Luis Frois

• Born: 1532
• Died: July 8, 1597 (=1597/5/24)
• Japanese: ルイス・フロイス (Ruisu Furoisu)
• Note that sometimes he is referred to as "Froez."

Luis Frois was born in Lisbon, Portugal, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1548. He went to India and served as a secretary, where his writing talent was recognized. He arrived in Japan in 1563 and studied Japanese language and customs in Takushima 度島 near Hirado, Kyushu. Early in 1565 he joined the Jesuits in Kyoto and for the next few years experienced the confusion of the times. In 1569, the year after Oda Nobunaga entered Kyoto, he met Nobunaga at the Nijô Castle construction site, the first of many audiences with him. In 1576 he left Kyoto and went to Bungo province. He spent most of the rest of his life in Kyushu.

In 1581 he accompanied the Visitor Alessandro Valignano to Kyoto and Azuchi, and even visited Echizen province. He made another visit in 1586 with Gaspar Coelho, and was in Macao 1592-95. He died in Nagasaki in 1597, a few months after the death of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan.

Frois was the author of many of the Jesuit annual reports and over a hundred long letters. Many of these were printed in Cartas in Europe in 1598 (translated into Japanese in Jesuit Reports and Letters). He also wrote an account of the death of the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan and a history of Japan from 1549, which was not published till the 20th century.

In English, They Came to Japan has many excerpts from his writings, and Murdoch quotes him (from Cartas) extensively.

References

• They Came to Japan
• 日本キリスト教歴史大事典 (Large Dictionary of Japanese Christian History)、教文館, 1988.