Claude de Visdelou (12 August 1656 – 11 November 1737) was a French

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

missionary.

Life

De Visdelou was born at the Château de Bienassis, Erquy,

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period o ...

. He entered the

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on 5 September 1673, and was one of the missionaries sent to China by

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ve ...

in 1687. He acquired a wide knowledge of the Chinese language and literature. Other learned Jesuits considered that he gave too much credit to contemporary Chinese commentators, who had their own interpretations on the works of the ancient Chinese sages. When the

papal legate 300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the pope's legate. A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title '' legatus'') is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholi ...

Mgr. de Tournon came to China in 1705, chiefly to regulate the question of the Chinese Rites, Visdelou was the only Jesuit favourable to their prohibition. Tournon appointed him

Vicar Apostolic A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

of Kwei-chou with the title of bishop of Claudiopolis in Isauria, but his superiors opposed the nomination, since Visdelou had not received papal dispensation from his vow not to accept ecclesiastical dignity. With the missionaries who had submitted to the decree against the rites, Visdelou followed the legate to

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

, where he was secretly consecrated bishop, 2 February 1709. He then set out for

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

where he arrived, 25 June 1709; he remained there in great retirement in the house of the French

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until his death at

Works

Visdelou took with him over 500 volumes in Chinese and almost his sole occupation consisted in working on these. He sent to Rome several writings on the questions of the rites. The sinologist

James Legge James Legge (; 20 December 181529 November 1897) was a Scottish linguist, missionary, sinologist, and translator who was best known as an early translator of Classical Chinese texts into English. Legge served as a representative of the Londo ...

, says he "was in the habit of writing extravagantly about the Chinese and caricaturing their sentiments" ("Notions of the Chinese concerning God and the spirit", Hong Kong, 1852, 10). Some of his cited work deal with the history of the Tartars. He collected from Chinese historians unique documents on the peoples of Central Asia and

Eastern Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

Tatars The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

Mongols The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...

, and

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic o ...

. His researches on this subject were first published as supplement to Herbelot's ''Bibliothèque orientale'' (1779). However, they must have assisted

Joseph de Guignes __NOTOC__ Joseph de Guignes (19 October 1721 – 19 March 1800) was a French orientalist, sinologist and Turkologist born at Pontoise, the son of Jean Louis de Guignes and Françoise Vaillant. He died at Paris. He succeeded Étienne Fourmont at ...

in his history of the Huns, for the geographer Anville who had handled all Visdelou's valuable manuscript on the Tatars tells us that the author had sent them to the Academician

Jean-Roland Malet Jean-Roland Malet or Mallet (c. 1675 – 12 April 1736, Paris) was a French economic historian, author of the ''Comptes rendus de l'administration des finances du royaume'' (''Accounts of the financial administration of the kingdom''), which consti ...

, who died in 1736 (''Memoire de M. d'Anville sur la Chine'', 1776, 33).

Notes

*Norbert, ''Oraison funebre de N. de Visdelou, Jesuite, evêque de Claudiopolis, Vicaire Apostolique en Chine et aux Indes, etc. in Memoires historiques ... sur les missiones orientales'', III (Lucca, 1745), 343–460 *

Augustin de Backer Augustin de Backer (18 July 1809 in Antwerp, Belgium – 1 December 1873 in Liège, Belgium) was a Belgian Jesuit and renowned bibliographer. Early years and Formation De Backer left his country to be educated at the Jesuit schools of France ...

–

Carlos Sommervogel Carlos Sommervogel (8 January 1834 – 4 March 1902) was a French Jesuit scholar. He was author of the monumental ''Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus'', which served as one of the major references for the editors of the Catholic Encyclope ...

, ''Bibliothèque'', VIII, 838-43.

External links

Source
{{DEFAULTSORT:Visdelou, Claude de 1656 births 1737 deaths 17th-century French Jesuits Roman Catholic missionaries in China French Roman Catholic missionaries 18th-century French Jesuits People from Côtes-d'Armor Jesuit missionaries French expatriates in China