JESUITS AND MATRIARCHS JESUITS AND MATRIARCHS DOMESTIC WORSHIP IN EARLY MODERN CHINA NADINE AMSLER University of Washington Press Seattle Jesuits and Matriarchs was made possible in part by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation. Support for this publication was also provided by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. The prepress of this publication was funded by the swiss national science foundation. Copyright © 2018 by the University of Washington Press Printed and bound in the United States of Amer i ca Composed in Minion Pro, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach 22 21 20 19 18 5 4 3 2 1 The digital edition of this book may be downloaded and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No derivatives 4.0 international license (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0). For information about this license, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact University of Washington Press. This license applies only to content created by the author, not to separately copyrighted material. University of Washington Press www. washington . edu / uwpress Maps by Jennifer Shontz, Red Shoe Design Cover illustration: Woodblock print from João da Rocha’s Rules for Reciting the Rosary (1619). Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011124 isbn 978-0-295-74379-0 (hardcover), isbn 978-0-295-74380-6 (pbk), isbn 978-0-295-74381-3 (ebook) To my parents CONTENTS Acknowl edgments ix Maps xi introduction 3 1. Clothes Make the Man: The Jesuits’ Adoption of Literati Masculinity 13 2. A Kingdom of Virtuous Women: Jesuit Descriptions of China’s Moral Topography 32 3. A Source of Creative Tension: Literati Jesuits and Priestly Duties 47 4. Strengthening the Marital Bond: The Christianization of Chinese Marriage 67 5. Praying for Progeny: Women and Catholic Spiritual Remedies 87 6. Domestic Communities: Women’s Congregations and Communal Piety 99 7. Sharing Genteel Spirituality: The Female Networks of the Xus of Shanghai 113 8. A Widow and Her Virgins: The Domestic Convents of Hangzhou and Nanjing 128 9. Fabrics of Devotion: Catholic Women’s Pious Patronage 138 conclusion: Women and Gender in Global Catholicism 152 Glossary 157 Notes 165 Bibliography 217 Index 249 ACKNOWL EDGMENTS This book is the result of a long intellectual journey that also involved a number of physical displacements. Like any traveler, I relied on many people who acted as guides, hosts, or travel mates. I would like to express my gratitude to all of them, even if space only allows for mentioning a few of them by name. I had the fortune to be supported by highly knowledgeable and very generous guides. I would like to thank Christian Windler and Sabine Dabringhaus, who accompanied the book from the initial idea to the final manuscript and provided intellectual guidance and practical advice all along the way. Nicolas Standaert and Eugenio Menegon pushed me hard to think about Chinese Catholicism from a women’s perspective. Their mem- orable workshop “The Materiality of Chinese- Western Relations” held in Leuven in 2014 provided me with valuable inputs in a crucial phase of the book’s making. People in many places helped make the journey easier and more fruit- ful. In Zu rich, Wolfgang Behr and Stefan Bumbacher helped to improve my skills in Classical Chinese. Chen Yunü and Chien Jui- yao warmly wel- comed me and enthusiastically supported my proj ect during a research stay in Tainan. Christoph Riedweg, his staff, and themembri at the Istituto Svizzero di Roma made my research stay in Rome an intellectually stimu- lating and socially enjoyable experience. Arndt Brendecke and the staff of the Chair of Early Modern History of the Ludwig- Maximilians- Universität helped to make Munich the perfect place for completing the manuscript. Renate Dürr, Jon Mathieu, Barbara Stollberg- Rilinger, and Antonella Romano gave me the opportunity to discuss the proj ect in their seminars. My thanks also go to my colleagues in the Department of Early Modern History at the University of Bern and in the Department of East Asian His- tory at the University of Freiburg— among them Andreas Affolter, Corina Bastian, Tilman Haug, Alexander Keese, Daniel Sidler, Sören Urbansky, Wang Shuo, and Philipp Zwyssig— for many inspiring conversations and comforting words. ix x ACKNOWL EDGMENTS Much of this book’s journey was taking place in my mind while I was sitting in reading rooms of libraries and archives: the Archivum Histori- cum Societatis Iesu, the Archivio Storico della S. Congregazione “De Propaganda Fide,” and the Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede in Rome; the Biblioteca da Ajuda in Lisbon; the East Asian Library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; and the Bayerische Staats- bibliothek in Munich. In all these institutions, I received the help of knowl- edgeable and friendly staff. My numerous research stays were made pos si ble by the Swiss National Science Foundation, which granted generous mate- rial support from 2011 to 2014. When the journey drew to a close, Peter Brett and Samuel Weber helped to correct the errors and clumsiness of my En glish. Stefan Rebenich and Ronald G. Asch read the manuscript and asked critical and thought- provoking questions. Henrietta Harrison offered valuable advice when I started thinking about publishing. Lorri Hagman and Niccole Coggins from the University of Washington Press helped me navigate through the publication pro cess. Two anonymous readers provided helpful comments on the manuscript. My deepest debt of gratitude is to my family. My parents, Veronika and Roland Amsler, always encouraged me to follow my inner compass and provided loving and often very hands-on support. It is to them that I dedi- cate this book. Nadir Weber has been my travel mate for many years. It is impossible to say how much I owe to his emotionally supporting and intel- lectually challenging companionship. Clearly, this book would not have come into being without him. Our children, Valentin and Philomena, keep us busy and teach us the essentials of life. They remind us that it is for the generations to come that historians ponder over times past. Yellow River Beijing Jiangzhou Grand Canal Kaifeng Xi’an Nanjing Shanghai Chengdu Wuchang Chongqing Hangzhou Nanchang Yangzi River Jianchang Yanping Ganzhou Fuzhou Nanxiong Shaozhou TAIWAN Zhaoqing Canton Macao 0 400 km HAINAN 0 400 ISLAND miles map 1. Jesuit residences in China ( those mentioned in the book, not all those extant in the seventeenth century) Huai’an 0 100 km 0 50 100 miles Yangzhou YELLOW Nanjing SEA Grand Canal Changzhou Jiading Lake Suzhou Tai Shanghai Songjiang Yangzi River CHONGMING ISLAND Hangzhou Ningbo EAST CHINA SEA map 2. Jesuit residences in the Jiangnan region ( those mentioned in the book, not all those extant in the seventeenth century) JESUITS AND MATRIARCHS INTRODUCTION In 1682 the Flemish Jesuit Philippe Couplet returned from a twenty- two- year stay in China. He arrived in Holland with heavy lug- gage. Among his many objects were several gifts donated by Candida Xu (1607–1680), an eminent Catholic lady of Songjiang ( today part of Shang- hai city). The gifts included textiles, such as Mass vestments and altar cloths embroidered by Candida and her daughters; richly ornamented altar ves- sels made from precious material; and “four hundred volumes in Chinese written by the Jesuit missionaries, the purchase of which was financed by Candida Xu.”1 These gifts were destined for the pope and well- known Eu ro- pean churches. Couplet’s luggage likely also contained a first draft of a book on the pious life of the China mission’s female patron: The Story of a Chris- tian Lady of China, Candida Xu (Historia Nobilis Feminae Candida Hiu, Christianae Sinensis). The Story of a Christian Lady of China was first published in French in 1688 as one of a series of publications instigated by Couplet. Along with the famous Confucius, the Chinese Phi los o pher (Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, 1687) it justified the Jesuits’ China mission to a Eu ro pean audience that was by then increasingly unsettled by an emerging dispute between Jesuits and mendicants commonly known as the “rites contro- versy.”2 It sought to encourage rich Eu ro pean Catholics, especially pious ladies, to emulate Candida Xu in her virtuousness, piety, and generous charity toward the China mission.3 Like other pieces of early modern Eu ro pean travel writing, it was also intended to provide Eu ro pean readers with what might be called proto- ethnographic information on China.4 Indeed, The Story of a Christian Lady of China would go on to decisively shape historians’ knowledge of women in seventeenth- century Chinese Catholicism.5 However, The Story of a Christian Lady of China raises questions as to whether Couplet’s book is indeed a suitable source for historians interested in the role of women in seventeenth- century Chinese Catholicism. In its descriptions of Chinese women it deploys a rhe toric of distance throughout. 3 4 INTRODUCTION “I will say nothing,” Couplet wrote at the outset, “about [Candida’s] child- hood, nor of the fourteen years of her marriage, for Chinese girls and women have so little contact with the world that you see them very rarely.” According to Couplet, Chinese women lived “shut away in apartments which are so withdrawn that there is