St. Simeon Berneux
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Korea's Catholic Martyrs List of those canonized or beatified
Chronology of the records of the early martyrs and their 1925 Beatification (English version of a Korean text) |
St. Antoine Daveluy
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The letters and reports on the Korean martyrs by St. Andrew Kim Dae-geon The Latin (or French) originals of his letters can be viewed here (there may be a few small errors) : A series of texts in French and Latin about the life and death of Fr. Kim used for his beatification |
Saint Andrew Kim Dae-geon and the Venerable Thomas Choe Yang-eop The first two Korean priests, St. Andrew Kim Dae-geon and the Venerable Thomas Choe Yang-eop, studied together in Macao before entering Korea as priests. Kim Dae-geon was executed in 1846, a year after returning to Korea. Thomas Choe entered several years later and served as priest for some 10 years before dying of exhaustion in 1860. Both wrote about 20 letters in Latin to the French priests who had educated them. English translations of both sets of letters have been made by Brothers Anthony and Han-Yol. The letters of Saint Andrew Kim Dae-geon were published in 2021. Those of Thomas Choe were published late in 2022. These books are currently out of print |
The letters written by Thomas Choe Yang-eop The Latin originals of his letters can be viewed here (there may be a few small errors) : |
The The “Documents of Mgr Daveluy” in the Archive of the IRFA in Paris consist of copies mainly made in 1887 of originals now lost, bound in eight volumes. Volume 1: texts written before ordination Volume 2: texts written after ordination Volume 3: Notes for the introduction to the History of Korea Volume 4: Notes for the History of the Martyrs of Korea Volume 5: Notices of the Principal Martyrs of Korea Volume 6: Letters to the MEP Volume 7: Letters to his family before 1846 a Volume 8: Letters to his family from Korea |
Saint
Marie-Nicolas Antoine Daveluy, Bishop
(1818-1866)
Born on March 16, 1818 in Amiens, Antoine Daveluy was ordained on December 18, 1841. After 20 months as vicaire in the parish of Roye, he entered the Society of Foreign Missions in Paris. Sent to Macao, he met Bishop Ferréol, third Apostolic Vicar of Korea, who asked him to accompany him in his mission. He accepted and went to Shanghai where he attended the ordination of Father Andrew Kim Dae-geon, the first Korean priest. On August 31, 1845, accompanied by his bishop and the new priest, he left Shanghai and after a long and perilous crossing, on October 12, all three arrived clandestinely in Korea. In 1856 he was appointed coadjutor to newly arrived Bishop Berneux, with right of succession, and consecrated bishop in Seoul on March 25, 1857. From 1856 he had set himself to the arduous task of collecting documentation concerning the culture, history, administration, geography, the history of the Church in Korea and the deeds of its many martyrs. Copies of the documents, which he had translated into French, were sent in 1858-1862 to Paris to the seminary of the Foreign Missions Society. They served as the main source for the "History of the Church of Korea" by Claude Charles Dallet published in 1874. Soon after these documents had been sent to Paris, a fire in Seoul destroyed all the original documents in the house of Mgr. Daveluy. He was arrested on March 11, 1866 and beheaded on the 30th of the same month at Solmoi on the West Coast of Korea with two other priests. He was 48 years old and had worked for 21 years in Korea. He was canonized on May 6 1984 in Seoul with the 102 other Korean martyrs. |
Daveluy's Archive Volume 4: Notes for the History of the Martyrs of Korea, (from the beginning until1830 and 1839-1840) was the main source for the earlier part of Dallet's History. The account based on it ends with the end of Chapter 1 of Dallet's Volume 2 Book 3. Daveluy says that his source for information about the early years around 1784 are notes written by Jeong Yak-yong aka Dasan. These notes have not been preserved. |
Histoire de
l’Église de Corée [History of the Korean (Catholic)
Church] Precedée d’une Introduction Sur l’histoire, les institutions, la langue, les mœurs et coutumes coréennes Avec Carte et Planches Par Charles Dallet Missionnaire apostolique de la Société des Missions-étrangères Paris Librairie Victor Palmé, Éditeur Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Germain, 25 1874 French Texts of Dallet's book Dallet's original French text, which is entirely based on materials sent to Paris by the French missionaries in Korea, has never been re-edited or annotated in French, never been published in English. In particular the romanizations of Korean names (of places, persons, institutions) provided by the missionaries are extremely opaque and hard to recognize. For French texts of the Introduction to Korea see the links at the foot of this page. Tome Premier Tome Second These Internet Archive links give the possibility of viewing the scanned originals as well as an uncorrected (poor) OCR and other viewing possibilities Volume 1 (including the General Introduction) Volume 2 in Wikisource offers an almost perfect corrected OCR text of both volumes, each in a single file, including all Dallet's footnotes Also available from Wikisource is a page-by-page parallel text, with a corrected transcript facing the image of the original page, Volume 1 (including the general Introduction) Volume 2. |
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Claude Charles Dallet was born on October 18, 1829 in the parish of Saint-Mammès, in Langres, Haute-Marne. A student at the minor and major seminaries of his native town, he entered the Foreign Missions seminary on October 5, 1850. He composed the Song for the departure of the missionaries, for which Gounod wrote the music and which was sung for the first time on April 29, 1852. Claude Dallet received the priesthood on June 5 and left on August 20, 1852 for Mysore. First he was curate in Blackpally, one of the parishes of Bangalore, and in 1857 he was put in charge of the district of Mysore. In 1859, he published the "Controversial Catechism", in order to combat the Protestant doctrines. A few months later, suffering from epilepsy, he returned to France and took advantage of his stay in Paris to work at the Imprimerie Nationale on the engraving and casting of Telugu and Kannada characters. When he learns of the martyrdom of his friend, Théophane Vénard, he composes the Cantique pour l'anniversaire de nos Martyrs, which he dedicates to him and whose music is also by Gounod. In 1863, he returned to Mysore, fell ill again, and returned to France in November 1867. There he worked to edit and complete Bishop Daveluy's Notes. In 1871, he undertook a trip to the two Americas, fund-raising for the Paris Seminary. Once back in France, he completed and published the result of his work, under the title: "History of the Church of Korea". He then conceived the idea of writing the History of the Society and in order to complete the documents gathered in the archives of the Seminary, he undertook to visit the missions. He left in February 1877, went to Japan and Manchuria, stayed in Peking, stayed for some time in Cochinchina and went to Tonkin. He died of dysentery on April 25, 1878 in Ke-so (West Tonkin), where he was buried. (French original) |
I. Géographie physique de la Corée. — Sol. — Climat. — Productions. — Population.
II Histoire de la Corée. — Son état de vasselage vis-à-vis de la Chine. — Origine des divers partis politiques.
III. Rois. — Princes du sang. — Eunuques du palais. — Funérailles royales.
IV Gouvernement, — Organisation civile et militaire.
V. Tribunaux. — Prétoriens et satellites. — Prisons. — Supplices.
VI. Examens publics. — Grades et dignités. — Ecoles spéciales.
VII. La langue coréenne.
VIII État social. — Différentes classes. — Noblesse. — Peuple. — Esclaves.
IX Condition des femmes. — Mariage.
X. Famille. — Adoption. — Liens de parenlé. — Deuil légal.
XI Religion. — Culte des ancêtres. — Bonzes. — Superstitions populaires.
XII Caractère des Coréens : leurs qualités morales, leurs défauts, leurs habitudes.
XIII Jeux. — Comédies, — Fêtes du nouvel an. — Le Hoan-kap.
XIV Logements. — Habillements. — Coutumes diverses.
XV Sciences. — Industrie. — Commerce. — Relations internationales