From the late sixteenth century until their expulsion in 1767, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) played a pivotal role in the life of Spanish America. They educated the urban population, tended to the spiritual needs of city folk, conducted “popular missions” to correct doctrinal issues with the urban and rural populations, and administered missions among the indigenous populations on the frontiers. Jesuit missions stretched from northern Mexico to Patagonia in South America, and left a considerable historical and architectural heritage and patrimony. This volume outlines the historical development of Jesuit missions located in northern Mexico and South America, and illustrates the architectural heritage they left behind.
From the late sixteenth century until their expulsion in 1767, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) played a pivotal role in the life of Spanish America. They educated the urban population, tended to the spiritual needs of city folk, conducted "popular missions" to correct doctrinal issues with the urban and rural populations, and administered missions among the indigenous populations on the frontiers. Jesuit missions stretched from northern Mexico to Patagonia in South America, and left a considerable historical and architectural heritage and patrimony. This volume outlines the historical development of Jesuit missions located in northern Mexico and South America, and illustrates the architectural heritage they left behind.
On June 25, 1767, royal officials in all Spanish territories, including the Americas, began the process of expelling the members of the Society of Jesus. At the time there were some 2,200-2,400 Jesuits in Spanish America, and they staffed urban colegios and frontier missions. This book provides an overview of Jesuit institutions at the time of the expulsion order, their urban role, and the status of frontier missions focusing on the case study of several issues related to the Missions among the Guaraní in South America. This volume contains a visual catalog of historic maps, and historic and contemporary images of selected Jesuit colegios and other urban institutions.
From the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, the Spanish Crown sponsored missions staffed by members of different Catholic missionary orders to evangelize the indigenous populations, and engage in social engineering in line with royal policy. The missionaries directed the construction of building complexes that included churches, leaving behind an important historical and architectural legacy. This visual catalog documents the surviving complexes on selected missions on the frontiers of Spanish America in what today is Mexico and parts of South America. It also presents basic historical data on the mission communities, including demographic data, and documents damage to early mission buildings by the earthquakes of September 7 and September 19, 2018.
From the late sixteenth century until their expulsion in 1767, members of the Society of Jesus played an important role in the urban life of Spanish America and as administrators of frontier missions. This study examines the organization of the Society of Jesus in Spanish America in large provinces, as well as the different urban institutions such as colegios and frontier missions. It outlines the spiritual and educational activities in cities. The Jesuits supported the royal initiative to evangelize indigenous populations on the frontiers, but the outcomes that did not always conform to expectations. One reason for this was the effect of diseases such as smallpox on the indigenous populations. Finally, it examines the 1767 expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish territories. Some died before leaving the Americas or at sea. The majority reached Spain and were later shipped to exile in the Papal States.
During the eighteenth century the Spanish Bourbon monarchs attempted to transform Spanish America. This study analyses the efforts to transform frontier missions, and the consequences and particularly demographic consequences for the indigenous peoples that lived on the missions.
Through a sweeping look at Jesuit activities in Japan, China, Mughul India, and Paraguay, Bailey finds evidence of artistic hybridization as a means of communication and argues in favour of a paradigm of artistic exchange.
Through its missionary, pedagogical, and scientific accomplishments, the Society of Jesus-known as the Jesuits-became one of the first institutions with a truly "global" reach, in practice and intention. The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits offers a critical assessment of the Order, helping to chart new directions for research at a time when there is renewed interest in Jesuit studies. In particular, the Handbook examines their resilient dynamism and innovative spirit, grounded in Catholic theology and Christian spirituality, but also profoundly rooted in society and cultural institutions. It also explores Jesuit contributions to education, the arts, politics, and theology, among others. The volume is organized in seven major sections, totaling forty articles, on the Order's foundation and administration, the theological underpinnings of its activities, the Jesuit involvement with secular culture, missiology, the Order's contributions to the arts and sciences, the suppression the Order endured in the 18th century, and finally, the restoration. The volume also looks at the way the Jesuit Order is changing, including becoming more non-European and ethnically diverse, with its members increasingly interested in engaging society in addition to traditional pastoral duties.
Recent years have seen scholars in a wide range of disciplines re-evaluate the history of the Society of Jesus. In 1997, a group of scholars convened a major international conference to discuss the world of the Jesuits between 1540 and 1773 (the year of its suppression by papal edict). This meeting led to the creation of the first volume in this series, The Jesuits, which examined the worldwide Jesuit undertaking in such fields as music, art, architecture, devotional writing, mathematics, physics, astronomy, natural history, public performance, and education, with special attention to the Jesuits' interaction with non-European cultures. This second volume, following a second conference in 2002, continues in a similar path as its predecessor, complementing the regional coverage with contributions on the Flemish and Iberian provinces, on the missions in Japan, and in post-Suppression Russia and the United States. The performing arts, like theatre and music, are broadly treated, and, in addition to continued attention to painting and architecture, the volume contains essays on a range of objets d'art, including statuary, reliquaries, and alter pieces - as well as on gardens, mechanical clocks, and related automata. Other themes include finances, natural theology, censorship within the Jesuit order, and the Society's relationship to women. Perhaps most important, the volume gives particular attention to the eighteenth century, the 'age of disasters' for the Jesuits - the negative papal ruling on Chinese Rites, the destruction the of Paraguay Reductions, and the suppressions of the order that began in Portugal and that culminated in the general Suppression of 1773. With contributions from distinguished scholars from a dozen different countries, The Jesuits, II continues in the illustrious tradition of its predecessor to make an important contribution to religious memory.
The rulers of the overseas empires summoned the Society of Jesus to evangelize their new subjects in the ‘New World’ which Spain and Portugal shared; this book is about how two different missions, in China and Peru, evolved in the early modern world. From a European perspective, this book is about the way Christianity expanded in the early modern period, craving universalism. In China, Matteo Ricci was so impressed by the influence that the scholar-officials were able to exert on the Ming Emperor himself that he likened them to the philosopher-kings of Plato’s Republic. The Jesuits in China were in the hands of the scholar-officials, with the Emperor at the apex, who had the power to decide whether they could stay or not. Meanwhile, in Peru, the Society of Jesus was required to impose Tridentine Catholicism by Philip II, independently of Rome, a task that entailed compliance with the colonial authorities’ demands. This book explores how leading Jesuits, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) in China and José de Acosta (1540-1600) in Peru, envisioned mission projects and reflected them on the catechisms they both composed, with a remarkable power of endurance. It offers a reflection on how the Jesuits conceived and assessed these mission spaces, in which their keen political acumen and a certain taste for power unfolded, playing key roles in envisioning new doctrinal directions and reflecting them in their doctrinal texts.
