Foundational Research in Jesuit Japan Letters: Theatre History

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17H07154
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Japanese literature
• Research Institution: Musashi University
• Principal Investigator: Schwemmer Patrick 武蔵大学, 人文学部, 専任講師 (30802946)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-08-25 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 日本文学 / 軍記物語 / 語り物文学 / イエズス会 / 東アジア海域 / グローバル化 / 大航海時代 / 石見銀山

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Only about 10% of extant 16th-17th c. Jesuit Japan Letters have been published in any form. In this project, I commissioned reproductions of about 30,000 pages’ worth of original reports held in various European archives, saving the resulting images on multiple high-quality backup drives. As I continued work on my unified catalogue of the entire archive, the number of letters of which one or more copies are known to survive has passed 3,000. In order to broaden and deepen my knowledge base as I continue to work on this archive in the future, I purchased scholarly books on the history of information culture, market economics, finance, racial categories, etc. Based on these activities I will no doubt continue to produce results far into the future, but during the grant period I published one peer-reviewed scholarly article and four scholarly book chapters, and I have one more peer-reviewed scholarly article scheduled for publication.

Free Research Field

日本文化史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

世界規模の市場経済が動き出した室町末期江戸初期・大航海時代の日本を細部に記録した資料として、16・17世紀のイエズス会日本報告は歴史のどの分野にとっても価値が高いにもかかわらず、約10％しか出版されていない。猶、これまで出版されているのは当時ヨーロッパで宣教活動の宣伝として割愛・改竄・翻訳された版本の和訳が殆どで、目撃者が日本で記した報告書に比べ、一次資料としての価値が劣る。本事業では、原本の所在を把握するための目録の作成、ヨーロッパ各地に拡散している報告の諸本の影印、これらの翻刻、英訳、和訳を進めることにより、世界史の重要な転換期における日本像を大きく改善する研究の土台を築くことができた。