Jesuits at the Court of Peking, 1601-1775
For nearly two hundred years Jesuit missionaries held a privileged position at the court of the Chinese Emperors, C.R. Boxer writes, where they laboured not only as fishers of men, but as astronomers, mathematicians, portrait-painters and skilful architects.
A writer in History Today recently complained that “the activities of a few western missionaries can attract more attention in many of our books than all the teachings of Lao Tse and Confucius and Buddha and the Bagavadgita put together.”1
This is undoubtedly regrettable, but it is not altogether surprising. Apart from the fact that for generations most Christians believed that the activities of their missionaries were more important than those of any “heathen Chinee,” or “sooty slave of Hindustan,” the story of the old Jesuit mission at Peking is a fascinating one in its own right. For nearly two hundred years they had a privileged position in the Middle Flowery Kingdom which enabled them to act as cultural interpreters between East and West, literally as well as figuratively. The historian desirous of studying the Chinese scene in the late Ming and early Manchu periods will ignore their firsthand evidence at his peril.
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