‘To the Honour of our Nation abroad’: the merchant as adventurer in civic pageantry

The conference will address the history of Japan and Britain in and around the year 1613. Both countries were undergoing massive cultural, religious and political transformations at the time, and it is instructive to look at their respective systems of restructuring and recreation in parallel and comparatively.

Moreover, Japan and Britain directly encountered each other for the first time in 1613, with arrival of the English East India Company, bearing letters and gifts from King James for the Shogun. The conference will therefore also address issues of encounter and communication.