In The Martyrs of Japan, Rady Roldan-Figueroa examines the role that Catholic missionary orders played in the dissemination of accounts of Christian martyrdom in Japan. The work combines several historiographical approaches, including publication history, history of missions, and "new" institutional history. The author offers an overarching portrayal of the writing, printing, and circulation of books of 'Japano-martyrology.' The book is organized into two parts. The first part, "Spirituality of Writing, Publication History, and Japano-martyrology," addresses topics ranging from the historical background of Christianity in Japan to the publishers of Japano-martyrology. The second part, "Jesuits, Discalced Franciscans, and the Production of Japano-martyrology in the Early Modern Spanish World," features closer analysis of selected works of Japano-martyrology by Jesuit and Discalced Franciscan writers.

Early modern travelers often did not form part of classic 'diaspora' communities: they frequently never really settled, perhaps remaining abroad for some time in one place, then traveling further; not 'blown by the wind,' but by changing and complex conditions that often turned out to make them unwelcome anywhere. The dispersed developed strategies of survival by keeping their distance from old and new temporary 'homes,' as well as by using information from and manipulating foreign representations of their former countries. This volume assembles case studies from the Mediterranean context, the Americas and Japan. They explore what kind of 'power(s)' and agency dispersed people had, counterintuitively, through the connections they maintained with their former homes, and through those they established abroad. Contributors: Eduardo Angione, Iordan Avramov, Marloes Cornelissen, David Do Paco, Jose Luis Egio, Maria-Tsampika Lampitsi, Paula Manstetten, Simon Mills, David Nelson, Adolfo Polo y La Borda, Ana M. Rodriguez-Rodriguez, Cesare Santus, Stefano Saracino, and Cornel Zwierlein.

The rediscovery in the fifteenth century of Lucretius' De rerum natura was a challenge to received ideas. The poem offered a vision of the creation of the universe, the origins and goals of human life, and the formation of the state, all without reference to divine intervention. It has been hailed in Stephen Greenblatt's best-selling book, The Swerve, as the poem that invented modernity. But how modern did early modern readers want to become? This collection of essays offers a series of case studies which demonstrate the sophisticated ways in which some readers might relate the poem to received ideas, assimilating Lucretius to theories of natural law and even natural theology, while others were at once attracted to Lucretius' subversiveness and driven to dissociate themselves from him. The volume presents a wide geographical range, from Florence and Venice to France, England, and Germany, and extends chronologically from Lucretius' contemporary audience to the European Enlightenment. It covers both major authors such as Montaigne and neglected figures such as Italian neo-Latin poets, and is the first book in the field to pay close attention to Lucretius' impact on political thought, both in philosophy - from Machiavelli, through Hobbes, to Rousseau - and in the topical spin put on the De rerum natura by translators in revolutionary England. It combines careful attention to material contexts of book production and distribution with close readings of particular interpretations and translations, to present a rich and nuanced profile of the mark made by a remarkable poem.

Analyzing the literature on art from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, The Spiritual Language of Art explores the complex relationship between visual art and spiritual experiences during the Italian Renaissance. Though scholarly research on these writings has predominantly focused on the influence of classical literature, this study reveals that Renaissance authors consistently discussed art using terms, concepts and metaphors derived from spiritual literature. By examining these texts in the light of medieval sources, greater insight is gained on the spiritual nature of the artist's process and the reception of art. Offering a close re-readings of many important writers (Alberti, Leonardo, Vasari, etc.), this study deepens our understanding of attitudes toward art and spirituality in the Italian Renaissance.

This volume uses a biography-as-history approach to illuminate the interconnectedness of the peoples of the Americas, West Africa, and Europe. Contributors highlight individuals' and people's experiences made possible by their participation in the creation of an Atlantic world, where conflict, cooperation, neccessity and invention led to new societies and cultures. Composed of chapters that span a broad chronological, topical and thematic range, Atlantic Biographies highlights the uniqueness of the Atlantic as a social, political, economic, and cultural theater bound together to illustrate what the Atlantic meant to those subjects of each chapter. This is a book about people, their resilience, and their resolve to carve a niche or have a broader impact in the ever-changing world around them.

Cette etude s'inscrit dans un courant de pensee tres actuel: la recherche d'un nouvel equilibre entre hommes et femmes provoque toute une efflorescence d'ouvrages et d'articles sur la question feminine, renouvelant en quelque sorte la 'Querelle des femmes'. Les dix-septieme et dix-huitieme siecles ont ete, depuis l'essor de la preciosite jusqu'a la Revolution, un moment d'intense reflexion sur la feminite. Cette enquete permet de mieux saisir les enjeux du debat contemporain: elle ne constitue pas un travail litteraire tourne vers le passe, mais surtout un travail qui est conscience accrue du present. Susceptible d'interesser tous ceux qui travaillent sur l'ecriture feminine, l'ouvrage s'interroge sur le statut de la femme dans la litterature utopique francaise de 1675 a 1795. Car l'existence meme de la femme est problematique en terre utopique: alors qu'on aurait pu penser que l'equilibre du classicisme conjugue a l'elan des Lumieres eut permis a la litterature utopique d'inventer une place progressiste a la femme dans une societe donnee, le feminin demeure le 'sexe second' - mere ou amante - selon l'expression de Retif de La Bretonne, voire disparait en tant que personne, absorbe par le masculin des etres androgynes crees par Foigny ou Casanova. Seules les marges de l'utopie narrative classique avec Sade et sa societe de bohemiens, ou l'utopie 'experimentale' de Du Laurens, Imirce ou la Fille de la nature, parviennent a effacer la part d'ombre qui recouvre la feminite. Un statut plus lumineux lui est alors offert, qui tend a abolir le conflit, constant en utopie, entre liberte individuelle ou recherche personnelle du bonheur, et gestion rationnelle et collective d'une societe. De ce fait, la feminite s'elabore en critique du systeme utopique dont elle indique le degre d'instabilite: l'etude des mythes qui sous-tendent l'imaginaire utopique est particulierement revelatrice de ce processus. L'enquete s'appuie prioritairement sur les utopies narratives de Foigny, Fenelon, Prevost, Rousseau, Casanova et Sade, theatrales de Marivaux, programmatiques de Retif et 'experimentale' de Du Laurens. Mais ce corpus implique des comparaisons avec d'autres utopies, comme celles de Veiras, de Diderot, ce qui fait du present ouvrage la premiere etude d'ensemble sur la femme dans les utopies francaises des dix-septieme et dix-huitieme siecles.

Searching for Compromise? is a collection of articles researching the issues of toleration, interreligious peace and models of living together in a religiously diverse Central and Eastern Europe during the Early Modern period. By studying theologians, legal cases, literature, individuals, and congregations this volume brings forth unique local dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe. Scholars and researchers will find these issues explored from the perspectives of diverse groups of Christians such as Catholics, Hussies, Bohemian Brethren, Old Believers, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists, Moravians and Unitarians. The volume is a much-needed addition to the scholarly books written on these issues from the Western European perspective. Contributors are Kazimierz Bem, Wolfgang Breul, Jan Cervenka, Slawomir Koscielak, Melchior Jakubowski, Bryan D. Kozik, Uladzimir Padalinski, Maciej Ptaszynski, Luise Schorn-Schutte, Alexander Schunka, Paul Shore, Stephan Steiner, Bogumil Szady, and Christopher Voigt-Goy.

This absorbing account of Catholic and anti-Catholic plots and machinations at the English, French, and exiled Scottish courts in the latter part of the sixteenth century is a sequel to John Bossy's highly acclaimed Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair. It tells the story of an espionage operation in Elizabethan London that was designed to find out what side France would take in the hostilities between Protestant England and the Catholic powers of Europe. France was a Catholic country whose king was nonetheless hostile to Spanish and papal aggression, Bossy explains, but the king's sister-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots, in custody in England since 1568, was a magnet for Catholic activists, and the French ambassador in London, Michel de Castelnau, was of uncertain leanings. Bossy relates how Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, found a mole in Castelnau's household establishment, who passed information to someone in Walsingham's employ. Bossy discovers the identity of these persons, what items of intelligence were passed over, and what the English government decided to do with the information. He describes how individuals were arrested or fled, a political crisis occurred, an ambassador was expelled, deals were made. He concludes with a discussion of the authenticity of Elizabethan secret operations, arguing that they were not theatrical devices to prop up an unpopular regime but were a response to genuine threats of counter-revolution inspired by Catholic zeal.

Based on the discovery of an unknown Latin manuscript, Maria Petyt - A Carmelite Mystic in Wartime provides surprising new information about the seventeenth century Flemish mystic Maria Petyt (1623-1677) who wrote many letters to her spiritual director, Michael of St. Augustine. The book contains a transcription of the (unfortunately partly damaged) manuscript, an English translation of it, and several articles opening up new horizons concerning the life and spirituality of Maria Petyt and her historical and religious backgrounds. The authors characterize Maria Petyt as a self-confident spiritual daughter with a strong political mission, a zealous figure fighting side by side with Louis XIV for the catholic victory during the Dutch War, and as one who lived and profoundly understood the spirituality of Teresa of Avila.

In 1666 Valentine Greatrakes achieved brief but widespread fame as a miracle healer. Dubbed the 'Stroker', he is widely believed to have touched and cured thousands of men, women, and children suffering from a large range of acute diseases and chronic conditions. His actions attracted the attention of the King, Charles II, as well as other eminent figures at court and in the various institutions of government and learning, including the newly founded Royal Society. However, there was little consensus as to the nature and origin of his gift and, following a brief period of intense lobbying on his behalf, he retired to Ireland and relative obscurity. Most histories of this period rarely grant the strange events surrounding the appearance of Greatrakes much more than an occasional footnote. Here, however, for the first time the compelling story of Greatrakes the man, and his place in the history of seventeenth-century Britain, is told in full for the first time. Based on extensive research in Irish and English archives, it reveals a fascinating account of one man's engagement with, and response to, some of the most important events of the period, including the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the English civil wars, the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland, and the Restoration of 1660. In the process, it shows how Greatrakes' claims to heal the bodies of the sick and maimed were in large part a response to broader divisions within the fractured body politic of Britain - an approach that was enthusiastically received by many prominent figures in church and state who were eager to seek reconciliation and rapprochement in the early years of the Restoration.

Natural History in Early Modern France offers a longue duree account of recurring poetic structures of the genre through case studies spanning from the Renaissance to the eve of the nineteenth century. These case studies reveal the lasting epistemic importance of bookish knowledge and commonplacing in the natural-historical description from Belon to Buffon. They also highlight the French reception of Baconianism. Natural History in Early Modern France makes a case for the literary status of the genre by attending to the permanence of its 'Plinian' features, such as wonders. Natural history was not only concerned with increasingly rational modes of ordering natural particulars: this book reveals its enduring social, affective, spiritual, and aesthetic underpinnings. Contributors are: Peter Anstey, Susan Broomhall, Isabelle Charmantier, Arlette Fruet, Raphaele Garrod, Paul Gibbard, Dana Jalobeanu, Myriam Marrache-Gouraud, Stephane Schmitt, Paul J. Smith, and Stephane Van Damme.

Jacob Boehme's Aurora (Morgen Roete im auffgang, 1612) exercised a vast open or underground influence on popular and mystical religion, poetry, and philosophy from Germany to England to Russia. This beautiful and highly original work containing elements of alchemical, esoteric, and anticlerical thought is a portal to the cultural, scientific, and theological currents on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. Its author heralded the new heliocentrism, opposed intolerance and religious conflict, and entertained an ecstatic vision of order reconciled with freedom. This first modern English translation places the translated text opposite an edition of the German manuscript from the author's own hand. Also included is the brief, influential Fundamental Report (Grundlicher Bericht, 1620) in a critical edition and translation. An extensive commentary that cites documents of the time offers access to the sources of Boehme's themes and concepts.

The twenty studies collected in this volume focus on the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world. The method leads from technical investigations on William Durant the Younger (ca. 1266-1330) and Hermann Conring (1606-1681) through reflection on the nature of historical knowledge to a break with historicism, an affirmation of anachronism, and a broad perspective on the history of Europe. The introduction explains when and why these studies were written, and places them in the context of contemporary historical thinking by drawing on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. This book will appeal to historians with an interest in historical theory, historians of late medieval and early modern Europe, and students looking for the meaning of history.

After the State and the Church, the most well organized membership system of medieval and early modern Europe was the confraternity. In cities, towns, and villages it would have been difficult for someone not to be a member of a confraternity, the recipient of its charity, or aware of its presence in the community. In A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities, Konrad Eisenbichler brings together an international group of scholars to examine confraternities from various perspectives: their origins and development, their devotional practices, their charitable activities, and their contributions to literature, music, and art. The result is a picture of confraternities as important venues for the acquisition of spiritual riches, material wealth, and social capital. Contributors to this volume: Alyssa Abraham, Davide Adamoli, Christopher F. Black, Dominika Burdzy, David D'Andrea, Konrad Eisenbichler, Anna Esposito, Federica Francesconi, Marina Gazzini, Jonathan Glixon, Colm Lennon, William R. Levin, Murdo J. MacLeod, Nerida Newbigin, Dylan Reid, Gervase Rosser, Nicholas Terpstra, Paul Trio, Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, Beata Wojciechowska, and Danilo Zardin.

The course of the French Wars of Religion, commonly portrayed as a series of civil wars, was profoundly shaped by foreign actors. Many German Protestants in particular felt compelled to intervene. In Germany and the French Wars of Religion, 1560-1572 Jonas van Tol examines how Protestant German audiences understood the conflict in France and why they deemed intervention necessary. He demonstrates that conflicting stories about the violence in France fused with local religious debates and news from across Europe leading to a surprising range of interpretations of the nature of the French Wars of Religion. As a consequence, German Lutherans found themselves on opposing sides on the battlefields of France.

On the five-hundredth anniversary of the 1519 debate between Martin Luther and John Eck at Leipzig, Luther at Leipzig offers an extensive treatment of this pivotal Reformation event in its historical and theological context. The Leipzig Debate not only revealed growing differences between Luther and his opponents, but also resulted in further splintering among the Reformation parties, which continues to the present day. The essays in this volume provide an essential background to the complex theological, political, ecclesiastical, and intellectual issues precipitating the debate. They also sketch out the relevance of the Leipzig Debate for the course of the Reformation, the interpretation and development of Luther, and the ongoing divisions between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.

Consilia played an important role in not only medieval but also early modern professional health literature. A literary 'consilium' consisted of a written statement of one particular case, including the patient's condition and disease as well as advice concerning medical treatment. In the sixteenth century, consilia literature was a common component of the practices of many eminent physicians. This is illustrated through an analysis of consilia from twenty-two different collections and anthologies by fifteen selected authors, who represent university professors, personal physicians, and urban physicians from early modern Italy, France, and German-speaking Central Europe. A closer look at nearly 7,000 consilia shows how important a link they were within the medical community. A detailed view of consilia intended for patients suffering from the 'French disease' reveals details about, for instance, the most common treatments for syphilis - mercury and guaiacum - alongside many other interesting and important details.

The Companion to the Hanseatic League discusses the importance of the Hanseatic League for the social and economic history of pre-modern northern Europe. Established already as early as the twelfth century, the towns that formed the Hanseatic League created an important network of commerce throughout the Baltic and North Sea area. From Russia in the east, to England and France in the west, the cities of the Hanseatic League created a vast northern maritime trade network. The aim of this volume is to present a "state" of the field English-language volume by some of the most respected Hanse scholars. Contributors are Mike Burkhardt, Ulf Christian Ewert, Rolf Hammel-Kiesow, Donald J. Harreld, Carsten Jahnke, Michael North, Jurgen Sarnowsky and Stephan Selzer.

This is a bilingual edition of the selected peer-reviewed papers that were submitted for the International Symposium on Jesuit Studies on the thought of the Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617). The symposium was co-organized in Seville in 2018 by the Departamento de Humanidades y Filosofia at Universidad Loyola Andalucia and the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College.