Jesuit Historiography Online

Subject: History
Editor: Robert A. Maryks

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Jesuit Historiography Online (JHO) is an Open Access resource offering over seventy historiographical essays written by experts in their field. Aimed at scholars of Jesuit history and at those in all overlapping areas, the essays in JHO provide summaries of key texts from the earlier literature, painstaking surveys of more recent work, and digests of archival and online resources. Crucially, the scope of the essays is global: they cover both Anglophone and non-Anglophone sources and scholarship from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The result is much more than a bibliographical check-list: authors explore trends in Jesuit historiography and provide a nuanced, systematic, and in-depth analysis of what has been written—when, why, and by whom—about arguably the most prolific, diverse, and wide-ranging religious order within the Roman Catholic tradition. JHO is available in Open Access thanks to generous support from the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College.

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Jesuit Contribution to Science 1814–2000: A Historiographical Essay

(6,945 words)

Author(s): Udías, Agustín
Agustín Udías [email protected] Last modified: December 2016  AbstractAfter their restoration in 1814, the Jesuits renewed their scientific tradition and have continued it up to the present day. Although t…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuit Devotional Literature

(10,913 words)

Author(s): Keenan, Charles R.
Charles R. Keenan [email protected] Last edited: May 2017IntroductionWhat is Jesuit devotional literature? Unlike many of the other topics included in this collection, what should and should not be class…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuit Emblematics between Theory and Practice

(6,842 words)

Author(s): Dekoninck, Ralph
Ralph Dekoninck [email protected] Last modified: April 2017The contribution of the fathers of the Society of Jesus to the flowering of emblematic culture has by now been fully illuminated by a series of studies.1 This ess…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuit Historiography in Africa

(8,013 words)

Author(s): Mkenda, Festo
Festo Mkenda, S.J. [email protected] Last modified: January 2017Jesuit history in Africa can be easily divided into three main periods. The first period goes back to the earliest Jesuit missions…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuit Historiography in Bohemia

(10,422 words)

Author(s): Cerman, Ivo
Ivo Cerman [email protected] Last modified: June 2017 The history of Bohemian Jesuits starts in 1555 when Peter Canisius (1521–97) was sent to Prague to examine the situation and judge whether it would be…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuit Historiography in Modern Portugal

(10,170 words)

Author(s): Malta Romeiras, Francisco
Francisco Malta Romeiras [email protected] Last modified: January 2017  Opening Remarks1The history of the Society of Jesus in Portugal can be divided into four different phases: 1) 1540–17592; 2) 1829–34; 3) 1858…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits and Jurisprudence

(13,082 words)

Author(s): Decock, Wim
Wim Decock 1 [email protected] Last modified: July 20181. Tensions between the Active and the Contemplative LifeIn 1606, Claudio Acquaviva received the results of an enquiry into the state of spiritual health o…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuit Science before 1773: A Historiographical Essay

(8,317 words)

Author(s): Rabin, Sheila J.
Sheila J. Rabin1 [email protected] Last modified: February 2017 Introduction: The Jesuits in the Historiography of Early Modern ScienceThe Society of Jesus was first recognized as an order of the Catholic Church…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits in Germany—Post-Restoration

(10,467 words)

Author(s): Healy, Róisín
Róisín Healy [email protected] Last modified: February 2018 Jesuits have been active in Europe’s German-speaking lands for nearly as many years after the restoration as before the suppression, but h…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits in Indonesia, 1546–2015

(10,512 words)

Author(s): Steenbrink, Karel
Karel Steenbrink [email protected] Last modified: December 2016The Portuguese, as part of their journey eastwards in search of spices for trade and souls to be converted to Christianity, conquered Malacca…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits in Portuguese-Speaking America: A Historiographic Vacuum in Post-Restoration Period

(11,780 words)

Author(s): Wilde, Guillermo | Torre-Londoño, Fernando | Obermeier, Franz
Guillermo Wilde [email protected] Fernando Torre-Londoño [email protected] Franz Obermeier [email protected] Last modified: December 2018The Historiography of the Society of Jesus in Portugu…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits in Systematic Theology: A Historiographical Essay

(9,540 words)

Author(s): Knorn, Bernhard
Bernhard Knorn1 [email protected] Last modified: January 2017Throughout the history of the Society of Jesus, its members have made important contributions to systematic theology. Indeed, many of the mos…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits in the American Colonies and the United States, 1700–1899

(7,976 words)

Author(s): O'Donnell, Catherine
Catherine O'Donnell [email protected] Last modified: March 2017As the eighteenth century began, a handful of Jesuits served the British mainland colonies. They were an obscure part of a province, the Englis…
Date: 2019-06-18

Jesuits in the Low Countries (1542–1773): A Historiographical Essay

(13,965 words)

Author(s): Vanden Bosch, Gerrit
Gerrit Vanden Bosch [email protected] Last modified: December 2016  The Jesuits entered the Low Countries as fugitives. In 1542, eight members of the young Society arrived in Leuven after being expelled from Fr…
Date: 2019-06-18