Jacob the Dacian

Jacobus de Dacia, OFM (c. 1484; † October 29, 1566 in Michoacan, Mexico) was a Danish Franciscan monk who worked since 1542 as a missionary among the Purepecha in Mexico.

Origin

Jacobus de Dacia, who was also known as Jacob Johanson, Joannis Jacobus, Jacobus Gottorfius or Jacobo Daciano, was probably a son of the Danish King Hans and his wife Christina of Saxony and brother of the Danish king Christian II and the Brandenburg Electress Elisabeth Although it appears not in Danish chronicles, but in Oldenburgisch Chronicon of Hermann Hamelmann.

Jørgen Nybo Rasmussen cites several documents for the adoption of Jacobus ' descent. In this he includes in addition to the Mexican chronicles attested by the Emperor Charles V. high birth and the nickname Gottorfius, with the Jacobus after the expulsion from Denmark, wrote a few letters. He also refers to Jacobus ' exceptional education - he mastered addition to German and Danish also Hebrew, Greek and Latin - and emphasizes how much the queen was facing the Franciscans. They donated two Klarissenklöster and renewed the church of the Franciscan monastery from Odense with a magnificent altar of Lübeck carved by Claus Berg. The Franciscan monk pictured right next to the cross may represent her son represents the proximity to this monastery is also reflected in the fact that the 1521 late Queen was not buried in Roskilde Cathedral, but in the Knut Church in Odense. Also the name of the youngest son of the royal couple, Francis, points in the same direction. When he died in 1511 aged 14, he was buried in the Franciscan church of Odense.

Life

Franciscans during the Reformation

When and where Jacobus the Franciscan order, is not known. From the reign of Christian II nothing about him has survived. Christian II, who addressed himself from Luther in 1521, was deposed in 1523 and went into exile in the Netherlands. He was succeeded by his uncle Frederick. Although he promoted not active, the Reformation, however, tolerated their spread. Under his government Jacobus 1527 encountered as Joannis Jacobus, Vice - Guardian in Malmö. In its written by himself together with Erasmus Olav chronicle De expulsione fratrum minorum ( "On the expulsion of the Friars Minor " ) Jacobus tells of his disputation with leaders of the Lutheran party. The following years were marked by the confrontation with the Lutherans. 1529 were attacks against the Malmö monks. They were driven out of the church and monastery and fled to Lund. From Næstved from Jacobus defended the monasteries against the allegations of the Lutherans accusations of heresy until the Franciscans were expelled in 1532 there as well. In order to demonstrate the injustice suffered at the Reichstag in 1534, he wrote his chronicle, which he heavily emphasized the violent penetration of the Lutheran citizens in the monasteries against their reform proposals. The Reichstag, however, came in 1534 is not made because after the death of King Frederick the Count feud broke out between the followers of Christian II and Frederick's son Christian.

Following his victory in the Count feud adopted King Christian III. 1536 a Lutheran church order for Denmark. It all orders were banned in Denmark. The monks were only allowed to stay in the country when they deposited their habit and all the Catholic rites and sermons refrained. With many other displaced Franciscans took Jacobus inclusion in Mecklenburg, whose Duke Albrecht and his wife, James ' niece Anna of Brandenburg, who supported the Catholic side. There he was appointed in 1537 to the last provincial master of the Order of Dacia, which included not only Denmark and Sweden, Norway and southern Finland and the Franciscan Monastery Flensburg. From Schwerin convent, he organized the whereabouts of the designated monks, and the estate of the dissolved monasteries. 1538 he appointed Liitke name to his Commissioner and left a little later Mecklenburg unknown destination. He had signed with Jacobus Gottorfius, maybe a quiet protest against the dismissal and imprisonment of his brother Christian II, when his younger brother Duke in Gottorp he could have been if he had not become a monk. Several documents obtained from this time

Missionary in Mexico

It was not until 1542 Jacobus de Dacia reappears in the sources, in Seville as participating in a mission trip to New Spain. Since non- Spaniards to enter the colonies was not really allowed he received from Emperor Charles V, the brother of his brother, the deposed King Christian II, personally a letter of safe conduct to the Viceroy in which he him next to piety and education and a distinguished certified birth. Before his departure Jacobus learned Spanish and Arabic.

In Mexico, he first visited the Colegio de la Santa Cruz de Santiago Tlatelolco in Mexico City, a university founded in 1536 originally for the purpose of training native priests. But the native Christians already in 1540 was the access to the higher stages of blocks. 1546 gave the Franciscans at the Colegio, which then acted only as a language school for new arrivals from Spain.

Initially he learned Nahuatl, the main language of the Aztec empire, Jacobus came to pass in 1543 as a missionary in the province of Michoacán and quickly learned the Taras Kische language that was spoken by the Purepecha. He defended the inhabitants against the encomienda system, the Spanish colonists and founded villages in the vicinity of the monasteries, where the indigenous population was safe. When the first council of Lima in 1552 had banned the ordination of locals and they were also often excluded from the enjoyment of the sacraments of the Eucharist and Extreme Unction, Jacobus sat down, however, with two writings to defend. He even questioned whether the Indian Church was ever founded on the Holy Spirit when the local believers the sacraments were denied, but under pressure of his order, he had to renounce in 1553 and make penance. His writings are only delivered together with a counter signature of the provincial master Juan de Gaona in various church histories of Mexico from the 16th century.

In his last years, he served as head of the Custody of St. Peter and Paul for Michoacán and Jalisco, whose elevation to the province in 1565, he lived to see. Of the Purepecha he was venerated as a saint after his death.