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EVENTS

International Symposium:
“Religious Conflict, Religious Concord in Europe and the Mediterranean World”

Saturday, 20th and Sunday, 21st of October 2012, 09:00-18:30
The University of Tokyo (Komaba Campus), Bldg 18, Grand Hall
3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, 153-8902 Tokyo

Programme

Saturday, 20th of October: “Catholics and Protestants in early modern Europe”.
08:40-09:00 Registration
09:00-09:20 Introduction by Katsumi Fukasawa (University of Tokyo)
09:20-10:20 Miriam Eliav-Feldon (Tel Aviv University)
“Between Protestants and Catholics:
the roots of religious toleration during the Reformation”.
Commented by Taihei Yamamoto (Waseda University, Tokyo)
10:30-11:30 Benjamin J. Kaplan (University College London, UCL)
“Religious encounters in the borderlands of early modern Europe:
the case of Vaals, a village in Dutch Limburg”.
Commented by Tomoji Odori (Musashi University, Tokyo)
11:40-12:40 Robert Matthew Armstrong (Trinity College Dublin)
“Peace-making and the problems of religion:
peace talks in Ireland and England during the civil wars of the 1640s”.
Commented by Shunsuke Katsuta (University of Tokyo)
12:40-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:00 Sugiko Nishikawa (University of Tokyo)
“‘When in Rome…’:
religious practice by Anglicans on the Continent in the 17th and early
18th centuries”.
Commented by Kei Nasu (International Christian University, Tokyo)
15:10-16:10 Graeme Murdock (Trinity College Dublin)
“Do good fences make good neighbours? Living with heretics in early modern
Savoy”.
Commented by Tomoji Odori (Musashi University)
16:20-17:20 Masanori Sakano (Musashi University)
“Port-Royalists as a catalyst for the inter-confessional dialogues in
seventeenth-century France”.
Commented by Katsumi Fukasawa (University of Tokyo)
17:30-18:30 Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire (Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis/
Institut Universitaire de France)
“Can erudite friendship lower inter-confessional barriers and promote
ecumenical dialogue? The case of the correspondence of cardinal Querini,
Bishop of Brescia, with the pastors of the French reformed churches of
Prussia in the 18th century”.
Commented by Katsumi Fukasawa (University of Tokyo)
19:00-21:00 Dinner

Sunday, 21st of October: “Religious pluralism from the Mediterranean to Western Asia”
09:00-10:00 Makoto Kato (Japan Women’s University, Tokyo)
“Jews in late medieval Navarre”.
Commented by Shiro Miyatake (Tokyo Friends School)
10:10-11:10 Toshiyuki Chiba (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
“Conversion in form of reductio. The church union at the Council of Ferrara-
Florence (1438-39)”.
Commented by Mamoru Fujisaki (University of Tokyo)
11:20-12:20 Asuka Tsuji (Waseda University)
“Wearing the blue turban again:
the re-conversion of the Christians in Mamluk Egypt”.
Commented by Hidemitu Kuroki (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
12:20-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 Yutaka Horii (Doshisha University, Kyoto)
“Religious minorities and foreigners in Ottoman Cairo”.
Commented by Shiro Miyatake (Tokyo Friends School)
14:40-15:40 Hiromi Saito (Shinshu University, Nagano)
“Religious policy in early modern Venice”.
Commented by (pending)
15:50-16:50 Inessa Magilina (Volgograd)
“The religious commitment of Shāh ‘Abbās the Great, Safavid king of Persia,
upon the evidence of European contemporaries”.
Commented by Yutaka Miyano (Gifu Shotoku Gakuen Unversity)
17:00-18:00 Ray Jabre Mouawad (Lebanese American University)
“Druzes and Christians in Mount-Lebanon: a rare case of religious symbiosis”.
Commented by Hidemitu Kuroki (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
18:00-18:30 General discussion and conclusion

Abstracts of Papers

1. Miriam Eliav-Feldon (Tel Aviv University), “Between Protestants and Catholics: the roots of religious toleration during the Reformation”.

Some of the best minds of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries – from Erasmus, through Jean Bodin and Sebastian Castellio, down to Christoph Besold and scores of other intellectuals – grappled with the question of how to restore religious peace within Christendom. But all these advocates of peace and toleration towards religious minorities were not of one cloth; they too were “divided by faith”– “faith” not in the sense of their
confession, but rather of their beliefs regarding the measure and the purpose of toleration. Some, like the French politiques, saw toleration as a temporary measure to be adopted in order to put an end to the devastation caused by religious wars and persecutions; others believed it was possible to restore religious unity on the basis of compromise and latitude in regard to adiaphora; and a handful – such as Dirck Coornhert – advocated the very radical idea of freedom of conscience and freedom of worship as a positive policy.  Yet on one question they were more or less unanimous: the only way to attain their goals was by persuading the ruling powers, by writing long learned treatises or bending the ears of princes and prelates. Other means for realizing their visions – mobilizing public opinion or subverting the powers-that-be – were unthinkable for early-modern non-revolutionary intellectuals. Two of the peace advocates, however, had some original and exceptional proposals.

Émeric Crucé’s Le Nouveau Cynée (1623) was the first truly international, world-encompassing peace plan, which calmly accepted the plurality of political entities, religions, beliefs and customs, and his emphasis was on commerce. Trade for him was both the means and the end of the entire grandiose scheme – his aim was to see the entire world as one Common Market.  Crucé’s ideas are all the more surprising as he was probably a monk and the son of one of the most militant leaders of the Catholic League, Oudin Crucé.  But despite his original ideas, Émeric Crucé too had to pin his hopes – as all his contemporaries – on the good will of princes.

Francesco Pucci’s Forma d’una repubblica catholica (1581), on the other hand, was truly exceptional in its choice of agents of change. Rulers still play an important role in Pucci’s grand design but in a different manner, and they are but one of his agents. His Christian Republic is an avant garde, a select group of people who would organize themselves in a clandestine network and prepare the Great Reform. Members of this secret society were to spend their life in slow, painstaking, clandestine attempts to convert potential allies from among the elites of all countries. Once enough people were to join this virtuous republic, they would persuade the rulers to convene a Holy Council, which, divinely inspired and capable of overcoming the resistance of evil prelates, would settle all controversies, truly reform Christianity and unite all mankind in a rational-natural religion. Peace and concord would reign ever after.

Pucci’s biography offers the modern historian an interesting tour of Europe in the last third of the sixteenth century. This Florentine merchant-turned-philosopher was regarded as a heretic by all establishments. In his quest for religious harmony his itinerary took him to Basle, England, the Netherlands, Poland, Prague and Transylvania, and in each of those places he became involved with all manner of sectarians, held debates with their leaders and finally quarreled with them all. Returning to Catholicism, he ended in an Inquisition prison in Rome and was then beheaded (1597). Following in his footsteps, the modern historian is able to tour much of the European world of eirenicists, moyenneurs, secret societies and radical reformers.

2. Benjamin J. Kaplan (University College London, UCL), “Religious encounters in the borderlands of early modern Europe: the case of Vaals, a village in Dutch Limburg”.

The textbook image of Europe in the wake of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations is of a place where a majority of people had little or no contact with people of different faiths.  This image is deeply flawed.  As a growing body of research shows, millions more Europeans than previously thought had direct experience of religious diversity.
One of the places they did so was along the borders between states.  During the early modern era, there were hundreds of political borders in Europe between states with different official religions.  People of different faiths encountered one another across these borders, practicing a form of coexistence which historians of religious toleration have largely ignored.

The case of Vaals, a village in Dutch Limburg, reveals much about the tenor of religious life in border communities. Vaals was located where the borders of the Dutch Republic (officially Calvinist) intersected with those of the Habsburg Netherlands (Catholic) and the Holy Roman Empire, specifically the Catholic Imperial City of Aachen.  It was a small village with a nucleus of only 10-12 houses, and yet it had churches for five different Christian groups: Dutch and German Calvinists, French-speaking Calvinists (Walloons), Lutherans, Mennonites, and Catholics.  The reason why it had so many churches was to service the Protestant dissenters who lived in neighboring Catholic territories, who travelled to Vaals regularly to attend services there.

Ironically, most of the inhabitants of Vaals were Catholic. As is well known, the Dutch Republic was officially a Calvinist polity but in practice tolerated a wide array of religious minorities.  Catholics constituted the majority of the population in some areas, most notably the so-called Generality Lands, including Overmaas, where Vaals was situated. So while in Aachen, Limburg, and other neighboring territories Protestant minorities lived under Catholic regimes, across the border in Dutch Overmaas a Catholic population lived under a Protestant regime.

This concentration of religious dissenters on both sides of the border was no accident.  An examination of relations between Protestants and Catholics in Vaals and its surrounding region highlights the practical limits of the famous principle, cuius regio eius religio, by which rulers supposedly had the ability to impose religious orthodoxy on their subjects.  It reveals in particular the freedom which the proximity of political borders offered to religious dissenters, facilitating their survival and worship.

3. Robert Matthew Armstrong (Trinity College Dublin), “Peace-making and the problems of religion: peace talks in Ireland and England during the civil wars of the 1640s”.

The middle decades of the seventeenth century saw civil wars within each of the three nations of England, Ireland, and Scotland.  Sharing a common ruler in Charles I, the three kingdoms’ internal conflicts were entangled with those of their neighbours.  In each case the conflict was understood in religious as well as political terms. Indeed it has been assumed that it was the incompatibility of the different religious visions of the participants which rendered a peaceful resolution impossible.  England had obtained its distinctive form of Protestant Reformation almost a century earlier, though those who now fought against the king wished that process of Reformation to be re-started and carried further forward. Scotland’s more thoroughgoing Reformation had shaped a national community which had rejected the king’s attempts to draw the national faith closer to that of England, a rejection which had sparked a constitutional as well as a religious revolution.  In Ireland an established national church on the English model had been rejected by the majority catholic population which, by 1642, had created its own alternative government, while still proclaiming its loyalty to the king.

This paper starts from two surprising observations. Firstly, that historians have paid much less attention to the attempts to make peace during these years than to the possible reasons for the onset and continuation of the fighting. Secondly, that in a Europe where the division between Catholic and Protestant could often be sharp or even violent, peace-making efforts in Ireland, between the Catholic Irish and a Protestant English monarchy, were much more successful than in an England where the two sides shared a nationality and professed a common Protestantism.  Trying to offer an answer as to why this was so raises wider questions about peace-making and reconciliation in an age of religious war.

Rather than focusing on the details of peace negotiations in the different kingdoms, or the specific problems which negotiators sought to address, this paper will look at some of the necessary conditions for peace-making.  Each of the principal warring factions – such as royalists, Irish confederates, English parliamentarians or Scottish covenanters – had developed a narrative which offered an explanation of how their cause had emerged and what it stood for. Such narratives drew heavily on competing religious identities.  Yet a lasting settlement meant finding ways to reconcile such narratives and of reaching a shared understanding of the peace process, and of its outcomes, as a whole. Any such reconciliation would need to draw upon basic Christian notions such as forgiveness, repentance or justice rather than on the specific religious beliefs or desires of Catholics, Anglicans or puritans.  It will be argued that broad principles did emerge which could be used to transcend difficult religious questions, such as the possession of church buildings by competing religious bodies, or the authority of bishops in the church.  Such principles allowed for a ‘loyal dissidence’ of those who might not agree with the king’s religion, but could find it possible to serve him and in turn receive his protection. On the other hand, deep religious notions could also obstruct peace-making.  The commitment to justice, seen as a divine requirement, could put limits on the generosity of peace terms.  The vision of a wholesome Christian commonwealth, with faith providing national unity and upholding social peace, could prove more attractive to many than a broader, but messier, compromise between rivals.

This paper, then, looks at some of the broad religious ideas which the different warring sides used to understand themselves and their enemies, and which helped or hindered them in the attempts to make peace in the three kingdoms.

4. Sugiko Nishikawa  (University of Tokyo), “‘When in Rome…’: religious practice by Anglicans on the Continent in the 17th and early 18th centuries”.

This paper analyses religious practice by Anglicans abroad in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and attempts to shed light on how they regarded the established churches in host countries. In Roman Catholic territories, in the early seventeenth century the English merchants were already strongly and persistently asserting their right to use the English prayer book, not to attend Mass, and not to kneel before the Host when it was carried in procession in the streets. In Lisbon and Oporto, and later Livorno as well, the English factories had been battling against the local authorities to secure an Anglican chaplaincy up to the early eighteenth century. In contrast to this, in Protestant territories, the absence of the chaplaincy, apart from in English embassies or in a limited number of  pecial places such as the Waldensian valleys in Piedmont, did not seem a crucial problem throughout the first half of the seventeenth century with a few exceptions, such as the group of English exiles  in Geneva at the time of the English Civil War who demanded services in English.

Most Anglicans abroad in Protestant territories simply joined in the worship at a local church. It is likely that the majority of Protestants abroad accepted the idea of the conformity to the local Established church as long as it was within the ‘Reformed’ tradition. As a Huguenot minister at Charenton in 1680 put it in a letter to the Bishop of London ‘it is a duty of all the reformed of your realm [i.e., England], to keep themselves inseparably united to the Church.’ There was also an opinion that joining a local service would contribute to the rapprochement with other Protestant denominations. It was mainly in the period after the Glorious Revolution that we see several attempts to establish places of worship on the Continent which would follow the Anglican rite.

The paper examines the cases of Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Geneva. In each case the promoters of the building of a church claimed that their projects would contribute to strengthening the Protestant interest and thereby managed to gain local support. However, strong oppositions arose among the English at home. The opponents were mainly from the latitudinarian wing, such as Gilbert Burnet the Bishop of Salisbury, and they opposed the projects as the imposition of the Church of England over other Protestants. In the end, churches in Rotterdam and Amsterdam succeeded in being built but the Geneva project was abandoned abruptly around the time of the Hanoverian Succession in 1714. This paper examines those projects and tries to explicate the changes in religious and political currents of the time.

5. Graeme Murdock (Trinity College Dublin), “Do good fences make good neighbours? Living with heretics in early modern Savoy”.

The vast majority of early modern Europeans managed to live in proximity with heretics without resorting to episodes of communal violence. Slowly and quietly, social learning developed in many parts of the Continent about how to live peaceably with heretical neighbours. Acknowledgement of the importance of this social history of popular religious pluralism has contributed to a revisionist historiography about the history of tolerance. Recent work has abandoned a myth of the rise of tolerance and undermined the significance of key intellectuals as champions of a more tolerant future. By focussing attention on the attitudes of ordinary folk towards their heretical neighbours, this paper does not seek to identify any new heroes of the history of tolerance or to overplay the agency of ordinary people in early modern societies. This paper suggests that popular religious pluralism was affected by clerical attitudes and framed by state laws, but was also shaped by socio-economic contexts and circumstances. Intolerance proved to be a virtue that ordinary people could not always afford.

This paper seeks to advance this argument by analysing how rival religious identities became embedded within the daily life of a rural community in the seventeenth century. This paper considers the religious life of the village of Choulex, ruled in turn by Savoy, Bern, Savoy Geneva and Savoy, and divided between Catholics and Calvinists for most of the early modern period. It traces how this small community responded to a particular political and legal framework which permitted religious diversity. The paper analyses surviving evidence about patterns of worship and attendance at churches, and about baptisms, choices of god-parents and marriage partners. It analyses cases of conversion within the village, and reviews evidence about the world of work and patterns of sociability. It suggests that rival religious identities were real in Choulex but also that religious identities were also porous in complex ways. Ordinary folk, and most notably some women, proved able to glean some advantage from life on a confessional border and gained some agency over the character of their religious lives. While daily interaction between neighbours of different faiths may have been mostly non-violent, Choulex was far from immune from sharp social division and violence over religion. An intimate and occasionally troubled pluralist community persisted in Choulex from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries with no obvious changes in the character of social relations. Clerical and state efforts to promote an ideal of confessional uniformity also persisted and in the end elite discomfort rather than popular bigotry proved the greatest threat to Choulex’s complex adventure in religious pluralism. It is the suggestion of this paper that detailed analysis of religious life in this rural community both reflects and highlights some key features of broader patterns of religious coexistence across early modern Europe.

6. Masanori Sakano  (Musashi University, Tokyo), “Port-Royalists as a catalyst for the inter-confessional dialogues in seventeenth-century France”.

The Port-Royal movement in seventeenth-century France has been viewed as a sectarian struggle within the Catholic Church. This perspective drives us to some issues such as the theological controversy with Jesuits about the question of grace, and the resistance activities to the Pope and the French King. However the effects of this movement were not confined in the Catholic Church, but extended over a broader part of the social elite. Especially, some noblewomen contributed this phenomenon, because they lived around the convent of Port-Royal in Paris to receive the spiritual direction of Father Saint-Cyran, one of the leaders in the early stages of this movement, with the result that they associated the movement with nobles’ salons in Paris. In addition, French Calvinists and foreign Protestants also took part there, to give rise to a space of sociability beyond nationality and confession. Therefore, this paper examines the role of Port-Royalists in the inter-confessional relationship by focusing on their sociability.

Firstly, it handles the typical features of Port-Royalist’s salons from 1640s to 1660s through a concrete analysis of their participants. These circles were formed outside of ecclesial or official institution. They were composed of bishops, bureaucrats, noblewomen, foreign intellectuals, and diplomats, who shared topics on literature, religion, diplomacy, and politics.

This sociability of elite could not practically continue without a hitch. Its stagnation was caused by the arrest of Superintendent of Finances Nicolas Fouquet (1661) and some implications of Port-Royalists who were put under the Fouquet patronage. However, they came back to the government by acquiring Louis XIV’s pardon in the second half of 1660s. Accordingly, it is representation of the reactivation that Simon Arnauld and some consuls in Levant collected
informations about the Eastern Christian churches. So the second part of the paper studies the political and diplomatic context of this overseas survey. In fact, some results of this activity was incorporated into the revision of « la Perpétuité de la Foi » co-written by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole (1669).

The activity of salons in Paris and the investigation of the Eastern Christian churches stimulated the intellectual exchange in inter-confessional environment. So the final part of the paper deals with influences of this circumstance on the conversion of Calvinist noblemen to Catholicism. For example, Vicomte de Turenne and Paul Pellisson-Fontanier were inspired by knowledge about the Eucharist in the Orthodox Church, to construct one of the thought premises for recanting their original faith. On the other hand, their ceremony of conversion was held by the bishop of Comminges Gilbert de Choiseul, who evoted his energies to softening the religious controversies within the Catholic Church. In the meanwhile, he met those two Calvinists in Port-Royalists’ salons.

The paper concludes that the Port-Royalists were not necessarily rigid Augustinians who persisted in the narrow view of grace, but constituted a part of the extensive and flexible Catholic Reformation by means of overlapping with the devout movement, to play a role of catalyst for promoting the dialogue and mutual comprehension between Catholicism, Protestantism and Eastern Christianity.

7. Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire (Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis/Institut Universitaire de France), “Can erudite friendship lower inter-confessional barriers and promote ecumenical dialogue? The case of the correspondence of cardinal Querini, Bishop of Brescia, with the pastors of the French reformed churches of Prussia in the 18th century”.

The eighteenth century is characterized within the Republic of Letters by competition and incomprehension between the philosophes of Enlightenment who engaged themselves ctively in the political struggles of their times, and the less-committed partisans of learned erudition, some of whom were frankly hostile to the most prominent philosophes. Their position can be understood given the fact that they were advocates of a Christian Aufklärung and opposed to philosophical provocations. Their declared commitment to learned erudition allowed them to discuss beyond the confessional divide between Catholics and Protestants, both in conformity with the tradition of humanist Europe and because, as enlightened Christians, they were hurt by the attacks against the faith. The pastors of the Huguenot churches in Prussia, notably Jean Henry Samuel Formey, professor at the French College in Berlin, and perpetual secretary of the Royal cademy, and his disciples, among whom the Calvinist pastor Jacques Pérard, with whom he edited a number of francophone periodicals, kept up an active learned correspondence throughout Europe by which they kept themselves informed about the activity of the book market and they took part to the ongoing debates. Their commitment to the circulation of learned information led them to communicate well behind the Huguenot diaspora, notably with the representatives of erudition in Catholic countries. Cardinal Querini, a famous collector, bishop of Brescia (Northern Italy), member of different European academies, and above all, curator of the Vatican Library, was one of the most remarkable examples. The correspondence that the minister, journalist, bibliophile and academician Jacques Pérard engaged in with him in the midst of the 18th century begun typically with a few bibliographical questions. Rapidly, the two academician letter-writers kept up a sustained letter exchange in which they expressed not only their mutual esteem but threw also the basis of an arising friendship – despite the social gap between a prince of the Roman Catholic Church and a minister of Stettin who was struggling for recognition in the Republic of Letters.

Their common taste for erudition and their common bibliographical passion transcended the confessional barriers, each of them considering that confessional divides slow down the progresses and the diffusion of knowledge. Concretely, their correspondence insisted on the search for surpassing religious antagonisms and on the necessity of neutralizing the learned sphere. Christians scholars who recognized themselves as such, exchanged between them without prejudice, sharing the common goal of protecting the Republic of Letters both from the excesses of the committed philosophes and from internal dissensions. Protestant pastors and the Italian cardinal threw thus the basis of an ecumenical learned dialogue. Pastors Pérard and Formey could then propose to the Bishop of Brescia to affiliate to different academies and promote with him the Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis in Olmütz – Olomouc -, the only academy in the dominion of the Hapsburgs who welcomed Protestant scholars alongside Catholic learned people. The warmth and the strength of the ties they established led the Huguenots correspondence writers to confide to a catholic prelate the memory of the pain of their exile, of the ordeals of their departure to the Huguenot refuge and their commitment to the promotion of an inter-confessional peace. Our Huguenot ministers came to sincerely hope the election of cardinal Querini as Pope, in the hope to promote both the maintain of Christian values in Europe, and the spirit of ecumenical dialogue. Knowing that such a spirit of tolerance was far from being shared by their faithful and their contemporaries, they asked in the letters they wrote each other how this dialogue would be perceived and understood by their parishioners, and whether their minds were ready to abandon those a priori assumptions which had been feeding confessional  entities over the past two hundred years. The correspondences they exchanged question not only the issue of ecumenical dialogue in the century of Enlightenment, but also, more generally, that of the relation to the other – in this case, a religious otherness – and to one own community identity and consciousness.

8. Makoto Kato (Japan Women’s University, Tokyo), “Jews in late medieval Navarre”.

In contrast to countries in northwestern Europe, the Jews of Navarre (a former kingdom in Spain) established aljamas, which were Jewish self-governing communities set apart from the rest of the general population. Within these communities, Jews enjoyed full citizenship and protection thanks to the fuero (book of laws and customs) and the pecha (a special yearly contribution). This paper examines the political and economic roles of Navarrian Jews as well as their day-to-day contact with nearby Christians in the late 14th entury. In addition, we attempt to clarify the nature of the coexistence of Christians as the majority and Jews as the minority. This study is based on major historical sources such as the practice documents related to the Jews (fine records, tax records, contracts, etc.) as well as the rich diplomatic collection Navarra Judaica.

From the 13th to the 15th century, the kingdom of Navarre was surrounded by the regions of Aquitaine, Béarn, Castile, and Aragon. Because of its highly strategic position, an alliance with Navarre was in demand during the Hundred Years’ War by the English and the French. Among the Navarrian rulers, Charles II (1349–1387), also known as “Charles the Bad,” was notorious for his hostile activities toward the Valois kings and for his concern to hold the political initiative in both the Iberian Peninsula and France. During his reign, Jews played a prominent role as interpreters and diplomats. In addition, they became purveyors of the court, provided loans to the throne, and were an integral part of the kingdom’s fiscal administration as finance officials and tax farmers.

In return, they were offered a free choice of occupations and were permitted to own land. Although they participated in trade, their main livelihood was from money lending of whom their customers ranged from Christian craftsmen and farmers to abbots and archbishops. Even if the Jews were free in their choice of religious life, Christians often attempted to convert them and Jewish resistance against such forced attempts was also recorded. In some instances, Jews allowed Christian women to become their mistresses and such adultery fostered hostility from the Christians. Although such hostility resulted in some smaller skirmishes, no large-scale conflicts occurred in Navarre. Despite the potential hostility within and outside of the region, in the late 14th century, the Navarrian Jews remained skillfully integrated into the governance and the society allowed both the Jews and Christians to co-exist on a daily basis.

9. Toshiyuki Chiba (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), “Conversion in form of reductio. The church union at the Council of Ferrara-Florence(1438-39)”.

Religious conflicts or conflicts of faith that medieval Christian Europe has faced with are firstly conflicts against pagans like Muslims or Jews. In this case they coped with them mainly by force, concretely by means of battles(ex. crusaders) or expulsion(in case of Jews). The second type of conflicts is against heretics or dissents like the Cathars or the Hussites. They coped with them in this case not by expulsion, but by forced conversion or by execution of the judicial system(ex. the Inquisition). The third type of conflicts is between the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. In this case, both churches had tried to solve the problem by doctrinal disputes and church diplomacy, but in vain, because it has roots in the excommunication by each other.

This study focuses on the third category of medieval conflicts of faith, especially on the church union that declared at the end of the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439. This general/ecumenical council which began at Basel in 1431 parted in the course of pope-conciliarists rivalry into two councils, that is, the later Basel council of anti-papal conciliarists which aimed at a church reform, and the Ferrara-Florence council of unionists (papalists) which defined itself as a church union council. With the background of the cooperative atmosphere between Rome and Constantinople, facing with hard pressure by the Ottoman Turks, the latter council in which the Eastern Roman emperor himself, the Patriarch of Constantinople and over 700 fathers from the Greek Church took part, presided by Pope Eugene IV, debated successfully five key issues which had prevented long time two churches from the reunion. On 7 July 1439, the union’s bull »Laetentur caeli« signed by almost all present fathers was read out at the Cathedral of Florence, in Latin by Cardinal Cesarini and in Greek by Metropolitan of Nicaea Bessarion.

This historical event has been categorized as usual to a church political conflict between Western and Eastern Church. In this study, however, it will be analyzed as a phenomenon in a mid-Mediterranean area (ex. the Peloponnese region), which had a long history of coexistence of religions and economical/cultural exchanges. From the end of 14th to 15th century, frequent and important transferences of the educated people can be observed in this area. They exchanged books of ancient Greeks like Plato or “modern” Latins like Thomas of Aquin, translated them from Greek/Latin into Latin/Greek, and in this intellectual activities they reached simultaneously to a new type of ideas on micro- and macrocosms based on humanism and neo Platonism, and also to a tolerate and harmonious idea of faith. General councils in late middle ages functioned not only as crossroads of these ideas, but also gave them a public sphere in which such a symbolic thing as union of churches can be solemnly declared to the whole world.

In these intellectual and spiritual circumstances, they thought that the only way to unite two churches in reality was the reduction (comeback) of the Greek Church to the Roman Church. It is also analyzed in this study, in which conditions such a concept was born.

10. Asuka Tsuji (Waseda University, Tokyo), “Wearing the blue turban again: the re-conversion of the Christians in Mamluk Egypt”.

In this paper, I explore the experiences of the Copts who had converted to Islam and sought to return to their former religion, Christianity, in fourteenth-century Egypt. After the decree of 1301, Christians were obliged to wear blue turbans in the Mamluk dynasty (1265–1517), whereas Muslims wore white. The title thus signifies the choices these new  Muslims made when re-converting. They chose their former status as subordinates and risked apostasy, but it also enabled them to proclaim their inner faith in public.

First, I will survey the accounts of these new Muslims in the Muslim sources. Second, by analysing the portrayal of these re-converts in a little-known Coptic hagiographical work written in the same era, The Life and Miracles of Anba Murqus al-Antuni, I also aim to show how the Church perceived these people. Through these two approaches, I hope to show the reality for those caught between Islam and Christianity.

The usual view would be that these people were denounced by the Church when they converted to Islam and that it was impossible to re-convert because apostasy is punishable by death under Islamic law. This does not seem to have been always the case in the Mamluk era, however. There arises, then, a need to assess the religious environment surrounding these new Muslims, such as the attitudes of their fellow Muslims and the Church.

To briefly explain the historical background: Christians in Egypt, particularly those belonging to the Coptic Church, went through many hardships during the fourteenth century, such as the closure and demolition of their churches, enforcement of coloured turbans and expulsion from the chancelleries. The reason for these persecutions are not clear from the chronicles of the era, only that the Muslims held a grudge against the Coptic bureaucrats and accused them of extorting their taxes and donating them to their churches. This does not explain the sudden reason for the persecutions, but we know that it intensified in the 1350s and 1360s; so much so, that many Christians abandoned their religion.

There were many new Muslims by the latter half of the fourteenth century, and some were suspected by the Muslim ulamas of falsely converting and remaining faithful to their former religion. Previous studies on these new Muslims dismiss such allegations as unfounded and motivated by jealousy. In this paper, I would like to look at these allegations from a new perspective: what if the new Muslims were really maintaining ties with the Church? I hope that answering this question will allow us to explore the complexity of the conversion process in Mamluk Egypt.

11. Yutaka Horii (Doshisha University, Kyoto), “Religious minorities and foreigners in Ottoman Cairo”.

In general, Muslim states and the societies under their rule tended to maintain religious coexistence rather than exclusion or assimilation of religious others. The Islamic law which supported this tendency as norm provides the legal status of dhimmi (non-Muslim subject) and musta’min (non-Muslim foreigner coming from the non-Muslim territory) and their rights and obligations under the predominance of Muslims. Their conditions of life and activity, however, were influenced by real circumstances which varied according to times and places. In case of the early modern Eastern Mediterranean, the minorities and foreigners under the Ottoman wide-ranging rule, such as Jews, eastern Christians, and Europeans, are the subject of study. Here I focus on the Cairene society as an example. Egypt, a part of the Islamic area after the seventh century, had been the connecting point between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and also a part of the Ottoman territory from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Therefore, the society of Ottoman Cairo was influenced by the norm of Islam, customs and traditions, the traffic connecting Egypt and the areas around it, and the Ottoman rule.

The legal status of the groups in the Cairene society were made clear. The Jew and Christian dhimmis were imposed the poll tax, and the Europeans were not imposed it as they were musta’mins. The religious differences were reflected in the city’s geographical structure. There were a Jewish quarter in the city center and several Christian quarters around the city center, and the European quarter began to be formed at the west side of the city center from the end of the sixteenth century. These quarters, however, were not exclusive areas for specific believers, but more or less diversified. The Jews and Christians were different each other in the manner of living and activities to some extent. The Jews tended to live together in their own quarter; the wealthy persons concerned closely with the Ottoman financial affairs, or acted as intermediaries between the Europeans and the local merchants, or carried on trading activities through their own network in the Mediterranean. The Copts and Greeks, on the other hand, tended to live wide relatively, and engaged mainly in the artisanship of precious metals, fabrics, etc. An interesting phenomenon is that, in the Venetian group in Cairo in the first half of the seventeenth century, there were Greeks who were carried on trade from Venetian Crete to Egypt and other ports in the Mediterranean. The spheres of living and activity of minorities and foreigners in Cairo were overlapped each other, and partially had wide-ranging character. Therefore, the case of Ottoman Cairo should be understood not only in the framework of the Ottoman Empire but also under a vision over the whole Eastern Mediterranean.

12. Hiromi Saito (Shinshu University), “Religious policy in early modern Venice”.

As is well known, early modern Venice was famous for her religious tolerance. But, it seems that her religious policy has been studied one by one religion separately, and not necessarily considered from the unified point of view. This presentation will try to get a prospect from this point.

In Venice, Greek refugees were received warmly by the state, and supported by the Holy See. Venice and Rome confirmed the Church-Union decided at the Council of Florence. For both of them, the Greeks were precious allies in anti-Ottoman opposition, so they were given extensive privileges which gave them the possibility of being as traditional orthodox Greeks.

Also, Jews of various nations who were mostly disliked by the Church and common people took refuge in Venice. At last after many complications, Venice received them to make use of them economically as payers of special taxes, as a substitute for municipally–run pawnshop (monte di pietà), and as relief traders with large Jewish commercial networks. So in this city, Jews got extensive privileges which gave them autonomy and right to practice Judaism openly.

Many Germans were in Venice and in her nearby city of Padova with a famous University. Among them there were many Protestants, but Venetian authority did not intervene in their private belief as far as they did not trouble the public society. Because their merchants in Fondaco dei Tedeschi and their artisans were important for her economy and society, and their students were also important for her state as the same.

For many ordinary people, the selection of his/her religion would be influenced by the social situation in which they live. And, for a state firmly controlled by the traditional lay-elites, its religious policy would be decided to reinforce its survival power. Venice was losing her former economic power, but was yet maintaining her political independence. So, her religious policy must be decided to settle the economic and political problems then confronted. As a result, her policy selected tolerance with which, as a Mediterranean international trade center, she was traditionally familiar.

13. Inessa Magilina (Volgograd), ”The religious commitment of Shāh ‘Abbās the Great, Safavid king of Persia, upon the evidence of European contemporaries”.

Since the end of 16th century the Europeans received information about religious preferences of Shah Abbas I. These facts were provided by European diplomats, monks-missionaries and commercial agents. Thanks to the detailed information provided by Shirley brothers and the Carmelites we can get an idea of both Shah Abbas I’s religious preferences and the reasons of his loyalty to the Christians.

Abbas wasn’t fanatic Shiite orthodox as all Muslim leaders were traditionally represented in European historiography. Shah Abbas won power due to the take-over in 1587, he was breaking all ceremonial and religious prohibitions easily, contacted with adherents of different faiths. Europeans who conversed with Shah face to face were marveled by his religious open-mindedness. Anthony Shirley remarked that religious discussions were Shas’s “true passion”. While theologizing with Father Nicolas da Melo about Christ holy atoning sacrifice Abbas always underlined his hatred for the Jews who executed Christ as well as the persecution the Jew were subject to in his land. In truth the case was absolutely different but Abbas considered that mentioning the persecution of the Jews he could favour Father Nicola da Melo. With the help of religious debates and personal decrees of Shah Abbas Christians were bestowed the freedom to worship (including monastery and temple foundation) across Persia, thus  tried to conciliate European leaders. The measures concerning the Christians  taken by Abbas turned out to be effective. The Europeans who were at Shah’s court informed that Shah Abbas is Muslim but he supports “Christ concernment” more than any Christian leader. So they concluded in Europe that Abbas was ready to convert himself and the whole country to Christianity (Catholicism). But this conclusion didn’t correspond to the facts. However, in order to understand this, one should have stayed in Persia for a long time as for example Robert Shirley did as well as Father Jean-Thaddée who was the first bishop in Isphahan bishopric.

The Europeans knew nothing about the true Shah Abbas’ confession, that’s why they had illusions about converting Muslim leader into Christianity. To understand the nature of his policy, decisions and religious views one should understand the Sufi theosophy and mysticism. Since the beginning of 16th  century Persian shahs were called “Sophi” in Europe, his title completely matched the real powers Abbas had. He was not only the Persian Shah but also the Sheikh of Safaviyya Sufi order. The division of Sunni and Shiite affiliations were relative for the Sufi – Muslim mystics. Abbas true faith was in spiritual-mystic path. It is unimportant for the true Sufi to belong to the definite tarikaq or congregation. There weren’t any confessional barriers for spiritual quest expressed in service of God (valayet). The religious creed of Abbas absolutely accorded with the Sufi mystic Attar ghazel: “You sitting at the magicians’ Temple – which religion do you belong to? How do you pray? – I am beyond Good and Evil, beyond belief and disbelief, theory and practice. Because beyond these many things there are other stages.”

Being the leader of Shiite state and the deputy of Imam on earth, Abbas  clearly divided politics and religion. The Europeans evaluated Shah according to their rational position, while Abbas was “Sufi on the throne”, moreover Sufi-mystic. He skillfully used religious rhetoric to achieve specific political goals when necessary. We can say Abbas was loyal to both Christianity and other confessions including ancient pagan cults. But he was remorseless even to his coreligionists Sufis if they entrenched upon his political power with the help of religious rhetoric.

14. Ray Jabre Mouawad (Lebanese American University), “Druzes and Christians in Ottoman Mount-Lebanon, a rare case of religious symbiosis”.

Lebanon is famous for two contradictory perceptions of its people and history. On one side travelers noted the religious variety of its population and the different groups living together in villages and towns, and on the other, consular reports and travelers who witnessed times of violence in1845, 1860, and 1975-1990 for the last episode, underlined the destructions and casualties caused  by religious strife. Between these two perceptions, where is the truth?

It is hidden in the religious culture of this country, which has rarely been described in its variety, a matter in itself surprising for a nation counting eighteen religious groups, all represented officially in parliament. Indeed, few Lebanese scholars have seriously attempted to analyze the religious interaction between the communities of Lebanon!

In the frame of the symposium on “Religious Conflict, Religious Concord in Europe and the Mediterranean World”, held at the University of Tokyo, it is precisely an investigation of that sort  that is proposed, focusing on two groups, the Druses and the Christians.

The Unitarian Druses were born in the Shiite Muslim context of the Fatimid Caliphate in the eleventh century. From Cairo where it started, the new doctrine  was preached successfully south-east of today’s Lebanon, in a district called Wadi al-Taym, and in the central part of Mount-Lebanon, in the districts of the Shuf and Metn that overlook the city-ports of Sidon and Beirut. For many centuries, the Druses lived in relative isolation, outside the cities, forming a warrior feudal society. However, starting from the Ottoman occupation of Lebanon in 1516, their leaders, to whom the Ottomans gave more leverage than the previous Mamluk occupiers, encouraged the emigration of Christians into their territory. Their motives were mainly economic. They perceived Christians as skilled peasants and hard workers and their convents as a factor of development for their land. Christians, on the other hand, had been confined for centuries into the northern provinces of Mount-Lebanon; they were systematically excluded from the sea ports and coast of Lebanon, for fear they would establish contacts with the Christian West, and revive the scheme of the Crusades. They were eager to go south, running away from direct Ottoman rule in the province of Tripoli, and from their forced previous isolation.

Thus, both communities, the Druses and the Christians, discovered each other only in the sixteenth century, although they had been living side by side in Mount-Lebanon for a long time.

Soon, and during the whole Ottoman period, they adapted to each other, socially and on the religious level. Two aspects of their interaction are, for example, the Druses favoring two saints of the Christians: Saint Georges, a cavalier saint who killed a dragon to save a princess, and Saint Elijah, the prophet of the Bible who among other exploits, killed many pagans who did not believe in the One God. It is the reason why in all villages where the two communities were living together, a majority of churches are dedicated to one of those saints, at the request of the Druses. On the other hand, Christians living among the Druses started using concepts, or words, that were alien to the Christian faith. One of them is “maqam”, meaning station, position, rank; in the frame of the Druse religion, the term is applied to a special religious figure, or a place, that opens to a better knowledge of the Divine. Thus, the tomb of a famous fifteenth century Druse figure is called “Maqam Abdallah al-Tannukhi”, in the Shuf.  After a while, Christians who lived among Druses applied the term to some of their churches, for the first time. These are just some aspects of the mutual influence exercised by the two religious groups on one another, resulting in a particular culture, born out of their religious symbiosis.

Then, why massacres occurred between Druses and Christians? Why violence erupted in 1845 and 1860 if those two communities lived in such symbiosis? The answer lies in the political and social context of the time in Mount-Lebanon, rather than in a religious or cultural confrontation. Communities rarely addressed their enemy by religious slogans, and if mutual destructions of religious places took place at the time, the motives of their perpetrators were not religious, but rather reflected their anxiety to lose a historical supremacy or to secure the survival of the group as a whole in a broader context, or to avoid a social class conflict between peasants and landlords, which was the case in 1845 and 1860. Yet after each somber episode of Lebanon’s history, including the last civil war, the common culture of the Lebanese went on again, a result of those patterns of behavior and religious symbiosis that go back to centuries of living together, which are difficult to forget.

Abstracts of Comments

1. Taihei Yamamoto (Waseda University), Comment on Dr. Eliav-Feldon’s paper

Dr. Eliav-Feldon showed us intriguing two figures Émeric Crucé (1590-1648) and Francesco Pucci (1543-1597). Both of them lived in the Post-Reformation era, and advocated religious tolerance. The idea of tolerance was not very rare at that time in spite of, or perhaps because of harsh confrontation between Catholics and Protestants. Nevertheless, it seems that Crucé and Pucci were different in some respects from others.

Crucé accepts religious diversity and expresses the need to establish an international court of arbitration in order to bring about peace on Earth. Moreover, this international institution was to be comprised of the representatives from all states including the Turkish Sultan and the King of Persia. As far as I know, no one but Crucé suggested or even thought about that kind of plan to maintain peace on such a world-wide scale at least at that time. This fact makes Crucé different from other “tolerant” thinkers such as Jean Bodin.

Francesco Pucci also tried to bring about religious reconciliation. The first step is to establish a kind of secret society. The members of this group were to persuade the rulers to convene Holy Council which would settle all controversies and unite all mankind in a rational-natural religion. Perhaps, no one else had that kind of plan in his or her mind at that time.

Still, Pucci’s idea is not an isolated exceptional case. In my view, his though is similar to that of Guillaume Postel. Just like Pucci, Postel insisted on the natural goodness of Man and was inclined to universalism. Pucci’s ultimate goal, re-unification of all mankind, strongly reminds me of Postel’s idea, “restitution of all things”. Also interesting is the possibility of Pucci’s contact with “the Family of Love” in which Postel also had some interest. Pucci’s idea of the clandestine network seems to have been derived from this nicodemic religious group. In addition, the purpose of the Family of Love was to restore the oneness with the God and to bring back the prelapsarian innocence to the world, which is similar to Pucci’s plan. In some respects, Pucci might have been different from Postel or the Familists. It should be stressed that Pucci offered a detailed program for the re-unification of all people unlike any others. Nevertheless, Pucci, no doubt, was more or less influenced from his contemporaries, and it could be possible to consider his plan as the terminus ad quem of the idea of religious reconciliation that Postel or Familists had conceived. In any case, Dr. Eliav-Feldon’s fascinating study shows us that there existed hope for reconciliation even in the age of religious confrontation.

 

2. Tomoji Odori (Musashi University), Comment on Dr. Kaplan’s paper

First of all, I would like to express my entire agreement with Dr. Kaplan’s conclusions that the cuius regio principle and the religious and political borders in early modern Europe were never purely enclosing, but created the possibilities to bring about certain forms of religious tolerance or religious liberty despite fierce and bitter confessional struggles and mistrust. According to Dr. Kaplan, the Calvinist Dutch Republic and the Catholic Aachen developed a “symbiotic” relationship, because Aachen depended on the Dutch Republic to offer religious service to its Protestant citizens who had to be somehow tolerated because they brought economic prosperity to the city, and Dutch Republic in turn depended on the catholic city of Aachen that sent its protestant churchgoers to the village of Vaals to maintain its Calvinist outpost or bastion in the Lands of Overmaas. The concept of “symbiosis” can be used only when the two parties depend on each other to survive. This symbiotic relation was not an exceptional situation of Dutch-German borderland because the borders of early modern states were porous and blurring almost everywhere in Europe.

The second point of my comment is whether common people could settle religious conflicts in a practical manner when they faced such a difficult problem as child-raising by the parents whose confessions were different. In the bi-confessional city of Augsburg, for instance, citizens made an agreement when they dared to marry a person whose confession was different. According to many of such agreements, a baby of the parents of the “mixed marriage” had to be raised in father’s religion when it was a boy, and in mother’s religion when it was a girl. There were also similar customs of child-raising by the couple of mixed marriage in the multi-confessional regions of the Dutch Republic and people could settle problems in a practical way, even if there were also many unsettled cases as observed in Vaals. In Switzerland there happened also a lot of religiously motivated kidnappings. But there were many examples of good settlement following the same principles as the agreements in Augsburg, too. It is very important to note that these efforts toward reconciliation had been made not by nonreligious intellectuals but by devout Catholics and Protestants during the age of confessionalism. It was not the irreligious Enlightenment but the thought and practice of mutual tolerance among different confessions that achieved religious reconciliation, coexistence or a symbiotic relationship, as Dr. Kaplan emphasizes in his paper.

 

3.  Shunsuke Katsuta (University of Tokyo), Comment on Dr. Armstrong’s paper

This is a highly stimulating and challenging paper. While the modern history of Ireland is quite often regarded as a history of failure in terms of relationships between religions, i.e. Protestants and Roman Catholics, Dr. Armstrong sheds light on how and why a peace was closer to being achieved in Ireland than in England during the politico-religious upheavals of the 1640s. Also, Dr. Armstrong deals with a difficult but essential question of how much religion, in this case Christianity, can influence political process, in this case peace-making: in other words, how historians should see the interrelationship between what may be called religious matters and what may be called political ones.

In dealing with the above question, Dr. Armstrong offers an interesting and instructive model by which three levels of peace-making negotiations are distinguished: modes, measures and meanings. In the process of negotiation with Charles I the Irish Catholic Confederates gave a bigger freedom of action to their agents than the English Parliamentarians did, which helped them to realize a three-year ceasefire (modes). English Parliamentarians and the Irish Confederates raised very similar issues in negotiating with the king (measures), but the Confederates differed from their English counterparts in that they did not compete with the crown for constitutional status. They simply asked for royal favour by presenting themselves as loyal subjects (meanings), which in turn enabled the king to accept them as repentant former rebels (meanings).

Here religion comes to the fore. The king could present pardoning Irish Catholic rebels as an action of Christian virtue, i.e. mercy. Such broad religious principles as mercy, repentance or justice could be used in an effective way in a negotiation. At the same time, as Dr. Armstrong tells us, pardoning rebellious Catholics could also be criticized in the name of justice, another Christian virtue. I attach great importance to this paradox. Dr. Armstrong rightly distinguishes between particular issues and broad principles of religion and then shows possibilities as well as limitations of these broad religious principles when they are applied to actual life.

 

4. Kei Nasu (International Christian University), Comment on Dr. Nishikawa’s paper

When considering the Anglican confessional diplomacy in Europe, one might question the extent to which the promotion of ‘Protestant unity’ abroad was also about the coercion of uniformity and marginalization of dissenters within England.

From Dr Nishikawa’s paper we have learned that the early 18th-century schemes to build specifically Anglican-styled churches in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Geneva run in parallel with the domestic politics over reinforcement of religious conformity in England, largely along the Tory line. Equally interesting was that those who opposed to the idea of installing Anglican churches in already Protestant cities on the continent were Latitudinarians, who were more tolerant to the dissenters.

In her analysis of debates and policies on religious practices of English merchants, diplomats, travellers or refugees living outside Britain, Dr Nishikawa emphasizes the continuation of a Protestant “long battle” against the Roman Catholic force. However, these debates may have also reflected the state church’s increasing interest in taking control over its subjects both in and outside the country, as well as the secular state’s diplomatic or potentially colonialist instinct to enhance its presence, status and power abroad.

Another issue to consider is weather the majority of English people abroad favoured to practice English services, with English chaplains and the English Book of Common Prayer. Although casual generalization must be avoided, living abroad in times of religious tensions might be seen as liberation from the burden of conformity. This was the case for a number of puritans who moved to New England in the seventeenth century. Most of their churches were ‘non-separating’ churches, technically and willingly belonging to the Church of England, but they were able to enjoy distinctively Calvinist way of worship, preaching and discipline, which they would not in their home country. Living abroad could sometimes blur (as well as intensify) denominational identities, and it may be possible that a substantial portion of English people outside the British Isles did not necessarily recognized themselves as ‘Anglicans in exile’.

 

5. Tomoji Odori (Musashi University), Comment on Dr. Murdock’s paper

First of all, I would like to say my first impression on Dr. Murdock’s paper. I found in many examples of the religious behavior of common people living in the village of Choulex and environs observed by Dr. Murdock a striking similarity with the cases I observed in cities and villages in Switzerland. More than ten years ago I worked on the subject of Catholic and Protestant conversions in early modern Switzerland and published a book in 2003 in Tokyo. The sources were mainly from German speaking area, but my conclusions coincide in many points with those of Dr. Murdock’s. My conclusions were as follows: so-called confessionalization promoted by the state church cannot be overestimated; confessional boundaries in Switzerland were very porous and never enclosing. I have gathered more than one hundred evidences of conversions of ordinary people in Swiss cities and villages based on the materials of Zurich and Luzern from 16th to 18th centuries to find a strong “individualistic” tendency in choosing their confession and making a religious conversion. Neither the theory of “confessionalization” nor the thesis of “communal Reformation” provides an adequate framework to draw a general picture of early modern European society. Dr. Murdock has shown us a very clear picture about the “popular resistance to clerical demands” and the “popular religious pluralism” through the case study of a village in early modern Savoy.

Of course, there were also clerics and theologians who were pluralistic in their understanding of Christian religion. For instance, the author of the famous Mennonite book of martyrs entitled “Martyrs’ Mirror”, first published in 1660, argues for religious tolerance, criticizing the Reformed church of Zurich which never gave up the religious persecution. “They cannot tolerate it,” the author says, “that any one should walk the way to heaven in any other manner than just as they have chosen it, and in which they compel everyone to walk”. Apparently the author had a pluralistic understanding concerning the ways to salvation. And this theological “pluralism” must have emerged in the middle of the “pluralist” or multi-confessional society where there lived common people who were sometimes very tolerant toward Christian neighbors of a different confession. It is likely that the same thing was happening between Catholic and Protestant villagers of Choulex in early modern Savoy. In any case, from the intriguing paper of Dr. Murdock we can gain a very good insight into the world of common parishioners transgressing the confessional boundaries and fences in their daily life.

 

6. Katsumi Fukasawa (University of Tokyo), Comment on Dr. Sakano’s paper

Dr. Sakano’s paper opens a new perspective on the role of Port-Royalists in interfaith dialogues in seventeenth-century France. I will comment on the following four points.

Firstly, in defining the object of his study, Dr. Sakano prefers wisely to use the term “Port-Royalists”, instead of “Jansenists”, because the latter term was a polemical one used only by their adversaries, especially by Jesuits. It was therefore a negative label applied to every opponent, so that it is difficult for historians to give it an exact and coherent definition. As compared with it, the term Port-Royalists is less ambiguous, in so far as the term is sociologically definable.

Secondly, Dr. Sakano shows us that the intellectual salons of noblewomen in Paris provided space for inter-confessional dialogues. It is well known that the influence of the Port-Royal penetrated several noble salons of the French capital. But it is less known that these salons were also places of encounter and dialogue for opposing religious groups, such as Jesuits, Jansenists and even Calvinists. Dr. Sakano shows that the noble sociability created a kind of “neutral space” for inter-confessional dialogue, to borrow the concept proposed by the Dutch historian Willem Frijhoff.

Thirdly, Dr. Sakano analyzed how Port-Royalists investigated about the Eucharist ritual practiced in the Eastern Church, with the help of consuls and ambassadors of their kinship or acquaintance. It is well known that English and Genevan Protestants established contact with the Eastern Church under the patriarchate of Cyril Lucaris in the first half of the seventeenth century. However, Dr. Sakano shows us that Port-Royalists and other Catholic theologians, in a search for the primitive Christian rites, were also interested in the Eastern Church.

Fourthly, Dr. Sakano tries to demonstrate that the famous conversion of the Marshal Turenne as well as that of Paul Pellisson, known as director of the notorious “fund of conversions”, were accomplished under the influence of Port-Royalists such as the bishop Gilbert de Choiseul. Even under the rule of Louis XIV, conversion was not always the result of persecution.

I would like to know more about relations between different religious groups evoked by Dr. Sakano, such as those between Port-Royalists and the Company of the Blessed Sacrament. Although they had many common features as devout movements derived from the Catholic Reform, the Company attacked Port-Royalists and organized anti-Jansenist activities. What was the cause of their antagonism? Should we consider it as fundamental or incidental, permanent or occasional? As for the relations between Port-Royalists and Protestants, it has often been evoked that a certain theological affinity existed between orthodox Calvinism and rigorous Augustinism. In fact, this was the reproach addressed by Jesuits to Jansenists. Nevertheless, Port-Royal intellectuals criticized systematically Protestant theology. Then, how did French Protestants regard the “Jansenist quarrel” in the Catholic camp? Were they completely indifferent? Or did they feel sympathy for the persecuted Port-Royalists? Thus the intriguing paper of Dr. Sakano opens further inquiries.

 

7. Katsumi Fukasawa (University of Tokyo), Comment on Dr.Beaurepaire’s paper

Dr. Beaurepaire’s stimulating paper, based on an analysis of the correspondence between French Protestants in Prussia and a Catholic prelate in Italy, reveals the emergence of ecumenical dialogue on the background of erudite sociability. I will comment on the following three points.

Firstly, Dr. Beaurepaire makes effective use of sources of intimate nature. By exploring such sources as private correspondence, diaries or records of intimate conversation, we may expect to hear a “true” voice coming from the heart, even though that may not be always the case. As far as intellectual exchange between cardinal Querini and Huguenot pastors is concerned, however, the sincerity or deepness of their thought is scarcely doubtful. The testimonies cited in the paper are eloquent enough to prove it.

Secondly, based on these sources, Dr. Beaurepaire transcended a schematized view of confessionalized early modern Europe. Dr. Kaplan has shown us clearly that the principle of cujus regio was never impervious because the political borders were porous. Dr. Murdock has also shown us that religious identities were porous in complex ways. Along the same line, Dr. Beaurepaire demonstrates that confessional barriers were permeable also in spiritual dimension, because the tradition of the Republic of Letters, founded on humanist erudition, was shared by learned people of different confessions. Even at the level of high ecclesiastics, it was not impossible to surmount confessional boundaries for the sake of universal Christianity.

Thirdly, Dr. Beaurepaire shows us that ecumenical dialogue was fostered by the preponderant current of Christian enlightenment which formed a united front against the philosophical materialism of radical enlightenment. Thus he modifies the stereotyped image of eighteenth-century Europe insisting solely on the battle between science and religion, between reason and fanaticism. In other words, Christianity and enlightenment were not so incompatible as alleged by the traditional historiography, and the European society was not so “dechristianized” during the eighteenth century as described by some French historians of the École des Annales.

Dr. Beaurepaire’s interesting paper stimulates us to further curiosity. I would like to know to which extent Christian enlightenment was a homogeneous or heterogeneous current of ideas. In case it was rather heterogeneous, how did it vary according to countries or cultural areas, from the British Isles and France to Germany and Italy, especially in its attitude toward the established church of each country? As for the crypto-Catholicism crisis in German and Scandinavian countries, also evoked by Dr. Beaurepaire, it will be interesting to know to which degree this crisis corresponded to real process or rather to imaginative obsession, particularly for the Lutheran orthodox clergy, because this phenomenon may have been a result and a fear of religious interaction at the same time.

 

8. Shiro Miyatake (Tokyo Friends School), Comment on Dr. Kato’s paper

I understand why Christian and Jewish relations were relatively good in Navarra. Their interdependence was the first reason. Here I would compare with the Jews of the Ottoman Empire that I have studied. In the Ottoman Empire, Jews were accepted because they had a lot of information on European countries. The Ottoman authorities could use them in foreign affairs, etc. In other words, the Ottoman authorities recognized the value of the Jews. Does this also apply to the situation in Navarre?

The second reason for their good relationship was the constant contact between Christians and Jews in Navarra. On the other hand, in the Ottoman Empire, Jews were able to form a strong community because there was strong lay leadership who had strong connections with the Ottoman authorities. Therefore, the Jewish community of Istanbul did not know what to do after he was dismissed. What was the situation of the Jewish community of Navarre?

 

9.  Mamoru Fujisaki (University of Tokyo), Comment on Dr. Chiba’s paper

Dr. Chiba’s paper discusses the Church union of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox centering on some intellectual networks formed among Western and Eastern clerics and theologians. It makes clear a multiple nature of the thought background of the problem of Church union distinguishing these networks separately with care. The significance of his paper in our symposium would be more explicit if we considere following three points of view in detail.

First, not only the thougt background of theologians involved but also political, diplomatic, and ecclesiastico-political background of Latin Church’s clergy and of Greek politicians or Orthodox Church’s clergy would be taken in consideration. Especially the academic or ecclesiastical career of Pope Eugene IV or factional rivalry in the Roman Curia must have influenced the papal policy of making cardinals. The how and why the union’s bull “Laetentur caeli” was rejected in Constantinople should be explained more clearly.

Second, if the Latin Church was devided into conciliarists and papalists, some problems of conflict and concord between these two parties should be taken into consideration, given our symposium’s theme “religious conflict” and “religious concord”. It is possible that there was opposite opinions even within the papal party. So a historical value of the idea “via concilii” would be more sharpened if we take account of the existence of papalists who were against the Church union.

The third point is the Dominican Order’s influence on the Church union. Dr. Chiba focuses on the Dominican activities of monastery constructing or preaching when he deals with Greek people’s conversion to Catholic faith. They are objects of consideration of great importance to estimate the possibility of the Church union.

10.  Hidemitsu Kuroki (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), Comment on Dr. Tsuji’s paper

 

11. Shiro Miyatake (Tokyo Friends School), Comment on Dr. Horii’s paper

I understood that the sphere of activities by Christians and Jews coincided with each other. So naturally troubles and conflicts occurred between them. Response by Rabbis shows this. In the case of troubles between Jews, Rabbis decided. Between Muslims and Jews, Shari’a or Kanun was applied. Between Christians and Jews in the Ottoman territory, Shari’a or Kanun was applied. Between Christians and Jews in the European countries, for example, Venetian territory, the Venetian law was applied. Which laws were applied in Ottoman Cairo?

 

12. Miriam Eliav-Feldon (Tel Aviv University), Comment on Dr. Saito’s paper

Venice was undoubtedly a unique state in early modern Europe in more respects than one. It was, indeed, a most flourishing commercial centre and an intersection for people, goods and ideas, connecting the Mediterranean world with Europe; and its ruling class was made up of very practical persons who considered commercial and economic interests to be paramount. Thus, it was – as Dr. Saito describes – one of the very few (officially Catholic) places at the time where Greek Orthodox, Jews and foreign Protestants could reside and go about their business with little hindrance. Dr. Saito presented us with a panoramic view of the international character of the city and its tolerant policies – an overview rarely to be found in other studies, which as a rule concentrate on the attitudes towards one of the minority groups only.

In addition to the reasons cited by Dr. Saito for the tolerant policy of the Venetians – its commercial and maritime interests, raison d’état overriding other considerations, the philosophical heritage at the university of Padua – I would emphasize one more aspect: the printing shops.

Printers all over Europe tended to favour peace and toleration, at times even joining pacifist or Nicodemistic sects (Christophe Plantin in Antwerp being perhaps the best-known example). During the sixteenth century, Venice was the most important printing centre in Europe, its printing presses producing books not only in Latin and the vernacular but also a large number of Greek, Hebrew and Arabic books. The first printed Qu’ran in Arabic appeared in Venice in 1538; the entire basic religious Jewish library was printed in Venice (mostly by Daniel Bomberg); and much of classical Greek science and philosophy re-entered Europe’s culture thanks to Venetian printing. Moreover, the printing shops were meeting places for the intellectuals of all these different communities, where ideas were exchanged and respect for the other was promoted.

Furthermore, even when the Index of Prohibited Books was introduced and Church censorship was applied to the products of the printing houses, they did not eradicate the cultural co-existence of religious minorities. Scholarship in recent years has shown that it was in fact the censorship of Hebrew books which allowed them to continue to exist and be disseminated – even if expurgated of phrases or paragraphs which could have been interpreted as anti-Christian.

I find a similarity between this complex meaning of ecclesiastical censorship of books and Dr. Saito’s presentation of the ghetto – on the one hand, a symbol of segregation and persecution, but at the same time means of protection which enabled the Jewish community to exist and to function.

Finally, a word about the Venetian inquisition. It may have been relatively lenient towards non-Catholics – but this was the case as long as the non-conformists could be easily identified (thus, for example, the authorities turned a blind eye regarding New Christians who openly reverted to Judaism). But the Venetian religious authorities were just as wary as powers elsewhere of hidden enemies – Anabaptists, various Nicodemistic sects, crypto-Jews etc. Thus, even in Venice toleration had its limitations during the Counter-Reformation.

 

13. Yutaka  Miyano (Gufu Shotoku Gakuen University), Comment on Dr. Magilina’s paper

Until now Shah Abbas’s religious politics have been examined insufficiently. In the result, motives for his friendly attitude to non-Muslims have been not so clear.

But now, listening to Dr. Magilina’s report, we have to think that friendly attitude of Abbas to Christians was not simply based on the international environment of this era, that is, we cannot easily attribute his tolerance to the mood against Anti-Ottoman league.

The point of Magilina’s assertion is to explain his attitude from different standpoints, mainly seeking the domestic and religious reasons for the attitude of Shah Abbas.

First of all, the Qizilbash Turkmanian tribes were grave consisting elements of Safavid dynasty. In this dynasty, leaders of Qizilbash were appointed as provincial governors. Therefore Shah Ismail, the founder of this dynasty, had to take a stance of placing importance on their religion, a kind of Shiism, as non-negligible element. But it is worth mentioning that their religion was not pure Shiism but mixture of mainly three elements: Shiism, Christianity and Jahiliyyah. For example, Qizilbash believed that God is the one, which consists of Trinity. Accordingly it is no wonder that Shars of Safavid had interests in Trinity. However, for the reason that Caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib was the incarnation of the Father in the belief of Qizilbash, it served Shah Ismail’s interest to converted official religion from Sunni to Twelver Shiism.

Secondly, it is important for understanding of Shahs’ attitude that Safavid dynasty had many non-Muslim subjects: Armenians, Georgians, Jews and Zoroastrians. It was necessary for Shahs to pay attention to their beliefs, and as a matter of course, it was impossible to convert these subjects to Twelver Shiism by the edge of the sword, and also it was impossible to unify their different religions. However, we must notice that, as Dr. Magilina points out, the attitude of Shah Abbas to non-Muslims who were not his subjects, was absolutely very severe.

Thirdly, it is important that the Suhravardi Order and its successor, that is, the Safaviyya Order had Sufism as their own basis, and that Shahs were not only Persian Shahs but also Sheikhs of the Sufi order. Abbas’s true faith was, as Dr. Magilina points out, in spiritual-mystic path. There were not any confessional barriers for his spiritual quest.

 

14.  Hidemitsu Kuroki (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), Comment on Dr. Mouawad’s paper

 

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