十Christian Japan
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Enforcement of the Ban: How Japan Hunted Its Christians, 1587 to 1873

From Hideyoshi's edict of 1587 to the removal of the notice boards in 1873, the ban on Christianity was enforced through edicts, registers, tests, informers, prisons and inspectors.

17 pages

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  1. 1Terauke: The Temple Certificate SystemFrom the 1630s every household in Japan had to belong to a Buddhist temple that would certify in writing that…
  2. 2Fumi-e: The Picture UnderfootFor more than two centuries the people of Nagasaki began each new year by stepping on an image of Christ or…
  3. 3Inoue Masashige (1585 to 1661): The InquisitorThe shogun's chief inspector who from 1640 ran the Tokugawa hunt for Christians for nearly twenty years…
  4. 4Nationwide Ban and Expulsion, 1614On October 15, 1614, the Dominican friars of Nagasaki consumed the last of the Blessed Sacrament in their…

Short history

Hideyoshi's edict of 1587 ordered the foreign religious "under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days", while the Portuguese merchants could go on trading1. That edict only sent the missionaries away; the edict of 1614, written by the Zen monk Konchiin Sūden, outlawed Christianity as a whole23. Every lord was to send the religious in his lands to Nagasaki, and afterwards the churches were to be destroyed and the Christians made to renounce their faith4. In 1617 the lord of Ōmura built the Suzuta prison to hold missionaries arrested in his lands56.

The ban then became a routine of government. In 1628, under the magistrate Mizuno Morinobu, Nagasaki began making people tread on images of Christ and Mary7; at Urakami the treading began in 1641, at the house of the Takaya headmen8. Around 1633 the shogunate made the five-household groups general, and one of their stated purposes was the control of Christians910. Every family needed a certificate from its parish temple saying that its members were not Christians11. Of the prisoners hung in the pit in 1633, Cristóvão Ferreira alone recanted12. From 1640 Inoue Masashige held the inspection of religion13, and the inquisitor sought to force recantations rather than create more martyrs14. Notice boards promised silver to informers, 500 pieces for a priest in the version of 16821516. They came down only on February 24, 18731718.

01

The edicts

3 pages
EventHideyoshi's Expulsion Edict, 1587At Hakozaki on Tenshō 15.6.19 (July 24, 1587) Toyotomi Hideyoshi declared Japan "the land of the gods"…EventNationwide Ban and Expulsion, 1614On October 15, 1614, the Dominican friars of Nagasaki consumed the last of the Blessed Sacrament in…EventThe Expulsion of the Portuguese, 1639On the fifth day of the seventh month of Kan'ei 16 (August 4, 1639) the shogunate forbade the Portuguese…
02

Registers, tests and rewards

6 pages
ThemeTerauke: The Temple Certificate SystemFrom the 1630s every household in Japan had to belong to a Buddhist temple that would certify in writing…ThemeGoningumi (five-household groups)The goningumi, or five-household group, was the smallest unit of village and town government in the Edo…ThemeFumi-e: The Picture UnderfootFor more than two centuries the people of Nagasaki began each new year by stepping on an image of Christ…ObjectFumi-e: The Christ UnderfootFumi-e: The Christ Underfoot · Christian Japan. Christian Japan: the history, places and people of the…ThemeKōsatsu: The Notice Boards and the Price on a ChristianFor two and a half centuries, wooden notice boards at the roadsides of Japan promised silver to anyone…PlaceThe Takaya Headman's Estate: The Fumi-e Ground at UrakamiThe hilltop house of Urakami's village headmen, where the hidden Christians trod on the fumi-e every New…
03

Officers and prisons

5 pages
ThemeThe Nagasaki magistrate (bugyō)For almost three centuries the shogun's magistrate at Nagasaki ran the port, the trade and the hunt for…PlaceThe Kirishitan Yashiki, KoishikawaFrom 1646 a compound at Kohinata in Koishikawa, Edo, built on the residence of the inquisitor Inoue…LifeInoue Masashige (1585 to 1661): The InquisitorThe shogun's chief inspector who from 1640 ran the Tokugawa hunt for Christians for nearly twenty years…PlaceThe Suzuta Prison: The Cage at Ōmura, 1617 to 1622From 1617 to 1622 the lords of Ōmura held captured missionaries and their Japanese helpers at Suzuta…LifeSuetsugu Heizō: The Apostate Daikan of NagasakiSuetsugu Heizō was a Hakata-born Christian merchant who turned against Murayama Tōan, renounced the…
04

Apostates, the last missionary and the Dutch

3 pages
LifeCristóvão Ferreira (Sawano Chūan)The Portuguese Jesuit who led the hidden Church in Japan, broke in the pit in 1633, and spent seventeen…LifeGiovanni Battista SidottiA Sicilian priest who walked alone into a closed country in 1708, met its greatest scholar, Arai…ThemeThe Dutch and the Kirishitan banThe Protestant Dutch, who reached Japan in 1600 and traded from Hirado and then Dejima until 1855, were…
Sources

Footnotes

  1. 1 James Murdoch, A History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse (1542-1651) (Kobe, 1903), pp. 240 to 246. (from articles/expulsion-edict-1587, note 5)
  2. 2 Renata Cabral Bernabé, article in Bulletin of Portuguese/Japanese Studies, 2nd series, vol. 5 (2022), pp. 61 to 62 (Haikirishitan-bun compared with the 1587 edict; ban until 1873). (from articles/expulsion-edict-1614, note 3)
  3. 3 National Diet Library, Collaborative Reference Database, "金地院崇伝が起草した慶長１８年のキリシタン禁令が載っている文献を見たい" (lists 『大日本史料』12-13 pp. 189 to 191; 『日本思想大系』25 pp. 420 to 421; 『徳川禁令考』前集5 pp. 80 to 81; 『異国日記』 pp. 33 to 34). https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/entry/index.php?id=1000024962&page=ref_view (checked October 19, 2026) (from articles/expulsion-edict-1614, note 6)
  4. 4 Léon Pagès, Histoire de la religion chrétienne au Japon depuis 1598 jusqu'à 1651, part 1 (text) (Paris, 1869), pp. 252 to 256 (causes, edict, Kyoto, exiles, Cerqueira) and 274 to 281 (processions, embassy, departure, counts, Manila). Archive.org full text: histoiredelarel02paggoog. OCR text; quotations checked against the OCR only. (from articles/expulsion-edict-1614, note 1)
  5. 5 Profillet v1, p. 395 (from articles/suzuta-prison, note 1)
  6. 6 Wilberforce 1897, p. 53-54 (from articles/suzuta-prison, note 2)
  7. 7 Yasutaka Hiroaki and Uchijima Minako, "絵踏の展開と踏絵の図像: 貸借にみる踏絵観," Seinan Gakuin Daigaku Hakubutsukan kenkyū kiyō 4 (c.2016), pp. 25 to 30 and following, quoting Nagasaki kōsō and Kiyō gundan. (from articles/fumie, note 1)
  8. 8 Urakami Cathedral parish history, 「禁教時代（迫害と殉教）」, section 「悲しい絵踏行事」. https://uracathe.sakura.ne.jp/kinkyoujidai1.htm (read October 19, 2026) (from articles/takaya-estate, note 3)
  9. 9 Yamakawa Nihonshi shōjiten (revised), "五人組", via Kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%94%E4%BA%BA%E7%B5%84-65696 (from articles/goningumi, note 1)
  10. 10 Ōbunsha Nihonshi jiten (3rd ed.), "五人組", via Kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%BA%94%E4%BA%BA%E7%B5%84-65696 (from articles/goningumi, note 2)
  11. 11 James Harry Morris, "Anti-Kirishitan Surveillance in Early Modern Japan," Surveillance & Society 16(4) (2018), p. 410 (abstract: Christianity outlawed 1614 to 1873), pp. 414 (terauke from the 1630s; certificates from 1638; note 11 on 1635; shūmon aratame 1640), 417 to 420 (terauke seido section: apostates under Ieyasu; 1635 office; 1660 edict; registers; 1634, 1664 or 1665, 1671; the forged rules of c. 1735), 427 (Meiji: shrine registration in place of terauke; notice boards). (from articles/terauke, note 1)
  12. 12 Jennes 1959, p. 156 (from people/ferreira, note 10)
  13. 13 Kotobank, "井上政重": Nakamura Tadashi in Kaitei shinpan Sekai Daihyakka Jiten (Heibonsha); Hyakka Jiten Mypedia; Digital-ban Nihon Jinmei Daijiten+Plus (Kodansha). https://kotobank.jp/word/井上政重 (checked October 20, 2026) (from people/inoue-masashige, note 1)
  14. 14 Morris thesis, p. 154-156 (from people/inoue-masashige, note 16)
  15. 15 Wakayama Prefectural Archives (和歌山県立文書館), 「授業で使える和歌山の資料」, "キリシタン禁制：密告者には褒美を与える" (worksheet with transcription, modern Japanese rendering and commentary on the 1682 text in 大川浦文書Ⅰ no. 4, 「定（キリシタン邪宗門禁令）」). https://www.lib.wakayama-c.ed.jp/monjyo/archive/kyouiku/kirishitan/doc/sheet.pdf (checked October 19, 2026) (from articles/kosatsu-rewards, note 1)
  16. 16 山本秀煌 (Yamamoto Hidetaru), 『近世日本基督教史』 (Tokyo, 1922), pp. 50 to 53 (the reward boards; table of rewards 1638, 1654, 1680, 1682; full text of the Tenna board; the tachikaeri line added in 1682; Judas). NDL Digital Collections pid 963367, frames 49 to 50: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/963367/1/49 (internet public; checked October 19, 2026). Read from NDL OCR. Also printed in 『射水郡誌』 上 (1909), NDL pid 993769, frame 72 (Tenna 2.5 boards). (from articles/kosatsu-rewards, note 2)
  17. 17 Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Commentary Database, 「高札撤去：信仰が自由な時代へ」 (PDF, c. 2022; Iwakura embassy; Proclamation No. 68 of February 24, 1873; return order of March 14; 1,930 returned; figure: boards of 1868 removed in 1873, Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture). https://www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db/common/001553820.pdf (checked October 19, 2026 (from articles/kosatsu-rewards, note 6)
  18. 18 National Archives of Japan, 「日本のあゆみ」, "明治6年（1873）2月 キリスト教禁止の高札が撤廃される" (document 「布告三十日間掲示及従来ノ高札面除却」). https://www.archives.go.jp/ayumi/kobetsu/m06_1873_02.html (checked October 19, 2026) (from articles/kosatsu-rewards, note 7)

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