page_title: François Noël (missionary)
section_title: In China
hierarchical_section_title: François Noël (missionary) / Life / In China
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte la plus generale et qui comprend la Chine, la Tartarie Chinoise, et le Thibet. Dressee sur les cartes particuliers des RR PP Jesuites, par le Sr. d'Anville..., qui ya joint le pays compris entre Kashgar et la mar Caspienne, tire des geographes et des historiens orientaux English: A most general map, including China, Chinese Tartary, and Tibet, based on individual maps of the Jesuit fathers. The map gives 1734 as the year, but the modern HKUST publishers say 1737 English: Entire map "D’Anville’s maps of China were based on a survey of the Chinese empire that was ordered by the emperor in 1708 and carried out by the Chinese, but under the supervision of Jesuit priests resident in China. The detail about the interior of China was far superior to any previous Western map or atlas. D’Anville’s work remained a standard Western source for the geography of China and adjacent regions until well into the 19th century, when it finally was superseded by more accurate maps." — (World Digital Library) 中文: 清廷于1708年组织在华法国传教士蒋友仁等进行大规模大地测量，以经纬为基础，测绘编成《皇兴全览图》。该图编成后，被视为珍秘，秘藏大内，而其资料宝已流入欧洲，法国皇家地理官唐维尔（D’anville）编辑，于1737年将皇兴全览图出版，经增补修订，改名《中国新地图集》即此书。故此书是康熙时中国大地测量后最早公开的成果，包括彩印总图两幅，分省图十五幅，边外二十五幅，计42幅。此书羊此装，纸张为带徽记的水印纸印刷。
context_page_description: François Noël was a Flemish Jesuit poet, dramatist, and missionary to the Qing Empire.
context_section_description: He wanted to join the Japan mission but by this point Christianity (and European visitors generally) had been banned within the Tokugawa shogunate for many years. He nonetheless traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, and left for East Asia in January 1684. His journey was funded by Maria, the duchess of Aveiro. He hoped to get passage to Japan on a Dutch East India Company mission, but in Malacca he was assured by "Belgian Catholics from our cities" that this was impossible. He debarked at Macao on 9 August 1685, where the return of some shipwrecked Japanese sailors caused him to hope that trade would be resumed; this was fruitless. He made his vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and the fourth vow of "special obedience" to the pope on February 2 the next year and, after a final failed attempt to reach Japan, finally formally joined the China mission by September 1687. He is sometimes numbered among the Figurists, the Jesuit missionaries who came to think that Christianity had been the ancient religion of China, brought there by Noah's son Shem.
  Noël learned rudimentary Chinese on Macao and traveled to the mainland in 1687. He traveled to Shanghai, then part of Jiangsu and—at nearby Xujiahui—the home of the family of the influential convert Xu Guangqi. After further training, he began his mission on nearby Chongming Island in early October 1688 and reported great success by August 1689: 120 baptized converts in Shanghai, 300 on Chongming, and 800 in regions dependent on Chongming. From there, he travelled to Huai'an and Nanjing in Jiangsu; Wuhe in Anhui; Nanchang, Ganzhou, Jianchang (now Fuzhou), and Nanfeng in Jiangxi; and Nan'an in Fujian. A 1703 report to the Jesuit General shows that Noël's work was primarily among the lower and working classes, especially to women and abandoned children, which left open the problem of how to pay for church construction and mission work without resorting to begging for alms in the manner of the Buddhist monks.
caption: China as known to the Jesuits c. 1735.
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