A Vinha do Senhor: the Portuguese Jesuits in China in the seventeenth century.

In the past few years some of the most intriguing new research in the field of early modern history has been grouped under the rubric of intercultural communication. Recent trends in international migration and a pervasive sense of a global community have prompted scholars to analyse the historical dimensions of interchanges across cultural borders. One area that has produced particularly interesting results is the Jesuit mission to China from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The history of these European mandarins at the imperial court and their attempts to bring Western learning and religion to the Middle Kingdom represents one of the first sustained cultural and intellectual encounters between East and West. Seeing the members of the Society of Jesus in China as transmitters and receivers of ideas, historians have focused on certain aspects of this interchange while leaving others aside. In many respects, the history of this dramatic encounter of cultures is fraught with lacunae, mainly due to the complexity of historical contexts that converge at this topic. Perhaps the most glaring omission concerns the contributions of the single largest contingent, the Portuguese Jesuits, to the missionary effort in China. (1)

As European religious figures with their own cultural, intellectual, national and spiritual character living in Ming and Qing China, these Jesuits can be observed through a variety of lenses. (2) Two themes, however, have long dominated enquiries into this field: religious accommodation and science. The former, still a topic of heated debate in theological circles, concerns the ways in which the first Jesuits adapted the cultural dimensions of their religious message to Chinese norms. Apologist historians have primarily aimed to present historical evidence of how these missionaries accommodated Christian teaching to the society they found, instead of rigidly guarding European cultural practices. (3) The theme of science has also recently sparked a number of studies by scholars seeking to understand how these erudite Europeans translated scientific texts for their Chinese counterparts. Highlighting the work of a handful of Europeans at the imperial astronomical bureau, these scholars have stressed above all the interchanges between the Jesuit mathematicians and the highest levels of the mandarin elite. Recent studies in this area, mainly by historians of science, have looked at specific texts the Jesuits printed in China and the accounts of Chinese thought that were sent to Europe. (4)

Neither of these themes, however, is sufficient to understand the Jesuit missionaries in China. Furthermore, both interpretations have been tainted by inherent biases. For the supporters of Jesuit accommodation, the eventual downfall of the mission at the beginning of the eighteenth century was a singular tragedy in the history of the Catholic church. Scholars generally agree that clashes between Europeans were at the heart of this crisis, and have placed blame partly on rival national groups of Jesuits. Due to common misconceptions about the nature of early modern Catholicism coloured by the Black Legend, the Portuguese Jesuits, as a group, have been seen as the opponents of this 'modern' vision of cultural flexibility. Likewise, scholars who have unduly stressed the scientific aspects of the Jesuit presence in China have focused almost entirely on encounters between elites at Peking. Affected by the same prejudices, historians have focused solely on the scientific work of Italian, Belgian, French and German Jesuits, seeing the Portuguese as reactionary outsiders to the scientific advances in both Europe and China. Despite the value of these specific studies, they do not account for the religious dimension of the Jesuit mission, the key motivation for their presence in China.

In both traditional and recent historiography, national origins have constituted a central factor in attempting to explain the fortunes and misfortunes of the China Jesuits. In this article, however, I will argue for a different approach to the history of early modern missions, using the case of the Portuguese Jesuits in China to illustrate the putative role of national rivalries within the Society of Jesus. I intend here to call into question the views rooted in the Black Legend by analysing the archival documents of the missionaries with the goal of understanding their views and motivations. I will start with the principle that the Jesuits were a unified group inspired by a set of truths with universal application and focused on converting their hosts. Then, relying on both administrative documents and correspondence, I will suggest that within the Society of Jesus nationalistic impulses existed in constant tension with a larger spirit of cosmopolitanism. Here I will demonstrate the need to re-evaluate the current criteria for analysing early modern missionary activity and conclude by sketching a programme of research that seems necessary.

Within the Anglo-American and French historical traditions, the 'black legend' has long influenced the way scholars have viewed Portugal and its colonial empire. Due to the prestige attached to older texts of certain historians and the paucity of new work on religious and intellectual history in this area, the Black Legend persists among modern scholars. A tradition of exclusivity has led Iberian historians to see the experience of the Portuguese discoverers and their followers as unrelated to events occurring in the wider world, either in Europe, the Americas or Asia. In the specific case of the China Mission, the availability of printed sources in both Italian and French on certain aspects of Jesuit life at Peking have caused scholars to ignore the far larger quantities of Portuguese-language documents in European archives. Likewise, the polemical nature of some of these court-centred relations have led researchers to see the China mission as an autonomous entity, constantly in conflict with the repressive Estado da India. This combination of a lack of comparative studies and little new archival research has meant that recent scholars from outside the field of early modern European history frequently refer to older texts. While the historical community as a whole has abandoned this stereotype, it continues to appear in writings on the China Jesuits.

The foundations for the perpetuation of this stereotype are readily evident in historical monographs that present the traditional interpretation of the mission. For example, in George Dunne's Generation of Giants, a well-informed defence of Jesuit accommodation, the author needed to insist on an opposing force to the 'progressive' views of the mission's Italian founder, Matteo Ricci, and his non-Portuguese successors. He uses the term 'Europeanism' to describe the character of the Portuguese, grouping together Jesuits, Crown representatives, members of other religious orders and even historical figures from earlier times. He states:

Nationalism was responsible for a particularly narrow form of Europeanism. National pride tended to identify national cultural forms with Christianity itself. Nowhere was this truer than in sixteenth century Spain and Portugal, where the self-assertive spirit of the Christian West was wedded to the most ardent nationalism. To the Portuguese Christianity in any but a Portuguese wrapping was inconceivable. (5)

Dunne reveals the paradox of grouping the Portuguese Jesuits with their compatriots, when, later in his text, he relies on their documents for part of his argument for accommodation. Since he used primarily Latin-language documents rather than Portuguese sources, he proved unable to perceive the strains of Ignatian spirituality that mark these Jesuits in the same way they marked Germans, French, Spanish or Italians.

More recently, Dauril Alden has written a very useful study of the Portuguese Assistancy, the set of Jesuit provinces that corresponded to the Portuguese Empire, where traces of the Black Legend can be found. Alden succeeds in dispelling the myth of Jesuit wealth by analysing archival sources, but due to his reliance on secondary texts such as Dunne's for his descriptions of the China mission, he advances older prejudices as well. Stressing the dynamism of other national brands of Catholicism presented to the Chinese, Alden states unequivocally:

[In the early modern period], Iberian Catholicism seems to have been less flexible, less imaginative than that practiced by other Europeans, especially Italians and Germans. Catholicism was introduced to Imperial China by an Italian, and during the seventeenth century his greatest successors were another Italian, a German and a Belgian. Their most conspicuous successors in turn were French savants. (6)

The Black Legend appears more clearly, however, in other recent texts. In Irene Pih's unique study of the Portuguese missionary Gabriel de Magalhaes, she notes that 'from the beginning of the mission in China, the Portuguese Jesuits acted as a brake on their Jesuit confreres who showed more initiative'. (7) Even the sympathetic historian David Mungello (8) seems convinced of the authoritarian character of the Portuguese and their negative impact upon the mission:

Western Humanism was presented to China in the seventeenth century, primarily by Italian Jesuits. The cosmopolitan, sophisticated and open-minded outlook of Italian Jesuits [...] was imbued with humanism. By contrast the missionaries of Portugal and Spain tended to be more insular, contentious, and militant in their approaches. Their conquistador mentality was a heritage of Iberian voyages and conquests that had built the Portuguese and Spanish empires [...] Iberian success in these endeavors had reinforced their own sense of cultural superiority and chauvinism. (9)

Here one sees the two aspects of the Black Legend most clearly: that Portuguese missionaries were merely conquistadors in religious garb, and that they did not share the intellectual culture of the rest of Europe. Although parts of this accusation may be valid for discussing certain Crown officials and religious figures within the Estado da India at specific times, it is misleading to rely solely on broad generalizations of national character when dealing with specific cases such as the China mission.

Placing the actions of all of the Jesuit missionaries within the institutional and religious context of the Society of Jesus, the ecclesiastical administration of Portugal, and the political administration of the Chinese empire, one can avoid recourse to outworn stereotypes. From outside of the community of scholars devoted specifically to the China mission, R. Hsia's Age of Catholic Renewal shows that the two greatest spiritual and religious forces in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Catholic Europe came from Italy and Spain. (10) By choosing carefully among studies in the field, Hsia brings the missionary effort into a broader context of Catholic history. It need only be recalled that the Society of Jesus itself was founded by a Spaniard, evolved in concert with pan-European trends in piety, and had its first official acceptance and growth in Portugal. Similarly, the notion of spiritual renewal as the driving force for the Catholic Reformation stems largely from the widespread revival of piety that occurred simultaneously in the older religious orders and the Society of Jesus. (11) And, since a considerable part of European education at this time was controlled by Jesuits using accepted methods of humanistic instruction to train their students (many of whom later joined the order), it becomes difficult to maintain such notions of 'conquistador piety' and 'close-mindedness' as specific to Iberian Jesuits. That the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits differed from their Italian, French and Germanic colleagues is certainly true; yet recent studies of Catholic Reformation piety in Europe have done much to show the impact of the Tridentine thrust towards centralized administration, standardization, and education throughout Europe, especially among religious orders. One must assume that the Jesuits trained in Portugal to be sent onward to the China mission received some part of the education that their post-Tridentine contemporaries had and were just as much part of the religious evolution in Europe as those who attended to the 'Indies of Europe' in Italy or elsewhere. The newer approaches of recent years, unfortunately, have yet to affect the perceptions of the Portuguese on the China mission, but signs of change abound. Fresh analyses of the Jesuits in Portugal and Spain, as well as new approaches to the history of education, are sparking a re-evaluation of the Society of Jesus in the Iberian world that will hopefully expand to include the East Asian missions. (12)

Since grouping the different nationalities of Jesuits together has led to many paradoxical interpretations of the China mission's history, it is necessary to review their archival sources to discover a different frame of analysis based on contemporary concerns and priorities. Understanding their internal administrative structures will enable us to see how the Jesuits perceived themselves. At the broadest level, the Society of Jesus was composed of members from all over Europe and the European overseas colonies and aspired to an administrative cosmopolitanism at all levels. Motivated by their spiritual ideals and the perceived universality of their mission, the Jesuits employed national loyalties to their benefit when dealing with outsiders while subordinating such sentiments within the order itself. The two themes of cosmopolitanism and nationalism existed in conflict with each other, yet within the Society's administration the former prevailed. The generals in Rome came from a variety of nationalities, from Basque to Belgian, Italian to Spanish. They in turn were aided in their administrative tasks by the assistants, executive secretaries who came primarily from the main province of their Assistancy, or set of provinces. As such, the makeup of the Roman curia of the Society reflected the international commitments of the order in Europe and abroad. Within this centre of administrative power, a shared appreciation for the values of Ignatian spirituality overrode the nationalist sentiments of its various members. At the provincial level, especially in the missions where greater numbers of foreign Jesuits intermixed with those from the home province, this mixture translated into a spirit of cosmopolitanism. Rather than seeing themselves as servants of their respective crowns, the Jesuits pledged their obedience first to the general, and then to the pope after they professed their fourth vow. Bound by oaths to a set of superiors of diverse nationalities, the Jesuits as a group only displayed national character when it was in their common interest in a given country or at a specific time. (13) The central points of reference for these overseas missionaries were their common bonds, the Society itself and its spirituality. Nowhere was this truer than among the China Jesuits.

In order to test this hypothesis and assess the impact of certain national groups of missionaries on the greater history of the China mission, it is necessary to begin by outlining its institutional structures, their global context, and the procedures for promoting individuals within the Society's hierarchy. In Joseph Dehergne's compilation of biographical data on the China Jesuits he includes a list of all of the superiors, showing that the Portuguese Jesuits were repeatedly selected to manage the mission. (14) Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with few exceptions, the provincial superiors continually promoted Portuguese missionaries to positions of leadership. If one judges by the criteria of the day, then the Jesuits' assessment of their fellows should prove a good gauge to their attitudes.

The global reach of the Society of Jesus and its rapid spread throughout Europe during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries meant that specific governing structures were needed to maintain both a spiritual and institutional unity. In an age marked by increasing standardization of religious belief and state administration in Europe, the Jesuits stood out as the prime example of effective management. At the lowest level, Jesuit colleges, or residences, were managed by rectors or superiors. (15) At a higher level, individual provinces were run by provincials, who in turn were subordinate to the assistants. These Jesuits reported directly to the general, himself elected by a General Congregation of the Society's members. This tiered ranking system for individuals was mirrored by the hierarchy of provinces within each Assistancy. In the case of Portugal, the home province was the main source of manpower, intellectual formation, and finances for the missionary provinces of Brazil, Maranhao, Goa, Malabar, Japan and China. Following the growth of the Portuguese empire overseas, the Society's commitments expanded, creating new internal administrative units. Instead of a unified province of Portugal that stretched from Rio de Janeiro to Nagasaki, the Jesuits divided the East Asian missions from their South Asian counterparts in 1608, and in 1615 demarcated the China mission as a Vice-Province. The superior for the Middle Kingdom, the vice-provincial, was responsible for high-level administrative duties, such as writing triennial evaluations, keeping Rome and Portugal abreast of happenings in the mission field, and supplying the missionaries with material goods and salaries. Far from acting alone, he relied on the advice of his consultors, Jesuits who had many years of experience and were charged with observing, remonstrating, and advising the vice-provincial. To serve as a balancing mechanism for this provincial administration, visitors were periodically delegated by the general to inspect the individual houses in each province. Due to the unreliable nature of communications between Europe and Asia, however, a permanent post of visitor evolved for the East Asian provinces. In China, the vice-provincial and the visitor were the most important Jesuits, charged with maintaining internal discipline and promoting the successful conversion of the Middle Kingdom.

The hierarchy described here was entirely reliant on the abilities of its members in Rome and the provinces. Since the offices of provincial, vice-provincial and visitor had only limited terms, an internal mechanism for promotion had to be included. From the novitiate to the visitor stage, continual evaluations provided superiors with information used to advance individuals within these structures. During the novitiate, periodic exams gauged spiritual and intellectual progress. As a member of a province, each Jesuit was judged by his provincial and recommended to Rome for promotion, continuation, demotion, or dismissal from the order. In the case of the China mission (as well as in all other provinces), the vice-provincial would make two personnel catalogues to be forwarded to the general, a yearly or 'brief' catalogue of names and assignments and a 'triennial' catalogue of biographical data and evaluations. Based on suggestions made by the visitors, and the catalogues, the general would choose the succession of provincial superiors. Since ultimately the power of promotion resided in Rome, the administration of the individual provinces should not be seen as an internal or national affair. (16) The very character of the Jesuit hierarchy resided in its cosmopolitan structures of administration. (17)

The triennial catalogues of the Vice-Province of China are one of the best sources for understanding the Jesuit administration in practice. These expanded catalogues were comprised of three sections: the first giving biographical information about each Jesuit; the second giving the vice-provincial's evaluation of their capacities; and the third a financial report on the Vice-Province's holdings. A preliminary survey of the first and second catalogues will serve here to illustrate the evaluation and promotion process. (18) Over the course of the sixteenth century, the standardized catalogue layout evolved to the form that would be employed for the following two centuries, granting a continuity and uniformity to Jesuit practice rivalled by few other early modern institutions. The first catalogues consist of biographical information listed according to the following categories: name; country and place of origin; age; health; number of years in the society; description of studies (current and completed); ministries (past and current); and grade (level of vow professed). (19) Each name in the catalogue is accompanied by a number, and the entries are listed according to seniority (both in age and years as a Jesuit), with the exception of the vice-provincial, who was usually listed first. All of these categories required succinct notations with the exception of the studies and ministry columns, each constituting a brief curriculum vitae. It is worthwhile noting that the health criterion was very important for selecting Jesuits for leadership in the mission field, mainly due to the constant travel demanded by the post. The age of the Jesuits chosen for these positions was generally old by contemporary European standards, averaging fifty six years for beginning vice-provincials, but relatively young considering the prodigious ages that most missionaries reached. One sees many appointments granted to those in their late-forties and early-fifties, while the life span of many Jesuits reached into the late-seventies and eighties. It appears that, if they did not die upon arriving, most lived very long lives.

The second catalogue, sent to Rome separately, was confidential in nature and gave evaluations using anonymous references. More subjective, but including definite recommendations concerning each Jesuit's capabilities, the criteria were as follows: ingenuity, judgment, prudence, practical experience, academic proficiency, 'psychological' portrait, and talents. (20) The first five categories were filled by terse evaluations ranging from mediocre to optimal. The psychological makeup of each Jesuit was determined using the temperament descriptions of classical physiology: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, or phlegmatic. (21) The final category, however, seems to have been the key to promotions. Every missionary would be judged on his ability to undertake missionary work and to govern, the two primary talents of a China Jesuit, using the formula: 'for missions x, for government y'. (22) The variables in the formula were filled by the vice-provincials with the same qualifiers as above and enabled the generals to select the mission superiors. The visitor would review and approve the information as well, and make decisions on distributing the missionaries within the Vice-Province. Most judgments seem to have been based on a combination of the criteria in the catalogues, but an overall tendency to favour prudent, ingenious and experienced missionaries does appear.

Looking over the catalogues from the seventeenth century one can see consistent positive evaluations for Portuguese as well as non-Portuguese missionaries. The catalogues from the middle decades of the century clearly show the central role of the Portuguese in provincial governance. And, since it was from 1620 to 1700 that the missionaries maintained the longest growth period in numbers of conversions, their leadership was crucial to the realization of their goals. (23) For example, in the triennial catalogue of 1626 written by Manuel Dias, jr, several Jesuits are noted for their ability to govern, especially Niccolo Longobardo, Alvaro Semedo, Franciso Furtado and Giulio Alens. (24) In the 1639 catalogue written by Francisco Furtado, those especially well positioned to be granted leadership roles were Manuel Dias, jr, Giulio Alens, Alvaro Semedo and Simao da Cunha. (25) Writing in 1650, Manuel Dias, jr (vice-provincial for the second time) indicated that Alvaro Semedo, Ignacio da Costa, Etienne Faber and Luigi Buglio were all suitable to govern. (26) In the 1666 catalogue, written by Feliciano Pacheco, Prospero Intorcetta and Antonio de Gouvea have positive evaluations for government. (27) From these few citations it can be noted that the Portuguese missionaries constituted a continual pool of possible choices for governance, yet were listed alongside qualified men of other nationalities. The fact that they were continually chosen indicates that the generals, unbound by loyalty to any one nation, accepted these evaluations as legitimate.

Supporting the thesis that the vice-provincials frequently included a large proportion of qualified Portuguese Jesuits in their recommendations, I do not intend to show them as always favourable to this nationality, or to any other. In fact, the overwhelming majority of evaluations list the missionaries as prudent, ingenious, learned and sanguine. Those recently arrived on the mission would most likely have mediocre experience, while those older Jesuits might have poorer health. Some, such as Alvaro Semedo, would be good at governing, yet make poor missionaries. (28) Some would only be talented for missionary work, such as Gaspar Ferreira, Etienne Faber or Michel Trigault. (29) The court mandarins were not the strongest group for either missionary work or governing, as the mediocre evaluations of Ferdinand Verbiest indicate. (30) And some, like Pietro Canevari, would be seen as mediocre in both respects. (31) Seniority, though one of the key factors, was not always the deciding factor for promotion. In the 1636 catalogue, the sixty-six-year-old veteran Lazaro Cattaneo was listed as 'good for nothing' due to his senility. (32) Likewise Niccolo Longobardo, mission superior from 1610 to 1622, was continually passed over despite his robust health at seventy-four. (33) Although some Jesuits such as Francisco Furtado, Manuel Dias, jr, and Giandomenico Gabiani would serve two terms as vice-provincial, this seems to be an exception to the general rule.

Documents from the late-seventeenth century attest to the use of another sort of administrative tool employed by the visitors for suggesting candidates for promotion, a list of Jesuits ranked with the heading 'Informatio ad Gubernandum'. These short lists were most likely derived from the visitor's own review of the triennial catalogues and contain nominations for the posts of visitor, vice-provincial and rector of the colleges of Macao or Peking. In 1679, visitor Sebastiao de Almeida recommended first Jean Valat for the office of vice-provincial, followed by Prospero Intorcetta and Ferdinand Verbiest. (34) In 1695, Miguel de Amaral would recommend first Jose Monteiro for the same post, followed by Simao Rodrigues, Manuel Rodrigues and Manuel Mendes. (35) And in 1700, Carlo Turcotti would send the names of Antonio Posateri, Francisco Pinto, Francois Noel, and others as candidates for the office. (36) In this set of documents one sees that, based on merit and experience in the mission field, Portuguese visitors recommended Portuguese and non-Portuguese for positions of leadership.

Since the recruitment procedure for missionaries largely ensured that the Vice-Province represented an elite corps from a cross-section of nationalities, it is not difficult to understand why the majority of the evaluations mentioned here would be positive. The characteristics evaluated in the triennial catalogues can serve as an indicator of what talents were valued within the Society as a whole. Yet, because the mission suffered a chronic shortage of labourers in the Lord's vineyard, continued requests to the General pleaded for any kind of Jesuit. (37) Vice-Provincial Prospero Intorcetta, writing to the visitor in 1688, remarked 'se 100 Padres V.R. tivera de mandar na China nestes tempos, todos teriam muito que fazer, e mais dilatariam a Christandade nos contornos de suas Residencias mas isso nam esta em nossa mao conformemonos com a Divina vontade'. (38) For this reason, despite the occasional mediocre Jesuit, all were valued for their contributions.

When given the choice, however, the China mission's superiors would make clear their preferences. In the instructions given to procurator Nicholas Trigault by mission superior Niccolo Longobardo in 1613, he is told to recruit a good number of Jesuits. Longobardo indicated that these missionaries should be as follows:

[de] natureza branda e assentada, amiga do recolhimento e estudo, de pouca idade, que tenhao porem acabados os seus estudos, e aqui muito mais servem os bons humanistas, que tiverao exercicio de compor, que os mais subtis philosofos e Theologos, que basta nesta parte serem subcientes. Em particular se requere que tenhao mediocre noticia de MathemAtica, tirando hum par delles que devem ser dos mais illustres que ouver na Companhia [...] (39)

Describing here the ideal Jesuit for China, Longobardo characterizes the successful missionaries who arrived in the Vice-Province during the seventeenth century. Here he does not mention any specific national group, he merely cites the educational and spiritual characteristics of desirable candidates. This very fact begs the question: if recruitment and advancement in the mission were merit-based, how does one explain the preponderance of Portuguese in the mission's hierarchy?

The answer lies in the greater international context of the Vice-Province, where two factors accounted for this prolonged dominance. In Portugal, the continual reports of successful conversions throughout the nationwide network of Jesuit colleges fomented a spiritual fervour that often inspired missionary vocations. And, since the province of Portugal continually supplied the greatest numbers of qualified, capable missionaries over the longest period, their sheer numbers ensured them a large proportion of promotions. In fact, one sees by statistical analysis that the years when the numbers of Portuguese are proportionally lowest are the years when other nationalities are represented among the hierarchy. (40) A further reason lies in the political nature of the posts of visitor and vice-provincial at the time. Since both positions required dealing with Portuguese secular and religious figures within the Estado da India and in Europe, one can understand the General's desire to ease the Society's dealings with outsiders if competent candidates could be found. Since the Portuguese were deemed qualified to hold the leadership posts, we must assume that they were also esteemed by their contemporaries of other nationalities.

As shown above, the institutional structures of the Society of Jesus, both in theory and in practice, advanced Portuguese candidates. But rivalries and biases can sometimes be masked by effective institutions. Documentary evidence such as the correspondence and orders written by the mission's superiors can further help to verify if national biases affected internal relations between the missionaries. Over the course of the seventeenth century there are three periods that are useful for gauging the tensions between the mission's different national groups: the foundation years in the first decades, the mid-century years on the eve of the Manchu conquest, and the last two decades of the century, when the French Jesuits arrived in China.

Among the founders of the Jesuit enterprises in East Asia, the Italian visitor Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606) stands out in the traditional historiography as the guiding force who, together with his protege Matteo Ricci, laid the foundations of the China mission. This pair, visitor and superior, have been seen as the initiators of the accommodation policy, the visionaries whose legacy was eventually betrayed by the instigators of the Rites controversy. As seen above, Valignano has been deemed the kind of flexible progressive who, by virtue of being Italian, was more ready to accommodate Christianity to Asian cultures. As visitor, one must assume, he tried to do his best to steer the 'rigid' Portuguese Jesuits at his disposal away from the delicate Chinese enterprise. Reading his documents, however, one finds an entirely different attitude.

Since Valignano held the highest position among the East Asian Jesuits, he was in a unique position to direct the recruitment efforts for the Japan province. (41) In the first years of the China mission, the last two decades of the sixteenth century, the Japan mission had greatly expanded, predominantly due to the labours of Portuguese Jesuits. (42) Inside the Estado da India, and mindful of the importance of royal patronage, Valignano did his best to choose Jesuits who would best advance both missionary efforts. Having already touched on the needs of the Japan mission in his letter to general Claudio Aquaviva from Nagasaki in 1600, Valignano requests the following:

[que Sua Santidad] ayudasse con alguna lismosna a esta mission de la China y que con esto V. P. embiasse quatro o seis Padres virtuosos y theologos de 25 hasta 30 anos de edad, que fuessen todos o la mayor parte dellos Portugueses nombradamente para la mission de la China. Para que desta manera viniessen con mas consolacion y satisfacion de los Portugueses cuya es esta V. Provincia y fuessen favorecidos en Portugal y en la India y en todos las demas partes por donde han de passar [...] (43)

Here he refers to the administrative structure of the Assistancy and the fact that the China mission should rely primarily on its missionaries. Valignano also knew full well that a group of foreigners, Catholic or not, travelling within the Estado da India, would reach its destination with much greater facility if it was led by Portuguese Jesuits.

Where the above text is a suggestion, later documents show the visitor's explicit insistence on the nationality of missionaries to be sent to China. When Valignano dispatched a procurator to Europe in 1604 to handle the affairs of the East Asian missions, he gave more concrete recruiting orders. Enumerating various tasks for Francisco Rodrigues, he includes this instruction:

O quinto negocio sera procurar com nosso Padre alguns bons sobreitos especialmente Portugueses que tinhao capacidade e talento pera poderem fazer diversos officios pertencentes ao governo da China e Jappao depois de saberem a lingoa e terem experiencia subciente destes partes [...] (44)

Confident in the uniform standards of Jesuit formation to produce qualified missionaries and superiors, Valignano underscores his preference for Portuguese Jesuits to run the East Asian missions within their Assistancy, for the simple reason that their nationality would smooth relations with those Europeans outside the Society.

Valignano wrote, however, during the midst of the Philippine dynasty, when the presence of rivals in maritime Asia began to show the limitations of Portugal's capacity to advance a global missionary effort. Regardless of its storied history or its exotic character, the China mission never attracted as many Portuguese padres as were needed for the vinha do Senhor. A combination of factors including the Portuguese Crown's reluctance to let foreigners serve in its padroado domains, the perils of the long sea voyage, and the diversion of missionaries to other provinces meant that few missionaries ever reached China. Gradually the claims of the Portuguese Crown outstripped its capacity to both fund and staff the mission, prompting the superiors to look elsewhere for help. In the decade of the 1630s, as the number of conversions in China began to expand and the nightmare of the Japanese persecutions gradually gave way to despair, the Jesuit visitors shifted their attention to the Celestial Empire. One of the first to realize the possibilities of the China effort was visitor Manuel Dias, sr (1559-1639). Dias had been rector of the Jesuit college at Macao and a long-time supporter of the interests of the China missionaries, often at odds with his fellow Jesuits in the Japan province who had lived the drama of violent persecutions. In his letters to the General during his term as visitor he explains that for the very survival of the China mission foreign Jesuits needed to be sent to China along with the Portuguese.

One letter, written in 1637 to Muzio Vitelleschi, includes reasons 'why it is in the interests of China and Japan to send foreign padres'. His aim here was to support the introduction of other Europeans to the mission, but he begins by defending the traditional role that the Portuguese had played:

Bem se deixa entender fora muito bem para a conversao destes reynos nos viessem para elas todos os padres necessarios de Portugal a cuja coroa o comercio e conquista deles pertencem, mas tao bem se ve nao he isto posivel peraquela provincia ter otras tres que prover, e muitas ocupassoes das portas a dentro a que acudir. (45)

Referring to Ricci, he continues to argue that since foreigners began the mission, their brethren should be entitled to continue it. Macao, he notes, has very few people and that most of those are Portuguese soldiers, 'e esses nos talentos para nosso instituto sao menos que ordinarios porque os que tem algum brio querem servir a el Rey na India com que ganha honra, e nao vir a Amacao, onde nao tem occasiao de fazer cousa grande'. (46) Dias also claims that since the Society in Portugal does not have the resources to produce either mathematician padres or painter irmaos, these should serve as an example for the recruitment of others foreigners. (47)

By far his most interesting reasons, however, come towards the end of his text when he reflects upon the cosmopolitan outlook inherent in the Jesuit administration described above. Referring to the selection process and the other religious orders, he states:

Porque he grande credito destas nossas provincias deixarem os padres estrangeiros as suas em que tinha bem que fazer no servico de Deus, e ainda conversois anexas, e virem a estas pedindoo com tanta instancia.

Porque he de muita edificassao estar toda a Companhia tao unida por caridade, que as outras provincias nos querem vir aiudar nestas sabendo ha ca tantos trabalhos e tendo os nossos naquelas tantas comodidades, e todas entre os limites da perfeicao religiosa, cousa que ca nao vemos nas outras religiois. (48)

Dias implies here that the very structure of the Society and the inspiration of its members should serve as a source of energy for the China mission. In closing he appeals to the general in spiritual terms stating, 'nao he justo deixamos aqui hir ao Inferno tantas almas por nao terem quem as encaminha para o Ceo, e nao lhe acudamos com ministros para a salvacao de outras partes da Companhia'. (49) The religious motivations of this Portuguese visitor are quite plain here, overriding any desires he might have to maintain the Vice-Province as an exclusively Portuguese field. The years ahead, however, would be a time of bittersweet success as the number of conversions rose while the founding generation of Jesuits passed away. Replacements did come, but at a pace that led successive superiors to continue to see the missions as understaffed.

It is interesting that one of the answers to these repeated requests for 'workers in the vineyard' would provoke a major crisis for the mission. When the mathematiciens du Roy arrived at Ningbo in 1687, responding to Ferdinand Verbiest's unauthorized call for Jesuit scholars from Paris, they came in the wake of the French colonial misadventure in Southeast Asia that put the China mission in jeopardy. What historians have seen as the long-awaited arrival of capable missionary-scientists to work at the imperial court was in reality a challenge to the very foundations of Jesuit cosmopolitanism. And, since few scholars have analysed the Portuguese-language documents from the Vice-Province, they have adopted the opinions and prejudices of only one party in this dispute. (50) The fact that their writings were published in France and widely spread throughout the Republique des lettres in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries helped their negative view of the 'Portuguese' Vice-Province become legend. Published contemporaneously with such texts as Charles Dellon's indictment of the Inquisition at Goa, these accounts laid the foundations of the Black Legend of the Portuguese in Asia. (51) Although integral in transmitting knowledge of China to a wider European audience, the first French Jesuits in China did not intend to take part in the missionary enterprise. And, when the Vice-Province resisted the attempts of the French Jesuits to set up a separate, exclusively French, mission in China, they were characterized as outdated guardians of the faded glories of the long-decadent Estado da India. It is precisely this set of criticisms that accounts for part of the persistently negative image of the Portuguese Jesuits who served in China.

In order to understand why the arrival of five French Jesuits would have caused such a major crisis it is necessary briefly to sketch the historical context of late-seventeenth-century maritime Asia. The political, military and cultural domination of France in the first two decades of Louis XIV's rule inspired the continental European power to attempt an entry into the lucrative Asian trading world. Seeing how the weakened Estado da India had been whittled away by Dutch attacks after the fall of Malacca in 1641, the French Crown attempted to subject other powers abroad as it had done in Europe. Yet the official French foray into East Asia began with their debacle in Siam in the early 1680s. Arriving with colonial illusions, the French fleet was driven away in disgrace after a palace coup and ensuing insurrection. But despite the fact that the Jesuit province of Japan had been ministering to both the Portuguese factors and the Siamese in Ayutthaya for most of the seventeenth century, French Jesuits attached to the provinces of metropolitan France had arrived independently of Portuguese Assistancy. The missionaries of the Vice-Province, always fearful of latent xenophobia at the imperial court, saw the arrival of French Jesuits connected to the Siam affair as a threat to the tenuous unofficial tolerance of their presence in China. (52) The news of a European attempt to seize one of his tributary states, they feared, might provoke a negative reaction from the Kangxi emperor. The actions of the French provoked the Macao Jesuits to exclaim, 'querem perder tambem esta Christandade, assi como perderao a de Siao'. (53) This set of events provides the background to the institutional crisis that occurred in China among the Jesuits after 1687.

One of the curious facets of the controversy that surrounded the arrival of the French Jesuits was the fact that the Portuguese bloc represented the same multi-national mix that comprised the Vice-Province. They acquired the label 'Portuguese' due to their allegiance to the hierarchy of the Portuguese Assistancy, and not necessarily to the Portuguese Crown or even the Padroado. At the time that the controversy with the French Jesuits began, the vice-provincial of the China mission was the Sicilian Prospero Intorcetta, the visitor was the Italian Francesco Saverio Filippucci, and the Vice-Province had thirty-seven members, including eleven Portuguese, seven Italians, and nineteen other Europeans and Chinese. (54) And, though it is well known that the French Jesuits were sent by Louis XIV, and specifically instructed by him to obey only French superiors, it is the Portuguese Jesuits who have been deemed nationalistic by later scholars. It is worth noting here that outside religious concerns, the most cherished possessions of early modern religious bodies were their privileges, their spiritual jurisdiction, and their channels of obedience. The volleys of invective in the large corpus of letters between these two rival groups mainly concern the defence of jurisdiction for the 'Portuguese', and the fulfillment of a royal commission for the French. To be sure, the Jesuits of the Vice-Province were not completely free of nationalist sentiments. In fact, when forced by the intrusion of these 'separatists', they often resorted to contemporary stereotypes, occasionally even referring to the French Jesuits as Jansenists. The international mixture of participants in this 'in-house' feud serves to highlight the problem of using the nationality of the missionaries as a criteria for understanding the mission's history.

The arrival of the five French Jesuits at a Chinese port other than Macao immediately sparked worries among the Vice-Province's superiors. Circulating within the geographic area administered by the vice-provincial but with no intention to obey his orders, the group of French savants insisted on carrying out orders directly from Louis XIV. This claim to a higher secular authority called into question the institutional integrity of the Society of Jesus, but can be more readily understood in light of their strong Gallican tradition with regard to ultramontane religious authorities. Jean de Fontaney, superior of the French Jesuits, resented the attempts of the Macao hierarchy to block his arrival at Peking and intercept the key to maintaining his freedom of action, his correspondence. He wrote repeatedly against the constraints placed on him, stating:

toutes ces lettres, dis-je, nous sont violamment emponees sans considerer que ces sont des ordres du Roy, et que nous en avons besoin pour executer nos commissions de science [...] ils n'ignorent pas les recommandations de nostre monarque, que je leur ay presentees deux fois, et pour lesquelles eux seules dans le monde et les seculiers de Macao n'ont pas eu le moindre respect. (55)

By insisting on the rights of the French king within the religious jurisdiction of the Society, Fontaney deliberately masks the concept of obedience inherent in all early modern religious orders. One theme, however, that Fontaney could refer to in his ripostes was the repeated call for help emanating from the China mission. Referring to the continual opposition from the vice-provincials, he exclaimed, 'Si Saint Francois Xavier revenoit, les Peres Portugais d'aujoudhuy lui feroit bien la lecon d'avoir eu la pensee d'ecrire a l'universite de Paris pour luy demander du secours'. (56) Since the Vice-Province had continually requested the help of qualified candidates, what was purely a jurisdictional conflict acquired a dimension of ambiguity.

The French group's tenacity in insisting on disobeying the local Jesuit superiors, however, eventually sparked deep suspicions about their ulterior motives among religious authorities in China, both Jesuit and secular. Yet what makes this question of national bias especially interesting is that during the 1680s and 1690s the Italian superiors in the China mission displayed as much disdain for the French manoeuvring as the Portuguese. Their support for the rights of the Vice-Province are further proof of the mainly juridical nature of this conflict. The Jesuit visitor turned Bishop of Nanking, Alessandro Cicero, makes clear his suspicions in a letter to one of their strongest supporters:

da Religiosidade e merecimentos dos Padres Francezes temos ca outro conceito [... os ausentes] nam podem crer os increiveis excessos que fizeram nesta corte com perpetua infamia da Companhia, perturbacam e perigo de toda a missam, escandalo dos Cristaos e Gentios [...] Bem sey que em chegando a estes partes mostrarem outros intentos [... o fimunico a que vieram] nam foy de serem Missionarios, como finalmente elles mesmos declararem aos Superiors da Companhia [...] e ao mesmo Emperador da China, senam de outros negocios, que nunca acabarem de explicar [...] (57)

Here Cicero laments that the good name of the Society of Jesus and its prized image of corporate unity, have been jeopardized by these French renegades. Instead of berating the narrow-minded Portuguese Jesuits and their pernicious nationalism, the blame is placed squarely on these Gallican royal servants in an inversion of what one finds in the current historiography of the mission. Since the French needed to justify their independence without creating scandal at Peking, their invective against the missionaries of the Vice-Province was relegated to their correspondence. Despite the spirit of cosmopolitanism pervasive in the 'Portuguese' mission, historians have relied on the views of only one group in this jurisdictional conflict. As a result, what amounts to the opinions of a set of polemicists have been transformed into an historical judgement.

The evidence presented above concerns but a small aspect of the larger history of the Jesuit mission to China, but one well worth exploring. In demonstrating the problems inherent in ascribing national stereotypes to the various missionaries involved in this episode, I intended to provide a view of the Jesuits as a cohesive multi-national group, judged according to their own criteria. Changing one's perspective on the early modern missions can lead to an entirely new perception of the events that have been foregrounded by the existing literature. This, in turn, suggests that the understanding of the missions as a whole is ripe for re-examination. Here I present a plan for research based on an institutional conception of the Society of Jesus that will re-incorporate the Vice-Province into its various contemporary contexts: religious, administrative, economic, and political. I hope to show that, by inscribing the mission's internal history into the broader history of East and Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe, we can come to a better understanding of the Jesuits' actions.

First, however, a chronological review of the mission based on new archival research is needed, taking into account the contributions of both traditional and recent historiography. This fundamental analysis should focus on the mission from an internal perspective, starting from the principle that these Jesuits were religiously-motivated agents, primarily interested in converting their hosts to Catholic Christianity. The Jesuits' commitment to science should be seen as secondary; a field that they only cautiously engaged in to protect, and eventually fund, the missionary work of the provinces. Likewise, enlarging the scope of analyses beyond studies of the contacts between Jesuits and high-level mandarins will help illuminate the broader social aspects of the missionary effort. As Nicolas Standaert has shown, only a very small percentage of converts belonged to the elite, while the overwhelming majority came from the lower social strata. (58) Bearing in mind their religious goals, a chronological review should focus on the development of Christian communities as a result of Jesuit preaching, catechizing, and intellectual interchanges aimed at all levels of Chinese society.

This attention to missionary work will greatly impact the traditional view of the mission's geography as well. A brief reading of archival sources and recently published materials make clear that the most fruitful zones for conversion were far from the imperial court. (59) One sees the most important centres of Christian activity in the Jiangnan area and spreading along contemporary axes of communication and transportation. While this region saw the largest number of conversions, others had smaller communities in clearly defined areas; for example, along the course of the Yangzi into Huguang and Jiangxi, north through modern Jiangsu into Shandong and Hebei, and following the Yellow River through Shanxi and Shaanxi. Both the coast and hinterlands of Fujian, again following the inland rivers, were at once one of the most fertile mission fields and the area that gave the Jesuits' rivals open connections to Manila and beyond. Despite the importance historians have placed on it, the city of Peking represented a key obstacle for the missionaries; once inside the city and officially involved at court, the Jesuits were not permitted to leave. Some of the Peking Jesuits did devote their attentions to pastoral work rather than to the astronomical bureau, but their efforts remained confined to the city. New studies seeking to provide a balanced view of the Vice-Province should bear in mind the double nature of the court Jesuits; at once crucial to maintaining imperial favour for the evangelization of the provinces, and yet isolated from the bulk of the missionary effort.

Rooted in this comprehensive review of the internal contexts of the mission, the process of how the Chinese became Christians should be addressed. Although theological scholars have wrangled with religious issues dealing with China for centuries, their attention has been almost exclusively focused on the Rites controversy. As a result, aspects traditionally subsumed under the rubric of missology have been left untreated, though they directly relate to the history of the Vice-Province and illustrate missionary piety. The process of conversion to seventeenth-century Catholicism, to the same religion that was inspiring the baroque monuments of Europe, remains unknown and raises several questions: Which doctrines were taught? How were neophytes catechized? Did the missionaries try to account for the particularities of Chinese society when establishing their churches? How were fledgling Christian communities organized? What material objects or buildings served as identifying signs of followers of this foreign faith? How did the events of Chinese history effect the process of conversion? What attempts were made to adapt this missionary church to the hierarchical forms of the Roman church? In order to understand the religious character of the Christian communities established by the Jesuits, these questions need to be answered. (60)

As mentioned above, the Vice-Province stood at the end of a long administrative chain stretching all the way to Rome. The relations between the China Jesuits and Europe were shaped as much by the Society's other provinces as well as by the international rivalries of maritime Asia. The closest exterior link for the Vice-Province was the Colegio de Macao, the hub of communications between China and Europe and headquarters of the Japan province. Beyond this was the main centre for Jesuit activity in Asia, the college and professed house at Goa, the first stopping point for China-bound missionaries where they occasionally finished their intellectual formation. Jesuit lands situated in the Estado da India also provided much of the financial support for the East Asian provinces. The presence of foreign missionaries on other Jesuit missions in maritime Asia means that they can serve as helpful points of comparison. For example, the history of the Malabar and Japan provinces includes cases of missionary work outside European imperial domains in Asia similar to the experiences of the China Jesuits. In continental Portugal, the centre for recruitment, the seminaries and colleges in Lisbon, Evora and Coimbra were where most of the future missionaries were trained. New studies of these centres of schooling are needed to understand how the Jesuits were educated in both academic and spiritual matters. If one is to see them as transmitters of knowledge, their own intellectual formation becomes a critical factor for understanding how and what they communicated.

As part of the Catholic church, the Society's members in the Middle Kingdom owed obedience to the official church hierarchy appointed to govern the spread of the faith in the East. Allied to the Portuguese Crown, the Archbishop of Goa was nominally the ecclesiastical leader of all of Asia, even outside the territorial claims of the Estado da India. Subordinate to Goa, the Bishop of Macao, and the later bishops of Nanking and Peking, governed Catholic affairs within the Chinese missionary field. Yet when the papacy deployed Vicars Apostolic to circumvent the Portuguese padroado claims in the late-seventeenth century, the Jesuits were put in the difficult position of owing obedience to rival church authorities. The relations between the missionaries and these levels of Church hierarchy, and their impact on the missionary work in China have only been partially studied by scholars of the Rites controversy. Likewise, comparisons with the missionary work of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and even secular priests will provide new insights into the spread of Christianity in China, providing a contrast to the Jesuit-dominated views of Asian missionary work.

Outside of China, when not serving in the missionary field, the Jesuits were fully integrated into the life of the Estado da India and subject to its political authorities. Since they relied on the Portuguese empire for their material support, transportation and manpower, the Jesuits had to cooperate with the Portuguese Crown and its imperial officers both in Macao, Goa and Lisbon. Studies of these relationships could illuminate the ways the Society of Jesus worked to advance its own ends in concert with the nationally-motivated goals of its imperial protectors. Although formally linked to the Estado da India, the Jesuits also relied upon Dutch, English and Asian merchant networks in maritime Asia for transportation and communication to and from Europe. The development of a historiography pitting rival national and religious blocs against each other has largely prevented more nuanced interpretations based on informal contacts and pragmatism. The theme of Jesuit cosmopolitanism, as it has been presented here, is also useful for understanding how different national provinces related to each other in Europe. A study of the journeys to different European courts made by procurators attached to the various missions would provide examples of how the Society appealed to competing powers for patronage. Such an analysis would make clear the limits of the Portuguese Crown's ability effectively to support its padroado missions. And, where historians have looked into the transmission of scientific and philosophical texts from the outside world to European intellectual circles, the impact of missionary successes and failures on larger trends in Catholic spirituality remain to be studied.

In a recent publication, one of the most innovative scholars in this field suggested that future studies needed to be more 'China-centred', citing the contributions of the Chinese clergy during the eighteenth century as an example. (61) Implicit in this shift is an appreciation of the religious dimensions of the Jesuits' activities in accordance with the argument presented here. The growing interest in this field among sinologists will hopefully bear fruit in the near future, yet the history of the European missionaries is also in need of critical revision based on a review of archival materials. Only the convergence of these two trends can produce a balanced view of the Jesuit mission to China.

BROWN UNIVERSITY

(1) Two recent statistical analyses of the different national groups have been provided by Jean-Pierre Duteil and Nicolas Standaert. Both show that the Portuguese were the dominant group, but Standaert's study gives a more rigorous chronological breakdown. See Duteil, Le Mandat du Ciel: Le Ro le des Jesuites en Chine de la Mort de Francois Xavier a la Dissolution de la Compagnie de Jesus (1552-1774) (Paris: Editions Arguments, 1994); and Standaert, 'The Jesuit Presence in China (1580-1773): A Statistical Approach', Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal, 12 (1991).

(2) A good introduction to the historiography of the mission is provided by Nicolas Standaert, 'New Trends in the Historiography of Christianity in China', The Catholic Historical Review, 83 (1997).

(3) See George Dunne, Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962); and Andrew Ross, A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China 1542-1742. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1994).

(4) See L'Europe en Chine. Interactions scientifiques, religieuses, et culturelles aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles, ed. by Catherine Jami and H. Delahaye (Paris: College de France, Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1993); and Peter M. Engelfriet, Euclid in China (Leiden: Brill, 1998).

(5) Dunne, p. 9.

(6) Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond 1540-1750 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 157.

(7) Translated from Irene Pih, Le Pere Gabriel de Magalhaes. Un Jesuite Portugais en Chine au XVIIe Siecle (Paris: Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian, 1979), p. 229.

(8) Mungello has been one of the most prolific writers on the history of the China Jesuits and has long fostered new approaches to the mission's historiography. His works include: Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1985); Leibniz and Confucianism: The Search for Accord (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1977); and The Forgotten Christians of Hangzhou (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994).

(9) David Mungello, 'A Confucian Echo of Western Humanist Culture in Seventeenth Century China' in Western Humanistic Culture Presented to China by Jesuit Missionaries (xvii-xviii Centuries), ed. by F. Masini (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1996).

(10) R. Po-Chia Hsia, The Age of Catholic Renewal 1540-1770 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Many of the dynamic trends in Spanish piety were absorbed and propagated by the Portuguese Jesuits. One particular example is their popularization of the works of Frey Luis de Granada in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries.

(11) John O'Malley's scholarly re-evaluation of the Society's first generation provided much of the inspiration for this institutional analysis of the China mission. See O'Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

(12) See for example Marie-Lucie Copete and Federico Palomo, 'Des Caremes apres le Careme, strategies de conversion et fonctions politiques des missions interieurs en Espagne et au Portugal (1540-1640)', Revue de Synthese, 2-3 (1999), 361-80.

(13) Two interesting examples of this ambiguous relation are the support of the Portuguese Jesuits for D. Joao IV during the Portuguese Restoration in 1640, and support of the China Jesuits of the Southern Ming during the Manchu invasions (though this alliance involved very few Chinese Jesuits).

(14) Joseph Dehergne, Repertoire des Jesuites en Chine de 1552 a 1800 (Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1973), pp. 317-23.

(15) For a description of the college level of Jesuit administration see Adrien Demoustier, 'La distinction des fonctions et l'exercice du pouvoir selon les regles de la Compagnie de Jesus' in Les Jesuites a la Renaissance. Systeme Educatif et Production du Savoir, ed. by Luce Girard (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995).

(16) In the case of missionary provinces there was much movement across provinces and Assistancies. Since missionary assignments originated from individual petitions, requests for specific geographic regions could be made. But in the case of Portugal or Spain, most Jesuits remained in their home Assistancies.

(17) Adrien Demoustier pioneered the field of research using Jesuit personnel catalogues, but few have followed his example. See A. Demoustier, 'Les Catalogues du Personnel de la Province de Lyon en 1587, 1606, et 1636', Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu, 43 (1974).

(18) Many of the brief and triennial catalogues for the vice-province, specifically for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are in ARSI (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu), Japonica-Sinica 134 (hereafter Jap-Sin 134). This volume contains a large set of catalogues that, while incomplete for the whole mission, gives an extensive overview of the administration of the vice-province.

(19) The Latin terms used are nomen et cognomen, patria, aetas, vires, tempus societatis, tempus studiorum, ministeria, and gradus.

(20) The Latin terms here are ingenium, judicium, prudentia, experientia rerum, profectus in literis, naturalis complexio, and talenta.

(21) The Latin terms here are sanguinea, colerica, melanconica, or flematica.

(22) Infrequently there would be a notation indicating 'scientists' with a 'talent for teaching mathematics'. See the 1645 evaluation of Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Jap-Sin 134, fol. 327v.

(23) The data for the 'curve of conversions' is presented by both Standaert and Duteil. Both indicate that the growth in number of conversions occurs gradually over this period, levels off at roughly 300,000 converts at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and declines after 1720. See Nicolas Standaert, 'Was the Jesuit Mission a Mission to the Elite? Some Methodological Questions' in Handbook of Christianity in China, Volume One (635-1800), ed. by Nicolas Standaert (Leiden: Brill, [forthcoming]); and Duteil, p. 205.

(24) The Portuguese missionaries are indicated in italics. Jap-Sin 134, fol. 305r/v.

(25) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 317r/v.

(26) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 342r/v.

(27) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 350r/v.

(28) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 317v.

(29) For Ferreira, JapSin 134, fol. 317r; for Faber and Trigault, fol. 327v.

(30) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 351r.

(31) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 350r.

(32) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 313v.

(33) Jap-Sin 134, fol. 315r.

(34) ARSI, Fondo Gesuitico 722, bundle 4, fol. 4r.

(35) Fondo Gesuitico 722, bundle 4, fol. 9r.

(36) Fondo Gesuitico 722, bundle 4, fol. 13r.

(37) This biblical reference is one of the most common scripture citations found in the China Jesuits' writings. For example, Antonio de Gouvea states in the 1649 annual letter, 'he muyto o que padece esta vinha do Senhor, e se bem se rega em algumas paragens com boa conversam, em outras he regada com sangue dos que a cultivam': Antonio de Gouvea, Cartas Anuas da China, ed. by Horacio P. Araujo (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, 1998), p. 409.

(38) Letter from P. Intorcetta to F. S. Filippucci, Hangzhou, 2 December 1688, in Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon, Jesuitas na Asia, 49-IV-63, fol. 262r.

(39) Appontamentos a cerca da Ida do nosso Padre Procurador a Roma, Niccolo Longobardo, Nanxiong, 8 May 1613, Jap-Sin 113, fol. 303r.

(40) This period corresponds to the years 1670-90. See Standaert, 'The Jesuit Presence in China ...', p. 17.

(41) During Valignano's term as visitor, 1574-1608, the Goa province included both the China and Japan mission. Prior to 1608, the Japan missions constituted a vice-province of India.

(42) See Joao Paulo Oliveira e Costa, 'Os Jesuitas no Japao (1549-1598). Uma analise estatistica' in J. P. Oliveira e Costa, O Japao e o Cristianismo no Seculo XVI (Lisbon: Sociedade Historica da Independencia de Portugal, 1999), pp. 17-47.

(43) Letter from Alessandro Valignano to Claudio Aquaviva, Nagasaki, 21 October 1600, ARSI Jap-Sin 14-I, fol. 339v.

(44) Memorial das cousas que o Padre Francisco Rodriguez procurador da V.Provincia da China e de Jappao ha de tratar em Roma com nosso Padre, Alessandro Valignano, Macao, 1604 [prior to April], ARSI Jap-Sin 14-II, fol. 272v.

(45) The three provinces referred to here are Goa, Malabar and Japan. The list of resons is entitled 'Resois porque convem virem a Japao e China Padres estrangeiros'. Manuel Dias, sr. to Muzio Vitelleschi, Macao, 10 March 1637. ARSI Jap-Sin 14-II, fol. 175r.

(46) Jap-Sin 14-II, fol. 175v.

(47) See Ugo Baldini, 'As Assistencias Ibericas da Companhia de Jesus e a Actividade Cientifica nas Misso es Asiaticas (1578-1640); Alguns Aspectos Culturais e Institucionais', Revista Portuguesa da Filosofia, 54 (1998); and Henrique Leitao, 'Jesuit Mathematical Practice in Portugal, 1540-1759', Archimedes (forthcoming).

(48) Jap-Sin 14-II, fol. 175v.

(49) Jap-Sin 14-II, fol. 176r.

(50) The French missionaries eventually established themselves as the French mission in China and maintained their own superiors, independent of the Vice-Province.

(51) See G. Charles Dellon, Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa (Leiden: 1687). The first French edition appeared in Paris in 1688 and was reprinted in many subsequent editions.

(52) The famous edict of toleration was only promulgated by the Kangxi emperor in 1692, five years after the French arrived.

(53) Copy of a letter from Francisco Nogueira to Emanuele Laurifice, Macao, 24 September 1689. ARSI Jap-Sin 132, fol. 16r.

(54) See Standaert, 'The Jesuit Presence in China ...', p. 14.

(55) Jean de Fontaney to Filippo-Felice Carrocci, Nanking, 25 December 1689 (copy of an intercepted letter included in Extrait des lettres du pere Jean de Fontaney). ARSI Jap-Sin 132, fol. 52v-53r.

(56) Citation from an intercepted letter by Jean de Fontaney in Extrait des lettres, Jap-Sin 132, fol. 62r.

(57) Alessandro Cicero to Jean-Baptiste Maldonado (n. p.) 11 June 1695. ARSI Jap-Sin 166, fol. 64r.

(58) See Standaert, 'Was the Jesuit Mission a Mission to the Elite? ...'.

(59) See the selection of annual letters from the 1630s and 1640s by Antonio de Gouvea, mentioned above.

(60) There exist a few useful studies for other Jesuit provinces, but none explicitly on this topic for the China mission. See Jesus Lopez Gay, La Liturgia en la Mision del Japon del siglo XVI (Rome: Libreria dell'Universita Gregoriana and Bontinck, 1970). One text on the Rites controversy, however, does present some of the aspects of missionary work. See Francois Bontinck, La Lutte autour de la Liturgie Chinoise aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles (Louvain: 1962).

(61) For a bibliographical review of recent publications see Nicolas Standaert, 'Les Missions Chinoises', Revue de Synthese, 2-3 (1999), 490.