| The Jesuit mission to Japan (1549-1639) has long attracted the attention of historians because it coincided with a number of developments in Japanese history: increasing contact with Western powers, political reunification, and the transition to early modernity. However, few historians have placed the Jesuit mission in the wider context of Christianization, a process that many different peoples and cultures globally experienced during the premodern and early modern periods. This study examines Japan's participation in the world-historical process of Christianization during the first thirty years of the Jesuit apostolate. Making extensive use of Jesuit documents written between 1548 and 1561, this study demonstrates how the Japanese of the sixteenth century experienced Christianization and how that experience connected them to other missionized peoples and cultures across time and space. |
