Renata Cabral Bernabé | European University Institute (original) (raw)

Papers by Renata Cabral Bernabé

Department of History and Civilisation EUI Working Paper, 2024

After Vasco da Gama reached Calicut, in India, in 1498, the Portuguese became the first European ... more After Vasco da Gama reached Calicut, in India, in 1498, the Portuguese became the first European nation to regularly trade with Asia via the Cape of Good Hope and the only one to do so for the subsequent hundred years. Over the course of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese built numerous trading factories along the Asian coastline and signed diverse agreements with local rulers. They also launched several intra-Asian trade voyages, developing a complex enterprise that relied both on Portuguese subjects and local Asian
agents. When the northern European chartered companies entered the Asian trading arena in the early seventeenth century, they drew extensively upon the networks and structures that the Portuguese had built. However, the literature on the European East India companies downplays the role of the Portuguese in sixteenth-century Asia and overlooks the extensive
scholarship on the Portuguese enterprise both in the sixteenth and in the following centuries. In an effort to facilitate the integration of this body of knowledge, this paper reviews the scholarly debates of the last three decades on the Portuguese in Asia and considers the formation of a Portuguese enterprise in the Indian Ocean. It is structured around three patterns of activity developed by the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean – the Carreira da Índia, the intra-Asian trade voyages and the shadow empire – and the territorial occupation created by each of these activities.

Via Atlântica, 2024

No contexto da expansão europeia do século XVI, a evangelização dos povos rotulados como pagãos o... more No contexto da expansão europeia do século
XVI, a evangelização dos povos rotulados como pagãos
ocupou um papel central. Não demorou para que os
missionários percebessem que a evangelização de tais
populações só avançaria se levada a cabo de maneira
negociada. Partindo dessa ótica, os missionários, com
especial ênfase os jesuítas, passaram a dedicar-se aos
estudos das línguas e costumes dos povos a quem bus-
cavam evangelizar. Utilizando do exemplo da experiên-
cia jesuíta no Japão, buscarei discutir como os relatos
missionários acerca daquilo que seus autores vieram
a denominar “religião” de tais populações passaram
a alimentar a uma curiosidade intelectual sem prece-
dentes na Europa.

Revista Maracanan, 2023

In recent decades, many scholars have questioned the use of the term “religion” to describe non-W... more In recent decades, many scholars have questioned the use of the term “religion” to describe non-Western cultures. Many espoused the idea that the word had no accurate translation or correspondence in these contexts, and hence, it had to be invented. However, even in the West, the concept went through significant transformations throughout History. This article discusses the transformations it underwent during the early modern period when global connections were forged due to European expansion initially led by the Iberian kingdoms. Building on debates raised by the
scholarship that regards religion as an invented category artificially applied to non-Western settings, but also countering its conclusions, I argue that a new understanding of “religion” developed as a result of early modern globalization and Christianity’s universal aspiration combined.
Since the concept of “religion” incorporated and responded to non-European realities and traditions, it cannot be interpreted as an exclusively Western concept.

Dimensões, 2023

After Christianity was forbidden in Japan by an edict promulgated in 1614, the members of the Soc... more After Christianity was forbidden in Japan by an edict promulgated in 1614, the members of the Society of Jesus were harshly criticized by missionaries of other Catholic orders. The year following the edict, the Franciscan friar Sebastian de San Pedro wrote a treatise in which he blamed the Jesuits for having provoked the persecution in Japan. For Sebastian, the participation of the Society of Jesus in the trade of the Chinese silk sold in Japan by Portuguese merchants had created hostility from the Japanese authorities who, in order to get rid of the Jesuits, harmed the whole Japanese Christendom. In 1617, the Jesuit provincial, Valentim Carvalho, composed an Apologia rebutting the friar’s criticisms. This article aims to analyze the Jesuit involvement in the silk trade and the agreements the priests made with local leaders and Portuguese merchants through the controversies raised in these two works.

Bulletin of Portuguese-Japanese Studies, 2022

The ban on Christianity in Japan, implemented in 1614, lasted for more than two and a half centur... more The ban on Christianity in Japan, implemented in 1614, lasted for more than two and a half centuries. During this long period, the anti-Christian policy changed considerably, especially during its first decades, when the shogunate was still trying to enforce compliance on thousands of Christians and hundreds of foreign missionaries. However, a significant turning point occurred after the Shimabara-Amakusa peasant uprising, when merchants from Portugal, the last Catholic kingdom still allowed in Japan, were banned from the archipelago. Unable to communicate with the Catholic priests, the Japanese Christians who decided to keep their faith went underground and adjusted their religious beliefs and practices to a new social and political context. This article surveys how this anti-Christian policy changed over the decades following the 1614 edict and how it forced a reframing of these communities’ religiosity as they survived underground throughout the whole Edo period.

Cruces y áncoras: la influencia de Japón y España en un siglo de oro global, 2020, ISBN 978-84-17301-74-3, págs. 81-103, 2020

Revista Jesus Histórico e sua Recepção, 2021

In an attempt to understand and categorize the new world that had been uncovered after the Great ... more In an attempt to understand and categorize the new world that had been uncovered after the Great Navigations, the Catholic missionaries ended up transforming a host of concepts in order to embrace that new reality. One of these concepts was that of "religion", which had to be reformulated in order to describe societies whose history developed absolutely apart from Christianity. Each of these societies presented different challenges to the Medieval Christian thought. The responses to such challenges also varied, according to the European agents involved. The present article proposes to analyze the responses given by some of the Jesuit missionaries, participants of the philosophical movement known as Second Scholasticism, to the challenges posed by missionary activity in Japan.

Nuevo mundo mundos nuevos, 2010

Este guia tem por objetivo indicar algumas das mais importantes bibliotecas e arquivos do Brasil.... more Este guia tem por objetivo indicar algumas das mais importantes bibliotecas e arquivos do Brasil. Abarcando um número considerável de arquivos distribuídos nas regiões Norte e Sudeste do país, o guia viabiliza informações importantes, como endereço, dicas de ...

Revista de Fontes, 2020

Resumo: Após o édito que decretou a proibição do cristianismo no Japão, em 1614, os missionários,... more Resumo: Após o édito que decretou a proibição do cristianismo no Japão, em 1614, os missionários, japoneses e europeus, tiveram que enfrentar uma forte perseguição que ao fim se tornou fatal à missão. A carta de Jerônimo Rodrigues que aqui transcrevemos relata não apenas a situação em que ficaram os missionários que passaram a viver clandestinamente no arquipélago, como também o conturbado contexto político de embate entre dois clãs pelo governo do Japão. Palavras-chave: Édito anticristão; Japão; jesuítas.
Abstract: After the Edict that outlawed Christianity in Japan in 1614, the missionaries, Japanese and Europeans alike, faced harsh persecution within the archipelago, which proved to be fatal to that mission. Jerônimo Rodrigues' letter transcribed here gives an account not only of the situation faced by those missionaries that had to live underground but also of the tumultuous political context in which two powerful clans struggled to rule Japan.

Faces da História, 2019

RESUMO: Poucas décadas após os primeiros missionários cristãos pisarem no Japão, os líderes japon... more RESUMO: Poucas décadas após os primeiros missionários cristãos pisarem no Japão, os líderes japoneses que promoveram a unificação do arquipélago e ajudaram a erigir um novo governo ao longo da segunda metade do século XVI promulgaram editos anticristãos; o primeiro (1587) expulsando os missionários, o segundo (1614) proibindo o cristianismo. Esses editos carregam no conteúdo de seus textos as razões pelas quais os líderes desconfiavam dos missionários e decidiram por banir o cristianismo do Japão. O presente artigo analisa esses editos e propõe uma análise do uso do conceito shinkoku-traduzido pelo missionário jesuíta Luis Fróis como "reino dos Camis"-por esse novo governo, erigido após o processo de unificação, completado ao fim do século XVI. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Missão; Japão; edito anticristão. ABSTRACT: Few decades after the first Christian missionaries stepped into Japan, the Japanese leaders who promoted the unification of the archipelago and helped to build a new government throughout the second half of the 16 th century issued antichristian edicts, first expelling the missionaries (1587) and then banning Christianity from Japan (1614). These edicts carry in their content the reasons why the leaders in Japan thought the missionaries were suspicious and decided to outlaw Christianity. This article analyses these edicts and proposes an analysis for the use of the concept shinkoku-which was translated by the Jesuit missionary Luis de Fróis as "land of Cami"-by this new government, stablished after the unification was completed by the end of the 16 th century.

This study introduces an unreleased manuscript, whose authorship is unknown, and is placed in the... more This study introduces an unreleased manuscript, whose authorship is unknown, and is placed in the Royal Academy of History in Madrid, about the quarrel that developed between the missionaries of different orders in the Japanese mission, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It deals with the beginning of the disputes about the primacy of the evangelization claimed by the Jesuits in the Land of the Rising Sun which clashed with the firm intention of the Franciscans in order to profess the Christian religion there. Despite the Papal Bull that conferred the Society of Jesus the monopoly over the mission in the archipelago, the discalced friars decided to continue the enterprise. This essay analyses the first Franciscans accusations that gave rise to a defense literature by the Jesuits. The results were no long in coming.

Books by Renata Cabral Bernabé

O Japão Sob Múltiplos Olhares, 2022

Despite the lack of consensus among scholars on the exact definition of the word “religion,” toda... more Despite the lack of consensus among scholars on the exact definition of the word “religion,” today non-specialists usually understand this widely-used noun as a genus that can be divided into different species and in which different religions can fit and be compared. It should come as no surprise, however, that the meaning of the Latin term religio, the root of the word “religion” in English and all neo-Latin languages, has changed considerably throughout history. Mapping out these “redirections” or “subversions” in concepts’ meanings and analyzing what influenced these processes is an important tool for historical investigation. In this article, we will try to understand how this concept underwent crucial changes in the beginning of the early modern period and how the activity of the Jesuits in Japan during the 16th century may have contributed to this process.

XVII Jornadas Internacionais sobre Missões Jesuíticas, 2019

The Society of Jesus, founded in a context which Europe was going through deep changes, developed... more The Society of Jesus, founded in a context which Europe was going through deep changes, developed in its pastoral work a capacity to adapt itself to specific time and places, what made important historians like John O’Malley characterize it as the great distinctive trace of the Jesuits. What this article aims is to check this hypothesis in a specific mission space: Japan. Through the reports of the Jesuits that worked in Japanese lands, it is possible to notice different missionary strategies designed by the Society priests during the brief period they were able to work in the Japanese archipelago (less than a century). Japan was going through important political, social and economic changes at that time, and the strategies developed are directly related to these different contexts, what makes Japanese mission a privileged mission field for such analysis.

[Obra coletiva publicada em 2015]

Master's dissertation published. It is the study of the first three decades of the Jesuit mission... more Master's dissertation published. It is the study of the first three decades of the Jesuit mission in Japan. Presented at the Social History department of University of São Paulo, in Brazil, in 2012.

Conference Presentations by Renata Cabral Bernabé

Com a entrada dos franciscanos na missão japonesa, a partir de 1593, e o primeiro grande martírio... more Com a entrada dos franciscanos na missão japonesa, a partir de 1593, e o primeiro grande martírio cristão no Japão – ordenado pelo líder japonês Toyotomi Hideyoshi em 1597 – as disputas entre jesuítas e franciscanos ficariam mais acaloradas. Essa polêmica, por sua vez, nos ajuda a compreender as diferentes estratégias que franciscanos e jesuítas formularam para as missões cristãs no além-mar, assim como as razões para a mesma.
Com o objetivo de defender os membros da Companhia de Jesus que eram atacados pelos religiosos mendicantes das Filipinas, a produção de Apologias escritas por jesuítas cresceu significativamente no fim do século XVI. Elas eram geralmente destinadas aos membros da própria ordem e objetivavam muni-los de argumentos na sua querela com os mendicantes.
Sebastião Gonçalves (1555-1619) foi um jesuíta português que dedicou praticamente todo seu trabalho missionário à Índia, jamais tendo pisado no arquipélago japonês. Contudo, as notícias sobre a missão no arquipélago sempre foram bastante difundidas na Ásia e, após o martírio de 1597, o destaque foi ainda maior. O fato de que nenhum padre jesuíta participara do martírio, sendo que seis frades franciscanos estavam entre os vinte e seis mártires, foi notado com particular ênfase pelos mendicantes tanto das Filipinas quanto na Europa.
Gonçalves dedicou sua obra, Apologia em defensão dos Padres da Companhia de Japão, à defesa da fuga como melhor estratégia para tempos de perseguição. Ainda que a busca da auctoritas se dê através de exemplos bíblicos e de santos, seu principal argumento se baseia na ideia de que a cristandade japonesa necessitava mais de pastores do que de mártires e, portanto, estes seriam mais proveitosos vivos do que mortos. Gonçalves nomeia tal atitude como prudência evangélica.
A prudência de que falava Gonçalves e que era tão presente no discurso dos jesuítas na defesa de seu método de evangelização para o Japão e China (sendo o principal exemplo Alessandro Valignano, visitador das Índias Orientais) é expressão do que hoje podemos chamar de pragmatismo. Nas missões do extremo oriente, devido em grande parte à impossibilidade de exercer um poder coercitivo sobre as populações a serem evangelizadas, os missionários jesuítas moldaram uma estratégia na qual se guiavam principalmente pelo pragmatismo, marca de uma nova forma de pensar as missões e a evangelização.

Talks by Renata Cabral Bernabé

Religion in a Global Context, 2021