Capuchin Missionary Methods and the Shaping of Christianity in Early Modern Kongo

Cécile Fromont

Bringing together written sources and works of art, my paper explores the impact of the nature of European doctrinal discourse on the process of cross-cultural conversion in the context of the establishment of Franciscan Capuchin missions in early modern Central Africa. My study finds its sources in the corpus of illustrated manuscripts authored by Capuchins that lay out in words and images the nature and methods of their work of catechization. The illustrated manuscripts, I posit, reveal the prominence of visual apparatus in the Capuchin evangelization strategies, to communicate concepts of doctrinal thought in a move to overcome the limitations of verbal translation, but also to shape into a Christian form the entire visual and social environment. In turn, by analyzing the case-specific methods developed by the missionaries to achieve conversion, my paper uncovers the nature of the semantic and symbolic tools with which the Central Africans received and reshaped the Christian message. Studying the advent and development of Christianity in early modern Central Africa not only provides an important background to the development of Afro-Christian religions in the Americas, but also sheds light on the vital relationship between visual representations and religious thought in the context of all attempts at a cross-cultural transit of Christianity from Europe to the New Worlds.

[WP #0621]