Series | Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies
Monograph | A Failing Mission?
Chapter | 2 • The Tail of the Devil: The Vow of Poverty
2 • The Tail of the Devil: The Vow of Poverty
Abstract
This chapter establishes the reasons why the Jesuit headquarters in India believed a visitation to Japan was necessary in the decade of 1560, and then considers the first issue confronted by Cabral in the archipelago: the appropriateness of the clothes used by the local Jesuits. It delineates the history of Christian attitudes towards the dress and the bodies it modified, including an overview of the polemics surrounding Ignatius Loyola’s choice of garments for the Society of Jesus. The missionaries’ attempts to select the correct clothes to facilitate their work of evangelisation in Japan are the focus of the following section. The chapter then analyses the narrative that Cabral created to persuade both his superiors and his fellow missionaries of the need to reintroduce the black cassock instead, the strategies he adopted when his brethren still resisted him, and Cabral’s conclusions regarding the influence of the Devil on the mission.
Submitted: June 21, 2023 | Accepted: Sept. 25, 2023 | Published Jan. 31, 2024 | Language: en
Copyright © 2024 Linda Zampol D’Ortia. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-793-7/002
