Jesuits and Matriarchs

In early modern China, Jesuit missionaries associated with the male elite of Confucian literati in order to proselytize more freely, but they had limited contact with women, whose ritual spaces were less accessible. Historians of Catholic evangelism have similarly directed their attention to the devotional practices of men, neglecting the interior spaces in Chinese households where women worshipped and undertook the transmission of Catholicism to family members and friends. Nadine Amsler’s investigation brings the domestic and devotional practices of women into sharp focus, uncovering a rich body of evidence that demonstrates how Chinese households functioned as sites of evangelization, religious conflict, and indigenization of Christianity.

The resulting exploration of gendered realms in seventeenth-century China reveals networks of religious sociability and ritual communities among women as well as women’s remarkable acts of private piety. Amsler’s exhaustive archival research and attention to material culture reveals new insights about women’s agency and domestic activities, illuminating areas of Chinese and Catholic history that have remained obscure, if not entirely invisible, for far too long.

The open access publication of this book was made possible by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

Nadine Amsler is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where she received her PhD in 2015. This is her first book.

Nadine Amsler is a postdoctoral researcher at the Goethe University Frankfurt.

"In this important study, Nadine Amsler investigates the Jesuit mission to China from the late sixteenth through most of the seventeenth century, focusing on how Chinese customs and sensibilities shaped and constrained the Jesuit ministry to women."

"By seeking to fill a gap in scholarship on Chinese Catholics in the seventeenth century, particularly how women in China were introduced to Catholicism and contributed to its development and spread, Nadine Amsler makes crucial contributions to many different fields of study in this slim, tightly organized book."

"Jesuits and Matriarchs constitutes a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of Christianity in East Asia and complicates the state of ongoing debates about the situation of women in late imperial China. Amsler sheds light on the importance of gender as a novel channel to help reconsider the nature of Chinese Catholic communities and raises numerous questions for future research, for example by advocating for a comparative analysis of the global situation of women in the Catholic Church, which unequivocally makes the book thought-provoking and useful for a broad audience."

Anthony Clark:

"Amsler’s meticulous archival industry, innovative analysis of a wide sweep of materials, and cogent narrative serve as an example of first-rate scholarship that shall remain the authoritative word on Catholic women in early China for years to come."

"Jesuits and Matriarchs takes a novel approach to the history of the seventeenth-century Jesuit China missions by focusing on Chinese Catholic women’s domestic religiosity, analyzing the gendered spatial relations in the Jesuits’ mission and connecting them with post-Tridentine perceptions and development in Europe. . . . [this book] will be an accessible and rewarding read for scholars and any interested readers who wish to gain new insights into women’s religiosity in Chinese Catholicism."

"A fascinating book that takes an entirely new angle on the Jesuit mission to China and raises a wide range of new issues for students of relations between China and the West. Amsler examines the Jesuit missionaries as seventeenth-century European men living in the context of elite Chinese social and domestic life, and especially the Jesuits’ interactions with Chinese women. The sophistication of Amsler’s knowledge of both European and Chinese history brings the period to life."—Henrietta Harrison, University of Oxford

"Jesuits and Matriachs is the first full-length study of Catholicism and women in late imperial China. Amsler's research synthesizes Chinese and European sources, analyzes Jesuit masculinity and Chinese feminity, and places the study of domestic religiosity in the largest global framework."—R. Po-chia Hsia, author of A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552–1610

"The fruit of admirable archival work, this book offers a major contribution to the history of Chinese-Western relations, especially to the subfield of early modern Christianity. It is essential reading for anybody interested in gender relations and religion, in China and comparatively."—Eugenio Menegon, author of Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars: Christianity as a Local Religion in Late Imperial China

"A major contribution to a much-neglected topic in the field of Sino-European relations, that of gender and the role of women."—Nicolas Standaert, author of The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe