Luís Fróis (1532-1597)

Clergy of the Society of Jesus who worked mainly in Japan. He was born in Lisbon, in 1532, and died in Nagasaki on 8th July, 1597. He entered the Society in 1548 and travelled immediately to the East. He worked in India and was in Malacca (1554-1557); at the time his extraordinary writing skills and ability to grasp the surrounding world were already quite evident. He was ordained priest in 1561 and the following year he went to the Far East permanently. He reached Japan on 6th July, 1563, having disembarked in Yokoseura. In 1565 he became the superior of the Miyako mission, where he stayed for ten years; besides having developed the method of cultural adaptation, he was responsible for bringing the mission closer to Oda Nobunaga; he also wrote long letters that were systematically edited by his brethren in Europe. Then he moved on to the Bungo region, where he was the superior. Fróis accompanied Alexandre Valignano when the latter visited the centre of the country in 1581, and then became the companion of vice-provincial Gaspar Coelho, having also worked on the compilation of the History of Japan. Besides the History, he wrote, in 1585, the extraordinary Treatise on the Differences, a work that described, almost always on a neutral tone, two civilizations with antagonistic habits. On 9th October, 1592, he went with Valignano to Macau and returned to Japan in July, 1595. In 1596 he was struck by disease, which caused his leg to swell, and died the following year. He professed the 3 vows in Usuki, on 18th October, 1581, and then the 4 vows in Katsusa, in July, 1591. Bibliography: COSTA, João Paulo Oliveira e, O Cristianismo no Japão e o Episcopado de D. Luís de Cerqueira, dissertação de doutoramento em História apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, 1998 (texto fotocopiado).

Translated by: Maria das Mercês Pacheco