A Record Book of Various Events

Manuscript Borg.tonch.3, “Sách Sổ sang chép các việc” (A Book of Records), is the notebook and memoir of Father Philiphê do Rosario Nguyễn Văn Bỉnh, CO. It is written throughout in Vietnamese in chữ Quốc ngữ and was completed in 1822 in Lisbon, Portugal. It is made up of many separate pieces, set down to record Father Bỉnh's recollections of the Jesuit mission in Đàng Ngoài, the Garasa schism, and the Napoleonic wars in Europe. It runs to 627 pages in three main parts. The first concerns the Jesuit mission in the late eighteenth century: the suppression of the Society by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the arrival of the Society's last missionaries in Annam that same year, Father Bỉnh's studies under Father Alessandro “Luis” Castiglioni, disputes between the Jesuits and the Dominicans over parishes and their congregations, Father Bỉnh's ordination in 1793, the Society's restoration at the petition of the crowned heads of Europe, and the dispersal of its missionaries afterwards. The second part concerns Father Bỉnh's own life and that of his companions during the schism: the delegation's early search for passage to Portugal, his excommunication for acting against the will of the local bishop, his rebuttal of the charges of schism, an account book of the delegation's debts and purchases, and the deaths of its members one by one from illness. The third part gathers miscellaneous matters of the faith: accounts of miracles, the state of the Church during Napoleon's campaigns, stories from scripture, and descriptions of foreign countries and of European habits of dress and diet. This manuscript offers scholars of Vietnamese studies further material on the recollections of Father Philiphê do Rosario Nguyễn Văn Bỉnh, a chữ Quốc ngữ author of exceptional importance in Vietnamese history.