Hoang Phuc Nguyen

Presentation

My doctoral research focuses on the study of an unpublished corpus of Latin manuscripts from the Modern Era relating to Vietnam, which are preserved in the archives of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP), the Roman archives of the Society of Jesus (ARSI), and the historical archives of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide.  Among these Neo-Latin sources are letters written by Vietnamese Catholics, which have never been studied before, offering to this collection of major scientific interest.

The study of this corpus enables the establishment of a social history of Catholic communities in Cochinchina (the southern part of Vietnam, a principality governed since 1558 by the Nguyễn lords) during the Episcopate of François Pérez (1689-1728), the third Apostolic Vicar appointed by Rome in this country. More specifically, this documentation highlights the role of indigenous priests and faithful, as well as the complex relationships they forged with European missionaries.

This project combines a rigorous historical methodology with philology, Latin palaeography, and codicology, in order to go beyond a purely missionary perspective and, in so doing, contribute to the renewal of the historiography of Vietnam in the Modern Era.

Research thematics

• History
• Philology and Latine Palaeography
• Vietnamese Catholicism

CRCAO research programmes

• East Asia Through the Sources of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (17th–21st Centuries)
• Vietnamese Epigraphy