The Accounting of Jesuit Missions in China: Fighting over French Financial Assets in Beijing, 1773–1782

This article examines the sources for reconstructing Jesuit finances in China. While there are a multitude of anecdotal references in Jesuit letters and reports, only four in-depth accounting documents have survived. One of those four documents is “Les Biens de la Maison Française de Pékin en 1776–1778.” After 1773, both ecclesiastical and state agents took an interest in the Jesuit possessions. While multiple rulers had provided the funding to start up these missions, the fact that their keepers were no longer able to secure these substantial possessions explains why the account books and further documentation were painstakingly tracked down. When compared to other accounting sources, “Les Biens de la Maison Française” indicates that the local investments and revenue from these properties were the most important sources of income by the end of the eighteenth century. In combination with references to these properties in Jesuit letters, this particular set of accounting sources illustrates a central trend in Jesuit finances in the China missions: They became an increasingly regional and local affair after the Jesuits failed to secure sustainable global funding, transported from Europe to Asia along ever-changing, yet continuously insecure, networks.