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Telescope and Microscope. A micro-historical approach to global China in the eighteenth century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2019
Abstract
One of the challenges of global history is to bridge the particularities of individual lives and trajectories with the macro-historical patterns that develop over space and time. Italian micro-history, particularly popular in the 1980s–1990s, has excavated the lives of small communities or individuals to test the findings of serial history and macro-historical approaches. Micro-history in the Anglophone world has instead focused more on narrative itself, and has shown, with some exceptions, less interest for ampler historiographical conclusions.
Sino-Western interactions in the early modern period offer a particularly fruitful field of investigation, ripe for a synthesis of the global and the micro-historical. Cultural, social, and economic phenomena can be traced in economic and statistical series, unpublished correspondence, and other non-institutional sources, in part thanks to the survival of detailed records of the activities of East India companies and missionary agencies in China. Recent scholarship has started to offer new conclusions, based on such Western records and matching records in the Chinese historical archive.
In this article, I offer a methodological reflection on ‘global micro-history’, followed by four micro-historical ‘vignettes’ that focus on the economic and socio-religious activities of the Roman Catholic mission in Beijing in the long eighteenth century. These fragments uncover unexplored facets of Chinese life in global contexts from the point of view of European missionaries and Chinese Christians in the Qing capital—‘end users’ of the local and global networks of commerce and religion bridging Europe, Asia, Africa, and South and Central America.
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Footnotes
This article is part of my current book project on the life and networks of Europeans in Beijing in the long eighteenth century. A preliminary version was first presented at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, on 11 June 2015, as part of the series ‘Global China: New Approaches’, sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. My deep gratitude to the organizer Dr Shirley Ye, University of Birmingham, and to the gracious hosts at the University of Cambridge, Professor Hans van de Ven and Dr Ghassan Moazzin. I first presented this material in the ‘Fourth Vignette’ at the international symposium ‘China/Macau: Globalization Past and Present’, Centro Cientifico e Cultural de Macau, Lisbon, 14–16 October 2013. I express my gratitude to Professor Luís Filipe Barreto for the invitation. While a member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in Autumn 2015, I researched and presented other parts of this article to the East Asian Studies Seminar, organized by Professor Nicola Di Cosmo, whom I thank for the opportunity.
References
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17 Historians in Taiwan and Hong Kong trained in the United States or Europe have been aware of micro-history for a longer time than PRC historians, but the approach there has not been followed in any sustained way either. Recent historiographical discussions in Chinese (PRC) are, for example: Chen Qineng 陈启能, ‘Lüe lun weiguan shixue 略论微观史学’ (Brief Discussion of the Historiography of Microhistory). Shixue lilun yanjiu 史学理论研究 Historiography Quarterly, vol. 1, 2002, pp. 21–29; Zhou Bing 周兵, ‘Dangdai Yidali weiguan shixue pai 当代意大利微观史学派’ (The Contemporary Italian Microhistory School). Xueshu yanjiu 学术研究 Academic Research, vol. 3, 2005, pp. 93–98. Recent PRC translations of ‘micro-historical’ works are, for example, Shi Jingqian 史景迁 (= J. Spence), Wangshi zhi si: Da lishi beihou de xiao renwu mingyun 王氏之死:大历史背后的小人物命运 (The Death of Woman Wang: The Destiny of a Small Character in the Background of Grand History), Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, Guilin, 2011; Na-da-li Ze-meng Dai-wei-si 娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯 [= N. Zemon Davis], Ma-ding Gai-er guilai 马丁·盖尔归来 (The Return of Martin Guerre), Beijing daxue chubanshe, Beijing, 2015; Chen Yuan 陈恒 and Wang Liuchun 王刘纯 (eds), Xin shixue. Ka-luo Jin-zi-bao de lunshuo: weiguanshi, xijie, bianyuan 新史学. 卡罗·金兹堡的论说: 微观史、细节、边缘 (New Historiography. Essays by Carlo Ginzburg: Microhistory, Clues, Margins), Daxiang chubanshe, Beijing, 2017.
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19 Levi, G., Inheriting Power: The Story of an Exorcist, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988 (original Italian edn, 1985)Google Scholar.
20 Recent examples are: Clossey, L., Salvation and Globalization in the Early Jesuit Missions, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2008CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Menegon, E., Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars: Christianity as a Local Religion in Late Imperial China, Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge, MA, 2009Google Scholar; Harrison, H., The Missionary's Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2013Google Scholar; Brockey, L., The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia, Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the extensive work of N. Standaert in Leuven (more on the Chinese and Sinological side) and D. Sachsenmaier in Göttingen (more on the global and historiographical side).
21 Standaert, ‘Don't Mind the Gap’. A pioneer in this respect was the late Buddhologist Erik Zürcher (1928–2008) at Leiden University. I opened this article with a passage from the Diary of Oral Instructions, a collection of dialogues between European missionaries and Chinese literati in the late Ming, translated into English by Zürcher. His students Nicolas Standaert and Ad Dudink, as well as historians of Chinese science, have closely scrutinized Sino-Western sources of the late Ming and early Qing periods, and in recent years, several Chinese scholars have probed the same texts and subjects, focusing on intellectual and scientific linkages. For further bibliography on recent trends in the field of Chinese-Western relations (1500–1800) in Western languages and Chinese, see A. Dudink and N. Standaert (eds), Chinese Christian Texts Database, https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/sinologie/english/cct; Center for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society, Shanghai University (ed.), Hanyu Jidujiao yanjiu wan 汉语基督教研究网 Chinese Christian Studies, http://www.chinesecs.cn/, [both sites accessed 12 September 2019].
22 See Menegon, E., ‘Wanted: An Eighteenth-Century Chinese Catholic Priest in China, Italy, India, and Southeast Asia’. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 15.4, 2010, pp. 502–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 See Menegon, Ancestors, Virgins, and Friars; Menegon, E., ‘Yongzheng's Conundrum. The Emperor on Christianity, Religions, and Heterodoxy/Der Rätselhafte Yongzheng. Der Kaiser über Christentum, Religionen und Heterodoxie’, in Rooted in Hope/In der Hoffnung Verwurzelt. Festschrift in Honor of Roman Malek S.V.D. on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday/Festschrift für Roman Malek S.V.D. zu Seinem 65. Geburtstag, Hoster, B., Kuhlmann, D. and Wesolowski, Z. (eds), Routledge—Monumenta Serica Institute, London, 2017, pp. 311–35, 430Google Scholar.
24 Meinardi, S., Epistolario. Parte prima. Lettere originali inviate a Torino, Edizioni ‘Vinculum’, Roma, 1964Google Scholar: letter LXI, 26 July 1763, p. 87; cf. also similar language in ibid., letter LXX, 29 September 1765, p. 96: ‘the life I lead is ridiculous, I seem like an actor who changes his role at every scene’.
25 Ibid., letter XVIII, 1 November 1741, p. 24.
26 Evelyn Rawski refers to rare cracks in the Qing institutional record as ‘hidden transcripts’ and ‘narratives of resistance’ by palace servants, in reference to the classic by Scott, J., Domination and the Arts of Resistance, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990Google Scholar. Scott observes that most forms of domination require display and public theatre to be effective, but also that ‘each form of rule will have not only its characteristic stage setting but also its characteristic dirty linen’ (ibid., p. 12). This ‘dirty’ linen is often difficult to recover, as the public transcripts of power (institutional histories, legal documents, celebratory art) fill the records, and alternative narratives are obscured or lost; cf. Rawski, E., The Last Emperors. A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998, Chapter 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Palace servants’, pp. 160–78.
27 This vignette summarizes some of my research which appears in two separate but overlapping articles: E. Menegon [Mei Oujin 梅欧金], ‘Shei zai liyong shei? Qingdai Beijing de Ouzhouren, zhuiqiu yule he zhengzhixing kuizeng 谁在利用谁？ 清代北京的欧洲人、追求逸乐和政治性馈赠’ (Who Was Using Whom? Europeans, Leisurely Pursuits, and the Politics of Gift-Giving in Qing Beijing). 法国汉学 Faguo Hanxue, Sinologie française, 2016, pp. 117–39; and E. Menegon, ‘Quid pro quo. Europeans, Leisure, and their “Skill Capital” in Qing Beijing’, in Testing the Margins of Leisure, R. Wagner, C. Yeh, E. Menegon and R. Weller (eds), Heidelberg Studies on Transculturality, Heidelberg University Publishing, Heidelberg, forthcoming.
28 Quoted from Zhao Yi, Yanpu zaji 簷曝雜記 (Notes from the Sunny Awning), ce 29, juan 2, 15a–b in Zhao Yi, Oubei quanji 甌北全集 (Oubei Collected Works), Diannan Tang shi, n.p., 1877. The passage is also discussed in Bartlett, Beatrice, Monarchs and Ministers. The Grand Council in Mid-Ch'ing China, 1723–1820, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991, pp. 209–10Google Scholar; cf. also Pagani, Catherine, Eastern Magnificence and European Ingenuity: Clocks of Late Imperial China, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2001, p. 94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Fuheng was the most important Qing statesman (truly a ‘prime minister’) in the 1760s; for a biography, see Hummel, A. (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1943, pp. 251–52Google Scholar.
30 Meinardi, Epistolario, letter XVIII, 1 November 1741, p. 24.
31 The papal Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, best known as ‘Propaganda Fide’ or ‘Propaganda’), founded in 1622, was one of the dicasteries (that is, ministries) of the Holy See in Rome. It tried to direct all global missionary activities of the Catholic Church, often in conflict with the Portuguese and Spanish crowns over their ancient rights of missionary patronage in the colonies.
32 See Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, Richardson, J. (ed.), Greenwood Press, New York, 1986 (original edn, 1983), pp. 241–58 (pp. 247–48)Google Scholar.
33 Archivio Storico della Congregazione per l'Evangelizzazione dei Popoli o de Propaganda Fide (Historical Archives of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, or de Propaganda Fide), Vatican City (hereafter APF), section Procura Cina, box 15, letter of Sigismondo to A. Miralta, 26 July 1749.
34 APF, Procura Cina, box 15, letter of Sigismondo to Emiliano Palladini, 21 September 1762, f. 1v.
35 APF, Scritture originali della Congregazione particolare dell'Indie Orientali e Cina (SOCP), vol. 52 (1760–63), ‘Note a’ conti dell'amministrazione della Procura della Sacra Congregazione di Propaganda Fide in Macao per l'anno 1762’, December 1762, f. 666v. Necin was the most powerful Manchu grand councillor until his fall from grace and execution in the wake of his defeat in the Jinchuan War, which propelled Fuheng to the highest position.
36 Ibid.
37 APF, Procura Cina, box 15, letter of Sigismondo to Procurator A. Miralta, [Haidian], no date [probably 21 September 1742], f. 2r–v.
38 I base my information on Wei's career on Chang Jianhua 常建华, ‘Yongzheng di daji taijian Wei Zhu yuanyin xin tan: Wei Zhu qi ren qi shi kao 雍正帝打击太监魏珠原因新探: 魏珠其人其事考’ (A New Discussion of the Reasons for the Yongzheng Emperor's Attacks on the Eunuch Wei Zhu: An Examination of Wei Zhu's Life and Deeds). Qingshi yanjiu 清史研究, vol. 3, August 2013, pp. 17–26; cf. also Ye, X., Ascendant Peace in the Four Seas: Drama and the Qing Imperial Court, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 2012Google Scholar, on Wei's role in court drama during the Kangxi period. On Qing eunuchs and their insubordination in general, see (in English) M. Dale, ‘With the Cut of a Knife: A Social History of Eunuchs during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) and Republican Periods (1912–1949)’, PhD thesis, Georgetown University, 2000, p. 26; Kutcher, N., ‘Unspoken Collusions. The Empowerment of Yuanming Yuan Eunuchs in the Qianlong Period’. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 70.2, 2010, pp. 449–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 The Ruyiguan (Hall of Fulfilled Desire) compound was the seat of the imperial workshops at the Yuanmingyuan 圓明園 (Garden of Perfect Brightness), the sprawling suburban palace and park preferred by Qianlong as his main residence outside Beijing. This entry comes from the Registers of the Imperial Household Bureau (Neiwufu huoji dang 內務府活計檔), and is published in Zhongguo di yi lishi dang'anguan 中國第一歷史檔案館 (ed.), Qing zhong qianqi Xiyang Tianzhujiao zai Hua huodong dang'an shiliao 清中前期西洋天主教在華活動檔案史料 (Historical Materials on Catholic Activities in China in the Early to Mid-Qing), 4 vols, Zhonghua shuju, Beijing, 2003, Vol. 4, doc. no. 448, p. 362; dated Qianlong 38.3.9 (31 March 1773).
40 APF, Procura Cina, box 17, letter of Pruggmayr to Simonetti, Beijing, 27 November 1773, f. 1v. Pruggmayr offered this version of the imperial command: ‘Good news! The Cy [zhi 旨], or mandate of the Emperor is that they stay home, and that it is no longer necessary for them to come to the palace.’
41 Zhongguo di yi lishi dang'anguan, Qing zhong qianqi Xiyang Tianzhujiao, Vol. 4, doc. nos. 437–439, pp. 354–57.
42 APF, SOCP, vol. 60 (1775–76), letter of Damasceno to Propaganda Fide in Rome, Haidian, 13 August 1773, ff. 30r–v: ‘Fr. Arcangelo Maria and I have been fired from the service of the Emperor, and how this happened, which plots were hatched, and to whom this evil should be attributed, I do not deem necessary to write about [italics mine], nor would this be useful to us once people in Beijing were to know that I stirred up such unpleasant matter [with you]’; cf. ibid., letter of Arcangelo to Propaganda Fide in Rome, Beijing, 15 October 1773, ff. 96r–v: ‘… this was not the spontaneous will of the Emperor, but rather a plot by eunuchs and mandarins of that place, as I learned from a eunuch my friend. These people received gifts from the other Europeans at the palace [i.e. the Jesuits], [such as] tobacco, handkerchiefs etc. several times every year, would receive anything they asked for, and be adulated, unlike with us two, who would not give them gifts as they pretended, or only rather small ones.’
43 APF, SOCP, vol. 60 (1775–76), N. Simonetti, ‘Memorie per le missioni dell'Indie Orientali … per l'anno 1773’, Macao, 31 December 1773, ff. 124r–134r.
44 We read in Qianlong's edict at the time: ‘Li Wenzhao is a Neiwufu official. I have just been kind enough to appoint him to the Guangdong Customs Bureau and yet he dares to communicate with eunuchs and accept their requests. This is outrageous. Have Li dismissed, and have him come to the capital to be interrogated by the Neiwufu managers.’ On this case, see (in English) Torbert, P., The Ch'ing Imperial Household Department. A Study of its Organization and Principal Functions, 1662–1796, Council on East Asian Studies—Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1977, pp. 131–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
45 APF, Procura Cina, box 18, letter of Salusti to Palladini, Beijing, 17 September 1768, f. 1r.