This study examines the dynamics of the Nguyễn dynasty’s policies toward Christianity during the early reign of Emperor Tự Đức, with particular attention to northern Vietnam (Tonkin). Drawing on extensive archival materials from the Paris Foreign Missions Society and the Đa· i Nam thực lu· c, the article highlights the presence of several conciliatory high officials—most notably Nguyễn Đăng Giai—who acted as intermediaries between the court and Christian communities. Their flexible attitudes, together with the pragmatic conduct of local officials and the extensive experience of veteran missionaries, helped sustain the fragile coexistence between Christians and non-Christians. The study further examines the emergence of chrétientés pures, settlements composed exclusively of Christians, promoted by Bishop Gauthier, and increasingly supported by believers themselves. While these settlements facilitated missionary activities and may also have contributed to limiting cholera transmission, they simultaneously reduced everyday contact between religious groups. This physical and social separation contributed to the erosion of long‑standing communal balance, which would later collapse in the mid‑nineteenth century amid anti‑French uprisings such as the Văn Thân Movement. This article argues that the multilayered coexistence characteristics of early modern Vietnamese village societies were gradually undermined, thereby paving the way for deeper religious and political fractures.
Motonori Makino (Wed,) studied this question.