Episode 424 – The City on the Edge of Forever, Part 3

February 4, 2022

This week: Hideyoshi’s ‘friendship’ proves less useful than hoped, resulting in a 1587 ban on Christianity and Nagasaki losing its independence. How do the city’s Christians and their Jesuit leaders respond to this setback–and to another a few years later, caused by a band of new priests making their way to Japan?

Sources

Berry,  Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi.

Hesselink, Reinier. The Dream of Christian Nagasaki: World Trade and the Clash of Cultures, 1550-1640

Elison, George. Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan.

Images

Copy of Hideyoshi’s 1587 expulsion edict.
Detail of a fusta like the kind Hideyoshi coveted, from a Dutch woodcut.
Statue of St. Philip of Jesus in Zapopan, Mexico. Philip was born in Spanish Mexico and martyred in 1597; he was the first Mexican saint of the Catholic church.
Painting of the 1597 martyrs from one of Nagasaki’s modern churches.
Today, the site of the martyrdom of the 26 people executed in 1597 is home to a memorial (pictured here) and a separate museum.