Cultural Encounter

DOM FRANCISCO OF BUNGO'S PLAN TO FOUND A CHRISTIAN CITY IN HYUGA

Arcadio Schwade*

Portrait of Otomo Yoshishige (1530-1587), daimyo of Bungo (Kyushu). Posthumous portrait, in Buddhist clothes, of one of the most zealous converts in the early stages of missionary work in Japan. (Zuiho-in, Kyoto)

Dom Francisco de Bungo, known in Japanese history by the name of Otomo Yoshishige or Sorin (1530-1587), 1 was feudal lord of south-east Japan. From his very first encounter with the Portuguese, he always endeavoured to maintain friendly and cooperative relations with them. Looking back over his life in 1578, Sorin recounted to a Japanese Jesuit brother how, when he was sixteen:

[T]here came to the port near Funai [Oita] a small Chinese junk with six or seven Portuguese, the principal one among them being a certain Jorge de Faria, a wealthy man. The junk's pilot, a Chinese gentile, advised my father that if he wanted some easy spoils, he should have those Portuguese put to death since he could surrender the merchandise to him. My father, stirred by avarice, was on the brink of enacting the Chinaman's ploy when I learned of it and I went to my father, saying to him how in the world could he, through pure avarice and without blame or cause, want to kill foreign men, who had come from afar to do trade in his shadow, and on his land: that they were doing him a good turn and a friendly gesture in honouring his land, and that under no circumstance could I agree to this, rather I had to protect them from the ill deed ordered against them. 2

Not many years after the first Portuguese landed in the territory of Bungo, Yoshishige succeeded his father as governor of the fief in the wake of the latter's assassination in 1550 in an uprising by his vassals. Throughout his life, Yoshishige steadfastly maintained towards the Europeans the same protective attitude he had adopted on his first encounter with them, despite the numerous attacks, criticism and conflicts which he suffered as a result. 3

Eventually, in 1578, he decided to embrace the Christian faith. To fulfill this undertaking he had to overcome opposition from his wife, 4 the daughter of a Shinto priest, and of innumerable local lords of the Bungo fief who were manifestly against Christianity and its followers. From as early as 1576, Sorin had gradually begun ceding the governance of his territory, at the time composed of five of the nine provinces ("kingdoms") of the island of Kyushu, to his son and heir Yoshimune (1558-1605). Sorin permanently retired to Nyujima fortress in Usuki, divorcing his wife of thirty years and mother of his three sons and five daughters. Fróis cites as the chief motive behind this separation the profound hatred his Shinto wife harboured for the Christian religion. Sorin decided to take as his new wife his second son's mother-in-law5 and convert with her to Christianity. Sorin, his new wife and her daughter received instruction in the new religion from a Japanese Jesuit.

Within a few weeks, the two catechumens were baptized, Sorin's new wife under the Christian name of Julia and her daughter under that of Quinta. At the same time as the baptism, Father Cabral presided over the official celebration of the convert's religious marriage with Sorin, the latter having agreed to faithfully observe the obligations laid down by the Catholic Church. This marriage was the first in the history of Japanese Christianity in which the 'Pauline privilege'6 was applied.

During the following months, Sorin continued to hear the teachings of the Christian doctrine every Sunday and severed all contact he had until then maintained with a Zen Buddhist monastery and temple. 7

ORIGINS OF THE PLAN TO FOUND A CHRISTIAN CITY IN HYUGA

As Sorin deepened his knowledge of the Christian religion, so did he gradually increase his understanding of the laws by which the peoples of Europe were governed. This knowledge inspired in the famous catechumen the idea of founding a city to be governed by the laws and spirit of the Christian faith in the territory dominated by his family. Luís Fróis, who during those years was the Superior of the Jesuits in the Bungo region, wrote the following of Otomo Sorin in his Historia de Japam:

This was the first king to be well disposed to us in Japan, the Fathers and Brothers having resided in his land for twenty seven years. Not only was he well disposed to us in his kingdoms in freely conceding all the provisions that the Fathers requested of him for their travels, but moreover, being a gentile, he would write letters to Miyako and other gentile kings and lords who were friends of his and where our Fathers and Brothers sought to spread the word of God, asking that they favour them in the task of conversion, even sending them some gifts together with the letters to compel them all the more. He always had a special affection for the Portuguese, conversing in an intimate and homely way, giving alms of a good quantity of silver and other gifts to the poor... And since he has an inquiring mind, there is no man (it seems) in Japan who has asked in more detail than this king of the secular and ecclesiastic states of Europe and India. 8

daimyo of Bungo, Otomo Yoshimune, decided to expel the enemies of Hyuga and bring this territory under his own dominion. In the ensuing months, a forty thousand-strong Bungo army reconquered a good part of the province invaded by the enemies. Under orders from Yoshimune and Sorin, a Christian commander began destroying the Buddhist and Shinto monasteries and temples of the Tsuchimotsu region in the northern part of Hyuga. 10 News of the reconquest of the north of Hyuga and the knowledge he had acquired about the structure and forms of government of the European states, induced Sorin to carry out a plan in the subjugated territory that must have surprised many men of those regions. ^^THE PLAN TO FOUND A CHRISTIAN CITY Historia de Japam:

The king was greatly pleased by the tidings he received of the state and land of Tsuchimochi, and he determined to go that very year to reside in it anew and retire there with his wife, in order that the other kingdoms he had renounced to his son might find greater security. And thus he sent to Father [Cabral] saying that he had decided to leave for Hyuga and take with him from Bungo only three hundred men to be with him, all of whom were to be Christians; and that the city which he was determined to build there would be ruled by new laws and principles different from those of Japan; and that for the natives of Hyuga it was better they unite with him and his followers, that all were to become Christians and live in brotherly love and union, to which end a Father was to accompany them on the ship; and that before beginning to build there the fortress, where they were to dwell, he had decided to build first the church, for which he would provide funds towards the sustenance of some of the Society; and he was decided himself to receive baptism there and, as a Christian, he did not wish to fail to observe God's law. 11

According to this report by Fróis, Otomo Sorin was planning to build a city in Tsuchimochi which would be governed by new laws, and whose inhabitants would live united under one Christian faith in the pastoral care of the missionaries. Sorin personally would receive baptism there in order to inspire others by the example of his own life. The Jesuit Superior in Japan, Father Francisco Cabral, responded to Sorin that he would himself accompany him to Tsuchimochi and remain there until the inauguration of the church to be built in the new city. 12

PREPARATIONS FOR CARRYING OUT THE PLANS

When, in July 1578, Father Cabral was about to leave Bungo for Hizen Province in the west of Kyushu, he received the following message from Sorin via the Japanese priest João de Torres:

[T]hus, since I have diligently heard the principles of God's law, and given that I have sent to the Father saying that I must be baptized on his arrival at Hyuga, you must tell him that I do not think it is a good idea to delay three or four months more, being myself so old and not long for this world. And since the Father was on his way to Shimo, 13 I implore him to do his utmost to expedite his affairs forthwith and to return within a month, because on account of the esteem in which I hold him, I would like to receive baptism by his hand, and meanwhile I will commit to memory those prayers that are left me. 14

During Father Cabral's absence from Bungo, Sorin proceeded diligently to study Christian doctrine and its principal orations. His longing for baptism had grown to such proportions that on the very day of Father Cabral's return he wanted to be baptized by him. Complying with this desire, the Superior of the Jesuits baptized him on August 28th, 1578 in the chapel of Usuki, together with six other people who served him. In baptism he received the name Francisco, which Sorin had personally chosen in memory of Francisco Xavier, the first missionary to speak to him of God. With this name Sorin entered the annals of European history, where he is generally referred to as "King Dom Francisco of Bungo". In the years to follow, he himself authenticated many personal documents with the seal that bore the abbreviated form FRCO.

The news of Otomo Sorin's conversion to the Christian faith inspired many inhabitants of Bungo to embrace the same religion. Since the beginning of September, the reigning Otomo Yoshimune and his wife had also begun to receive weekly instruction in the Catholic faith and to prepare themselves for baptism. As he advanced in his knowledge of the new faith, Yoshimune found himself confronting various doubts and questions which his father before him and other Japanese feudal lords had tried to address. The essential question Yoshimune put to the missionaries was connected to Sorin's plan for founding a Christian city and as such merits brief consideration here.

Yoshimune had first told Father Cabral that before receiving baptism he would seek gradually to restrict the financial support which he had until then given the Buddhist monasteries and temples, in order not to gall the affluent non-Christian vassals of his fief. After receiving Father Cabral's response to his first proposal, Yoshimune replied to him with the following declaration:

It was not for fear of losing my kingdoms and state that I did not have those questions asked of the Father, because after I knew of God's law, the soul, salvation and future punishments, it meant nothing to me to lose them all, and even my life, should it be my salvation: and if it seems well to the Father, forthwith to sever everything and destroy entirely the temples and bring the bonzes to full submission, burn and raze all the idols and without delay abolish all the heathen rites and customs of my kingdoms, I will do it, even though this would be at the price of total scandal and disruption among my vassals and the disgrace of my life; and if also it seems preferable to you to proceed with maturity and resolve, maintaining calm among my people to avoid unrest, as I already said, such will I do. 15

In his response, Cabral urged him to proceed with prudence and postpone his baptism until the following year. In this way attempts were made in the central traditional territory of the Otomo family to delay for the time being major reforms to government in the political and also the religious and social fields. The ex-daimyo Sorin in turn, however, continued to speed up preparations for founding a city which would differ in every way from the traditional cities of Japan in the neighbouring province recently inherited from the Ito family.

THE PROJECT GETS UNDER WAY

On October 4th 1578, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, Sorin departed with his wife on a vessel bearing a square white damask flag with a red cross picked out in gold. On the flotilla armed with some cannons, he was accompanied by the nobles who were in the service of his family. On one vessel travelled Father Cabral with Brothers João de Torres, André Douria and Luís de Almeida. Father Cabral sent to Satsuma for the latter at the express request of Sorin, due his great experience in founding new Christian communities. 16

The flotilla carrying Dom Francisco and his retinue docked in Tsuchimochi after three days at sea. The majority of his vassals made their way there by land. In his Historia de Japam Fróis described in the following words Sorin's mood as he got his project under way:

The king was overjoyed to have arrived in that land because, being inclined to sickliness, there he felt in fine fettle and determined, as we said, to found in that Kingdom of Hyuga firm Christian rule that would gain recognition even in Rome itself, and he wanted to mobilize all his troops in this endeavour and command that they rule and govern by the laws and customs of Europe insofar as possible in keeping with the customs of the land. As soon as he arrived, he began this undertaking forthwith, though immersed in the war, and choosing the best site in the area he gave it to the Father, although on loan, so that a house and church could be built immediately where the Father and the Brothers could lodge (because all had been razed and destroyed in the previous war). And thus he began the task forthwith with great fervour, the king commanding that even the nobles contribute to it by working and carrying the materials. And he made his abode not far from the church, beginning the great undertaking like one who with much resolve was determined to establish there his abode. 17

In addition to the favours mentioned earlier, he gave Father Cabral the income arising from two Buddhist monasteries to support twenty members of the Society. Whenever more pressing occupations permitted, Father Cabral and the other brothers helped to prepare the land and contributed to the building. Although busy with affairs of war and the rebuilding activities, Otomo Sorin went almost daily to mass and provided all with an example of devout Christian life.

At the same time, those Buddhist temples and monasteries in the region that had survived the battles of the previous months were destroyed. The priests of the Buddhist temples and monasteries were obliged to renounce their revenues and former standing, or flee to other lands. Sorin had entrusted the Japanese Jesuit brother João de Torres with the execution of this task. 18Fróis concluded his report of the activity of the Brother, saying:

[A]nd wherever the brother roamed they obeyed him as the very person of the King; they brought him many gifts and items which the Brother did not accept, and people were needed to tear down the pagodas, nothing he asked for was denied him. And he brought with him a native Bonze of those regions, who had been baptized in Usuki, and who showed him where the temples and places of the idols were, on account of which he was not very popular with the others. This was after many temples had been razed and destroyed the previous summer, when war was waged by a Christian captain, since the prince there had ordered that possession be taken of the many fortresses which had surrendered. 19

Whilst the tasks of reconstruction and conversion were progressing in the zone of Tsuchimochi, the Bungo troops continued to gain control of ever more fortresses heading south as far as the Takajo fortress, which was the major stronghold of Hyuga province. The first attempts to take it by force were in vain. Heavy resistance on the part of the enemies prompted disagreement between the captains of the Bungo troops regarding what strategy to adopt. They finally decided to lay siege to the fortress in order to force the occupants to lay down arms. 20

ABRUPT END TO THE PROJECT

The three thousand hostages in the fortress of Takajo were under the command of Shimazu Iehisa, brother of the daimyo Shimazu Yoshihisa. The latter, learning of the siege of Takajo, ordered a general mobilization and in no time at all dispatched an army of fifty thousand men to save his brother. On December 2nd 1578, the decisive battle between the armed forces of the Otomo and the Shimazu families was fought between Takajo and the river Mimigawa. The Bungo army suffered a resounding defeat, which ushered in the decline of the hegemony of the Otomo family on the island of Kyushu. The surviving warriors of the Bungo army fled in panic and disarray towards their home province. Two days after the battle, the first tidings of their defeat reached Otomo Sorin and the Jesuits. Spurred by fear of an imminent attack by the enemies, Sorin and his vassals in Tsuchimochi prepared for flight. The very next morning they beat a hasty retreat, leaving in Tsuchimochi the best part of their wealth and some fine weapons. Learning of Dom Francisco's departure, Father Cabral and three Jesuit brothers gathered together the bare essentials and set out on foot, keeping a good pace in order to reach Sorin's retinue as soon as possible. Without his protection they ran the risk of attack by non-Christian soldiers of the Bungo army who, enraged, considered their defeat the retribution of Shinto and Buddhist divinities for Otomo Sorin's conversion to the Christian faith under the influence of the Fathers. 21

On the morning of the second day of retreat, the priests were witness to a scene which Fróis described in the following terms:

Arriving at a river that was close to the abode of the previous night, the King got down on bended knees before all and prayed to Our Father, giving him thanks for all the present trials and tribulations. And he sent for Father Francisco Ca-bral and welcomed him with some rice, because he was no less short of vital basics than ourselves, so sudden and precipitous was this departure from Tsuchimochi. The king did all this to show the injured people, of whom the devil had already taken possession, that he was a Christian, and his faith had not been shaken by past adversities, rather the heart of this afflicted and pained king was growing and proving true, like gold in the fire. 22

Impressed by Sorin's attitude of unwavering faith, the group of fugitives continued the austere day's journey and on the evening of the second day they reached Bungo. Whilst the missionaries returned to their residences in Funai and Usuki, Otomo Sorin preferred to retire to the settlement of Tsukumi, which was on the coast three leagues to the east of Usuki. There he took temporary refuge in a Buddhist monastery. As Christmas was due to fall not many weeks later, he invited Father Fróis to celebrate it in his company. For the Portuguese Jesuit this was a perfect occasion to bear witness to the deep fervour with which Sorin and his wife took confession and attended the three Christmas masses. 23

What came to pass in the aftermath was described by the selfsame Fróis in his Historia de Japam:

The masses and litanies completed, the king remained prostrate for a while with his face on the floor before the alter, and then, raising himself to his knees with his hands in the air, he told me: "Now, Father, I want to tell you of three vows I made to God when I was in Hyuga, and you would do well to communicate them to Father Francisco Cabral and ask God Our Father to wish me perseverance in them.

The first is, I have promised God that with his favour and assistance, while all others waver in faith, I with his grace shall never stray from the Catholic faith, though they should kill me for this.

Secondly, that with all my strength I determine not only to keep God's commandments, but also all the advice and cautions given me by the Fathers of the Society.

Thirdly, that until death I shall not transgress the laws of marriage, or contaminate my soul with physical sin". And he concluded by saying: "Never in my life have I experienced such joy and comfort as now when I received the Holy Sacrament". And then he began to write with his own hand in his prayer book these vows he had made to God, Our Lord. 24

Sorin retained his religious fervour and unwavering faith. This was demonstrated during the following years when several lords of the Bungo fief rebelled, in their animosity towards Christianity, against the Otomo family. When the insurrection and disorder assumed extremely critical proportions, Dom Francisco returned to Usuki for three years at the behest of his son Yoshimune's counsellors, from where his family domain was pacified under his authority and political experience. Before retiring again to Tsukumi in 1583, Yoshimune gave him this settlement as a fief. Subsequently, Sorin attempted to institute in Tsukumi, although on a smaller scale, the project which he had been forced to abandon in Hyuga. After ridding Tsukumi of the traditional Japanese cults, he offered the Jesuits a Buddhist temple and monastery which had survived the destruction, as their residence. With the help of a Brother and Father Francisco Laguna, a solid Christian community was established there. Sorin persevered in his faith and practised the Christian life with fervour until he passed away on the night of the 28th of June 1587. 25 As Jesuit Visitor to Japan in 1580 and 1581, Alessandro Valignano had the opportunity to become acquainted with Sorin through numerous encounters with him. He testified to his qualities in Chapter 7 of his Apologia:

[K]ing Francisco was an excellent Christian, and distinguished himself over all others in the church of Japan and he was as saintly in death as he was in life. 26

NOTES

1 When Otomo Yoshishige moved his residence in 1562 from Funai (Oita) to the Nyujima fortress in Usuki, he changed his name to Sorin by which he is more commonly known in Japanese history. From 1540 he mostly used the name Yoshishige. Both before and after this period he also used other names as was the custom.

2 Cf. the letter from Luís Fróis SJ to the Portuguese Brothers, of October 16th 1578, Bungo, in Cartas que os Padres e Irmãos da Companhia de Iesus esvreuerão do reynos de Iapão/China desde 1549 até o de 1580, 2 vols. Évora, 1598, vol. 1, fl. 422 (henceforth referred to as Cartas E. 1598, followed by volume and folio).

3 Cf. Fróis, ibid, I, fl. 418.

4 Due to the profound hatred Sorin's wife had for the Christians, the Jesuits referred to her in their writings as 'Jezebel' an allusion to the pagan wife of Ahab, the apostate King of Israel described in 1 Kings, xvi:31.

5 This refers to Chikaie, baptized in 1575. He was christened Sebastião in memory of the Portuguese King Sebastião (1554-1578, reigned 1577-1578), who had been corresponding with Sorin for several years. (Cf. Francisco Cabral's letter to the Father General, from Kuchinotsu, on Sept. 9th, 1576, in ARSI (Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu), Japonica-Sinica, vol. 81, fl.73-73v).

6 Cf. Luís Fróis SJ, Historia de Japam (critical edition by Joseph Wicki SJ), 5 vols., Lisbon, 1976-1984, vol. III, p. 16 (henceforth referred to as: Fróis, Historia, followed by volume and page number). According to a declaration by St. Paul the Apostle, in I Corinthians, chap. vii: 12-17, someone who receives baptism can be divorced from a non-Christian person where the latter assumes an intolerant attitude to the spouse's religious practice.

7 Cf. Fróis, Historia, III, pp. 12-17.

8 Cf. Fróis, ibid., III, pp. 7-8.

9 Daimyo was the title given to the Japanese feudal nobles in this period. Since they wielded absolute power over their territories, the Europeans, in their documents, referred to them as 'kings' and their fiefs as 'kingdoms'.

10 Cf. Fróis, Historia, III, 17-18.

11 Cf. Fróis, ibid., III, 18-19.

12 Cf. Cartas E. 1598, I, fl. 420-420v.

13 Shimo means here the eastern region of Kyushu.

14 Cf. Fróis, Historia, III, 21; Cartas E. 1598, I. fl. 420v-421; see also the Carta from Francisco Cabral SJ to the Jesuit Superior on October 15th, 1578, Usuki, in ARSI, Jap.-Sin., 81, fl. 206v.

15 Cf. Fróis, Historia, III, 31-32.

16 Cf. Cartas E. 1598, I, fl. 423v.

17 Cf. Fróis, Historia, III, 38.

18 Cf. Fróis, ibid., III, 39-40.

19 Cf. Fróis, ibid., III, 41.

20 Cf. Fróis, ibid., III, 42.

21 Cf. Father Francisco Carrión's annual letter to the Superior General, from Kuchinotsu, on December 1st, 1579, in ARSI, Jap.-Sin., vol 46, fl. 33-34v; Carta E. 1598, I, fl. 439-441; Fróis, Historia, III, 70-87.

22 Cf. Fróis, Historia, III, 87.

23 Cf. Fróis, ibid., III, 90-91.

24 Fróis, ibid., III, 91-92; Carrión, ibid., Jap.-Sin., 46, 36; Cartas E. 1598, I, fl. 442-443.

25 Cf. Josef Schütte SJ, Introductio ad Historiam Societatis Jesu in Japonia 1549-1650, Rome 1968, p. 578-580; Arcadio Schwade, "Otomo Sorins Kampfum die Rettung seines Landes und des Christentums in Südjapan (1578-1587)", doctoral thesis (unpublished), Gregorian University, Rome 1961, pp. 80-138 and pp. 298-302; Fróis, Historia, IV, pp. 377-389.

26 Cf. Alessandro Valignano, Apologia en la qual se responde a diversas calumnias que se escrivieron contra los Padres de la Compª de Jesús de Jappón y de la China, 1598, in ARSI, Jap.-Sin. vol. 41, fl. 39.

* Retired Professor of Bochum University, Germany.

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