SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Catholic Missionaries and Medieval Japan

The work of Catholic Missionaries in Japan begun in 1549 with the first mission of  Francis Xavier. The one hundred years period after this initial inception is now known, following Professor Charles Ralph Boxer definition, as "The Christian Century". In this period, many missionaries, belonging to the Jesuits, the Franciscans and other Catholic religious orders, were sent to Japan. According to Professor Gonoi Takashi, the overall number reached a total of no less than 321 individual. The purpose of this paper is to present a general overview of Euro-Japanese relations in this particularly seminal period articulated around four main topics: the encounter between Europe and Japan in its initial phase; the arrival of the first Jesuit missionary, Francis Xavier; the subsequent influence of the Visitor of the Society of Jesus, Alessandro Valignano; and finally, the consequences of the arrival of the Franciscan order in Japan.

Kenji Igawa is Associate Professor at Osaka University (Graduate School of Letters, division of studies on cultural dynamics). His research is focused on the relations between Europe and East Asia in the 15th-16th century, on which he has published extensively in a variety of languages. He is currently a visiting scholar at SOAS.