1549
Xavier Lands at Kagoshima
Francis Xavier stepped ashore at Kagoshima in southern Japan with two Jesuit companions and a converted Japanese guide named Anjiro. He preached through translation and admired, cautiously, the courtesy of his hosts. Within decades Japan would count hundreds of thousands of Christian converts. He considered the Japanese the most gifted unbelievers he had encountered, an assessment shaping Jesuit strategy in Asia for a century.
Book of Common Prayer Imposed
Thomas Cranmer's English-language Book of Common Prayer became mandatory in every parish church in England. The cadences of morning and evening prayer, the marriage service, and the burial rite would echo through English literature for four centuries, even as peasants in Devon and Cornwall rose in armed protest. Cranmer's sonorous prose shaped the English language as profoundly as Shakespeare, its cadences echoing in Anglican worship worldwide.
Portuguese Fort at Salvador Founded
The Portuguese crown founded the city of Salvador da Bahia as the capital of colonial Brazil, sending Tome de Sousa with a thousand settlers, soldiers, and Jesuits. It became the administrative heart of Portuguese America, a port built on sugar, slavery, and the labor of enslaved Africans and Tupi. Salvador's All Saints Bay provided a superb harbor, and the city became Portuguese America's administrative heart, built on sugar and slavery.
Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk
A Norfolk tanner named Robert Kett led a rising of commoners against enclosure of common pastures. Sixteen thousand protesters camped on Mousehold Heath outside Norwich for six weeks, governing themselves under an oak tree. The rebellion was crushed by German mercenaries, and Kett was hanged from Norwich Castle. The twenty-nine articles of demands reflected both economic grievance and Protestant reform ideas among East Anglian commoners.
Prayer Book Rebellion in Cornwall
Devon and Cornish commoners rose in protest at the imposition of the new English Book of Common Prayer, which they complained was like a Christmas game and did not match the Latin Mass they remembered. Government troops, with the help of German mercenaries, crushed the rebellion with considerable bloodshed. The rebels' complaint that the English service was unintelligible revealed the linguistic diversity the Reformation's vernacular emphasis exposed.