TY - CHAP
T1 - Missionaries as Merchants and Mercenaries
T2 - Religious Controversies over Commerce in Southeast Asia
AU - Alberts, Tara Marie Alexandra
PY - 2020/12/7
Y1 - 2020/12/7
N2 - This chapter explores a series of controversies that erupted between missionaries of various Catholic religious orders working in seventeenth-century Southeast Asia about the role of commerce in evangelisation. Using accounts from a range of largely under-explored archives, it provides a detailed comparative account of the practical strategies employed by missionaries to move and trade necessary commodities, to manage specie, to fund missions, and to manage costs. Enflamed by jurisdictional and methodological disagreements between different religious orders, intense public and private debates raged about the propriety of almost all methods used to achieve these ends. Particularly controversial were the establishment of commercial networks and involvement in trade by various religious orders around Southeast Asia, and the numerous financial and commercial innovations developed by them to suit local realities on diverse mission fields. Anxieties about a number of controversial practices filtered into missionary rhetoric in intriguing ways. This chapter will explore the role of commerce, specie, trade and market exchange on the mission fields and within discourse about missionary spirituality.
AB - This chapter explores a series of controversies that erupted between missionaries of various Catholic religious orders working in seventeenth-century Southeast Asia about the role of commerce in evangelisation. Using accounts from a range of largely under-explored archives, it provides a detailed comparative account of the practical strategies employed by missionaries to move and trade necessary commodities, to manage specie, to fund missions, and to manage costs. Enflamed by jurisdictional and methodological disagreements between different religious orders, intense public and private debates raged about the propriety of almost all methods used to achieve these ends. Particularly controversial were the establishment of commercial networks and involvement in trade by various religious orders around Southeast Asia, and the numerous financial and commercial innovations developed by them to suit local realities on diverse mission fields. Anxieties about a number of controversial practices filtered into missionary rhetoric in intriguing ways. This chapter will explore the role of commerce, specie, trade and market exchange on the mission fields and within discourse about missionary spirituality.
U2 - 10.1163/9789004444195_011
DO - 10.1163/9789004444195_011
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9789004444171
T3 - Studies in Christian Mission
SP - 237
EP - 268
BT - Trade and Finance in Global Missions (16th-18th Centuries)
A2 - Vu Thanh, Hélène
A2 - Županov, Ines G.
PB - Brill
ER -