The conversion of Hideyoshi's daughter gō

Abstract

Despite the drastic curtailment of missionary activity in Japan that resulted from Toyotomi Hideyoshi's ban on Christianity in 1587, letters of the Jesuit missionaries reveal that the ban did not prevent the conversion of one lady, Gō, a woman of the Maeda house and Hideyoshi's own adopted daughter. This study explores the circumstances of Gō's exposure to Christianity in Osaka both before and after the enforcement of the anti-Christian decree. It also traces her life story in Bizen and Kyoto, where she was converted to Christianity by a woman catechist. Gō's story is important not only for her association with Hideyoshi, but also as a case study for the religious communities and practices that formed among upper-class women in late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century Japan. © 2007 Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture.