An Important Document: Frois's Historia de Japam
Lois Frois, SJ, wrote an account of his time in Japan, and it constitutes a crucial record for understanding the early history of the Jesuits there, and more generally of life in the period. The first part of the work is in three sections, An Account of the Sixty-six Provinces of Japan (or Japam, as Frois wrote it), A General Survey of Japan, and a Chronicle of the years 1549-78; part two continues the Chronicle up to 1589, and part three to 1590.
Frois put every effort into the work, and travelled extensively to collect data throughout Japan. But his superior, Valignano, who had commissioned the work, decided it was overlong, and refused to send it back to Europe for approval. Frois was disheartened, and died of grief in Japan not much later.
The whereabouts of this vast manuscript was unknown for three hundred years, until it turned up in the Jesuit library in Macao. Sadly, the original was lost to fire in 1835, and today it is only known via an eighteenth-century copy. But the Historia is now published, and a Japanese translation also exists - running to twelve volumes.
Of course the Historia has a Christian bias, but it offers many valuable insights into the period, from elite to common social levels.


Luis Frois 

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The Jesuits 



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