure that the boys did not forget their Japanese), two Japanese youths of good family, Constantino and Agostinho, d juku, who went with them as their companions and servants.79 Later Frois notes that Constantino Dourado writes Portuguese remarkably well, and to demonstrate this he reproduces, word for word, a lengthy passage of


Constantino’s Portuguese,80 and Valignano praises his Portuguese and his handwriting, and has him copying a letter in Spanish even though he has never spoken or written that language.81 Both Jorge de Loyola and Constantino Dourado learned something about printing in Europe, and on the title page of Hara Martinho’s 1587 Latin address, printed in Goa in 1588, Constantino is named as the printer.82 He probably worked with the press in the years immediately after his return to Japan, but in 1595 he became a Jesuit, and for many years taught Latin and other subjects, including the clavichord, in the Arima seminary. He went to Macao in 1614, was ordained priest (apparently in Malacca in 1616), is listed as superior of the seminary in Macao in 1618, and died in 1620.83

12 Japanese Jesuits

They cannot distinguish the things in which we can and should accommodate ourselves to the Japanese from those in which the Japanese should accommodate themselves to us. (Valignano1)

Bishop Cerqueira ordained two Japanese Jesuits (Kimura Sebastião and Niabara Luís) to the priesthood in 1601, three more (Hara, Nakaura and It ) in 1608, and four more between 1610 and 1613. He also ordained five Japanese, the first three in 1606, as secular diocesan priests, and at the time of the 1614 expulsion there were fourteen Japanese priests in the country.2 Francisco Cabral was opposed to the idea of having Japanese study for the priesthood, although he believed that Japanese preachers were essential to the work of conversion, repeatedly asked to be allowed to accept more Japanese as Jesuits, and had high praise for some of the Japanese lay brothers.3 In October 1580 Valignano wrote to the General that under Cabral the Japanese Jesuits were treated more like servants than brothers, and this was resented; that although it was the Japanese who did the preaching and converting, they were being given no proper noviceship, training or instruction, and no books except a catechism and some sermons which they learned by heart, and that they were not being encouraged or allowed to study for fear that they might begin to think themselves better than the Europeans, and want to hold the top positions. And with just one or two exceptions the Europeans themselves were ignorant.4 The Visitor’s authority, ability and determination were such that the two seminaries, the noviceship and the college were already a 161


reality by the end of October 1580, European books were being translated, and there were plans for a college in mura where newly arrived Jesuits would learn Japanese. But it was another twenty-one years before the first Japanese priests were ordained, and in 1599 Aquaviva was still expressing doubts about whether Japanese should be sent to Macao, whether they should do ‘major studies’, and whether it was yet time to think of having them ordained. When Valignano answered the General’s letter, in December 1602, Kimura Sebastião and Niabara Luís had been priests for over a year, but the General’s questions, although obviously out of date, touch real problems. Everyone now accepts that some Japanese must be ordained, says the Visitor, although caution is still necessary, and those who study in Macao make much greater progress than those who do not, but there has not been even one Japanese Jesuit doing major studies. There are in any case not many of them, their education takes a very long time, and they have little inclination and little ability for speculative studies.5 The Visitor has moved some way from the forecast in the Sumario that the Japanese seminarians would be at least the equal of the Europeans in studies,6 and this is already clear in the Adiciones and in a letter to Aquaviva dated New Year’s Day 1593, which includes the following: Very few of the d juku who are in the seminary persevere if they are not received into the Society as they come to the age of twenty years, and they have great difficulty in applying themselves to our studies, and very few come to have adequate information and understanding about the things of our law, never mind the perfection and the knowledge necessary if they are to become priests, for…even the best of our brothers [the Jesuits], after ten years in religion, and with so much effort spent on them, have barely now come to have a tolerable grasp of Latin, and we do not consider that they are capable of other major studies, for they say they are weary and tired of studying our things. And although they really have good intelligence, they are not used to applying it to great and speculative matters, and since they are by nature constrained and anxious in spirit7 they easily tire and lose heart if they run into difficulties. And if this happens with our brothers, who are chosen men, and brought up in religion over such a long time, it is easy to see what will happen with boys brought up in the seminary. And that is why I say8 that for the foreseeable future it is

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going to be very difficult for the bishop to produce Japanese secular priests. The surest way for the bishop to make a start on having his own clerics from among the Japanese will be to begin with some of those that we have now in our house as brothers, since they have already learned Latin, and by the time the bishop comes they will already have studied cases [of conscience], and they are well instructed in the things of our faith and religion, and they have also made some progress in virtue, with the advice, the instruction, and the mortification they have had in the noviceship, and afterwards in the college, and they are already held in high regard among the Christians, and are regarded as religious, as preachers, and as learned men. He will therefore be able to begin ordaining them with more confidence, and there is good hope that they will carry out their duties well, or at least that they will not be a disgrace, and it will be possible to promote them to this rank without giving scandal to the Christians; and meanwhile those who are in the seminary will be encouraged… and in this way there will be some steady progress in initiating and establishing this new clergy of Japan.9 There was no bishop in Japan when the Visitor arrived in 1579—a situation both anomalous, given the substantial and increasing numbers of Christians, and very inconvenient, because only bishops have the power to ordain priests, so no one from Japan could be ordained unless he made the journey to Macao. In letters from Goa and Malacca in 1576 and 1577 Valignano had opposed the idea of having a bishop in Japan, one of his arguments being that it might be better to appoint Japanese and not foreigners, and not to appoint a bishop at all until such time as that would be possible;10 but in his first letters from Japan, in December 1579, he is inclined to recommend that a bishop should be appointed, arguing that the voyage to Macao is dangerous and time-consuming, and that to send already ordained priests to Japan is not the answer, because they will then be too old to learn the language well. The appointee should be a Jesuit, with the power to ordain priests but without jurisdiction or pastoral responsibility, living in Jesuit obedience in Jesuit houses, and if possible not required to dress as a bishop. And as his preferred candidates for the post he nominates Nuno Rodrigues and Gaspar Coelho—the former ‘mild and gentle’, the latter ‘obedient’.11 Pedro Martins, who seventeen years later was the first bishop to reach Japan, was neither mild nor obedient. In Macao in October


1592 Valignano, newly arrived from Japan, welcomed the news that the bishop was to be Martins, who had succeeded him as provincial of India in 1587, He did not anticipate problems,12 and he welcomed the bishop to Macao in August 1594. In Goa Martins had been subject to Valignano when the latter was provincial, and when he himself became provincial he was still subject to Valignano, who was once again visitor. Now as bishop he was no longer bound by Jesuit obedience, and he made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of deferring to the Visitor. There was no confrontation between the two in Japan, however, because they were never there together. It seems that Martins’s relations with the Jesuits in Japan were in fact cordial, but he had to leave the country in the wake of the 1597 martyrdoms, and Luis Cerqueira, his successor, who arrived with Valignano in 1598, was a much more accommodating character.13 In the Sumario14 the Visitor argues that it will be better not to have a bishop in Japan until the time comes for ordaining native Japanese priests. He adduces a variety of reasons, principal among them the same argument he deploys so often against allowing other orders to come to Japan: namely, that the unity, integrity and effectiveness of the Jesuit missionary effort and plan would be adversely affected—or, to put it in a different way, that his own authority, or the authority of the Jesuit superior in Japan, would be challenged.15 By 1591 he has changed tack again, and is stressing the need for native secular priests and for a bishop to ordain them,16 and in 1592 he is looking forward to handing over various responsibilities to Martins.17 It will also probably be necessary to let the bishop have the services of two or three of the Jesuit priests, and also have perhaps ten or twelve of the Japanese Jesuit scholastics, so that he can train and then ordain them. The alternative would be for him to take some of those now in the seminary, but that would mean not being able to ordain any of them for at least ten years, they being new in the faith and he having no jurisdiction and ultimately no control over them. The Visitor is persuaded that the best thing to do is to let the bishop take over some of the Jesuit scholastics, and his proposal to the General is that those whom the Jesuit superiors regard as least desirable as members of the order should be persuaded to leave it, and to offer themselves to the bishop as candidates for eventual ordination, the pope dispensing them from their vows as religious ‘for such good and important reasons’. He proposes further that those who cannot be persuaded to agree to leave should be dismissed from


the Society, but still allowed the option of being trained as secular priests. This would mean ordination for some who would not have been ordained at all if they continued as Jesuits, and earlier ordination for those who might eventually have been Jesuit priests, and to the ordinary Japanese, says Valignano, this would look like promotion.18 None of the seven secular priests eventually ordained seems to have been an ex-Jesuit scholastic, so Valignano’s 1593 proposals were not implemented. This was perhaps fortunate, for they included —not to put too fine a point on it—purging the Society of its undesirables, turning them into secular priests, and—no doubt in order to guard against any accusations of injustice—allowing the ordinary Japanese to misinterpret this as promotion; and they show clearly the relative status of Jesuits and secular priests in the Visitor’s mind. It was not until 1601 that Bishop Cerqueira was able to open his own seminary for the training of secular priests, the first three of whom were ordained five years later. He chose eight d juku, the very best in the seminary and the very ones whom the Jesuits would have accepted as novices. They were not Jesuits, although they had been hoping and expecting to join the order, and it was only after some persuading that they accepted that they were to be the bishop’s secular priests.19 In 1596 Valignano had written from Goa to Rome that now the bishop was in Japan it would be possible to experiment with ordaining some of the Japanese Jesuits. One reason for hesitation in the past had been that if the Japanese had proved unsatisfactory as Jesuit priests there would have been nowhere else for them to go, but now there would be the possibility of turning them over to the bishop to be his diocesan clergy. And for d juku who did not aspire to religious life, there would be the new possibility of becoming diocesan seminarians.20 Both Jesuit novices and the bishop’s seminarians were former d juku, products of the seminary for boys which the Visitor had founded in 1580 (after 1587 there was just the one), and in the seventh of his Adiciones Valignano explains some of the problems which the boys and their teachers faced. The only kind of learning known and respected in Japan was learning in the language and writings of Japan, but the seminary aimed eventually to produce priests, and this was impossible without Latin. In Japan knowledge of Latin and ‘the true sciences’21 conferred neither status nor esteem, and this in a society where status and esteem were everything.22 Those who know Latin, become priests, and also master Japanese language and letters will indeed command respect,


but this is a very distant prospect, and in the meantime the boys apply themselves eagerly to the study of their own language and literature, but very reluctantly to Latin and ‘our other sciences’. But it is essential that they study Latin first and Japanese only when they have completed the Latin course, for Latin is very new and very strange to them, and those who do not learn it young do not learn it at all. And they should be separated from those who study Japanese, for when they are together the students of Latin, sunk in melancholy, ‘dumb and deprived of language’, watch the others going forward, able to preach and write, and are consumed with longing to study their own language.23 Not a happy picture, yet Valignano does want the children in the seminaries to be happy. The superior of the seminary has to see to it that they make good use of their time, but also that they are ‘consolados e contentes’. Punishment, including beatings,24 will sometimes be necessary, but it must always be borne in mind that they are children, and are to be treated gently and with kindness.25 The Visitor’s emphasis is on the kindness, but beatings were part of the European image of education—so much so that for Matteo Ricci, attempting to describe for European readers the special kind of terror in which the whole population of China lived, there was no parallel closer than the universal schoolboy fear of the cane.26 Frois describes the seminary as it was in 1588, following the persecution of 1587, and with the Arima and (originally) Azuchi seminaries now together in the mountainous isolation of Hachirao, in Arima. All is orderly, piety and studies going hand in hand. Very little punishment is required, because the pupils respond so well to admonishment, and the most regular physical pain inflicted is the discipline which they themselves take once a week as a prayer for deliverance from the persecution.27 In 1582 there were twenty-three Japanese Jesuits;28 by 1592 there were seventy.29 By 1588 Father Vice-Provincial Coelho had taken forty of the boys from the seminaries into the order,30 and Valignano felt that the pace had been too rapid. In one of his letters of New Year’s Day 1593 he tells Aquaviva that they had too many novices in Japan; he has got rid of five unsuitable ones, and in the past three years has admitted only the four who went to Rome plus a brother of Don Mancio; and he has left instructions that no more are to be admitted for at least another two years, since ‘we have no reason to be in a hurry to admit such new people’.31 But the need for Japanese priests was urgent, and Father Vice-Provincial G mez provided the Visitor with one very good reason to be in a hurry in


1597, when he wrote to Macao urging that the three Japanese Jesuits studying there should be ordained, because in times of persecution they could hide when the European priests could not.32 Another of Valignano’s New Year 1593 letters has more detail about the Japanese Jesuits. In general, Jesuit novices were accepted either to be scholastics, who after noviceship would study and eventually become priests, or as lay brothers, who were not aiming at ordination and were not normally expected to study. The Visitor explains that in Japan things are not quite the same, and he also explains the term d juku, normally used of men in service in Buddhist monasteries, some of whom intend to become monks. The d juku shave their heads in token of their renunciation of the world, and they live with the Buddhist monks. In the Jesuit houses too there are many d juku. Some hope to become Jesuit scholastics or secular clergy, and these are normally in the seminary studying Latin. Others work in the house and help with burials, catechizing, preaching, and so on; and some of these, who are rather good at writing letters, catechizing and preaching, have been and will be accepted as scholastics, even though they are never going to study Latin or be ordained. In addition, a small number have been accepted as lay brothers, but there have been problems with them because they mostly lack the humility lay brothers need and are therefore unsatisfactory at serving in and looking after the house.33 D juku are more satisfactory, and those who are not can be dismissed. This means that within the Jesuit order in Japan there was a small but not insignificant group of permanent scholastics, a category not recognized in the constitutions of the order; and in the Jesuit houses there were d juku in considerable numbers. The Jesuit congregation at Nagasaki in 1592 had said that the Society should continue to accept as novices some d juku who did not know Latin and were not expected to learn it, but were learned in their own language and would work as preachers; and that in future d juku should be accepted as Jesuit novices aiming to be priests only if they had both good Latin and good Japanese, and had also spent some time assisting the fathers in catechizing, preaching, and other ministries.34 The Visitor reports that very few will satisfy these conditions by the age of twenty, and that in general those who pass that age and are not accepted do not persevere as d juku, and he suggests that since the Japanese are so concerned about status and promotion, a system of ranks, and of promotion from one rank to another, within the grade of d juku, would reduce the number who leave to seek their fortune in the world.35


Bishop Cerqueira was very pleased with the d juku who became his first diocesan seminarians in 1601, and one of the things he approved of—and which presumably was part of his reason for choosing those particular seminarians—was their Latin.36 The Visitor’s recommendation about separating the students of Latin from the students of Japanese was put into practice at Hachirao, and Gómez reports in the 1593–4 annual letter that the seminary students have now taken to Latin much more than they ever did before, some of the reasons for this being the excellence of the teachers they now have, the books which, because of the press, are now available, and the knowledge that the bishop is coming, which has brought the prospect of Japanese ordinations to the priesthood much closer to them.37 But for reasons connected with the persecution the seminary had moved from Hachirao in 1589 and back again, into fine new buildings, in 1591. If it was not persecution it was fire, and when these buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1595 the seminarians were on the move again, this time to Arie, in Takaku. The seminary closed with the 1597 persecution, but started up again in Nagasaki the following year. A terrible fire destroyed much of Nagasaki in October 1601 and the seminary moved to Arima, where it remained until 1612, but the succession of crises can hardly have been conducive to study. Cieslik writes that extant letters by Japanese trained at Arima prove that they knew their Latin extraordinarily well,38 and no doubt some of them—for example Hara Martinho, Constantino Dourado, Y ki Diogo and Kasui Pedro—had excellent Latin. All these four spent long periods out of Japan, so it is not easy to judge just when and how they learned their Latin, but Valignano’s reports leave no doubt that in most cases progress in Latin was very disappointing, and that at the age of about twenty, after years of Latin in the seminary, most of the d juku had not reached what seemed to the Europeans an acceptable standard. For Japanese aspiring to the priesthood Latin was a massive obstacle, and Bishop Martins, like Valignano, was struck by the reluctance—indeed, the repugnance— with which they approached it.39 In 1581 the Visitor had hoped there would be Japanese priests in not much more than ten years’ time.40 In 1592 he concedes that that was overoptimistic, but does not alter his view that there must be ordinations. This had not been Francisco Cabral’s view, and doubts about Japanese vocations to or suitability for the priesthood and the religious life did not cease with Cabral’s departure.41 The Visitor knew all about these doubts—indeed, to some extent he shared them


—and he expresses them in Adiciones, writing that those who have been received since 1582 were accepted at the age of eighteen, after three to five years in the seminary and not much longer as Christians. They entered the Society when they were still children, and more because they felt there was nothing else they could do than because of divine prompting and desire ‘to leave the world’, and it was not to be expected that they could cross in one bound the great gulf ‘between paganism and the perfection of Christian religious life which Jesuits profess’. Valignano considers that the Japanese scholastics have both good and bad points (although he dwells longer here on the bad than the good) and that it is still too early to predict how they will eventually turn out. Put briefly, the good points are that they are intelligent and willing to learn, that they have excellent self-control, and that when living in community, in the novitiate or the college, their decorum and observance of the rule are such as to serve as a model for the Europeans. But the Buddhist monks also are models of decorum— indeed, decorum and external ceremonies are all that is expected of them—and what they seek when they enter their monasteries is income, security and respect. The Christians are concerned about their salvation, but parents who have given their sons to the Church have usually been more concerned for their honour and security, and those sons themselves, after they have grown up, are easily persuaded to enter religion because it provides security in both this life and the next.42 With the Japanese scholastics problems arise as soon as they leave the disciplined community life of the colleges. They are unwilling to be told what to do, and ‘they are so intent on keeping to their Japanese customs that they pay little attention to either the spirit or the letter of our rules.’ And even in community, when their observance of the letter of the rule is excellent, they do not have that spirit of devotion, ‘that communication with Our Lord’, which Jesuits in other countries have, and which would give them confidence and give the Society confidence in them. Valignano explains that the Japanese are brought up to have a mortal fear of the displeasure of their lord,43 who can at will condemn them to exile, destitution or death, and that the shadow of this fear remains on them, so that even as Jesuits they can be cast into depression and despair by just a word of disapproval from the superior. Depression or melancholy is a common affliction with them, and is made worse by their custom and tradition of not revealing their innermost thoughts and feelings. They have besides a sort of


inferiority complex towards the Europeans,44 partly because they were all d juku, brought up in Jesuit houses and serving the Europeans, partly because they see the courage,45 freedom and abilities of the European Jesuits, and the esteem in which they are held by the lords and other Japanese. The Japanese are certainly brave in some ways, but faced with difficulties—for example in studies or in spiritual exercises—they tend to give up too easily and too soon, and the Visitor fears that they may lack the patience and fortitude needed for priestly work. And he comments that although they are Jesuits they behave as if they were not really part of the Society, holding back as if in fear from free and open communication with their fellow Jesuits. No doubt language was a large part of the problem, and when the communication required was the ‘manifestation of conscience’ to the Jesuit superior the presence of an interpreter would have been every bit as inhibiting as it must have been in the confessional,46 but the Visitor also notes that ‘free and open communication’ is not customary among the Japanese themselves, and that ‘this is not the way that the Japanese naturally deal with each other’.47 A letter of 1598 from João Rodrigues, the interpreter and grammarian, to Father General Aquaviva echoes a number of Valignano’s remarks.48 Rodrigues claims to have a knowledge of the Japanese which the other European Jesuits do not have, ‘for I was brought up amongst them from childhood’, and he puts some of the same points rather more bluntly than the Visitor, for example: Among them there is not one spiritual or given to prayer, and there is much deceit in them, for outwardly they are by their nature so modest and so quiet that Ours are captivated, and it is impossible to know them or see into them. The Visitor also says that he doubts if there is a nation as prone to dissimulation, or as adept at it, as the Japanese, and that there is always some sort of difficulty about really knowing what they are thinking. But he goes on to say that he is hopeful and confident that with appropriate and patient training the Japanese Jesuits will in the end be excellent workers.49 One area where it seemed to Valignano that patience was required was in reconciling religious rules and Japanese custom. The Japanese were so tied to their customs and proceedings that when these conflicted with Jesuit rules they assumed that it was the latter which had to give way.50 He provides no illustration, but there will have been occasions when the Japanese felt that the Jesuit spirit of poverty and


even of obedience could not override, for example, the Japanese obligation to provide a present. In the Swnario the Visitor had made the point that the Japanese were unwilling to accommodate themselves to the foreigners in anything whatsoever, and in Adiciones he explains how this attitude manifests itself in the Japanese Jesuit scholastics: The second fault which can be found in all of them is that they almost never deny themselves anything where their own judgement and will are concerned, and indeed seem unable to do so, and thus they have major disagreements with the priests with whom they live about their opinions and about what they are to do, and they are very obstinate in insisting that what they want should be done, and they always come back to the idea that we, being foreigners, do not know or properly understand Japanese customs and things, and that they understand them better, so that it seems to them that we should be guided by their views and opinions. And up to a point it is true, and there is no doubt that we often give them grounds for complaint because we are unwilling to accommodate ourselves to them when we should, and do not understand or sufficiently respect the ways and customs of Japan. And when we are at fault in these things outsiders blame the Japanese brothers, saying that the priests do not know because they are foreigners and that the brothers should have taught them, and often the priests do not take in what the brothers tell them, and this leaves the brothers very embarrassed and mortified in front of outsiders. But on the other hand they really are more restricted in their understanding than we are, because of the little experience that they have of all the rest of the world, and they are limited and tightly tied to the ways and customs of Japan, and they do not have the knowledge of the spirit that we have nor of what is appropriate in religion, and they cannot distinguish the things in which we can and should accommodate ourselves to the Japanese from those in which the Japanese should accommodate themselves to us. We cannot always follow their advice and their opinions, and they should not insist that their reasoning is better than ours; but the fact is they are so married to their Japanese ways and customs, and have such a high opinion of all of them, that it is very hard for them to subject their wills and understandings even to superiors.51


As Alvarez-Taladriz notes,52 Valignano was never content merely to define a problem. The insularity of the Japanese, their lack of knowledge, interest or concern about the world as a whole, the one human race and its one Creator, was a barrier to the introduction of a universal religion,53 and to ‘union of souls’ between the Japanese and the European Jesuits. One of the Visitor’s attempts at breaking down this insularity is the De Missione Legatorum, a book about the world beyond Japan but one which he believed the Japanese would gladly read, because it was a travel book in which the travellers were Japanese, and it was a dialogue in which the questions were put and the answers given by Japanese.54 Another approach is ‘transplantation’. In 1587, delighted with the success of the mission of ‘the four nobles’, Valignano is considering the possibility of sending half a dozen of the Japanese scholastics to study and be ordained in Rome,55 and asks the opinion of the Portuguese assistant and the General. The question was raised at the Jesuit deliberations at Katsusa, in Japan, in 1590,56 and again at Nagasaki in February 1592. In 1590 the Visitor’s note about it is as follows: I hope in the Lord that one day we will be able to despatch this mission, sending up to ten brothers together, for in matters of such importance success is possible only by forcing a way through whatever difficulties present themselves, trusting Our Lord to help us, for it is all done for His glory and service.57 Valignano would have preferred to stay in Japan in 1592, but he had come to Japan as ambassador of the Goa viceroy to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and in that capacity he had to be seen to leave Japan with the Taik ’s reply. In February 1592 he writes to Aquaviva: It is probable that I shall be forced to go to India, and if I am I shall take with me eight or ten Japanese brothers, in order to send them with the procurator to Your Paternity in Rome. We have concluded in the consultation here that this is a means which will be necessary, whether now or later, for the conservation of the Society in Japan, which cannot maintain itself unless it accepts many Japanese with the intention that they should become priests; and since they are in these islands, so far from all other human intercourse, and the native people here are so wrapped up in their customs and their external ceremonies, and their characteristics and conditions are so different from ours in Europe,


unless some or many of the brothers are transplanted for some time from their land to our Europe, they will not be able to produce the fruit which we expect of them, nor will they be able to absorb the true spirit of our Society, nor will they have the necessary respect or esteem for the things of Europe. And if we do transplant them from here to there for some time then much can be expected of them, given the good understanding and abilities which they have, and they will gradually become more united with and assimilated to us. And we have experience of this with the case of the four nobles who went to Europe. They have come back so changed from what they were before that they really seem like Europeans, and since their decision to be our brothers, in these few months that they have been in the noviceship they are so far ahead of all the others that the Japanese brothers themselves are astonished, and they are deeply impressed with what they have heard from the four, and what they actually see in them, of the things of Europe. And they are convinced that it is essential for them to go there, in order to open their hearts, and to advance to true and solid virtue, detaching themselves from their external etiquette and ceremonies, for in Japan they are tied up in these, so that all the brothers in the college have asked me, in fact begged me, to have them sent to Rome, saying that they believe that is the only way for them to make the progress they aspire to. And all of us have been very surprised by their eagerness, something we never expected, they being so strongly attached to their own country and bound to their customs, and having such a low opinion of all other nations. And the four brothers who went to Europe are constantly trying to persuade me to send others, because of the great change which they experienced in themselves.58 Shortly after that the Visitor went to Amakusa and came back with eight Japanese scholastics to Nagasaki, only to find the silk not sold and the ship not leaving.59 The scholastics went back to Kawachinoura, in Amakusa, and on 14 March 1592 It Mancio, whose younger brother Justo was one of those who had expected to go to Rome, wrote to Manoel Rodrigues, the Portuguese Jesuit assistant in Rome, that the Father Visitor had now decided to postpone the project.60 Valignano confirms this the following January in a letter to Father Geronimo Piatti in Rome, in which he thanks Piatti for sending him ‘four Italian books of chivalry’ and apologizes for writing in Spanish, saying: ‘although we are both Italians I write to you


in this other language because I have now lost my native language, and besides, I have no one to write it for me.’61 The Visitor changed his mind about sending Japanese scholastics to Rome, but not about transplanting them. From his arrival in Macao in October 1592 until his departure for India in midNovember 1594 a great deal of his formidable energy went into the building of the new Jesuit college at Macao, which continued as a college and as a memorial to the Visitor until the eighteenth-century suppression of the Jesuits, which took effect in Macao in 1762.62 At the beginning of 1593 Valignano writes to Aquaviva that the 1592 Jesuit congregation in Japan asked him to explain to the General the need for a college in Macao, to serve as a seminary and a source of supply for Japan and China—particularly for Japan, where the Jesuits have to move about from one place to another ‘like gypsies’. It was also needed as a refuge in times of persecution and as a house of studies, and he adds that Jesuits, Japanese and others, whose behaviour was unsatisfactory, could be sent to Macao as a disciplinary measure and there made to mortify themselves. His principal point, however, is that with a college in Macao all the Japanese Jesuits could gradually be ‘transplanted’ for some time so that they would return to Japan transformed.63 He refers the General to his Adiciones, and the explanation there about how the Japanese are so tied to their customs and their exterior ceremonies, and so concerned to study their own letters and characters so as to be able to speak elegantly and write and read their own books, that unless they can get away completely from these concerns they will never be free to give themselves to the study of the spiritual life, of perfection, mortification, prayer and virtue. Again, ‘union of souls’ with the Europeans is very difficult, because the Japanese will not concede anything in order to accommodate themselves to them. The solution is to transplant them from Japan for a time, so that they can learn ‘our language’, live amongst Portuguese, and see, learn and come to respect European customs in European surroundings, where the customs fit. This is what happened with the four who went to Rome, who now seem more European than Japanese and are very attached to the Jesuits.64 Reasons advanced against the idea of the Macao college include Cabral’s insistence that the Japanese Jesuits should not do ‘major studies’, and also the fear that Japanese coming to Macao will be scandalized at what they see there. Valignano agrees that Portuguese behaviour leaves much to be desired, but claims that on the whole Japanese coming to Macao will be edified, as the four legates were.65


In November 1593 the Visitor intends to have ten or twelve Japanese scholastics studying in Macao from 1595, and he asks Aquaviva to send a similar number of good scholastics from Europe to be an example to them, saying that he will be arranging for a dozen more to come from India.66 In 1595 he says that ten Japanese are coming in 1596,67 and the following year he tells the General that it will be necessary to send ten or twelve students at least every three years from Portugal.68 The scholastics from Japan did not arrive in the numbers Valignano intended, but in November 1597— a year in which there was no ship to Japan—there were forty-eight Jesuits and two bishops in the Macao college, and the martyrdoms in Japan in February had added weight to the argument that it would serve as a refuge in time of persecution.69 Three Japanese Jesuits, including Niabara Luís, came in October 1595, Kimura Sebastião and one other in March 1596, and several more in October 1598.70 In 1603 there were eight Japanese Jesuits studying at Macao, and another had died there in 1602. In 1600 the Visitor writes that there are five Japanese scholastics in Macao and he will shortly be sending two more, as it really is essential to take the Japanese out of their own country for some time. The three who have come back after more than four years in Macao (namely the two who were ordained in 1601 plus Kazariya Julião, who was too ill to be ordained with them and died in December 1601) are greatly changed, and very different from the other Japanese Jesuits in Japan. They have learned the spirit of the Society very well, and the news from Macao is that those who are there now are making excellent progress in virtue and learning, more than some of the priests in Japan believed them capable of. He also remarks that the same can be done with the Chinese, and that Chinese priests as well as Japanese will be needed.71 The programme of transplantation and transformation of the Japanese scholastics was gratifyingly successful, but it was also an admission of a kind of failure, for in the Sumario the Visitor had been very insistent that it was the transplanted Europeans who had to submit to transformation. He says there that because of the great difference in customs, upbringing, manners, modes of behaviour and politeness, and ceremonies: our ways are totally ridiculous in Japan, and although it is very hard for us, men of maturity and dignity, to conform ourselves to their ways, if we do not do so we remain as it were savages, grossly ill-behaved; and for them it is impossible to conform them-


selves to us in such things, and they have no wish to do so, and indeed they should not do so, because outsiders would take it very ill, and Japanese norms of refinement and courtesy would make it simply unacceptable.72 And he charges his Jesuits to observe strictly the Jesuit rule73 which forbids speaking or thinking ill of those of other nations, and not to yield to the desire to convince the Japanese of the superiority of European ways, ‘for that is the seed-plot of much discord’.74 His aim is ‘union of souls’ between the Japanese Jesuits (and d juku) and the Europeans, and he says that if it is not achieved the fault is likely to lie with the Europeans rather than the Japanese, because the difficulty lies with the Europeans, not the Japanese. It is the Europeans, not the Japanese, who are being called upon, as it were, to change their very nature in order to conform themselves totally to the Japanese, an extremely difficult and mortifying thing to do.75 The Visitor is talking about total conformity in certain areas only —accommodation to Japanese etiquette but not, for example, to Japanese ethics. But to the Japanese the distinctions between ethics and etiquette, between morals and manners, between essentials and accidentals, did not always seem to be clear, and they seemed unable to ‘distinguish the things in which we can and should accommodate ourselves to the Japanese from those in which the Japanese should accommodate themselves to us’.76 By the 1590s the aim is to ‘detach’ the Japanese Jesuits from their external etiquette and ceremonies.77 The Jesuit should cultivate detachment from—or indifference to—inessentials, and the Japanese who learned the spirit of the Society very well in Macao will also have learned to look with detachment on the customs and ceremonies of Japan. In fact, according to Valignano, when they returned to Japan they looked not just with detachment but with astonishment at the behaviour of their Japanese confrères,78 and the four nobles who returned from Europe themselves seemed like Europeans.79 The Visitor is very satisfied with the transformation but it is not the same transformation proposed in the Sumario, where he is urging on the European Jesuits a thoroughgoing imitation of the behaviour of their Japanese confrères, and in Advenimentos, where he requires them to master the etiquette, attitudes and behaviour which would make it possible for them to fit themselves into the structure of the rigidly authoritarian and rank-conscious society of Japan. A tall order indeed, although they had a model and a text in St Paul, who had written that ‘unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that


I might gain the Jews…I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.’80 Unless the Jesuit transformed himself, acting the part of a Japanese and, as it were, becoming Japanese, he would never have the authority necessary for his purpose. There were encouraging reports from Matteo Ricci about the beginnings of the parallel missionary experiment in China, but during the Visitor’s second stay in Japan further experience of the Japanese, Jesuits and d juku, and of the political turbulence of Japan, persuaded him to build the Macao college rather than the colleges in Japan which he had envisaged in the Sumario,81 and inclined him to the view that some transformation of the Japanese Jesuits, as well as of the Europeans, was essential.

13 The Japanese language

This language is for young men only… (Fray Jer nimo de Jesús1)

We still sound like children compared to them (Valignano2)

At the very centre of the problem of accommodation, or cultural adaptation, or (to use terms which present-day missiology seems to prefer) acculturation or inculturation, is language. On 25 October 1581 Pedro Gómez reports to the General from Macao that Father Michele Ruggieri (like Valignano a Neapolitan and a doctor of law), who had been there for two years, is devoting all his time, on the instructions of the Father Visitor, to the study of the language and letters of China. He is making excellent progress, has informed Gó mez that he now knows about 12,000 of the approximately 80,000 letters’ that the Chinese have, and ‘we hope Our Lord will use him as His instrument in the longed-for conversion of China’.3 In assigning Ruggieri and then Ricci and others to full-time study of Chinese the Visitor was demonstrating the importance he attached to language study, and it was the first thing to which he gave his attention in Japan.4 In the Sumario, in addition to a paragraph about the general features of the language, Valignano includes various highly instructive remarks about the missionaries’ language problems. In urging that Japanese should not be excluded from membership of the Jesuit order, his second argument is as follows: They know all about the writing and the language of Japan, and 178

THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE 179

being native speakers they can become very learned and accomplished in all this, and that is something which none of Ours, we being foreigners, can do; for however much we learn of the language, and with however much effort, we still sound like children compared to them, and we never reach the stage of knowing all about their writing, and being able to write books ourselves, and yet this is something absolutely essential in Japan, for without it we shall never earn the reputation or be held in the esteem which we need, nor shall we be able to translate or write the books necessary for the fostering and the governing of Christianity. And this is perfectly clear from our experience up to the present, for all that has been done has been done by some Japanese brothers that we have in the Society.5 And the difficulty of the language is one of the principal reasons why the Europeans and the Japanese (both brothers and d juku) do not get on well with each other, It is essential, in the Visitor’s phrase, ‘to maintain union of souls’ between them, but it is not easy, and that for various reasons: The fourth reason is the great difficulty of learning their language, which is so elegant and so copious, as we said above, that they speak in one way, write in another, and preach in a third, and there is one set of words to be employed in addressing the gentry, and another in addressing the lower classes, and there is the same sort of difference, in many cases, between the words used by children and women and the words used by men. And in their writing they have an infinite number of characters, so that none of Ours can learn to write or compose books that can be shown to anyone. Some of them get to the point where they can preach to the Christians, but when they do it is so different from what any Japanese brother, even an ignoramus, can do, that when there is a brother present the fathers are reduced to silence. And seldom or never do they advance to the point where they can preach to pagans, or at any rate to pagans who are monks, or gentry, or courtiers. From all this it follows that when the Japanese study, and come to be priests, so that they can hear confessions, say Mass, and freely preach good doctrine, since they know the language and the customs, and are native to the country, they will always be more able in everything than Ours, and more loved and esteemed by the Japanese, and this is hard to bear, especially for


the Portuguese, they being accustomed to refer even to the Chinese and Japanese as ‘blacks’.6 According to Valignano, Francisco Cabral had maintained that it would be at least six years before a newcomer could hear confessions in Japanese, and fifteen years before he could preach even to the Christians, but from 1580 onwards the Europeans had a real chance to learn the language, and within a year of arrival were able to talk to people, hear confessions, and in some cases even preach.7 This statement does not seem to tally with the view expressed in the two passages just quoted from the Sumario, but in fact ability to hear confessions and preach to the Christians was not proof of mastery of the language. João Rodrigues the interpreter, writing in Macao, maintains that students of Japanese should be assigned to one of two different groups, namely: those who aim only at understanding the language quickly, so as to be able to hear confessions and to speak to the Christians about what concerns their souls and about the most ordinary matters of everyday conversation and: men of ability and maturity, who aim at a mastery of the language which will enable them to preach to the pagans and confute their errors and superstitions in debates and in writing, defending the faith against its adversaries.8 The first group are not even aiming at a real mastery of the language, and Rodrigues says of them, dismissively, that ‘they must study as best they can’, but for the second group he prescribes learned native speaker teachers only, and a strict diet of the best classical authors. This prescription appears in Rodrigues’s later grammar, and he points out that Japanese (like any other language) can be learned either naturally, by daily contact with native speakers, or by grammar, rules, teachers and books. By the first method you learn to speak more correctly, ‘as is evident in the case of many of Ours from Europe, and also of people from other nations who live among the Japanese, such as the Koreans, who sound completely natural when they speak’, but it takes too much time, and there are other prob-


lems, and in fact the second method is more suitable for the missionaries from Europe: Nevertheless, the fact is that few of those who have learned the language by this method so far have ended up able to speak like natives; on the contrary, they almost all make many mistakes in speaking, and get into a sort of rut from which they cannot escape, nor can they make progress in the language…. Many of them have been men of notable ability and talent, capable of learning other more difficult things; all the same, they failed to learn by this method, whereas others of far less ability succeeded by the first method.9 As many an able and talented man has been chagrined to find, ability and talent in other fields does not guarantee success in languagelearning, especially for a learner who is no longer young. Valignano himself was one of those who failed, whereas Rodrigues, though relatively uneducated, achieved a mastery of Japanese unmatched, it seems, by any of his foreign missionary contemporaries. This language is for young men only; old men can’t take it in’, as Fray Jerónimo de Jesús put it in 1596.10 In 1576 Cabral reported to Valignano that Frois had been studying Japanese for sixteen years, and undoubtedly knew it better than any of the other foreign Jesuits, but he still did not venture to address non-Christians in public.11 When Valignano went to meet Oda Nobunaga in 1581 he took Frois as his interpreter, because he was the best interpreter available, and it was for the same reason that when he went to meet Toyotomi Hideyoshi ten years later his interpreter was the scholastic João Rodrigues. Both of them had unusual linguistic abilities, but Frois was over thirty years old when he came to Japan, whereas Rodrigues was a boy of about sixteen,12 and spent more than three years in the country, no doubt picking up the language by the ‘direct method’, before he joined the new Jesuit novitiate on Christmas Eve 1580. In 1581 Valignano tells Mercurian that he was delighted to hear of the appointment to Japan of Pedro Gómez, of whom the General has a very high opinion, but at the same time he warns that Japan is no ordinary place, and that at first, and without the language, one can achieve very little, as he knows from his own experience.13 Valignano was forty years old when he came to Japan, and Gómez was almost fifty when he finally arrived in 1583, having survived shipwreck on Formosa in an attempted crossing the previous year.


Gómez’s achievements in Japan were not negligible, but Valignano’s 1592 catalogue states flatly that he knows nothing of the language. The catalogues do not comment on the Visitor’s own command of the language, but in 1599 it seemed advisable for Valignano and Bishop Cerqueira to withdraw from Nagasaki to Amakusa, and there, with Francisco Rodrigues (chief editor of the Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam) as their teacher, they both applied themselves to learning Japanese, studying harder, according to Valignano, than they had ever done in their days as students of philosophy or theology, and making some progress in it.14 The bishop was in his late forties at that time, and Valignano was sixty.15 In February 1602 the Visitor has been in Arima for four months, and is again spending part of his time studying Japanese. He is in good health, though in his sixty-fourth year, and he believes he is making progress in the language.16 The Visitor, like all the Jesuit superiors up to and including Gómez, did not progress very far.17 Francis Xavier and his successor Cosme de Torres, and then Cabral, all needed interpreters, and Valignano writes that Coelho does not know Japanese and does not really expect to learn it.18 Cabral was very dissatisfied with the attitude of his Japanese lay interpreters and wanted scholastics young enough to learn the language well sent from India or Europe to Japan, and Japanese to be accepted as Jesuits so that they could serve as interpreters, translators and catechists. But he tended to believe that a systematic analysis of the language was not possible, and that the foreigners could never learn Japanese well enough to preach to non-Christians; moreover, as we have seen, he did not trust the Japanese, and was totally opposed to the idea of training them for the priesthood, or even allowing them to learn Latin or Portuguese.19 Valignano altered Jesuit attitudes to the Japanese language as well as to Japanese customs, and already in the annual letter for 1580 Mexia is writing admiringly of the excellent progress being made by the European scholastics,20 but cultural adaptation was a problem never really solved, and Japanese a language seldom really mastered. In 1586 the Visitor writes to Aquaviva: The d juku is a young man…who helps the priest as an interpreter when he has to speak, and often in hearing confessions,… and he is indispensable when they make their visits through the villages.21


The picture of the interpreter in the confessional is a startlingly clear illustration of the missionaries’ problems. The Franciscans disapproved of the Jesuits leaving the preaching to d juku or even to Japanese members of the order, and Ribadeneira (in a tract condemned by the Goa Inquisition as defamatory22) draws a satirical picture of the Japanese preacher, whether scholastic or d juku, on his way through the villages, armed with neither learning nor humility, but well-fed, well-clothed, with horse, servants and money, very brief in his preaching, and sometimes unintelligible to the people because of his pretentious language, baptizing dozens and even hundreds at great speed, and then leaving them like sheep among wolves, with a priest coming to them late or never. The preaching of a learned priest is far more effective, says Ribadeneira, and even if a word should be misunderstood here and there because it is not correctly pronounced, it has been his own experience, even though he does not know the language as well as the Jesuits, that the substance of what he says is understood, and the people know that he is a learned man, and appreciate that he is making himself like a child in order to learn their language and to show them the way to heaven.23 But the language problem was not just a matter of an occasional unclear word, and it is very doubtful if the friar was justified in his confidence that the substance of what he said was understood. In fact Ribadeneira was in Japan for about three years, and learned a good deal of Japanese (although he did not learn to read it), but he himself recognized that the Franciscans, ‘although they knew enough of the langage to catechize and teach, were not really understood by the pagans, because’ (as he puts it) ‘they could not pronounce the language as well as native speakers.’24 The sort of esteem which Ribadeneira mentions did not satisfy Valignano. He states that books and sermons are essential, but none of the Europeans can learn to write or compose books that can be shown to anyone, they almost never master the language in a way which would enable them to preach to educated pagans, and they will never be as able at such things as properly trained Japanese priests.25 He therefore wants Japanese priests, but he also wants the Europeans to do all they can to master the language, and in some of the catalogues he notes the degree of proficiency in Japanese of each of them. This was a matter about which he himself was ill-equipped to judge, and the information he provides is not always completely reliable. In December 1579, for example, he gives Cabral and Organtino the same mark for Japanese, even though Organtino’s


Japanese was better than average and Cabral’s very poor, but his main informant at this time was Cabral himself,26 and he did not meet Organtino in Japan until 1581. In 1592 Organtino knows Japanese ‘well’ and Frois ‘very well’; in 1593 both of them ‘know the Japanese language well’, but there are others who know it ‘very well’, and nine who ‘know the language very well and preach in it’. It would be a mistake to make too much of the differences, but this last category includes the priests Francisco Rodrigues, Manoel Barreto and Pero Paulo Navarro, and the scholastics João Rodrigues and Mateus de Couros. These last three are bracketed together in the 1592 catalogue, which says of them—and only them—that ‘they all know the language very well, and can preach and write in it’. This was what Valignano wanted. All three were men of quite extraordinary ability. The Italian Navarro, who was martyred in Shimabara in 1622, is said to have been a model of adaptation to Japanese customs, the best translator into Japanese of all the foreigners, and the author of several works in Japanese.27 Couros, who had arrived in Japan only in 1590, was provincial in his later years, and his mastery of the language must have helped him to survive in Japan at the height of the persecution until his death in 1633. Rodrigues was the author of two grammars of Japanese and a history of the mission, but he was also a prominent public figure in Japan, and there are frequent references to him in Valignano’s letters —for example in the uneasy days of 1591, when the Visitor is waiting for an official answer from Hideyoshi to his embassy;28 or in November 1599, when an embassy from Tokugawa Ieyasu is to leave Nagasaki for the Philippines in a few days’ time, and Father João Rodrigues is being asked to translate the official letters, written in Chinese, into Spanish.29 Even in Europe, with its overlapping cultures, values and languages, competence in language and etiquette would not guarantee a foreigner a hearing, and it may be that Valignano, who fully appreciated the need for linguistic and cultural competence, underestimated the difficulties that even the most competent foreign missionary would face. But in any case he reports in the Sumario (1583) that no European yet has achieved the necessary mastery of the language, and that ‘all that has been done has been done by some Japanese brothers that we have in the Society’.30 The 1579 catalogue lists seven Japanese Jesuits, including Brother Lourenço, who is outstanding as a preacher in Japanese.31 Lourenço, an uneducated but extremely talented minstrel, blind in one eye and not seeing much with the other, had been baptized by Francis Xavier


in Yamaguchi in 1551, had served the Church ever since, and in about 1560 had become the first Japanese Jesuit. According to Frois, among the many converted by Lourenço’s preaching were Takayama Ukon and his father and Konishi Yukin-aga and his father.32 In 1560 a highly respected and very learned man named Y h ken, a medical doctor, was converted to Christianity, at which his son, also a scholar, was greatly upset and, in Valignano’s words, ‘came with the intention of perverting his father. But the opposite happened, because he was persuaded to listen to Brother Lourenço, and with that he too remained caught in the net.’33 These two, father and son, were among those received into the Society of Jesus by Valignano on Christmas Eve 1580, and in the Visitor’s 1593 catalogue they are the first two of those listed as ‘Japanese brothers who are students who have never studied Latin but only the Japanese language and writings’.34 The entries are as follows: 113. Brother Y h Paulo, native of the kingdom of Wakasa, eighty-five years of age, very feeble, thirteen years in the Society, into which he was received at that age because of his distinction in the letters of Japan and because he had spent more than fifteen years living as a d juku in our houses and had done the Society much service with his learning. 114. Brother H in Vicente, Japanese, son of the same Y h Paulo, of the kingdom of Wakasa, fifty-three years of age, strong and in good health, thirteen years in the Society. He is a man outstanding and unique among all of Ours in the language of Japan, a great preacher in his language, and he has composed in Japanese and translated into Japanese the greater part of the spiritual and learned books which have so far been made in Japanese. The next two listed are Takai Cosme, Japanese, from Miyako, who has been eighteen years a Jesuit and has particular expertise in letterwriting, which he teaches to those in the college; and Juan de Torres, Japanese, from Yamaguchi, twenty-two years a Jesuit, who knows the letters of Japan well, speaks good Portuguese, is a talented preacher in Japanese, and was the teacher of the priests who learned the language well. The 1579 catalogue notes that Torres is the only one among the seven Japanese Jesuits there were at that time who knows any language other than Japanese, and that he speaks, reads and writes Portuguese very well. (The 1579 catalogue states that Brother Lourenço can say nothing in any language other than Japanese, but in Principio Valignano says that Lourenço was an


excellent interpreter.35 This is not necessarily the contradiction it appears to be, as the interpretation could be from broken to fluent Japanese, and Lourenço may well have understood more Portuguese than he spoke.) And the 1603 catalogue records that Takai Cosme teaches ‘the letters of Japan’ to the d juku, and helps in writing and composing books. Bracketed with Brother Takai Cosme in the 1592 catalogue as teacher of Japanese in the Amakusa college is Brother Ungy Fabian, from Miyako, who appears in the 1593 catalogue in the category of ‘brothers who are students of theology or of cases [of conscience] or of Latin’. He is twenty-seven years old, six years a Jesuit, and studied Latin for some years. He knows Japanese language and literature36 very well, and teaches these to the Japanese Jesuits. This is Fukan Fabian, fugitive from the Society in about the year 1608, apostate, and author of the 1592 Heike Monogatari and of both pro- and anti-Christian tracts.37 These are the men the Visitor is referring to when he notes just how dependent the Jesuits have been on ‘some Japanese brothers that we have in the Society’.38 Frois speaks of the beauty and elegance of Y h Paulo’s language, and the fascination it had for the Japanese, and says that he contributed a great deal to the making of the Japanese grammar and the comprehensive dictionary;39 that together with others he translated many lives of saints ‘and other things from our authors’; and that his knowledge of Buddhism and of Japanese history made it possible to improve the catechism used in preaching to the pagans.40 Rodrigues tells us that Y h Paulo was the author of the monogatari,41 and Valignano confirms that Paulo and his son wrote various books in the language of Japan and taught the Jesuits a great deal about Buddhism, showing them how Buddhist texts could be used to counter Buddhist arguments.42 The greater part of the 1591 Acts of the Saints was written by H in Vicente,43 who had, according to Frois, great eloquence, a remarkable and comprehensive mastery of Chinese/ Japanese characters, and special knowledge about Buddhism, especially the Zen sect. We know that he wrote ‘the greater part of the spiritual and learned books’ made before 1593,44 but we do not know which ones, except for the Acts of the Saints. He was surely the man best qualified to compile the remarkable dictionary of Chinese/Japanese characters published under the title Rakuy sh at Nagasaki in 1598, but on the other hand after 1580, when Valignano sent him to teach the boys in the Azuchi seminary,45 H in Vicente was mostly in the Miyako area, hundreds of miles from Nagasaki.


Another Jesuit who made translations into Japanese was Hara Martinho. In 1596 two Spanish Franciscan friars, newly arrived in Japan, met Konishi Yukinaga, who had just returned from Korea with a Chinese embassy to Hideyoshi. The interpreter at the meeting was Hara Martinho,46 and presumably communication was in Latin. In 1607—twenty years after Martinho had delivered his Latin address before Valignano in Goa—and again in 1613, Diogo de Mesquita, who almost certainly had a hand in composing the address, complained that the talents of able Japanese were being wasted, and the example he cited was Hara Martinho,47 who was about forty years old when he was ordained priest the following year. Martinho was prominent in Japan for over twenty years as preacher, diplomat, interpreter and translator. It is known that he was involved in diplomatic negotiations in Kyushu in 1600 and 1606, and in 1611 there were moves to have him made rector of the Nagasaki college, although it seems that nothing came of them.48 Martinho left for Macao with the other Jesuits in 1614, perhaps because he was too well known and would have had little chance of evading the anti-Christian vigilance of the Japanese authorities. He was the ablest at Latin of the Japanese Jesuits, and among the European religious books he translated into Japanese were two of the works of the celebrated Dominican Luís de Granada, whom the boys had met in Lisbon in 1584 and to whom they had shown Japanese translations of some of his own works.49 In 1613 Mesquita writes: he [Father Martinho] is the best interpreter we have in Japan, and he does excellent work translating spiritual books into the language and script of Japan. He translated the Guía de Pecadores [by Luís de Granada], which I sent you, and other books. He recently finished the Libra de Fide of Fray Luís de Granada, and a short while ago we completed printing the first part of it in their characters;…Father Martinho is once more busy revising the translation that was made of Contemptus Mundi into the language and script of Japan.50 Most of the output of the press consisted of catechisms, prayer books, liturgical manuals or works of devotion. The Contemptus Mundi (another title for the Imitatio Christi, now attributed to Thomas à Kempis but in those days usually to Jean Gerson), Ignatius Loyola’s favourite devotional reading51 and recommended daily reading for all Jesuits, appeared in romanization at Amakusa


in 1596, and in Japanese script, in an abridged version, at Kyoto in 1610. There are extant copies of these editions, but there were also others—certainly a Latin one in 1596, almost certainly one in Japanese script in 1603, and according to Bartoli the Contemptus Mundi was published in both Nagasaki and Kyoto in 1612.52 In 1613 Hara was revising the Japanese translation of à Kempis’s spiritual classic, which according to Mesquita was of all the books the one that the Japanese liked best, and no fewer than 1,300 copies were being printed.53 It seems probable that Bartoli is one year out in his dating, and that the edition to which he is referring is the Hara translation. Laures points out54 that there was a manuscript version of which a copy was sent to Hosokawa Gracia (most celebrated of Japanese Christian ladies, and daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide55) in 1588, before Hara returned to Japan, but in fact the Imitatio was already translated before he left Japan in 1582. Valignano opened the Jesuit noviceship at Usuki on Christmas Eve 1580, with six Japanese and six Portuguese novices, and for the first two months he himself taught there, speaking in Portuguese, with Frois interpreting everything for the Japanese novices. As well as directing the production of textbooks for students of language he also had Japanese translations made of various religious texts and spiritual books, including some of the treatises of Luís de Granada and the Imitation of Christ.56 Hara Martinho was then about twelve years old and in the Arima seminary, so he was obviously not the translator, but if the Japanese translations of works of Luís de Granada were carried to Europe57 it is likely that the Japanese translation of the Imitatio Christi, that Jesuit vade mecum, will also have made the journey, and will have been a book very familiar to all the Japanese in the party. Although Hara was not the very first to translate the Imitatio he may well have been the author, or co-author, of the earlier as well as the later printed versions.

14 Conclusion

The 1585 embassy to Rome had the desired effect on Europe but not, in the end, on Japan, and according to Matsuda Kiichi this was mainly because the returned legates lacked the firm grounding in Japanese language and culture which would have enabled them to influence their countrymen as Valignano had hoped they would. ‘Despite the disappointing results of the mission,’ Matsuda writes, ‘Valignano planned to send another group of young Japanese brothers to Europe for study, but was finally overruled by his Jesuit colleagues on the ground that…it was impossible…to acquire sufficient knowledge of Japanese before the age of twenty.’1. No Jesuit in Japan had any authority to overrule Valignano, and it was he who decided that the time was not ripe to send Japanese scholastics to Rome.2 It is true that there were no Jesuits with both the first-hand experience of Europe of an It Mancio or a Hara Martinho and the Japanese learning of a Y h Paulo or a H in Vicente, and that the four boys lacked ‘the only kind of learning known and respected in Japan’,3 but there were other reasons for their success in Europe and their comparative lack of it in Japan. In Europe they had enthusiastic backing from Church and state, they were preaching to the converted, and their exotic presence, living proof of missionary triumph, was sermon enough. In Japan they were notable figures among the Japanese Jesuits and the Kyushu Christians, but except for their one appearance as part of Valignano’s embassy to Hideyoshi they made little impression on the rulers of Japan, who remained unconverted. Valignano has been criticized for advocating diplomacy in dealing with the Japanese Jesuit students, but the criticism seems misdirected.4 Diplomacy and government were the Visitor’s duty and responsibility, his part in the work of evangelization, and it is plain 189


that he regarded his task as urgent. ‘Pray to God, sailor, but row for the shore’ is the traditional exhortation, and it had both literal and metaphorical application. In autumn 1581 Valignano left Bungo for Miyako and a meeting with Oda Nobunaga, in a fine ship provided by tomo S rin, but as they approached the harbour of Sakai and the end of their sea journey, only stupendous efforts by their thirty young oarsmen saved them from pursuing pirates.5 And although the Visitor himself had the good fortune never to experience shipwreck, like all his European missionary colleagues he had personal experience of the menace of ‘the widow-making, unchilding, unfathering deeps’,6 and the thought of the voyages filled him with loathing. Valignano did pray to God, but he also made stupendous efforts to reach the shore—hence his preoccupation with planning, correspondence, education, accommodation, and with matters financial, political and diplomatic. It was always a matter of ‘forcing a way through the hardships and dangers which confront us here’,7 and when the Visitor left Japan in 1582 he believed he had done so successfully. Hopes were high, but his plans were overtaken by events, so that, as he put it himself: In the three times that I have come from India to Japan I have always found things in this country so altered and changed from what they were when I left them that when I returned I could find scarcely a trace of what I had seen and left at my departure.8 And his diplomacy was in some ways not sufficiently flexible. He clung to his determination to exclude other religious orders from Japan even after it had become plain that they were going to come, and he had no plan to put in the place of the dream of a Christian lord of the Tenka, even though in his last years he recognized that all political power was now in the hands of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who did not want Christianity. Valignano aimed not just at making Christians in Japan but at making Japan Christian, and this was a political as well as a religious ambition. He constantly counselled caution and prudence, but at the same time his strategy was always to cultivate and if possible convert the powerful and the prominent, and then to use their power, fame and influence to promote Christianity. He considered the employment of these secular means to sacred ends legitimate and necessary, but it was a dangerous strategy and became more dangerous as the successive lords of the Tenka—Nobunaga, Hideyoshi,

CONCLUSION 191

Ieyasu, all of them intolerant of any power, fame or influence other than their own—came progressively closer to omnipotence. The strategy could just possibly have succeeded if a Christian had become lord of the Tenka—for example if the Tokugawa had been defeated at Sekigahara, if Konishi had been powerful, ruthless and able enough to rise above other contenders and make himself lord of the Tenka, and if he had then, with Valignano and the Jesuits as his mentors, set about promoting or imposing Christianity throughout Japan, as he had throughout Amakusa. It was not perhaps impossible,9 but it did not happen, and Ieyasu, the victor at Sekigahara and the master of Japan, eventually ordered the suppression of Christianity. The country was closed, the Christians were persecuted, and Valignano’s plans, like the Portuguese trading ships, faded into history. Under persecution, terror and torture, many non-samurai Japanese Christians gave proof of a faith and a fortitude which are in ironic comment on the Visitor’s dismissive attitude to the common people, but the persecution was very thorough, and it continued for more than two and a half centuries. The only Christian communities to survive it were the ‘kakure Kirishitan’, the ‘hidden Christians’, and their survival was their own astonishing achievement, for there were no Christian tono or samurai to lead them. ‘Pray to God, sailor, but row for the shore.’ Valignano was exasperated at Francisco Cabral’s failure to take effective action,10 but Cabral’s complaints about the Visitor imply that Valignano puts too much emphasis on oarsmanship and not enough on prayer and religious virtue.11 Valignano’s writings, however, although they do not show the fervour of missionary zeal of a St Francis Xavier, do show very clearly the Christian faith and hope that motivated and sustained him and his fellow missionaries. And Jesuit eulogies following his death make special mention also of the Visitor’s charity, his loving care for his Jesuit subjects, his sympathy and his encouragement. De mortuis nil nisi bonwn, perhaps, and panegyric is a genre which lends itself to exaggeration, but—to give just two examples— Francesco Pasio wrote that ‘All of us in the Society are greatly saddened by his death, for he showed a special love to all of us, and each one of us thought of him as his own father’,12 and João Rodrigues calls Valignano ‘a solicitous and loving father, who deserves the title of Apostle of Japan and China’.13 Valignano died on 20 January 1606, but on the 17th and 18th— weak, in pain, and aware that he is very close to death—he is still dictating, characteristically and impressively determined to leave


everything in order. No less impressive, and more moving, is his concern for some of the humbler members of his entourage. He charges the Jesuits to take good care of the Japanese Brother Kusano Andrés, who for the sake of the Society has unselfishly set aside his own desire to study, and of Luís de Araújo, who has served the Visitor faithfully, diligently, and with love for fourteen or fifteen years, and should now be allowed to join the Society in Japan. There are also two Japanese boys who have served him well, and he asks the Jesuits to see that they have all they need in Macao, to make sure they get back to Japan on the ship, and to commend them to the father viceprovincial and his secretary in Japan. And lastly, the Visitor tells his men to look after and console Doña Ginebra Rodríguez, who has always been like a mother to the Macao College, and will be very upset at his death.14 It was the Father Visitor, more than anyone else, who taught the missionaries that becoming a follower of Christ does not mean becoming a European or ceasing to be Japanese. In 1614 Diogo de Mesquita wrote of the Christians of Japan: ‘there does not seem to be any Church in the whole of Christendom which surpasses them. Indeed, I regard them as the best in the world.’15 Valignano’s own judgement is always more guarded, and seldom entirely free of condescension and superciliousness, but he too presents the Japanese— especially but not only the Christians—as praiseworthy: a people all of whom are very much subject to reason…And when they become Christians and begin to go to confession they live very well, taking great care of their souls, and to keep our holy law, and with a great desire for salvation, correcting the vices they had when they were pagans.16 He had already learned all this, at second hand, before he ever came to Japan, and when he wrote this passage in 1601 his information was still in a sense second-hand since, as Mesquita points out, the Visitor always needed an interpreter.17 He was nevertheless very well informed, and he chose to retain, to reinforce, and to pass on to Europe the image of the Japanese as ‘a people noble and rational’.

Appendix A How land is owned and income reckoned in Japan*

It is scarcely possible to understand things written about Japan without a knowledge of the way in which Japanese lords own their lands and calculate their income, so it is necessary for us to say something about it here. From the most ancient times it was the custom in Japan (a custom now abolished) and was, as it were, de iure gentis, that the entire kingdom belonged to the king in such a way that there was not a single square foot of land in the whole country that was not his; and the ownership of it always remained his, irrespective of any gifts he might make, and indeed there is a saying among them that everything in Japan belongs to the king. Even if he gave land to someone, for administrative reasons, he did not thereby relinquish the ownership of it, which never ceased to be his, and whenever he wished he could take away again the lands and the overlordship which he had given. This is why in the letters and patents which they drew up when they gave land away the only word used is the word meaning to deposit, so that they speak of depositing such and such a kingdom in the hands of so and so, or depositing such and such lands with someone, so that he may govern and enjoy them. And the kings themselves could not disinherit their sons who succeeded them of this ownership, or prevent them revoking whenever they wished the gifts which they had given. Even now the lords of the Tenka maintain the same dominion and the same method of distributing property and making gifts. But on the other hand he who is given a kingdom or made lord of some area becomes absolute lord of it, not only taking everything which * Translation of Chapter 6 of Valignano: Principio; published in the original Spanish in Sumario, ed. J.L.Alvarez-Taiadriz, pp. 318–30.1 193


that kingdom or place produces (unless there is something which the king expressly reserves for himself) and assuming absolute authority within it, but also distributing the land and the income from it to his soldiers and followers in whatever way he pleases, but always with the same condition, that he can take them back whenever he wants. And the lords to whom authority is given in this way over lands and kingdoms are then obliged to be at the service of the lord of the Tenka, at their own expense, with so many horse and so many foot soldiers, the numbers being in proportion to the amount of land they have been given. Whether in time of war or in time of peace they are not free of this obligation, and in order to fulfil it and present themselves for service they in turn distribute part of those lands which they have received among various officers who are their relatives or their followers, and these again distribute them to others of a lower rank, with the same obligations which they themselves must accept. And this piece of land which each receives, whether small or large, and even if it is an entire kingdom, is called in Japanese ry chi or chigy . The distribution of land is always made in terms of a measure which in Japanese is called itch . This is an area of land which, according to the Japanese reckoning, would yield, if sown with rice, ten of the measures which they call koku. And this measurement of the koku which the land yields is what they use to calculate the income of all the lords and gentry. And although the measure of land has varied at different times in Japan, being sometimes more and sometimes less, and the obligation and the number of people has varied with it, the calculation which is used at the present time is that each itch is reckoned to be equivalent to ten koku, and for every hundred koku that a man has he is obliged to have four persons who can serve in war, other than labourers, who are not included in this count. On these same lands these labourers are assigned to villages and fields in such a way that there is a sufficient number of them to work whatever area of land each person holds, and they are under an obligation to work the land, and to sow it, at their own cost, without the lord having to spend anything at all on it. And afterwards the distribution is made as follows: from the lands which are for sowing rice—and rice is what they live on—the lords normally take two parts, leaving the third part for the labourers. But the Japanese also generally sow the same lands, or part of them, with barley and wheat before the time for sowing the rice, and all that the labourers produce from these lands (the proper name of which in

HOW LAND IS OWNED AND INCOME RECKONED IN JAPAN 195

Japanese is ta), as well as the third part of the rice, they can keep. And the remaining land, which for Jack of water they cannot sow with rice (and the proper name of these lands is hatake), they sow with wheat and other things, and of what they produce there normally they keep half, while the other half goes to their lord. But in return for what they keep, and for the place where they live, and their houses, they are also obliged to come for so many days each year and be at the service of their lord, both to carry the things needed for use in war, when they go to war, and also for other menial service in the lord’s house, and at these times the lord gives them a certain amount of rice and vegetables to eat. But to return to the way of measuring land and calculating income: in calculating income the Japanese think of all land in terms of koku of rice, even though part of the land is dry or mountainous and cannot be sown with rice, counting so many itch of this land as one itch of rice-producing land, so in calculating incomes they say that so and so has whatever number of koku of rice his land can yield at ten koku per itch . All the land is regarded as yielding ten koku per itch , but although there are places where the land is so good that they do produce ten koku to the itch , nowadays the reckoning is so strict that if they can produce about five or six koku per itch they are mostly satisfied, and so they have in reality much less income than they are said to have. From all that has been said many things will be clear which without this information would have been difficult to understand. The first thing is that all the land is given by the lord of the Tenka in the way we have explained for the lords to divide it out as they wish among their servants and soldiers. And of the sixty-six parts into which Japan is divided some yield, according to the system of reckoning which we have explained, 200,000 or 300,000 koku of rice, and others 400,000 or 500,000. And so it is said among the Japanese that those who hold these kingdoms have incomes of two, three, four, or five hundred thousand koku of rice. Those who have more lands have more income, the amount of income corresponding to the yield of the land. But the lords parcel out the lands to their officers, giving to some, for example, 10,000 koku of income, to others 20,000 or 30,000, to others 4,000 or 5,000, and so on, and the lords take for themselves only the income which they need for themselves and their households. In order to be able to maintain many soldiers they used to keep very little for themselves, but for a number of years now


they have been becoming more prudent, and it is usual for them now to reserve one-third of the land for themselves. And this seems to have given rise to some confusion and misunderstanding at what looks like a contradiction in Jesuit letters. Ours have sometimes written that such and such a lord had an income of 300,000 or 400,000 koku of rice, and that in Japan one koku of rice can generally be taken to be the equivalent of one of our ducats, more or less. The result was that the letters stated both that the lords had very little money and that they had this huge income, which seemed contradictory. But although it is true that the normal way of speaking about it in Japan is to say that such and such a lord has an income of 300,000 or 400,000 koku of rice, the way in which this method of reckoning is understood is different in Japan and in our countries. In Europe it is taken to mean income which each lord takes from the land for himself, as his own, whereas in Japan it is taken to mean the total of everything that the land yields. And besides, in Japan the true income is always much less in reality than it is in name, and it is distributed in such a way among officers, soldiers and labourers that, as I said, barely a third of it remains for the lord himself. Thus a lord with an income of 300,000 koku of rice will reserve for himself only 100,000, which in reality will mean only 50,000 or 60,000, so he actually has for his own and his household’s expenses an income of only 50,000 or 60,000 ducats, and one who is said to have 3,000 koku of rice will in fact have an income of 500 or 600 ducats for himself. But it is true that he benefits in other ways from his lands, and is very well served by his people. From this it will also be clear that the lords of one of the sixty-six parts of Japan are truly great lords, and much more so those who are lords of three, four or six of these parts together, since for every hundred koku that they have they are obliged to maintain four men ready for war, in addition to the labourers who do the carrying. So a lord with an income of 200,000 koku has 8,000 soldiers, always fully equipped and, as they say, on their toes, ready for peace or war. And the lord of four or five of these parts of Japan has, depending on his income, 25,000, 30,000, or even 40,000 warriors. And since everyone in Japan has final and absolute authority, there being no right of appeal to any higher authority, over the servants he has under him, and can at will take away their lives and their incomes, and all are obliged to serve their lord in peace and war, the lords have indeed excellent retinues and are excellently served, and have the appearance and the power of kings. They put


many men in the field and yet it costs them very little, and since nowadays they are all ruled de iure belli, like soldiers who are always under arms, judgement and justice are executed very rapidly among them, and the penalties and punishments are severe, as is normal in our countries in time of war among soldiers in the field. It also follows from this that there is no one who has lands and is not a soldier, a real soldier. Thus all the lords and the gentry of the land are soldiers, with the exception of the monks (whom we shall speak about in their place). No one else in Japan can hold a single square foot of land without being bound by the obligation that goes with it; even the merchants and artisans in the towns and villages, and the sailors, the fishermen and the labourers, because of the land on which their very houses stand, have to present themselves for the service of the lords on whose lands they are, according to the laws and obligations which they have, and the strictness with which they adhere to these in Japan is as in our countries in time of war. From this it will also be understood what the changes of kingdoms (in their language they call them kunigae, which means precisely changes of kingdoms) in Japan are like, and how easily the lords lose their estates, and in how short a time, almost in an instant, they become weak and poor instead of powerful and rich; because when the lord of the Tenka changes a kingdom, and this he can do at will and has done very readily and very often in these recent times, and the lord who held it leaves it to go to another part of the country, he takes with him all the soldiers and all the nobles from the land, and all of them are obliged, under pain of death, to leave with him, for he keeps them and maintains them as his soldiers, and only the labourers and the merchants remain, together with the artisans and people of the lower class, and they are obliged to stay on there on the land. And just as the lord abandons the land, leaving it for another lord to whom that kingdom is given, so also the kingdom which he receives in exchange is stripped of all those of the nobility and the military class who were there previously, and he who takes it over divides it up among his own people. In the same way when the lord of the Tenka deprives a lord of his estates, for some crime or for some other reason, genuine or not, without giving him any recompense, and either takes the estates for himself or gives them to another, not only does that lord lose his estates, but all his relatives and all the nobility and the military class also ipso facto lose the lands and the incomes which they had on those estates, all of that remaining there for the lord of the Tenka himself or for another lord to whom the estates are given. Since all


that they had they had from the hand of their lord, as men who were his servants, and it was to the lord himself that all the land had been given, when the lord is lost all of them are lost and left with nothing. They lose not only their lands but also the belongings and furnishings of their households, except for what they can carry with them in great haste. For those who come to take possession of those estates, when in this way they have been lost because of some crime, come in great haste so as to be able to keep everything and to make sure that nothing is removed; and since the lords and all their servants and all their relatives are dispossessed in this way in an instant not only of their lands and incomes but also of their houses and belongings, they are left with nothing, helpless and in very great poverty. In the times when not much obedience was shown to the lord of the Tenka, and the yakata and other lords held high positions, each one setting himself up as a ruler, the lord of the Tenka was in no position to make these changes, nor could the yakata easily make them in their own lands. The yakata did not obey the lord of the Tenka, nor did the kunishu and other tono obey the yakata or allow them to do as they wished with them. Rather they would rebel, together with those under their command, and would retreat into their fortresses and take sides with another yakata, so that if a lord was to defend himself and his estates he had to pay very careful attention to the other tono and officers whom he had under him, and these would unite and ally themselves in such a way that he could not proceed against them as he might wish, and indeed was often unable to do anything except what they wanted. But after Kampakudono made himself lord of all Japan he altered it as he wished, reducing it to total dependence on the lord of the Tenka, transferring almost all the lords from one kingdom to another, and making laws to enable not only the lord of the Tenka to make these changes at will, but also every one of the lords, in the same way, to make whatever changes he pleases in the kingdoms and estates which he holds. As a result the lords of Japan are indeed much more subject to the lord of the Tenka, but in the estates which they hold they command a much greater degree of obedience from their vassals and servants, and their authority is much more absolute than it ever was before. This is the condition of Japan at present, and may it please Our Lord to keep it in the peace in which it now is for many years. What has been said will make it possible to understand many


things which might otherwise have been misunderstood as we go forward with this history…. This way of governing, although it seems and indeed is fearsome and shocking, since it allows no one to live secure in his estate, and is the cause of so much injustice perpetrated by the lords, does not seem so hard or unjust to the Japanese, who are accustomed to it. Japan is in fact under martial law, like an army of officers and soldiers. Now in our countries the king, or the commander-in-chief of the army, has absolute power to make and unmake all officers and ranks of the army, and to entrust the command of towns and fortresses to whomever he wishes, and to take the command away from one and appoint another, if it seems to him that this will help the war he is waging and the province he administers. And the order of procedure in judgement and punishment is different and much more severe than it would be in times of peace, officers being given authority to inflict immediate and severe punishment on their soldiers, without any prosecutors or lawyers appearing in the court. In the same way it seems to the Japanese that their government, which is entirely military, is just and good. There are, besides, two great advantages which follow from this type of government, although there are also disadvantages. The first advantage is that all this rigour stops the murders and robberies which take place in time of war, so that there are fewer violent deaths in Japan, and fewer evils, than in other kingdoms where people live with more laws and more judicial procedures; because with few laws and with this kind of government, when there is no war among them and they are living in peace under one universal lord of all Japan, as is the case now, there is not the taking sides and the killing that one finds in other kingdoms, with the hatred of one city of the kingdom for another that follows from these; nor are there brigands or corsairs on land or sea, with the thieving and looting found in other places, nor are there legal actions and disputes, with the deceit, lying, and other evils that follow from them; but all those who are under one lord live completely at peace with one another, without any disturbance among them. The second advantage that follows from this kind of government is that since everything they have depends on the will of their lords, they are not so attached to their possessions, but live always prepared, as it were, to lose them easily; and being thus prepared they afterwards accept easily and with equanimity the loss of their possessions and the alteration of their state, and this is a great help after


they receive the light of the holy Gospel, and is an excellent disposition for the good and advancement of their souls.

Appendix B How and why we got the port of Nagasaki*

In this letter I want to tell Your Paternity how and why we got the port of Nagasaki. As soon as I arrived here and met Don Bartolomé, lord of mura, he asked me very insistently to accept this port for the church, and he gave it to us and desired us to accept it for three main reasons: 1. Because he was very much afraid that Ry z ji (a pagan who is now lord of all this kingdom of Hizen) would ask him for this port, which he greatly desires. If he gave it to him he would lose the profit from the ships, which he needs, and if he refused he would have to go to war with him, which is what he feared more than anything else. To escape from this dilemma he thought it would be a good solution to give it to the Church. He would still have his rights, and if it belonged to the Church Ry z ji would not demand it. 2. Because it would guarantee him in perpetuity the profits from the said ships, because if Nagasaki belonged to the fathers then the Portuguese would never cease to come here. 3. Because he thought it would also ensure the safety of his person and his land. Whatever happened he could always take refuge there and would never lose his land. We discussed this question long and often, not only with those who were here in Shimo but also with those in Miyako and Bungo, and

* Abbreviated translation of Valignano to Mercurian, Nagasaki, 15 August 1580; previously published in J.F.Moran, ‘Valignano in Japan 1580’, pp. 205–2. 201


with only one or two exceptions all thought that it was not only good but necessary to accept, for the following reasons: 1. Don Bartolomé’s reasons were very urgent. If Ry z ji did take Nagasaki he would be much more powerful, having the profit from the ships, and would be able to pursue his war with the king of Bungo much more effectively. This would be very bad for Christianity. 2. It would be a great refuge for persecuted Christians, and antiChristian lords, knowing this, would be much less repressive. 3. It would also be a refuge for us, and a safe place for our so necessary property. 4. It would give us enough income to keep up the residences in Don Bartolomé’s kingdom. Don Bartolomé has given us 1,000 ducats which the Portuguese pay as harbour dues, and we have divided this into three parts, one for the fortification and upkeep of the port itself, one to use to persuade Christian or pagan lords to favour or not to impede conversions, and one for the upkeep of the said residences. 5. Eventually there is going to be a bishop here, and Nagasaki, if the Society does not want it, would be very useful to him. So I decided to accept, and Nagasaki now belongs to us. Don Bartolomé also gave us Mogi, which is one league from here.1 The main problem is that as we are now lords of this place we have to administer justice. We cannot leave this to the lord of the whole area because it is not the custom, and because their justice is very unsatisfactory. They make no distinction between civil and criminal cases, nor between ecclesiastical and secular. But it is normal for the lords to give the captaincy of the land to yakunin. The lord is still the owner, but the yakunin have full powers, and do not have to refer or report to the lord. So we got Don Bartolomé to make some just laws, to be observed in this port, modifying the Japanese laws as best we could to make them just. He gave authority to whomever we nominate as yakunin of this port to administer justice, including the death penalty, according to these laws. So it is the lord who confers power over life and death, etc., but the yakunin is to be changed each year, so the superior of Japan can deal with him if he is unsatisfactory, by changing or reprehending him. Although the gift of Nagasaki is unconditional, I accepted it on condition that we could give it up whenever we wanted, even just on the authority of the superior of India or even of the superior of

HOW AND WHY WE GOT THE PORT OF NAGASAKI 203

Japan. This ought to be so because things are so changeable in Japan, and we might need to give up Nagasaki at short notice, and also because things here are not as they are in Europe. The lords and others here may take back what they have given and even what they have sold, If for some reason this should happen we do not intend to resist, as there is no higher authority here to which we can appeal. And besides, we are so dependent on the ship. If it failed to come for two or three years our whole position would be totally different. Property here does not mean the same as it does in Europe, and it is not possible to operate on the same assumptions as in Europe. Your Paternity should ask His Holiness the Pope to issue a brief giving us wider faculties, so that without scruple we can exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction, so as, for example, to be able to make new laws with the sanction of capital punishment. All this may seem very strange, but things really are different here in Japan.

Notes

In the notes the following abbreviations are used: V=Valignano VG=letter from Valignano to (Jesuit) General V-J. Alvares=letter from Valignano to J.Alvares, etc. J=Japonica Sinica series, Jesuit Archives, Rome Goa=Goa series, Jesuit Archives, Rome REI=San Martín…y…Ribadeneira (1973): Relaciones e Informaciones. Reference to letters: ‘VG Kuchinotsu 2/12/1579. J.8(1).235v-236’, for example, refers to a letter from Valignano to the General, from Kuchinotsu, dated 2 December 1579, and preserved in the Jesuit Archives, Japonica Sinica series no. 8 (1), sheets 235 (verso) and 236 (recto). Works are referred to by the author’s surname, with the date of publication supplied where there is reference to more than one work by the same author. For titles and further information, see the Bibliography. Where publication spans a period, only the first year of the period is indicated in the notes. Thus, for example, Frois (1976–84) appears in the notes as Frois (1976). Anonymous works are referred to by the first word of the title, e.g. Vocabulario. CHAPTER 1 ORIENTATION

1 Rodrigues (1604), 129. 2 Frois (1976), 3. 128. 3 Part of the explanation of these events is that Tokugawa Ieyasu (see p. 5) wanted trade but did not want Christianity. By 1614 204

NOTES 205

4

5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

he was convinced that the trouble attendant on the missionaries and the religion they propagated outweighed their usefulness as trade intermediaries. For a fuller explanation see, for example, Boxer (1967), ch. 6. See Schurhammer, 99. Theological questions about ‘the salvation of the heathen’ are outside the scope of this book, and the answers given today differ considerably from those given in Xavier’s time (ibid., 236). Xavier himself, however, also has something to say about the law of God which is ‘written in the hearts’ of all men (ibid., 222). And children who died before they were old enough to sin would be saved if and only if they were baptized. See p. 65 above. Schütte (1975), 105–6, 178–80. Crucified were six Franciscan friars, three Japanese Jesuits (two of whom became Jesuits only on the day before their martyrdom) and seventeen other Japanese, followers of the Franciscans. Hideyoshi’s sentence was directed at the friars, who had been preaching openly in Kyoto. The reason given on his official notice at the execution site was that they ‘preached a religion which I had forbidden to be preached’ (Cooper [1974], 129). See pp. 80, 81. For background and explanation see Cooper (1974), chs 6, 7. Schütte (1980), pt. 1, 44. Frois (1976), vol. 5, 186. VG Nagasaki 4/10/1598. J.13(1).166. VG Nagasaki 6/8/1580. J.8(1).272. VG Japan 11/1/1603. J.14(1).116v. VG Macao 6/10/1603 and 12/11/1603. J.14(1).137. VG Macao 6/4/1604. J.14(1).159v. V-J. Alvares, Macao 9/4/1604. J.14(1).166. V-J. Alvares, 20/1/1605. J.14(2).186v. CHAPTER 2 THE AMBASSADORS

1 Hara, 9–10, The Oratio habita a Fara D.Martino Iaponio is the fifteen-page text of Hara’s Latin address. It was printed in Goa in 1588, probably with the press subsequently brought to Japan. See ch. 11 and p. 187 below. 2 Hara, 15. 3 VG Cochin 20/12/1586. J.10(2).209. 4 V (1590), 373–5. 5 VG Goa 20/11/1587. J.10(2).291.


6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

V (1943), 400. VG Cochin 28/10/1583. J.9(2).173; V (1590), 47. V (1943), 395–98. VG Cochin 28/10/1583. J.9(2). 174–175v. V (1943), 401. V (1944), 9. Frois (1942), 23–7; V (1590), 49. Frois (1942); V (1590), passim. Frois (1942), 143. See Boscaro (1973); also Boscaro (1970). For information on the embassy in Rome, see Frois (1942), 141–208. V. (1943), 49. Frois (1942), 207. See pp. 17–18. V (1597), 22. Frois (1942) xvii has it that the audience was at the Escorial, but it seems clear that it took place in Madrid. See Frois (1942), 97. Matthew 2:1. Psalm 72:10–11. Letter from Aquaviva to Valignano, quoted in V (1597), 22. Frois (1976), vol. 3, 260. The screen-painter may have been Kan Eitoku, who painted for Nobunaga and for Toyotomi Hideyoshi. More about the gifts in Lach, vol. 1, bk 2, ch. 7; Frois (1942), 87–8; Boscaro (1970), 15. Frois (1942), passim; Cooper (1982); Lach, vol. 1, bk 2, ch. 7; Boscaro (1970), 12–15. V (1954), 84. See also Frois (1976), vol. 3, 149–50; Cieslik, 44. V (1954), 159–60. Cieslik, 44. Regimento que se ha de guardar en los seminarios. J.2.35–39, published in Schütte (1951), vol. 2, 479–86. See Schütte (1980), pt. 1, 346–54; Cooper (1974), 63–4. V (1592), 421, n. 27. On the vicissitudes of the Azuchi seminary, see Schütte (1975), passim. Frois (1976), vol. 3, 150. VG Cochin 12/12/1584. Goa 13(I).217. See Schütte (1980), pt 2, 94 ff. Frois (1976), vol. 3, 195. Ibid., 252–3. Ibid. See VG Cochin 12/12/1584. Goa 13(I).217–218.

NOTES 207

39 Details of Valignano’s 1579–82 itinerary in Frois (1976), vol. 3; Schütte (1980), and V (1954), Introduction. 40 It Yoshikatsu left the seminary not later than 1587, since in that year he married a sister of It Mancio (Frois [1976], vol. 5, 518–21). 41 V (1597), 20–21. 42 Schütte (1980), pt. 2, 257–66; Frois (1942), xi, 43 V (1597), 20–24v. 44 Papinot, 217. 45 VG Macao 30/10/1588. J.10(2).337. It was in fact Mancio’s uncle, It Sukekata, who had been restored to power, as the Visitor himself notes in V (1597), 24v. It Sukekoshi, son of Sukekata and cousin of Mancio, succeeded his father in 1600. 46 Frois (1942), 9–16. 47 V (1597), 23v. 48 Frois (1976), vol. 5, 281–4. 49 Ibid., 307–8. 50 Ibid., 317–18. 51 Ibid., 354. 52 Pacheco (1971c), 438, n. 25. 53 V (1954), p. 87. 54 REI, 231–2. 55 Mesquita-Aquaviva, Nagasaki 3/11/1607. J.14(2).285, quoted in REI, 232. 56 V (1954), 87. 57 See REI, 31–2; Lucena, 128–34; Pacheco (1971c), 438; V (1954), 87. 58 Nagasaki 10/3/1613. J.36.21v, quoted in Pacheco (1971c), 438. 59 Cooper (1974), 296, 300. 60 Sumario, p. 86. See Nakaura (1982), which is a letter, in Portuguese: Nakaura Julião-Nuno Mascarenhas, Kuchinotsu 21/9/1621. J.36.39–39v, 40–41v, 42–43v, published 1982, in facsimile, Portuguese transcription, and Japanese translation, by Nihon Nij roku Seijin Kinenkan, Nagasaki. 61 See pp. 159–60. 62 Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Jesuítas 22–6–5, quoted in Pacheco (1971c), 438. CHAPTER 3 THE VISITOR

1 See p. 181. 2 Schütte (1980), pt 1, 39, n. 167.


3 4 5 6

7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Ibid., pt 1, 39. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 31; V (1954), 4*. VG Nagasaki 6/8/1580. J.8(1).275v. V-C. Aquaviva 1/9/1580. J.8(2).293v. Valignano’s letter seems to imply that Rodolfo was Claudio’s younger brother, and it refers to him as ‘your dearest brother’, but (pace Moran [1981], 220 and n. 7) they were nephew and uncle, brothers only sensu lato. VG Nagasaki 6/8/1580, J.8(1).272; VG Macao 10/4/1604, J.14 (1).168–168v, where he requests it explicitly, and notes that it is only the second time he has ever made that request. VG Cochin 12/12/1584. Goa 13(1).216v-217v. In the catalogue of December 1579, in Valignano’s own hand, in Goa 24(1).124, cited in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 398. See for example Goa 13(1).217v. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 70–74. Ibid., 251–60. Frois (1976), vol. 1, 398, n, 5. VG Nagasaki 20/10/1600. J.14(1).34v. Biographical information about Valignano in Schütte (1980), pt 1, 30–36 and passim; and in V (1954), Introduction. J.8(1),247. VG Goa 4/1/1586. J.10(1).126v, quoted in Schütte (1980), pt 1, 52. VG Cochin 28/10/1583. J.9(2).175. VG Nagasaki 20/2/1599. J.13(2).255. Gómez died the following year. VG Macao 15/12/1593. J.12(1).141. J.8(1).275. VG Macao 15/11/1603. J.14(1).145v. Cabral-Aquaviva, Goa 15/12/1593. Goa 14.155. The complete letter is published in Schütte (1951), pt 2, 469–76. Cabral-Aquaviva, Kuchinotsu 30/8/1580. J.8(1).284v. The complete letter is published in Schütte (1951), pt 2, 495–502. VG 23/11/1595. J.12(2).315–318v. VG Goa 10/11/1595. J. 12(2).295–295v. VG Nagasaki 25/10/1598, in J.13(2).213v. V (1954), 169; V (1592), 546–7. VG Goa 18/11/1595. J.12(2).309. VG Goa 19/11/1595. J.12(2).312v. Stephen Cudner. See Spence, 170. VG Goa 10/11/1595. J.12(2).296. There were also almost sev-

NOTES 209

33 34 35 36 37 38

enty Japanese Jesuits, and two Chinese. See Schütte (1975), 317– 25, 286. ‘como por esta via le avisames’. Quoted, in Spanish, in VG Goa 27/11/1595. J.12(2).323. Quoted, in Latin, in VG Goa 27/11/1595. J.12(2).323. VG Goa 27/11/1595. J.12(2).323. VG Goa 27/11/1595. J.12(2).323v-324. VG Goa 3/12/1596. J.13(1).37–37v. CHAPTER 4 FULL AND COMPLETE INFORMATION

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13

V (1601), ch. 5. Ibid., Letter of Dedication. Ibid., Prologue. VG Kuchinotsu 5/12/79. J.8(2).243v. V (1601), Letter of Dedication. Letter preserved in Biblioteca Comunale di Siena, quoted in Frois (1942), p.141. V (1601), ch. 5, which is reproduced with annotations in V (1954), 393–409. V (1954), 30. Elison, p. 74, quotes V (1954) on this theme, but makes no mention of V (1601). Rodrigues’s História, bk 1, ch. 8, is entitled The measurement of roads, and the method of measuring lands in respect to rent…’, but there is nothing about lands or rent in the chapter itself. See Cooper (1973), 63. One wonders whether the interpreter’s account of the method of measuring lands would have differed from the Visitor’s. In Cooper (1974), 304 the author notes that Rodrigues is very free in borrowing without acknowledgement from earlier writers, particularly Lucena and Gonçalves. But Rodrigues is also indebted to Valignano, and much of the autograph preface to his Hist ria, which Cooper (1974, 301) considers ‘a valuable document because it sets out at some length the reasons that prompted the Jesuits to produce yet another history of the mission’, is taken verbatim, and without acknowledgement, from Valignano’s Letter of Dedication at the beginning of V (1601). V (1954), 63–8*. Gospel according to St John, 4:35. VG Kuchinotsu 5/12/1579. JS 8(1).242. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 271–2.


14 See Cooper (1974), 163–4. 15 Cabral-Diego Mir , Nagasaki 6/9/1571. J.7(1).23v. Quoted in Schütte (1980), pt 1, 216. 16 VG 1579. J.8(2).243. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 272–4. 17 Schütte (1980), pt 1, 275–8. 18 VG Macao 30/10/1588. J.10(2).335. Original Spanish published in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 401–3. 19 As Wicki notes, in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 403, n. 9. 20 Wicki, in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 403, n. 11. 21 Schütte (1980), pt 1, 40. 22 VG Goa 28/12/1585. J.10(1).118. 23 VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).227–227v. The Portuguese versions of the letters to the pope and the cardinal are in J.11 (2).222–223v and J.11(2).218–221v respectively. 24 VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).32, and V-Fabio de Fabiis, Macao 8/1/1593. J.12(1).63. 25 Antonio Possevino, at that time secretary to Mercurian. 26 The Jesuit General has a Jesuit consultant, known as the ‘assistant’, for each group of Jesuit provinces. Thus, for example, there are several Spanish Jesuit provinces but one Spanish ‘assistant’. 27 J.8(1).172. Reproduced in the original Spanish in V (1944), 480– 81, and in V (1954), 193–4*, and in German translation in V (1944), 50*. 28 V (1954), 195*. 29 VG 13/1/1587. J.10(2).226v. 30 V-J. de Ribera, Amakusa 5/10/1599. J.13(2).317. 31 De Sande-Aquaviva, 28/9/1589. J.11(1).169–169v. 32 Laures, 32–4; VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).157–157v. 33 VG Cochin 28/10/1583. J.9(2).173v. 34 VG Macao 10/11/1597. J.13(1).91–91v. 35 VG Nagasaki 25/10/1598. J.13(2).212. 36 VG Macao 24/1/1604. J.14(1).156–156v. 37 e.g. VG Cochin 20/12/1586. J.10(2).209v. 38 VG Macao 22–24/7/1589. J.11(1).108v. Historia Indica=V (1944). 39 Frois (1976), vol. 1, 397. 40 Mesquita-Aquaviva, Nagasaki 3/11/1607. J.14(2).284v. Quoted in Schütte (1980), pt 2, 65. 41 Written after the Visitor’s first stay in Japan, Nagasaki 25/10/1585. J.10(1).51–51v. Published in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 399.

NOTES 211

42 Frois-Aquaviva, Shimonoseki 1/1/1587, J.10(2).222–222v, 225v. Published in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 400–1. 43 Frois-Aquaviva, Katsusa 13/9/1589. J.11(1).139, quoted in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 404. 44 Frois-Aquaviva, Macao 12/11/1593. J.12(1).112–113. Published in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 406–8. 45 VG Nagasaki 19/10/1598. J.13(1).183v. 46 Frois (1976), vol. 1, 408. 47 Pasio-João Alvares, Nagasaki 5/12/1602. J.14(1).107v, quoted in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 412. 48 Frois (1976). 49 Frois-Aquaviva, Macao 18/1/1593. J.12(1).96–96v. Published in Frois (1976), vol. 1, 404–5. 50 Frois-Aquaviva, Nagasaki 20/1/1596. J,12(2).347–348. Quoted in Frois (1976), vol, 1, 410–11. CHAPTER 5 SHIPS AND SEALING-WAX

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Details of sailing schedules in Schütte (1980), vol. 1, Appendix 2. VG Nagasaki 22/2/1599. J.13(2).261. V-J. de Ribera, Amakusa 5/10/1599. J.13(2).315v. Cooper (1974), 31. VG Macao 6 Oct.-12 Nov. 1603. J.14(1).137v. VG Macao 7/4/1604. J.14(1).163v. VG Macao 5/1/1594. J.12(2).154. V-J. Alvares, Nagasaki 16/10/1601. J.14(1).79. V-J. Alvares, Nagasaki 20/10/1600. J.14(1).27–27v. Cooper (1974, 205) mentions meetings between Adams and unnamed Jesuits, but not this meeting with Morejón. Boxer (1963), 13. Between 1582 and 1603 this happened ten times (Boxer [1963] passim). VG Goa 17/12/1585. J.10(1).101. VG Goa 13/2/1588. J.10(2).325. VG Macao 11/1/1589. J.11(1).50. Boxer (1963), 72–3; Valignano (1601), ch. 7. VG Nagasaki 29/10/1591. J.11(2).261–262. VG Nagasaki 27/10/1591. J.11(2).253v. VG Arima 24/12/1602. J.14(1).109. VG Macao 6 Oct.-12 Nov. 1603. J.14(1).137v. Boxer (1968), 132; (1963), 46–7.


21 See Boxer (1967), 261; de la Costa (1965), 44; VG Macao 6/4/1604. J.14(1).158. 22 V-F. Rodrigues, Macao 9/4/1604. J.14(1).164. 23 Boxer (1967), 155. 24 See de la Costa (1965), 16–19. 25 Boxer (1967), 155. 26 V (1597), 4 and 9. 27 De la Costa (1961), 38–41. 28 Spence, 181. Spence here implies that Valignano was in Macao in 1583, but in fact he left for India on the last day of 1582. See Schütte (1580), pt 1, xvii. 29 VG Macao, 17/12/1582. J.9(1).122. 30 See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 364; VG 17/12/1582. J.9(1).114; VRonquillo, in Colin and Pastells, vol. 1, 296–8. 31 De la Costa (1961), 44 ff; V (1954), 175–7*; Guzmán, 192. 32 VG Goa 1/4/1585. J.10(1).25–26. 33 V-Sedeño, Goa 8/4/1585. J.10(1).27–28v. 34 Boxer (1967), 257–9, 35 De la Costa (1961), 77 ff. 36 Sánchez-Aquaviva, Macao 22/6/1584. See de la Costa (1961), 54 ff. 37 VG Cochin 20/12/86. J.10(2).210v. 38 Schütte (1980), pt 1, 64–74. 39 V-de Fonseca 6/11/1576. J.8(1).45v. 40 VG Lisbon 8/2/1574. J.7(2).194v. 41 VG Kuchinotsu 2/12/1579. J.8(1).235v-236. See Moran (1979), 5. 42 V (1954), 143–9; see Boxer (1967), 156–9. For the arguments both pro and con put forward during the consultation, see V (1954), 187*. 43 See e.g. VG Goa 19/11/1595. J.12(2).323. CHAPTER 6 THE ENTERPRISE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

V (1592), 431. VG Nagasaki 6/8/1580. J.8(1).274. See Moran (1981), 205, 200. Moran (1979), 4. VG Japan J. 8(1). 264–267. See Moran (1981), 215. Moran (1979), 5. V-de Ribera, Shiki 22/28 Oct. 1599. J.13(2).351v. V (1597), 72–72v. Annual Letter 1596, cited by Alvarez-Taladriz in V (1592), 366. See also V (1597), 99, and Cooper (1974), 103.

NOTES 213

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

V (1597), 73. V (1954), 24. V (1954), 243. REI, 17. V (1601), ch.7. V (1946), 74. Ibid., 84–5. VG Cochin 12/12/1584. Goa 13(1).210v. Moran (1979), 7. VG Goa 1/4/1585. J.10(1).25–26, and VG Goa 27/12/1585. See Elison, 117. VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).226. VG Goa 20/11/1587. J.10(2).291. VG Goa 20/11/1587. J.10(2).291. VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).226–226v. Frois (1976), vol. 5, chs 39, 41; Cooper (1974), ch. 4. V (1592), 14–15, n.5. VG Japan Oct. 1591. J.11(2).247. VG Japan Oct. 1591. J.11(2).244–252. See Cooper (1976), ch.4, parts of which are based on this letter. VG Nagasaki 27/10/1591. J.11(2).255; VG Nagasaki 15/2/1592. J.11(2).283–284. VG Macao 6/11/1592. J.11(2).330. VG Nagasaki 13/3/92. J.11(2).288–289. J.11(2).330–330v. V (1597), 157. VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).3–4. V (1592), 366–75. Ibid., 451. Ibid., 451, n.11; V (1597), 38. V (1592), 428–31. Frois (1976), vol. 2, 431. V (1954), 76. V (1592), 412–13. Lucena, 192, 182. V (1954), 84. V (1592), 419. VG Kuchinotsu 10/12/1579. J.8(1).244–247. See Moran (1979), 7–8. VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).228. V (1597), 38. VG Macao 18/10/1588. J.10(1).335–335v.


48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

VG Nagasaki 20/10/1600. J.14(1).35v. VG Macao 30/10/1588. J.10(2)338. V (1592), 425–6. Ibid., 444–5. V (1954), 339. V (1592), 368. V (1601), ch. 7. VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).227. Cartas (1598), vol. 2, 203–13; Frois (1976), vol. 4, ch. 53. See Elison, 116–17. VG Macao 10/11/97. J.13(1).91v. VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).226–230v; VG Nagasaki 14/10/1590. J.11(2).233–236v. VG Nagasaki 18/10/1598. J.13.1.173–173v. Schütte, in a rare lapse, lists it as being in Spanish. Boxer (1967), 149 suggests that Hideyoshi probably did know about it. Murdoch, vol. 2, 243–53. Elison, ch. 5. Boxer (1967), 470. Ibid. VG Macao 5/10/89. J.11(2).174–176v. VG Macao 18/10/1588. J.10(2).338. V (1592), 445. VG Nagasaki 20/10/1600. J.14(1).35. V-J. Alvares, Nagasaki 1/2/1601. J.14(1).56. V (1592), 372. Elison, 131. Frois (1976), vol. 2, 307. V (1954), 67. Frois (1976), vol. 3, 202–3. V-Pope Sixtus V, Nagasaki 10/10/1590. J.11(2).222. VG Nagasaki 8–12/10/1590. J.11(2).226–230v. Cartas (1598), vol. 2, 258b, quoted by Alvarez-Taladriz in V (1592), 373. See V (1592), 372–3, n. 59. With regard to what Hideyoshi told Coelho and Frois about this, see Frois (1976), vol. 4, 228–9. V (1592), 537.

NOTES 215

CHAPTER 7 FRIARS FROM THE PHILIPPINES

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

VG Macao 10/11/1597. J.13(1).91. VG Cochin 29/4/1597. J.13(1).65v. VG Macao 10/11/1597. J.13(1).91v-92. V (1597), f.2. REI. VG Macao 10/11/1597. J.13(1).91–91v. VG Macao 10/11/1597. J.13(1).92. VG Nagasaki 4–16/10/1598. J.13(1).166–167. See also Cooper (1974), ch. 9. VG Nagasaki 25/10/1598. J.13(2).213. VG Macao 12/11/1603. J.14(1).162v. VG Nagasaki 22/2/1599. J. 13(2).260–261. Cooper (1974), 192. V-Ribera, Shiki 5/10/1599. J.13(2).315v. V-Ribera, Shiki 5/10/1599. J.13(2).315–316. See Uyttenbroeck, 38. V-Ribera, Shiki 5/10/1599. J.13(2).316–316v. VG Nagasaki 20/10/1600. J.14(1).32. V-Ribera, Shiki 8/11/99. J.13(2).354; V-Ribera, Nagasaki 13/3/1600. J.14(1).22. V-Ribera, Shiki 22–28/10/1599. J. 13(2).351–352. See Pires, 411. V-Ribera, Shiki 20–24/11/1599. J.13(2).356. V-Ribera, Shiki 22–28/10/1599. J.13(2).351. V-Ribera, Shiki 20–24/11/1599. J.13(2). 356–356v. VG Nagasaki 20/10/1600. J. 14(1).32–33. VG Nagasaki 15–24/10/1601. J.14(1).84. See e.g. Cooper (1974), ch. 6. V (1597), 108. VG Nagasaki 15–20/10/1601. J.14(1).84. ‘with his guts coming out in pieces’. V (1954), 148–9, n. 17. V-García, Nagasaki 15/10/1602. J.14(1).103v-104. REI, 89. Ramón-Aquaviva, Ikitsuki 15/10/1587. J.10(2).284. V (1597), 105. REI, 81–2; V (1597), 105v. Boxer (1967), 162 ff.; Cooper (1974), ch. 6. REI, 176–7. Boxer (1967), 162.


38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

REI, 134, 142. V (1597), 99v. Ibid., 93–6. Ibid., 122v. Schütte (1975), 320. V (1592), 570; V (1601), ch. 7. Schütte (1975), 319. See p. 186–7. REI, 20–27. V (1597), 6v-7. REI, 19. REI, 13. REI, 137. V (1597), 72. Ibid., 77–8. Ibid., 77–77v. REI, 137. CHAPTER 8 HIGH AND LOW

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

V (1601), ch. 8. REI, 84. V (1597), 108v-109. REI, 239. V (1954), 169. See ch. 2, notes 27, 28 above. V (1601), ch. 8. Schurhammer, 82. Schütte (1980), pt. 1, 131; VG Mozambique 7/8/1574. Goa 12(1).197–197v. Schütte (1980), pt. 1, 131. Ibid., 132; V (1944), 30, 28. See also REI, 198, n. 88. V (1954), 5. See pp. 151–3, 168. V (1954), 133; and see p. 97. V (1601), ch. 8. Cabral, however, describes as ‘extremely barbarous’ the Japanese system of government and control by absolute authority. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 205. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 61. V (1601), ch. 8. V (1592), 503–4.

NOTES 217

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

V (1601), ch. 8. Ibid. See ch. 4 above. V (1601), ch. 8. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 243–4. REI, 237–9, 237 n. 26; see also Schütte (1980), pt 1, 247. Cabral-Borgia, Nagasakai 5/9/1571. J.7(1) 20–22v. Published in Schütte (1951), pt 2, 464–5. REI, 180. REI, 98–9. V (1597), 123. Ibid., 126v-127. For further information see de Vos and Wagatsuma. See pp. 56–7. VG Cochin 20/12/1586. J. 10(2).205–208. Published in V (1954), 250 ff. This passage on p. 259. See ch. 6, n. 11 above. ‘nombres chinas, sucios, bajos y viles’: V (1954), 243. By ‘Chinamen’ here Valignano probably means Koreans. Concerning the popular but erroneous racial view that the burakumin are descended from Koreans see de Vos and Wagatsuma, 12. Frois (1976), vol. 2, 280. See p. 156 below. Frois (1976), vol. 1, 122. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 228. Frois (1976), vol. 2, 149. V (1597), 112–112V. V (1954), 251. Ibid., 258. Ibid., 174. Ibid., 343. See Boxer (1967), 235. Ribadeneira, quoted in V (1954), 343, n. 9. See pp. 24–5. See Boxer (1967), 362–3. Boxer (1968), 230–31. Frois (1976), vol. 4, 403. Ibid., vol. 4, 296; vol. 5, 41–2. Elison, 118. Boxer (1967), 146. V (1592), 505. Elison, 131.


57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Boxer (1968), 233–4. Boxer (1967), 227. VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).157–158v. V (1590), 138–9. Boxer (1967), 147. V (1590), 139. In 1571 according to Boxer (1968), 231; in 1570 according to Alvarez-Taladriz, in V (1592), 504. V (1590), 739–40. REI, 72. V (1597), 83. See notes 9, 10, 15 above. Spence, 209. Ibid., p. 79. See V (1592), 503. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 153–4. V (1592), 487–8. VG Nagasaki 20/10/1598. J.13(1).192v; VG Nagasaki 25/10/1598. J.13(2).213v. V (1592), 478. Ibid. VG Macao 30/10/1588. J.10(2).339v. V (1592), 496. Ibid., 497. Ibid., 472–3. Ibid., 481. REI, 84. Ibid. Ibid., 84–5, n. 182. Cooper (1974), 200. VG Arima 15/2/1602. J.14(1).100. See Elison, 117. CHAPTER 9 THE ALMS FROM THE CHINA SHIP

1 Brodrick, 156. 2 V-Bellarmine, Nagasaki 16/10/1601. J.14(1).81v. 3 máquina: Spence (197) comments on Ricci’s use of this word in a very similar context. 4 V-Bellarmine, Nagasaki 16/10/1601. J.14(1).81–82. 5 Brodrick, 304.

NOTES 219

6 Cabral-Valignano, Japan 1576(?), J.8(2).13a-d. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 235. 7 VG Macao 15/11/1603. J. 14(1). 145–147. 8 VG Goa 1/12/1596. J.13(1).36. 9 REI, 71. 10 Ibid., 72. 11 VG Cochin 22/12/1586. J.10(2).214v, published in Schütte (1968), 101–2. 12 V (1597), 82–83v. 13 See Cooper (1972). 14 V (1597), ch. 16, 79–81v. 15 ‘que va de Espania con’ 16 VG Goa 20/11/1587. J.10(2).293v. 17 ‘collegios formados’ 18 He means the Dutch. See p. 43. 19 VG Macao 15/11/1603. J.14(1).146–146v. The Italian ducat and the Portuguese cruzado (‘Portuguese ducat’) were of more or less equal value, and the usual exchange rate in Valignano’s time was about 5 cruzados to 4 Chinese taels. See Boxer (1963), Appendix. The great ship from Macao regularly brought 1,600 piculs of silk per year, one picul being approximately 133 lb avoirdupois. See Boxer (1963), 341. Much more detail about such matters can be found in the Appendix to Boxer (1963), and about the Macao-Japan voyages there, in Boxer (1967), Boxer (1968), and Cooper (1972). For a general account of the financial problems of the Jesuits in Japan, see Cooper (1974), ch. 12, Schütte (1980), pt 1, 313–17, V (1597), ch. 17. 20 V (1954), 334. 21 VG Goa 23/11/1595. J.12(2).316v. The Jesuit Manoel Dias states in 1610 that ‘the Society of Jesus used to send all the silk that it could on this voyage to Japan.’ See Cooper (1972), 428. 22 Boxer (1967), 117–19. 23 Cooper (1972), 428. 24 VG Kuchinotsu 5/12/1579. J.8(1).240–240v; V (1954), 335, n. 9. 25 Boxer (1967), 119. 26 VG Goa 23/11/1595. J.12(2).316v. 27 VG Macao 1/7/1598. J.13(1).135. 28 Cooper (1974), 242. 29 V (1954), 336. 30 See p. 43. 31 See Cooper (1972), 429–30. 32 VG Macao 6 Oct./12 Nov. 1603. J.14(1).137–139.


33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

VG 15/11/1603. J.14(1).146v. Cooper (1974), 203–4. V (1592), 414. VG Goa 16/12/1596. J.13(1).46–47. VG Macao 15/11/1603. J.14(1).146v-147. V (1954), 338–9. VG Nagasaki 6/8/1580. J.8(1).274. Between 1585, when the stipend was raised to 6,000 ducats, and 1603, the full 6,000 was received only once. See V (1954), 334. n. 4. VG Japan 11/1/1603. J.14(1).116–116v. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 236. VG Macao 9/11/1594. J.12(2).224v, V (1954), 334, n. 4. VG Goa 27/11/1595. J.12(2).320v. VG Macao, dated 9 Nov., written Oct/Nov. 1594. J.12(2).222–222v. V (1954), 311, 334. Ibid., 295; Schütte (1980), pt 2, 227. V (1954), 335; n. 4. Boxer (1963), 118; Cooper (1974), 244. V (1592), 609. Ibid., 540–42; Cooper (1972), 430. VG Macao 18–30/10/1588. J.10(2).336. See p. 132. V (1592), 543, n. 28. V (1954), 334, n. 4. VG Nagasaki 20/10/1598. J.13(1).193. CHAPTER 10 RICH AND POOR

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

V (1601), ch. 7. V (1592), 462. Ibid., 519. See p .25. See pp. 30–33. Exactly the same passage appears also in V (1944), 127–8, and is translated into English in Cooper (1965), 4. See also Appendix A. Translated also in Cooper (1965), 56. See Spence, 186–7. panes de oro. See Boxer (1963), 54–5, n. 93.

NOTES 221

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

V (1601), ch. 7. V (1592), 351–4. Ibid., 461–3. J.2.24. Published in V (1954), 332. See Schütte (1980), pt 2, 35–7. REI, 65. Cabral-Aquaviva, Goa 15/12/1593. Goa 14.154–156, published in Schütte (1951), pt 2, 469–76. Seyakuin H in, Hideyoshi’s physician=‘the bonze Tokuun’ (see p. 73). V (1592), 515–24. Ibid., 539–41. Ibid., 540, n. 24. Cabral-V, 1576(?). J.8(2).13a-d. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 231–3. V (1954), 163. V (1592), 538. See Boxer (1963), 55, where he notes that Hideyoshi’s officials at Nagasaki, busy with preparations for the invasion of Korea, were pestering the Portuguese merchants for Chinese gold. V (1592), 538–43; n. 28. See also p. 127 above. It is actually dated 6 March, but internal evidence and other letters indicate that Schütte is correct in dating it 6 April. Francisco Rodrigues. See p. 43. VG Macao 6/4/1604. J.14(1).159v. See p. 110. See p. 169. A bishop was appointed in 1588, but died before reaching the Indies. Cooper (1974), 109. VG Nagasaki 27/10/1591. J.11(2).253–256. J.11(2).255–255v. CHAPTER 11 THE PRESS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Bartoli, vol. 2, 276. See Laures, 100. Laures, 24–5. Ibid., 102. Ibid., 90. Spence, 132. Laures, 3, n. 12; 9–10. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 175–6; Laures, 3, n. 12. VG Malacca 18/11/1577. J.8(2).185. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 366–7. See also ibid., 51. VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).159–159v.


11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42

VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).159. See p. 155. See Laures, 97–8; p. 158 below. VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).158. V-F. Rodrigues, Macao, April 1604. J.14(2).273. Laures, 12, 16. V-F. Rodrigues, Macao, April 1604. J.14(2).273. Laures, 67–8. VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).160. Laures, 16. V (1592), 570. VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).159v. Laures, 34. V (1954), 5. Ibid., 205. See n. 37 below. …nonnullos ex nostris pueris in seminariis inventos fuisse, audivi, qui Europea elementa perlegere, et fingere, mense uno, aut duobus didicerunt. V (1590), 149. Xavier, to the Jesuits in Goa, Kagoshima 5/11/1549. See Schurhammer, 83. Bungo 8/10/1561. Cartas (1575), 101v. Mexia, Macao 6/1/1584. Cartas (1598), vol. 2, 123, Xavier, Fernández, Mexia, and others cited in V (1954), 5, n. 13. V (1954), 205. Ibid., 187:…podrán de ellos hacer más cuenta. desbastar imprimirles la figura que deseamos de la perfección casos de conciencia V (1592), 570. See V (1954), 31, n. 53; 53–4, n. 156. ‘Turselino’=Tursellinus, V (1601), ch. 7. V (1954), 205 has ‘aprenden en breve tiempo… leer y escribir en japón latín’, meaning ‘they learn in a short time to read and write in latin(ized) Japanese’, i.e. Japanese transcribed in romanization. Valignano does not mean (pace Elison, p. 73) that ‘they learn in a short time…to read Latin and translate it into Japanese’. See also n. 26 above. VG Japan Oct. 1591. J.11(2).248v; VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).33. V (1592), 554–6; and see pp. 165–6, 168. V (1592), 636, n. 48; Cooper (1974), 226. Laures, 102. V (1592), 431–7.

NOTES 223

43 See Laures, 39–41. 44 Ibid., 51–4. 45 Bound in one volume with the Heike Monogatari—see p. 157 below—and Kinkush , a collection of Chinese proverbs, also in romanized Japanese. 46 Laures, 84. 47 Ibid., 23; Schütte (1975), 518. 48 See p. 124. 49 Cooper (1974), 224. 50 V (1954), 151. 51 Ibid., 150–51. 52 Elison, 64, 408. 53 V (1954), 170–71. 54 Ibid., 150. 55 Further details in Laures, 8–13. 56 Ibid., 58–60. 57 Ibid., 16, 50. 58 See p. 149. 59 See Cooper (1974), 225–6. 60 See p. 145, 61 Rodrigues (1604), Foreword. 62 Boxer (1967), 194. 63 el vocabulario, arte, y otros libros impresses en lengua Iaponica, que les dieron—V (1597), 122v. 64 REI, 54. 65 Frois 3/10/1564, in Cartas (1598), vol. 1, 145–50; Frois (1976), vol. 1, 356. 66 Cartas (1598), vol. 2, 28v. See V (1954), 115–16, n. 29; Schütte (1980), pt 2, 51. 67 Rodrigues (1620), 4–4v. 68 Laures, 46–9. 69 Ibid., 94–5. 70 Elison (72–4) criticizes Valignano for being patronizing rather than truly paternal, but there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of the fatherly concern for Augustino expressed in this letter. 71 V-Ribera, Shiki 5/10/1599. J.13(2).316v. 72 Cooper, 113; Boxer (1963), 45. 73 VG Macao 1/1/93. J.12(1).33. 74 Laures (97) is not aware of this reference by Valignano to the Gómez summa. 75 en letra China 76 cubículo


77 78 79 80 81 82 83

V-Ribera, Shiki 20/10/1599, J.13(2).331–331v. Schütte (1975), 994; see also V (1592), 423. Frois (1942), 22. Ibid., 50–53. See p. 36. Laures, 29, 21. Schütte (1975); Laures, 21; and see Morejón’s comment on p. 00 above. CHAPTER 12 JAPANESE JESUITS

1 2 3 4 5. 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

See p. 171. Cieslik, 75–7. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 232–6. VG Usuki 27/10/1580. J.8(1).298–299v. Summarized in Moran (1981), VG Arima 24/12/1602. J. 14(1). 109. See p. 151. son naturalmente de coraçon apresado y apretado V (1592), 560–62. VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).19v-20. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 312–13. See p. 21 above; VG Kuchinotsu 2/12/1579. J.8(1).235–236v; and VG Kuchinotsu 5/12/1579. J.8(1).237–242v. See Moran (1979), 4–6. VG Macao 6/11/1592. J.11(2).331. Cooper (1974), 111–12. V (1954), ch. 8. See Cooper (1974), 108–9. VG Nagasaki 27/10/1591. J.11(2).255. VG Macao 6/11/1592. J.11(2).331. VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).19v-20. See also V (1592), 560–68. VG 15–24/10/1601. J.14(1)1.83v; Cieslik, 48. VG Goa 26/11/1596. J.13(1).32. las verdaderas ciencias—V (1592), 555. V (1592), 567. Ibid., 555–6. os açoutarão Regimento pera os semynarios de Japan 1580, in J.2.35–39. Published in Schütte (1951), pt 2, 479–86. See pp. 483–4. Spence, 48.

NOTES 225

27 fazem cada semana huma disciplina por esta perseguição—Frois (1976), vol. 5, 98–100. 28 Catalogue for February 1582. 29 V (1592), 562. 30 Cartas (1598), vol. 2, 240v, cited in V (1592), 562, n. 17. 31 VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).32. 32 See VG Macao 1/7/1598. J.13(1).137. 33 In V (1592), 577–9, the Visitor explains the problem about Japanese lay-brothers in more detail. 34 V (1592), 704–5. See also p.565. 35 VG Macao 1/1/1593. J.12(1).45–46; V (1592), 567–8. 36 Cieslik, 50. 37 Gómez, Nagasaki 15/3/94. Cited in V (1592), 424, n. 27. 38 Cieslik, 57, n. 20. 39 Martins, Nagasaki 24/10/1596. J.13(1).18. See Cooper (1974), 180. 40 Schütte (1980), pt 2, 224. 41 See Cieslik, 72–4; Cooper (1974), 171–81. 42 remedio para esta y para la otra vida 43 Berry (68) draws attention to Nobunaga’s legacy of fear, and to the ‘climate of dread’ in the time of Hideyoshi. 44 quedan en sús mismos conceptos como inferiores a los de Europa 45 ánimo 46 See Cooper (1974), 175; and p. 182 below. 47 V (1592), 576. 48 J.13(1).32–33; Cooper (1974), ch. 8, ‘A Letter to Rome’, is a detailed commentary on this letter. See also V (1592), 582–3, n. 18, and ch. 4, note 10 above. 49 V (1592), 569–83. 50 Ibid., 579. 51 Ibid., 574–5. 52 Ibid., 575, n. 8. 53 See also Cieslik, 44–5. 54 VG Macao 25/9/1589. J.11(1).159. 55 V-M. Rodriguez, 27/11/87. J.10(2).288. 56 V (1592), 642–4. 57 Ibid., 674. 58 VG Nagasaki 15/2/1592. J.11 (2).284–284v. 59 VG Nagasaki 13/3/1592. J.11(2).288. See p. 59 above. 60 Amakusa 14/3/92 J.11(2).290. See Schütte (1975), 406, n. 95. 61 V-Piatti, Macao 8/1/93. J.12(1).61–62.


62 See p. 126 above, and VG Macao 9/11/94, J.12(2).222–225, part of which is published in Schütte (1975), 162–6. 63 hechos otros 64 VG Macao 1/1/93. J.12(1).40v. 65 VG Macao 1594. J.22.202v-203. 66 VG Macao 12/11/1593. J.12(1).115v. 67 VG Goa 27/11/95. J.12(2).320. 68 VG Cochin 29/4/97. J.13(1).66. 69 VG Macao 10/11/97. J.13(1).90–92. 70 Pires, 409–14. 71 VG Nagasaki 21/10/1600. J.14(1).40. See Cieslik, 56. 72 V (1954), p. 199. 73 Regulae Communes, no. 28. 74 V (1954), 201. 75 Ibid., 211. 76 See p. 171. 77 See p. 174. 78 VG Nagasaki 21/10/1600. J.14(1).40. See Cieslik, 56. 79 See p. 173 above. 80 I Corinthians 9:20, 22. Quoted, for example, in Aquaviva’s letter to Valignano of 24 December 1585, published in V (1946), 315– 24. See p. 318. 81 V (1954), 150. See Cieslik, 55. CHAPTER 13 THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

See note 10 below. See note 5 below. J.9(1).51–53v, published in Schütte (1975), 116–17. VG Goa 23/11/1595. J.12(2).315v. See also Schütte (1980), pt 2, 254. V (1954), ch. 13, 183. Ibid., ch. 16, 199–200. VG Goa 28/11/95. J.12(2).315–315v. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 250–51. Rodrigues (1620), 3v. See Moran (1975), 279–80. Rodrigues (1620), 3; Moran (1975), 284–5. no es sino para mozos, y a viejos no entra. Quoted in REI, 150, n. 5. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 233. Cooper (1974), 22–3. VG Bungo 7/10/81. J.9(1).35v.

NOTES 227

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40

41 42

aproveitandonos mediocremente nella VG Shiki 10/10/1599. J.54.78. See also Pires, 414. VG Arima 15/2/1602. J.14(1).101. See p. 39. VG Cochin 28/10/83. J.9(2).170. Schütte (1980), pt 1, 221–2, 256–7. 20/10/1580. J.45(1).24. See Schütte (1980), pt 2, 51. VG Cochin 20/12/1586. J.10(2).205–208v. Published in V (1954), 250–70. REI, 153–4. Ibid., 241. Ibid., 150. See p. 179. See Schütte (1975), 108. V (1592), 416–17, n. 7. See Cooper (1974), ch. 4. V-J. de Ribera, Shiki 8/11/99. J.13(2).354. V (1954), 183. See p. 179 above. muy insigne predicator Frois (1976), vol. 5, 265–6; Schurhammer, 230–31. V (1601), ch. 17, 81. solo las letras de Japón V (1601) ch. 12, 57v. las letras de Japón See Elison, ch. 6 and passim; also Schütte (1975), 533. Elison argues from Fabian’s knowledge of Buddhism that he must have been a Buddhist monk before his entry into the Society, but that seems unlikely, given that Fabian’s mother was a prominent Christian; that a recently converted Buddhist monk would not have been accepted as a Jesuit novice; and that Valignano states that all the Japanese Jesuits were ex-d juku. See p. 179. a Arte na lingoa de Japão e Vocabulario mui copiozo Frois (1976), vol. 1, 172. Wicki takes it that the reference is to the printed Latin grammar of 1594 and Latin-PortugueseJapanese dictionary of 1595, but Frois is referring to the Japanese grammar and, probably, to the Vocabulario da Lingoa de Japam, neither of which was printed in Frois’s or Y h Paulo’s time. See V (1592), 415. The catechism is perhaps Cabral’s catechism. See Schütte (1980), pt 1, 219–20. Rodrigues (1604), 26. V (1601), ch. 17, 81.


43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Laures, 40. See p. 185. Frois (1976), vol. 1, 172–3. REI, 14. Cooper (1974), 178; Pacheco (1971c), 439. Pacheco (1971b), 25; (1971c), 439. Frois (1942), 36. Mesquita, Nagasaki 13/10/1613, in J.36.27v, quoted in Pacheco (1971c), 441. De Guibert, 155. See Laures, 54. Pacheco (1971c), 441. Laures, 53. See p. 57. Coelho, annual letter, Nagasaki 15/2/82. J.45(2).38v-39. Schütte (1980), pt 2, 65, 67. The hypothesis that Hara made the translations during the journey to Europe is unconvincing and seems unnecessary, pace Pacheco (1971c), 440. CHAPTER 14 CONCLUSION

1 Matsuda Kiichi, ‘Japan and the West’, Japan Quarterly, Oct.Dec. 1982, 455–6. Matsuda has it that Brother Jorge de Loyola fell ill in Macao but returned to Japan; but in fact he died in Macao. See p. 150 above. 2 V-J. Piatti, Macao 8/1/93. J.12(1).61. 3 V (1592), 554–5; see p. 165 above. 4 Elison, 73. 5 V (1954), 145*–6*; Schütte (1980), pt 2, 92; V (1597), 69v. 6 G.M. Hopkins, ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, stanza 13. 7 See p. 21. 8 V (1601), Epistola Dedicatoria. See Moran (1979), 3. 9 Valignano himself knew that it was very unlikely. See pp. 53–4 above. 10 See Moran (1981), 209–7. 11 See pp. 25, 102. 12 Quoted in Nieremberg, 287. 13 Ibid., 289. 14 V Macao 17/1/1606. J.14(1).229–230. 15 J.36, 37, quoted in Pacheco (1971c), 436. 16 V (1601), ch. 8.

NOTES 229

17 See p. 39 above. APPENDIX B HOW AND WHY WE GOT THE PORT OF NAGASAKI

1 See Schütte (1951), pt 2, 477 for the Spanish translation or adaptation which Valignano sent to Mercurian of the document dated 9 October 1580, in which mura Sumitada stated that he was giving Nagasaki and Mogi ‘to the Society and to the Father Visitor’.

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Contemptus Mundi (1596) JMP, Amakusa. Contemptus Mundi (1610) JMP, Kyoto. Cooper, Michael, SJ (1965) They Came to Japan. Cooper, Michael, SJ (ed.) (1971) The Southern Barbarians. Cooper, Michael, SJ (1972) ‘The Mechanics of the Macao-Nagasaki Silk Trade’, Monumenta Nipponica, 27, pp. 423–33. Cooper, Michael, SJ (1973) [= Rodrigues (1973)] This Island of Japan. Cooper, Michael, SJ (1974) Rodrigues the Interpreter. Cooper, Michael, SJ (1982) ‘Spiritual Saga’, Japan Times, 21 February 1982. de Guibert, Joseph, SJ (1972) The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice. de la Costa, H., SJ (1961) The Jesuits in the Philippines: 1581–1768. de la Costa, H., SJ (1965) Readings in Philippine History. de Sande, Duarte, SJ (1590) [=Valignano (1590)] De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium, JMP, Macao. de Vos, G. and Wagatsuma, H. (1966) Japan’s Invisible Race. Dictionarium Latino-Lusitanicum ac Iaponicum (1595), JMP, Amakusa. Elison, George (1973) Deus Destroyed. Esopo no Fabulas (1593), JMP, Amakusa. [Aesop’s Fables] Frois, Luis, SJ (1942) La Première Ambassade du Japon en Europe, 1582–1592, ed. by J.A.Abranches Pinto, Y.Okamoto and Henri Bernard, SJ. Frois Luis, SJ (1976–84) História de Japam, ed. J.Wicki, SJ, 5 vols. Gómez, Pedro, SJ (1593?) Compendium Catholicae Veritatis, JMP, Amakusa(?). Gómez, Pedro, SJ (1597–8) ‘The Excellence of Martyrdom’ (? see Laures, p. 90), JMP, Amakusa(?). Granada, Luis de, OP (1592) Fides no D shi, JMP, Amakusa. Granada, Luis de, OP (1599) Guia do Pecador, JMP, Nagasaki. Granada, Luis de, OP (1611) Fides no Ky , JMP, Nagasaki. Guzmán, Luis de, SJ (2nd edn 1891) Historia de las Misiones de la Compañia de Jesús en la India Oriental, en la China y Japón desde 1540 hasta 1600. Hara, Martinho (1588) Oratio habita a Fara D.Martino Iaponio, JMP(?), Goa. Heike Monogatari (1592), JMP, Amakusa. Kinkush (1593), JMP, Amakusa. Lach, Donald F. (1965–70) Asia in the Making of Europe, 2 vols of two books each. Laures, Johannes, SJ (1957) Kirishitan Bunko (3rd edn).


Lucena, Afonso de, SJ (1972) De algumas cousas que ainda se alembra, ed. J.F.Schütte, SJ as Erinnerungen aus den Christenheit von mura. Maffei, G.P., SJ (1588) Historiarum Indicarum Libri XVI. Matsuda Kiichi (1982) ‘Japan and the West’, Japan Quarterly, October-December 1982, pp. 454–60. May/mai: see Laures, p. 94. Monogatari: see Laures, p. 95. Moran, J.F. (1972) ‘A linguistic commentary on the “Arte Breve da Lingoa Japoa” of João Rodrigues’, unpublished DPhil thesis, Oxford. Moran, J.F. (1975) ‘The Well of Japanese Undefiled’, Monumenta Nipponica 30, no. 3. Moran, J.F. (1979) ‘Letters from a Visitor to Japan, 1579’, Proceedings of the British Association for Japanese Studies 1979. Part 1, History and International Relations, ed. G.Daniels. Moran, J.F. (1981) ‘Valignano in Japan 1580’, in Kokugoshi e no Michi (Roads towards the history of the Japanese language’). Murdoch, James (1903) A History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse. Nakaura Julião, SJ (1982) Nakaura Jurian no tegami. Nieremberg, P., SJ (1887) ‘Vida del P.Alejandro Valignani’, in Varones. Pacheco, Diego, SJ (1971a) ‘The Europeans in Japan 1543–1640’, in Cooper (1971). Pacheco, Diego, SJ (1971b) ‘La Campana del “Hospital Santiago” de Nagasaki’, Boletín de la Asociación Española de Orientalistas. Pacheco, Diego, SJ (1971c) ‘Diego de Mesquita, SJ and the Jesuit Mission Press’, Monumenta Nipponica 26, nos 3–4. Papinot, E. (1910) Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan. Pires, Francisco, SJ (1622–3) ‘Pontos do que me alembrar’, published in Schütte (1975), pp. 382–434. Rodrigues, João, SJ (1604–8) Arte da Lingoa de Iapam, JMP, Nagasaki. Rodrigues, João, SJ (1620) Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa, JMP, Macao. Rodrigues, João, SJ História de Igreja do Japão [Cooper (1973) is an abridged translation of parts of this work]. Sa, Manoel, SJ (1603) Aphorismi Confessariorum, JMP, Nagasaki. San Martín de la Ascensión [=Fray Martín de Aguirre, OFM] and Fray Marcelo de Ribadeneira (1973) Relaciones e Informaciones, ed. J.L. Alvarez-Taladriz.

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Sanctos no Gosagy no uchi Nukigaki [Acts of the Saints] (1591), JMP, Katsusa. Schurhammer, Georg, SJ (1982) Francis Xavier, vol. 4 (English translation). Schütte, J.F., SJ (1968) Introductio ad Historiam Societatis Jesu in Japonia 1549–1650. Schütte, J.F., SJ (1975) Monumenta Historica Japoniae I. Textus Catalogorum Japoniae. Schütte, J.F., SJ (1980–85) Valignano’s Mission Principles for Japan, vol. 1, parts 1 and 2 (no other volume has appeared). The translation is incomplete, so reference is also made to the original: Schütte, J.F., SJ (1951–8) Valignanos Missionsgrundsätze für Japan. (Erster Band), two parts. Spence, J.D. (1985) The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. Tursellinus, H., SJ (1594) De Vita Francisci Xaverii. Uyttenbroeck, T., OFM (1958) Early Franciscans in Japan. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1590) De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium ad Romanam Curiam, JMP, Macao. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1592) Adiciones del Sumario de Japón, ed. J.L.Alvarez-Taladriz. In press. MSS. in J.51.238–272v and J.49.387–418v. See also Schütte (1980), p. 418. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1597–8) Apología en la qual se responde a diversas calumnias que se escrivieron contra los padres de la Compañía de Jesús de Japón y de la China (unpublished). J.41.1– 165v. Other copies as listed in Schütte (1980), p. 423. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1601) Libro primero del principio y progresso de la religión Christiana en Jappón y de la especial providencia de que Nuestro Señor usa con aquella nueva iglesia (unpublished). British Museum Additional Manuscript 9857. Another copy in Libson, Ajuda Library, Jesuitas na Asia series 49–4–53. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1943) Les Instructions du Père Valignano pour l’ambassade japonaise en Europe, ed. J.A.Abranches Pinto and H. Bernard, SJ. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1944) Historia del Principio y Progresso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientalies, ed. J.Wicki, SJ. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1946) Il Cerimoniale per i Missionari del Giappone: Advertimentos e avisos acerca dos costumes e catangues de Jappão, ed. J.F.Schütte, SJ. Valignano, Alessandro, SJ (1954) Sumario de las Cosas de Japón, ed. J.L. Alvarez-Taladriz. Varones Illustres de la Compañía de Jesús (2nd edn 1887), vol. 1.


Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam (1603), JMP, Nagasaki.

Index

abortion 98, 100 Acapulco 43 accommodation 53, 133–134, 161, 178, 178 acculturation 178 Acosta, José de 98 Acts of the Saints see Sanctos no Gosagy no uchi Nukigaki Adams, William 42, 211 Additions to the Summary of Japan see Adiciones del Sumario de Japón Adiciones del Sumario de Japón (V (1592)) 32, 59–60, 67–68, 77, 85, 108, 111, 134, 138, 149–150, 152, 164, 168, 170, 173 Advertimentos (I1 Cerimoniale= V (1946)) 55, 96, 103 Africa 96 Africans 96 Agostinho 158 Aguirre, Fray Martín de (Saint Martin of the Ascension) 79, 88, 92–93, 95, 103, 107, 111, 116, 55; treatises by 79 Aizu 62 Akashi 65 Akechi Mitsuhide 56, 187 Alexander the Great 6 Almeida, Luís de 103–104, 117 Altemps, Sittich von (Cardinal) 21 Alva, Duke of 46 Alvares, Emmanuel 154 Alvares, João 74

Alvarez-Taladriz, J.L. 37, 74, 79, 92, 105, 171 Amacon (Macao) 43 Amakusa 51, 62–63, 82, 152, 154, 156, 172, 182, 190 Amerindians 107 Andrés of Arima (Arima Haruzumi) 33 Animo 23 annual letter(s) 34–36 Antonio, Dom 45–46 Antunez, Diogo 145 Aphorismi Confessariorum 149 Apología (V(1597)) 14, 37, 52, 79–79, 82, 92, 116–116, 122, 126 Aquaviva, Claudio 2, 3, 7, 9–11, 20–20, 23, 26, 36–40, 43–44, 46, 48, 56, 71–74, 79, 79, 85, 103, 115, 119–120, 125, 127, 139–140, 145, 147, 149, 157, 161, 169, 173, 182, 207 Arie 167 Arima 1, 8, 12, 14, 31, 33, 56, 63, 65–67, 73, 82, 159, 165, 167, 182 Arimadono see Arima Harunobu Arima Harunobu (Protasio) 15–16, 57, 63, 65–67, 72, 107 Arima Haruzumi 31, 33 Arima Seminary 12, 167 Aristotle 96, 108 Armación (Portuguese armação) 119 Arte Breve da Lingoa Japoa 145, 155–156, 180 Arte da Lingoa de Japam 153, 155–156 235


Atri, Duke of 20 Augustín (Konishi Yukinaga) 62 Augustino see ta Avila, Nicolao de 145 Azuchi 12–13, 56 Azuchi Seminary 12–13, 56, 206 Azuchtyama 13 Bañez, Domingo 149 baptism 1, 64, 98, 183 Barcelona 8 Barrera, Balthasar 125 Barreto, Manoel 183 Bartoli, Daniello 145, 187 Bassein 96, 121 Bellarmine, Robert 115–116 Berry, M.E. 225 bishop(s) 75, 79, 82, 96, 103, 104, 107, 109, 142, 148, 161–164, 167, 174, 182 ‘Blacks’ 178 Blásquez, Pedro Bautista 88–90 Bodleian Library 152 Bonifacio, Juan 147 Bonze(s) 61, 68–69, 75–76, 133, 153–154 Bonze of Osaka 69, 73, 93, 112 Borgia, Francis 2, 20, 102 Borromeo, Charles 21 Boxer, C.R. 73, 107 Braganza, Duke of 11 Brazil 81, 107 British Library 152 Brito, Leonel de 1 Buddha(s) 76, 100 Buddhism 69, 76, 74, 185 Buddhist(s) 52, 61, 69, 75, 81 Buddhist: arguments 185; authority 56; clergy 69; model of decorum 55; monasteries 129, 168; monks 13, 53, 104, 168, 178, 69; power 56, 68; priests 53; sects 61; system 55; texts 185 Buke 31 Bungo 1, 13, 14, 33, 55, 64–65, 67, 104, 105, 133 Burakumin 103, 216 Cabral, Francisco 1, 20–21, 23–27, 33, 38, 48, 52, 102, 103, 116,

122, 125, 134, 138, 161, 173, 180, 190, 207–209, 216, 227; his opinion of the Japanese 101 Calepino 148, 154, 156 Calepinus, Ambrosius 154 Cambodia 83, 140 cannibalism 54, 105 cannibals 54 Canton 46, Carafa, Cardinal 36, 125 cases (of conscience) 52, 87, 108, 110, 163 Castel Sant ‘Angelo 9 Castilian soldiers 52 catechism 148, 161, 227 Catechists 52, 182 catechizing 103 Catholic(s) 109 Cebu 45 ceremonies 168, 173, 175 Cerqueira, Luis 24, 79, 81–82, 96, 109, 161, 163, 164, 167, 182 characters (used in the Chinese and Japanese writing systems) 153–154, 178, 185 Charles V, Emperor 45 Chieti 21 Chigy 193 Chijiwa, Miguel 2, 6, 11, 14–17, 107 Chikugo 67 China 2, 34, 45–47, 49–52, 58, 62, 79, 83, 96, 97, 115, 116, 121–123, 126, 132, 135, 140, 142–143, 165, 178 Chinamen 103, 216 China ship 115, 123, Chinese 1, 44, 53, 83, 103, 105, 109, 126, 178 Chinese language 46, 148, 157, 178, 183, 185 Chinese embassy 189 Chinese junks 1, 43 Chinese silk 43 Chorão 145 Chori 103 Ch r 55 Christ 74, 95, 102, 111 Christian(s) chapter 6 passim, 79–85, 93–95, 98, 101–103, 108–113, 117, 122–123,

INDEX 237

129–129, 132, 134–140, 145–146, 150, 152–154, 157, 163, 168, 178–180, 187–191, 202 Christian: converts 51; daimy 75, 112; doctrine 107, 111, 145; king (s) 112, 146; lord(s) 59, 62, 65–68, 73, 76, 110, 129, 136–137; missionaries 1; musketeers 93; slaves 105 Christianity 7, 29, 51–52, 62, 64–68, 70, 73–74, 79, 80, 88, 93, 96, 103, 103–104, 111–113, 116–118, 129, 137, 145 Ch nagon 31 Church/Catholic church 1, 10, 11, 16, 17, 22, 53, 64, 74, 87, 95, 104, 108–110, 168 church law 109, 116 Cieslik, Hubert 167 class distinction 96, 97 classical authors 180 cleanliness 53, 103 Clement VIII, Pope 116 clothing 103 Cobo, Juan 88, 90 Cochin 36–37, 42, 79 Cochin-China 140 Coelho, Gaspar 20–21, 57, 71–73, 76, 82, 105, 107, 127, 155, 163, 165, 182, 214 Coimbra 124 College(s) 143, 168, 174, 176 College of St. Paul, Goa 6–7 confession(s) 91–92, 96, 154, 178–180, 182 conformity 54, 175 Constantino Dourado 36, 158–159, 167 consultations 53, 108 Contemptus Mundi 152, 187–187 conversation(s) 64, 79 Cooper, Michael 126, 215, 231 copper mines 131 Costa, Henrique da 2 Couros, Mateus de 183 courtesy 97, 133 credit and authority 102 crucifixion(s) 1, 79–79, 84, 88, 91, 205 cruelty 32, 100–101

Cruzado(s) (Portuguese currency unit) 120, 124, 126, 218 Cuchinotçu; see Kuchinotsu Cudner, Stephen 207 Cuius regio eius religio 63–64 cultural adaption 53, 178, 182 currencies 218 custom(s) 133–136, 168–169, 170, 172–175 Daifu 31 Daifu, Daifusama (Tokugawa Ieyasu) 32, 83, 85, 112, 157–158 Daij daijin 31 Daimy 14–15, 54, 63, 126 Dainagon 31 Dairi 31–31 D’Almeida see Almeida Da Ponte 124 Das Mariñas, Gómez Pérez 89–90 De Christiani Pueri Institution 147, 152 decorum 53–55, 168 De Institutione Grammatica Libri Tres 154, 145, 147 De Missione Legatorum Iaponensium 32, 37, 107, 149–150, 152, 171 De Puente see da Ponte De Sande 32, 37, 107 detachment 175 De Torres see Torres Dias, Manoel 122 dictionaries 154–156 Diciionarium Latino Lusitanicum ac Iaponicum, ex Ambrosii Calepini Volumine Depromptum 154 Diocesan clergy 164 Diocesan seminarians 164, 167–168 Diocesan seminary 164 Divine Office 88 Doctrine in Ten Chapters 152 D juku 52–52, 55, 86, 123, 133–134, 143, 156–158, 161, 164, 166–167, 175–176, 178, 182–183, 184, 185 Dom Antonio; see Antonio Dominican friar(s) 1, 45, 85


Don Bartolomeu ( mura Sumitada) 14 Dourado see Constantino Ducat(s) 116–117, 119, 121–126, 141–142, 195, 218 Duke 29–31 duplicity 98 Dutch 42, 123 East Indies 2 Edo (Tokyo) 82 Elison, George 73, 75, 107, 153–154, 222, 227 Emmanuelis Alvari e Societate Iesu De Institutione Grammatica Libri Tres (Alvares) 154 Emperor (of Japan) 10, 52 England 26 English: armada/ships 42; pilot 42 English and Dutch ships 42 Englishman 42 Escorial 11, 205 Esfondrado, Cardinal 124 ethics 175 Ethiopia 145 etiquette 175, 54–56 Europe 1, 2, 6–9, 17, 29–31, 32–34, 37, 42, 57, 96, 98, 104, 121, 125, 129, 130, 132, 140, 189 European(s) 97, 132, 135, 147, 148 European children 97 European scholastics 182 Evora 11 Fernández, Juan 33, 150, 155 Ferrara 11 financing of the mission 116–127 first Japanese diplomatic mission to Europe 2, 6–11, 14–16, 29, 187 Florence 32 food 54 Formosa 82, 181 Franciscan: attitudes 79; attitude to Jesuit books 155; criticism of Jesuits 79, 182–183; version of events 71 Friars 1, 85, 86, 88–93 Frois, Luis 1, 10, 16, 17, 20–21, 23, 32, 34–36, 38–40, 69–70, 75,

104, 152, 155, 158, 181, 187, 204, 210, 227 Fukan, Fabian (Ungy Fabian) 185, 226–227; not a former Buddhist monk 226–227 Fushimi 84 Fusta 72 Gam Ujisato 62 Garcés, Antonio Genji/Heike war (12th century, between Minamoto and Taira families) 31 Gesú 9 gifts see presents. Gnecchi-soldo see Organtino Goa 2, 6, 7, 24, 26, 36, 42, 43, 47, 55, 96, 127, 139, 142 Gods and Buddhas of Japan 76–77 Gokinai 31 gold 126–127, 131–132, 138, 141 Gómez, Pedro 23, 145, 148, 157, 165, 178, 181–182, 207 Gonçalves, Sebastiam, S.J. (Historian) 209 Gonzaga 20 Gonzalo García 92–93, 96 Goroemon 83–85 Gosan 55 Got , Thomé S in 153 Gouvea, Francisco de 83, 84 government of, Japan 198 grammars of, Japanese 152, 154–155 Granada, Luis de 187–187 Gregory XIII (Pope) 9–10, 85, 116, 119 Guía de Pecadores 187 guns 72, 73 Hachirao 165, 167 Hakata 73 Hara Martinho 2, 6, 7, 11, 14–18, 18, 91–92, 107, 159, 161, 167, 185–187, 201–204, 205, 231 Harada Kiyuemon 89–91 Harada Magoshichir 89 Hasegawa 89–91 Hatake 194 Heike Monogatari (The Tale of the Heike) 156, 185, 222

INDEX 239

Hideyori 82 Hideyoshi (Taik , Taik sama, Kampaku, Kampakudono) 1, 4, 15, 31, 32, 53, 56–63, 68–69, 71–77, 81–82, 88–91, 96, 105, 107, 108, 112–113, 131, 134, 137, 138–139, 171, 181, 183, 187, 189–189, 197, 205–206, 214, 223; and Buddhism 62, 70, 75; and Christianity 58, 61–62, 89, 113; embassy to 58–60; his 1587 anti-Christian edicts/ persecution; his letter to the governor of the Philippines 88–90 Hiei, Mt. Hiei 69 Higo 62 Hirado 14, 73 História (Frois(1976)) 12, 38–39, 69 História de Japam (História) Historia Indica (V(1944)) Historiae Indicae (Maffei) 32 historiography 71 History of the beginnings and progress of the Society of Jesus in the East Indies (V(1944)) 32, 38 Hizen 14 H in Vicente 184, 185, 189 honour 96, 103, 104 Hopkins, G.M. 227 Hosokawa Gracia 187 Hotoke(s) (Buddha(s), enlightened being(s), soul(s) of the dead) 76–77 Hy ga 15–16, 67 Iberians 42 Idolatry 98 Ieyasu (Tokugawa Ieyasu, Daifu, Daifusama) 4, 32, 82–85, 89, 112–113, 124, 158, 183, 189–190, 204; and Christianity 84, 89, 112, 189, 204; cruelty of 84; and friars 83– 85; gives and lends Jesuits money 124; and the Philippines 82–84; his ‘red seal’ ships 83; and pirates 84 Imitatio Christi (The Imitation of Christ); see Contemptus Mundi Imprimatur 148 India 1, 6, 7–8, 24, 27, 34, 42, 59,

96, 108, 116, 121–122, 126–129, 135, 139, 142, 189 Indians 96, 151 infanticide 98–101 Inquisition 96, 148 Inquisitors 148–149 interpreter(s) 182, 187; in the confessional 169–182 Ise 76 Italian, letters in 29, 71–72 Italy 9, 11, 42 Itch 193–194 It Justo 172 It Mancio 2, 6, 11, 13–18, 107, 161, 172, 189, 206 It Sukekata 206 It Sukekoshi 206 It Yoshisuke (Jeronymo) 14, 206 It Yoshisuke (‘King of Hy ga’) 15–16 Japan 1, 20, 25–29, 32–33, 38–40, 44, 46; conflicting images of 98; historical background 3–4; poverty/wealth of 129–132 Japanese Christians 191; customs/ etiquette 169, 175; decorum 53–54, 103; labourers 96–96; mission field 33; nobility/ rationality 51, 98, 191; politeness/ courtesy 97–98; priests 115, 161–163, 165, 167, 183; scholastics 163, 189; scholastic ability 149–152, 161 Japanese Jesuits 1, 161–166, 165–176, 184–187, 189, 207; relations with European Jesuits 52–52; treatment of 52–52, 161–161 Japanese language 178–187; proficiency in 183–183 Java 140 Jerónimo de Jesús (Fray Jerónimo de Jesús de Castro) 82–85, 178, 181 Jesuit(s) 1–1, 70; ‘assistant’ 36, 74, 210; catalogues 183–185; constitutions (Jesuit) 166; (Father) General (general superior) 2; humility 134; lay brothers 166,


225; letters 29–29, 34–36, 44–45, 195; mission field 33; mission press see press; mission superior 1; obedience 22–23, 169–170; poverty 132–133, 169–170; Procurator 171; ‘profession’ 20; provinces 1; provincial 1–2; publications 145; Roman Archives 36; scholastics 163–164; suppression 173; visitor see Valignano Jew(s) 176 jurisdiction 96 Just war 108 Kagoshima 1 Kakure Kirishitan (Japanese ‘hidden Christians’, who held on to their Christianity during the period of persecution, and were ‘discovered’ for the first time in 1865) 190 Kami(s) (Deities in the Shint / kamigami tradition) 76, 77 Kamis and hotokes 76–77 Kamishu 138 Kampaku (Kampakudono) see Hideyoshi Kana 154 Kanji 154 Kan Eitoku 206 Kasui Pedro 167 Katakana 154 Katsusa 152, 171 Kawachinoura 82, 152, 172 Kawaya 103 Kazariya Julião 174 Kimura Sebastião 161–161, 174 Koku 193–195 Konishi Yukinaga (Agostinho/ Augustín Tsukamidono) 15, 52–53, 62, 79, 82, 92, 183–184 Koreans 13 Korean campaign 52, 58–59 Kuchinotsu (Kuchinotçu) 1, 2 Kunigae 196–197 Kunishu (lord of one or more provinces) 129–129 Kusano Andrés 191 Kyoto (Miyako) 12–13, 16, 31, 53, 55, 80, 89, 103, 104, 138, 189, 211, 205

Kyushu 1, 1, 12, 14, 16, 18, 31, 52, 54, 56–58, 65, 67, 105, 138 land measurement of/income from 194–197, 209; ownership 193–194 language studies 178–182 Latin 147–154, 161–163, 165–167, 182, 222; letters in 36–36 Latin-Portuguese-Japanese Dictionary 154 Laures, Johannes 145, 150, 187, 223 law 109–110 lepers 103–104 Laynez, Diego 2 Legazpi 45 Leghorn 8 Leo 107 Lepanto 107 Libra de Fide 187 Liefde 42 Linus 107 Lisbon 6–9, 36, 42–46, 108, 147 Lourenço, Brother 75, 183–185 Low Countries 26 Loyola, Ignatius 1, 2 Loyola, Jorge de 37, 149, 159, 227 Lucena, Afonso de 17, 63 Lucena, João de (biographer of St. Francis Xavier) 209 Macao 1, 3, 17–18, 22–24, 27, 32–37, 39–42, 43, 44–48, 58, 59, 72, 73, 79–83, 85–86, 107–109, 115, 116, 119–122, 125–127, 138–141, 145, 150, 157–159, 161–163, 166, 173–174, 176, 178, 187, 122–124 Macao authorities 123 Macao-Nagasaki silk trade 47, 116, 122 Macassar 140 Madrid 10, 45, 121, 207 Maffei, Gian Pietro 32–33, 38, 54–55, 96, 97, 132 Magellan 45 Mai (narrative to accompany a dance. The Rodrigues text plainly indicates that there were some mai transposed from classical to

INDEX 241

colloquial style Japanese as texts for the foreigners studying Japanese, and there may have been mai specially composed for the foreigners (see Laures pp. 94– 5) but there are no known surviving examples of these texts.) 156 Malacca 1, 36, 42–42, 45, 116–117, 142, 159, 163 Malaya 83 manifestation of conscience 169 Manila 43–45, 47, 84, 87–89, 92, 93, 150–158 Mantua 11 marriage 110 martial 145 martial law 198 Martin of the Ascensión, Saint see Aguirre Martins, Pedro 24, 42, 79–80, 91, 157, 163–163, 167 Mascarenhas, Nuno 206 Mata, Gil de la 37, 42, 44, 59, 116, 148 Matsuda Kiichi 189, 231 Mercurian, Everard 2, 20, 22–23, 36, 46, 98, 118, 181, 201 Mesquita, Diogo de 7, 17–18, 187, 187 Mexia (Mexias), Lourenço 48, 145, 150, 155 Mexico (New Spain) 36, 43–44, 52, 79, 83, 115, 131, 140 Miki Paulo 91 Milan 11 Miyako see Kyoto Mogi 202 Moluccas 45 Monclaro, Francisco 26 Monogatari (Tale. A number of monogatari (as well as mai q.v.) were adapted from classical Japanese into colloquial style, and others were specially written in colloquial style, as language texts for the missionaries. With the exception of the colloquial Amakusa version of the Heike Monogatari they survive only in

quotations in Rodrigues (1604) and Vocabulario) 156, 185 Monte, Urbano 11 Monteagudo, Pedro de 123 Montealto, Cardinal 124 Mora, Belchior de 72 Morejón, Pedro 17–18, 42, 211 Moslems 107 Moslem galleys 107 Moslem world 105 Mozambique 7, 33, 42, 108 Murdoch, James 73 Muro 15 Mutsu 62 Nagasaki 1, 2, 15, 17, 42, 58, 65, 69, 79, 80–82, 85, 89, 91, 93, 107–108, 126, 138, 139, 152, 155, 158, 171–172, 183, 185–187, 201–202; laws, authority in 202; justice, death penalty in 202 Nagoya 90 Nakaura Julião 2, 6, 9, 11, 14–18, 17–18, 161, 206 Naples 20 Navarro, Pero Paulo 183 negoro(s) 69 negros 52 New Spain see Mexico Nobunaga see Oda Nobunaga Novices 164 Nunes Barreto, João 145 31 Obi 15 Oda Nobunga 4, 10–11, 20, 31, 56, 61, 68, 74, 75, 76, 93, 131, 181, 189, 206 mura 14, 63, 82, 161; daimy of see mura Sumitada mura Sumitada (Bartolomeu) 6, 8, 63, 65, 67, 75, 107, 211–214 mura Yoshiaki 59, 68 Organtino Gnecchi-Soldo 12–13, 33, 75, 89, 183 Ormuz (Hormuz) 43 Osaka 84 ta Augustino 156–158 tomo Yoshimune 15


tomo Yoshishige (Francisco tomo S rin) 13, 31, 34, 54, 56, 65, 104, 129, 133, 138, 189 uchi Yoshitaka 31 Pacheco, Diego 227 Padroado 45 Padua 21 Pancada 118 Pasio, Francesco 17, 23, 39, 46, 108, 190 Paul III, Pope 1 Paul IV, Pope 20 Paul V, Pope 86 Paul, Saint 176 peasants 96–96 pederasty 98 Pedro, Brother 145 Pegú 140 Peking 115 persecution 75, 80, 86, 101, 145, 190 Peru 52, 140 Pesce, Giovanni Battista 145 Philip II, King (of Spain and Portugal) 11, 20, 45–46, 82, 116; complaint from 126; death of 82; orders investigation of wealth of religious orders in the orient 116 Philippines 43–47, 49, 52, 72, 79, 81–83, 86, 89, 90, 92, 115, 116, 131, 139–141, 156–157, 183; trade with 43 Piatti, Geronimo 173 Picul 218 Pimenta Nicolao 27 pirates 84, 189 plain truth, the 34–36 Ponte/Puente see da Ponte Portugal 7, 8, 10–11, 21–33, 42, 116, 117, 121, 124–125, 141–142, 146, 148 Portuguese 1, 3, 25–26, 31, 42, 44, 96, 117, 123, 126, 129, 131–133, 138, 149, 174, 178, 182 Portuguese India 2, 96 Possevino, Antonio 36 presents 134–139, 170 press 145–145, 149, 152–153, 154 priesthood candidates/training/ studies for 52–52

Principio (V(1601)) 29, 32–33, 38, 68, 70, 74, 91, 96, 97–98, 129, 151, 184, 193–199 printing 145; in Japanese characters 154–155 Protasio (Don) see Arima Harunobu Providence 80–81 Rakuy sh 154 Relation de Japón (by Fray Martín de Aguirre) 116 religious order(s) 1; Japanese motives for entering 140 Ribadeneira, Marcelo de 103, 182–183 Ribera 82–84, 156–158 Ricci, Matteo 22, 46, 115, 165, 176–178 Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism Rodrigues, Francisco 42, 44, 148, 182, 183 Rodrigues, João 1, 16, 18, 32, 124, 145, 153, 156, 169, 180–181, 183, 185, 190; indebted to, borrows from Valignano 209 Rodrigues, Manoel 172 Rodrigues, Nuno 7, 20, 163 Rodriguez, Ginebra 191 roman alphabet 153 Roman College 125 Roman language 153 Romans 98–100 Rome 6, 7–11, 15, 21–22, 34, 36, 37, 42, 44–45, 47, 57, 116, 121, 124, 126, 158, 164, 189 Ronquillo, Governor 45 Ruggieri, Michele 46, 178 Ry chi 193 Ry z ji 57, 63, 201 St. Helena 8 St. Peter’s Square 9 Sakai 189 Sala Regia 9 Salvation of the heathen 204 Sánchez, Alonso 45–48 Sanctos no Gosagy no uchi Nukigaki (Extracts from the Acts of the Saints) 152, 185 San Felipe (galleon) 93

INDEX 243

Saracens 107 Satsuma 14, 65, 105 Schadenfreude 75 schism 87 scribes 36–37 Sebastian, king of Portugal 107, 117 secular priests 161–161, 163, 164 Sedeño, Antonio 45, 46, 72 Sekigahara, battle of 4, 16, 112, 190 seminarians 164 seminaries 161, 164–168 Seville 43–44 Seyakuin H in see Tokuun shaka 17 Shiki 82, 104 Shimazu 65 Shimazu Takahisa 31 Shimazu Yoshihisa 14 Shimo 55, 62, 138, 201 Shingon (sect of Japanese Buddhism) 69 Shint shrines 76 Siam 140 Siena 29 silk trade 23, 116–127 silver 130–131, 133 ‘Silver Islands’ 131 Singapore, straits of 123 Sixtus V, Pope 9, 11, 75, 125 slavery 105–109 Society of Jesus see Jesuits Spaniards 45, 47, 79, 83–84, 93 Spanish conquest of Japan 52, 93 Spanish—most common and intelligible language 36–37 Spanish ships in Macao 140 Suárez, Francisco 45 Suárez, Gaspar 45 suicide 100 Sumario (de Japón/de las cosas de Japón) (V(1954)) 32, 37, 49–51, 61–63, 68, 85, 96, 126, 129–129, 132, 134, 143, 150, 153, 161, 163, 174–176, 178, 183 Summa 148 Summary of the things of Japan see Sumario Ta 193 Tael(s) 218

Taik see Hideyoshi Takai, Cosme 184–185 Takaku 63, 167 Takatsuki 13 Takayama Ukon (Justo Ukondono) 13, 65, 72, 95, 112, 184 Tamil 145 Tei 31 Tendai (sect of Japanese Buddhism) 69 Tenka 4, 31, 68, 77, 82, 86, 101, Terazawa Hirotaka (Terazawadono) 80–82, 84, 95 textbooks 155–156 Tintoretto 11 T d 55 Tokugawa(s) 106 190 Tokugawa Hidetada 145 Tokugawa Iemitsu 145 Tokugawa Ieyasu see Ieyasu Tokuun (Yakuin/Seyakuin H in) 72, 137, 220 Tono (feudal lord) 60, 102, 104, 131, 135, 190, 197 Tordesillas, Treaty of 45 Torres, Cosme de 1, 33, 38, 182 Torres, Juan de 184 tortures 145 Toyotomi Hideyoshi see Hideyoshi translations 185–187 transplantation 171–176 Trato see silk trade Trent, Council of 111 triumph 58 Tromei, Marco Antonio 29 Trona, Franceschina 21 Turselino (Tursellinus, H.) 151 Ukon, Ukondono see Takayama Ukon Ungy see Fukan Fabian Union of the crowns 45 Urakami 158 Usuki 187 Valignani 20 Valignano, Alessandro: passim; accepts offer of Nagasaki 202; as ambassador 20, 134; background and attitudes 20–22, 96–97; and


Francisco Cabral 23–27; charity 190; command of Castilian 37; commends the bonzes 100; criticizes the General 125; death 3, 190–191; diplomacy 189–189; embassy to Hideyoshi 15–17, 88–89; eulogies following his death 190; faith, hope 68, 74, 190; fatherly concern 222; and the Japanese language 38, 178–178, and Macao college 173; and Maffei 32; ‘the merchant’ 116; modifies his opinion 32; political ambition 189–190; recommends dissimulation 111; Sanchez’ portrait 47–48; treatise on Japan 32–33; writes: in Spanish 36–37, in Italian 36–36, 71–72, in Latin 36, 71 Venice 11 Viceroy 171 Visitation 2 Vocabulario da Lingoa de Iapam 155 voyages 3, 7, 8, 42–45 Wakasa 184 ‘White for the harvest’ 33–34 Wicki, J. 20, 227 Xavier, Francis 1, 1, 3, 31, 33, 38, 46, 96, 98, 150, 182, 183, 190, 204, 221 Yakata 31, 31, 58, 197 Yakuin see Tokuun Yakunin (an official) 202 Yamaguchi 31, 183, 184 Yeta, Yetta 103 Y h Paulo 184 Y ki Diogo 167 Zaragoza 1 Zen Buddhism 55–56, 185 Zen: model 55–56; ranks 55–56; sect 75, 76, 185; temples 55 Zumárraga, Tomás de 17

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