Exzellenzstrategie

Dr. Weiao Xing

Global Encounters Fellow | Institute of Modern History | University of Tübingen

The French Jesuit Relations as Theology and Travel Literature in Charles II's Library

29th May 2024 | 12 p.m. | Neue Aula - Großer Senat

Online participation via zoom is possible under the following link

Two volumes of the Jesuit Relations, bound in burgundy leather, had entered the English royal collection by the late seventeenth century. The Relations were a series of missionary reports written by French Jesuits in New France. From 1632 to 1673, most of these reports were annually published in Paris, under the title Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France (Relation of What Occurred in New France) […]. In seventeenth-century England, despite prevailing anti-Catholicism, volumes of the Relations were owned by book collectors, including John Morris, before being acquired by Charles II. Building upon material approaches in the history of books, this talk further zooms in on royal library catalogues from seventeenth-century England to explain how Charles II’s librarians perceived two copies of the Relations, now preserved at the British Library, as theology and travel writing. By examining surviving book copies alongside catalogues, further research will shed new light on early modern books by uncovering the motivations of librarians, who acted as book managers, keepers, and readers.