3 - Money, Magic and Mastery in the Conversion of the Daimyo of Japan, 1560–1580

Summary

Chapter 3 analyses why three warlords in the southern island of Kyushu in Japan converted to Christianity in the 1560s–1580s: Ōmura Sumitada, Arima Yoshisada and, most importantly, Ōtomo Yoshishige (or Sōrin) of Bungo. It begins by describing the complex religious scene and its relationship to political authority in the ‘warring states’ era of the sixteenth century. Religious diplomacy mattered more in Japan than anywhere else, given the association between access to Portuguese trade and receptivity towards the Jesuit mission. Most of the chapter, however, is spent on describing the way that immanent power mattered to these daimyo, plunged into existential competition with rivals. The attraction of appealing to a new source of supernatural assistance in battle or in possession and healing crises is shown in a detailed narrative of the conversion of elite families of Bungo generally and of Ōtomo Sōrin and his son Yoshimune in particular. However, the tumultuous context also meant that questions of loyalty, sacral authority and societal order were also on warlord minds when they pondered questions of religious allegiance.