R. Po-chia Hsia

The remarkable life of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, one of the most famous missionaries of all time and the founder of the Catholic Mission in China. This is the first critical biography to use all relevant sources, not only in western languages but in Chinese as well.

Matteo Ricci 1552-1610

A Jesuit in the Forbidden City

"In the past, scholars tended to treat the Reformation as a chapter in the history of ideas, emphasizing the thought of the major reformers and the changes in Christian doctrine. Today, however, more and more historians are asking how the revolution in theology affected the lives of ordinary men and women. Aware that religious faith is part of the larger cultural and material universe of early modern Europeans, these scholars have exploited hitherto neglected sources in an attempt to reconstruct the people's Reformation. The twelve essays commissioned for this collection represent the broad spectrum of recent scholarship in the social history of the German Reformation. Historians from various countries offer a panorama of different methodological approaches and thematic concerns. Some of the essays represent original research; others address current historiographical debates; still others offer concise syntheses of recently published monographs, including seminal works in German. The essays are centered around four themes: cities and the Reformation; the transmitting of the Reformation in print, ritual and song; women and the family; and lastly, the impact of the Reformation on education and other aspects of lay culture." -- Back cover.

The German People and the Reformation

Portuguese Asia -- Catholic renewal -- Ming China -- Matteo Ricci -- Ricci in our time.

A Short History with Documents

Matteo Ricci and the Catholic Mission to China, 1583-1610

Central Europe 1550-1750

Social Discipline in the Reformation

Cambridge University Press

Timothy Tackett

Thomas F. X. Noble

Stewart Jay Brown

K. Scott Bowie

Frances Margaret Young

Hugh McLeod

Brian Stanley

Sheridan Gilley

Walter Simons

Julia M. H. Smith

Miri Rubin

Roberta A. Baranowski

Frederick W. Norris

Michael Angold

Augustine Casiday

Margaret Mary Mitchell

Emeritus Professor of Church History Hugh McLeod

A comprehensive history of Christianity in the century when it truly became a global religion.

The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 9, World Christianities C.1914-c.2000

Maria Theresia Von Fugger-Wellenburg (1690-1762) and Jesuit Missionaries in China and Vietnam

Noble Patronage and Jesuit Missions

A 16th century Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci was the founder of the Catholic Mission in China and one of the most famous missionaries of all time. A pioneer in bringing Christianity to China, Ricci spent twenty eight years in the country, in which time he crossed the cultural divides between China and the West by immersing himself in the language and culture of his hosts. Even 400 years later, he is still one of the best known westerners in China, celebrated for introducing western scientific and religious ideas to China and for explaining Chinese culture to Europe. The first critical biography of Ricci to use all relevant sources, both Chinese and Western, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City tells the story of a remarkable life that bridged Counter-Reformation Catholic Europe and China under the Ming dynasty. Hsia follows the life of Ricci from his childhood in Macerata, through his education in Rome, to his sojourn in Portuguese India, before the start of his long journey of self-discovery and cultural encounter in the Ming realm. Along the way, we glimpse the workings of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia, the mission of the Society of Jesus, and life in the European enclave of Macau on the Chinese coast, as well as invaluable sketches of Ricci's fellow Jesuits and portraits of the Chinese mandarins who formed networks indispensible for Ricci's success. Examining a range of new sources, Hsia offers important new insights into Ricci's long period of trial and frustration in Guangdong province, where he first appeared in the persona of a foreign Buddhist monk, before the crucial move to Nanchang in 1595 that led to his sustained intellectual conversation with a leading Confucian scholar and subsequent synthesis of Christianity and Confucianism in propagating the Gospels in China. With his expertise in cartography, mathematics, and astronomy, Ricci quickly won recognition, especially after he had settled in Nanjing in 1598, the southern capital of the Ming dynasty. As his reputation and friendships grew, Ricci launched into a sharp polemic against Buddhism, while his career found its crowning achievement in the imperial capital of Beijing, leaving behind a life, work, and legacy that is still very much alive today.

Peter Burke

This groundbreaking 2007 volume gathers an international team of historians to present the practice of translation as part of cultural history. Although translation is central to the transmission of ideas, the history of translation has generally been neglected by historians, who have left it to specialists in literature and language. This book seeks to achieve an understanding of the contribution of translation to the spread of information in early modern Europe. It focuses on non-fiction: the translation of books on religion, history, politics and especially on science, or 'natural philosophy', as it was generally known at this time. The chapters cover a wide range of languages, including Latin, Greek, Russian, Turkish and Chinese. The book will appeal to scholars and students of the early modern and later periods, to historians of science and of religion, as well as to anyone interested in translation studies.

Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe

The World of Catholic Renewal offers an interpretation of the historical events experienced in the Catholic lands of Europe and the wider world from the mid-sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. In this accessible study Professor Hsia looks at many aspects of Catholicism, ranging from art and architecture to the social composition of the Tridentine clergy, in an attempt to understand Catholic renewal as a vast historical development that shaped European civilization between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

The World of Catholic Renewal 1540-1770

From the mid-fifteenth century to the early seventeenth, German Jews were persecuted and tried for the alleged ritual murders of Christian children, whose blood purportedly played a crucial part in Jewish magical rites. In this engrossing book R. Po-Chia Hsia traces the rise and decline of ritual murder trials during that period. Using sources ranging from Christian and Kabbalistic treatises to judicial records and popular pamphlets, Hsia examines the religious sources of the idea of child sacrifice and blood symbolism and reconstructs the political context of ritual murder trials against the Jews. "This volume combines clarity of thinking, elegance of style, and exemplary scholarly attention to detail with intellectual sobriety and human compassion."--Jerome Friedman, Sixteenth Century Journal "Hsia has... succeeded in turning established knowledge to illuminatingly new purposes."--G.R. Elton, New York Review of Books "This meticulously researched and unusually perceptive book is social and intellectual history at its best."--Library Journal "A fresh perspective on an old problem by a major new talent."--Steven Ozment, Harvard University R. Po-chia Hsia, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is also the author of Society and Religion in Münster, 1535-1618

Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany

The Myth of Ritual Murder

Robert W. Scribner

Problems in the Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Europe

This volume brings together 29 new essays by leading international scholars, to provide an inclusive overview of recent work in Reformation history. Presents Catholic Renewal as a continuum of the Protestant Reformation. Examines Reformation in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and the Americas. Takes a broad, inclusive approach – covering both traditional topics and cutting-edge areas of debate.

A Companion to the Reformation World

Bojia Xia

"On Easter Sunday, 1475, the dead body of a two-year-old boy named Simon was found in the cellar of a Jewish family's house in Trent, Italy. Town magistrates arrested all eighteen Jewish men and one Jewish woman living in Trent on the charge of ritual murder - the killing of a Christian child in order to use his blood in Jewish religious rites. Under judicial torture and imprisonment, the men confessed and were condemned to death; their women-folk, who had been kept under house arrest with their children, denounced the men under torture and eventually converted to Christianity. A papal hearing in Rome about possible judicial misconduct in Trent made the trial widely known and led to a wave of anti-Jewish propaganda and other accusations of ritual murder against the Jews." "In this engrossing book, R. Pochia Hsia reconstructs the events of this tragic persecution, drawing principally on the Yeshiva Manuscript, a detailed trial record made by authorities in Trent to justify their execution of the Jews and to bolster the case for the canonization of "little Martyr Simon." Hsia depicts the Jewish victims (whose testimonies contain fragmentary stories of their tragic lives as well as forced confessions of kidnap, torture, and murder), the prosecuting magistrates, the hostile witnesses, and the few Christian neighbors who tried in vain to help the Jews. Setting the trial and its documents in the historical context of medieval blood libel, Hsia vividly portrays how fact and fiction can be blurred, how judicial torture can be couched in icy orderliness and impersonality, and how religious rites can be interpreted as ceremonies of barbarism."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial

Trent 1475

Steart J. Brown

Stewart J. Brown

Explores the impact of the Enlightenment, the religious re-awakenings and revolution on the Christian church.

R. Po-chia Hsia

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