Candida Xu, a Chinese Christian Woman of the Seventeenth Century
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COLLECTANEA SERICA • NEW SERIES 2 Editor: ZBIGNIEW WESOŁOWSKI, S.V.D Sankt Augustin Gail King “A Model for All Christian Women” Candida Xu, a Chinese Christian Woman of the Seventeenth Century Candida Xu 徐甘弟大 (1607–1680) From: Philippe Couplet, Histoire d’une dame chrétienne de la Chine, Paris 1688, preceding p. 1. Courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota Library. COLLECTANEA SERICA • NEW SERIES 2 Gail King “A Model for All Christian Women” Candida Xu, a Chinese Christian Woman of the Seventeenth Century Monumenta Serica Institute • Sankt Augustin Sumptibus Societatis Verbi Divini (S.V.D.) Copy editors: BARBARA HOSTER, DIRK KUHLMANN, ZBIGNIEW WESOŁOWSKI Editorial assistance: HU BAOZHU Cover and layout: JOZEF BIŠTUŤ Arnold-Janssen-Str. 20 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany Fax: +49-2241-237486 E-mail: [email protected] www.monumenta-serica.de First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Monumenta Serica Institute The right of Gail King to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accor- dance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permis- sion in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN: 978-0-367-68290-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-13677-4 (ebk) Typeset by Monumenta Serica Institute Table of Contents Acknowledgments ......................................................................................... VII Preface by D.E. Mungello ................................................................................ IX List of Abbreviations .................................................................................... XIII Map: China in the time of Candida Xu ................................................................ XV Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One: Roots of the Xu Family: The Generations before Candida Xu ................... 15 Chapter Two: Childhood and Married Life ........................................................... 31 Chapter Three: The Widowed Years ................................................................... 63 Chapter Four: The Legacy of Candida Xu ............................................................ 99 Appendices: Appendix 1: “Baolun tang gao” 寶倫堂稿. Autobiographical Preface by Hesha 鶴沙 (Xu Zuanzeng 許纘曾). Translation of Portions Related to Candida Xu ............ 115 Appendix 2: Xu Zuanzeng’s Biography of His Mother Candida Xu. Translation of “Compendio de la vida y la muerte de Doña Candida, sacado de un librito, que imprimió su hijo D. Basilio Hiù.” Translated by Matt Hill ................. 121 Appendix 3: Xu Yunxi, Foreword to the 1938 edition of Yiwei Zhongguo fengjiao taitai 一位中國奉教太太 ..................................................................... 133 Bibliography ............................................................................................... 135 Index with Glossary ...................................................................................... 155 List of Illustrations and Maps Cover: Section of a Portrait of Candida Xu. From: Philippe Couplet, Histoire d’une dame chrétienne de la Chine. Paris 1688. Frontispiece: Portrait of Candida Xu. From: Philippe Couplet, Histoire d’une dame chrétienne de la Chine, Paris 1688, preceding p. 1. Courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota Library. p. XV Map: China in the time of Candida Xu. Map produced by the Geospatial Lab of the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Introduction p. 7 Figure 1. Title page of Philippe Couplet, Histoire d’une dame chrétienne de la Chine. Paris 1688. Courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota Library. Chapter One: Roots of the Xu Family p. 24 Figure 2. Portrait of Xu Guangqi. From: Xu shi paoyan 徐氏庖言 (Memorials and Correspondence of Xu Guangqi). Shanghai: Tushanwan yinshuguan, 1933, following the ti- tle page. Copy held in the Monumenta Serica Institute Library. Chapter Two: Childhood and Married Life p. 32 Figure 3. A view of the walled city of Shanghai (Ming period). From: http://virtualshanghai.net/Maps/Source?ID=356 (accessed 15 July, 2020) VI TABLE OF CONTENTS p. 33 Figure 4. Eighteenth-century map of Shanghai. From: (Qianlong) Shanghai xian zhi (乾 隆)上海縣志, Qianlong 15 (1750), shou juan 首卷, huitu 繪圖. p. 34 Figure 5. The Xu residence in Shanghai. From: Auguste M. Colombel, S.J., “Histoire de la Mission du Kiang-nan en trois parties.” Shanghai: Biblioteca Major Zikawei, 1900. Manuscript copy, courtesy of the Ricci Institute Library, University of San Francisco. p. 39 Figure 6. Woman reeling silk thread using cold water. From: Xu Guangqi 徐光啓, Nongzheng quanshu 農政全書, juan 33, “Cansang” 蠶桑 (Sericulture), Section “Canshi tupu” 蠶事圖譜 (Illustrations of Things [Related to] Silkworms). Tongzhi 13 (1874) ed. Shanghai: Wenhai shuju. Copy held in the Monumenta Serica Institute Library. Chapter Three: The Widowed Years p. 75 Figure 7. Image Coronation of Mary and beginning of the meditation about the fifth Joyful Mystery. From: Song nianzhu guicheng 誦念珠規程. Beijing 1638. Courtesy of Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, copy held in the section Manoscritti e Rari (72.B.298). p. 96 Figure 8. Images of Candida Xu’s cross. From: Histoire d’une dame chrétienne de la Chine, between pp. 140 and 141. Courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota Library. Chapter Four: The Legacy of Candida Xu p. 106 Figure 9. Portraits of Xu Guangqi and Candida Xu. From: Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, S.J. Description geographique, historique … de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise. Paris 1735, Tome III, between pp. 120 and 121. Copy held in the Monumenta Serica Institute Library. Back cover: Image of Candida Xu’s cross. Section of Figure 8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My interest in Christianity in seventeenth-century China began decades ago, as an answer to a prayer for a new direction in research. In the many years since I have never tired of the subject, never learned all there is to know, and never ceased to be thankful for that answer to prayer. It is a happy thing to recall and give thanks, and I am glad to remember all those who have helped me in my research and on the path to this book. I thank Professor D.E. Mungello and Fr. Roman Malek, S.V.D. (1951–2019) for encour- aging me from my first days of venturing into the field of the history of Christian- ity in China, mentoring me, and publishing my studies. I am grateful to the Chris- tianity in China Research Project headed by Dr. Daniel Bays (1942–2019), the Overseas Ministry Study Center, the administration of the Harold B. Lee Library of Brigham Young University, and my fellow librarians at the Harold B. Lee Library. I thank my HBLL colleagues: those who patiently read and commented on chapter pages in our writing group meetings; Matt Hill, who generously and masterfully translated the seventeenth-century Spanish of the “Compendium” obituary of Candida Xu; and Dr. Mark Jackson, Zach Colemere, and Teresa Gomez of the HBLL Geospatial Lab, who crafted the map of China that is includ- ed in this book. I am grateful to the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History and their archivist Mark Mir and the James Ford Bell Library of the Uni- versity of Minnesota and its Curator, Dr. Marguerite Ragnow, for their generous sharing of materials and for providing images in a time of academic service con- straints. I thank all the librarians and their friends around the world who respond- ed generously to my requests for help and materials. I am forever grateful to the editors of Monumenta Serica – Fr. Zbigniew Wesołowski, S.V.D., Barbara Hoster, and Dirk Kuhlmann – who worked with untiring patience, care, and atten- tion to bring this book to a successful conclusion. I thank the friends and well- wishers who sustained me with their warm-hearted confidence and interest. Most of all, I thank my family for their support and for their unfailing encouragement and unswerving faith that eventually my hope of writing a biography of the Chi- nese Christian woman Candida Xu would come to fruition. She was a remarkable woman. To her I dedicate this book. PREFACE Recent interest in women in pre-modern Chinese history has generated numerous works, but they have tended to focus on either mythical figures or anonymous women, reconstructed from the fragments of the past. With this full-length study of Candida Xu (Xu Gandida 徐甘弟大, 1607–1680), Gail King has broken out of that confining mold to write about an actual woman who was remarkable in a very real rather than mythical or anonymous sense.