This work is a collection of twelve essays, the product of a 2015 colloquium in Lisbon, organised by the Centre for the Study of Religious History (CEHR) of the Catholic University of Portugal, focusing on ‘Narratives of Suffering and Disappointment in the Early Modern Period: Giving Birth to New Martyrs’. The resulting volume aims to contribute to ‘the historical reconstruction of the subjective phenomena of grief, disappointment, suffering, and failure’ (p. 34), noting that ‘Trent's triumphalist attitude was subject to constant setbacks’ in the global expansion of Catholic missions from the sixteenth century (p.13). The essays consider ‘both how missionaries and devout Catholics gave meaning to these disconsolate experiences and the modes of expression reflecting unfulfilled expectations’ (p. 34).

The post-Tridentine Catholic perspective is represented principally by missionaries from the Society of Jesus, based on their private and public correspondence from the sixteenth through to the twentieth century. The coverage is broad, from case studies which trace the perspectives of individual missionaries (for example, Francisco Cabral in Japan or Paul Ragueneau in New France) to wider developments in martyrological thinking within the Society of Jesus, as well as institutional-cultural expression within Catholic centres (Golden Age Spanish Theatre to the ‘Jesuit Factory of Saints’ from eighteenth-century Italy onwards). Two of the twelve essays extend the scope to include two other religious orders and their experiences: the Clarisian nuns exiled from Ireland after the Cromwellian Conquest (Nere Jone Intxaustegi Jauregi) and the Capuchin mission to the Kongo (Robert Piętek).

As the guiding themes of the volume are suffering, failure, martyrdom – grief, disappointment, defeat and exile are also used interchangeably to frame discussion – contributions generally consider one or more of these. The approach taken is exploratory in aiming to provide ‘a comprehensive overview of the multiple forms of expression for the experiences of defeat and grief in post-Tridentine Catholicism’ (p. 13). The essays cover a representative range of the types of suffering included in missionary writings: missions that failed due to conflict, apathy or open hostility (among those considered are North America, the Mughal Empire and the Kongo), and the experience of exile, rejection or disappointment in vocation, disagreement about policy and the dissolution of the order.

One of the main strengths of the work is the focus on the Jesuit conception of martyrdom. A number of the essays explore its evolving application in the context of vocational and institutional developments in both the Old and New Society, from the establishment of the Society (Camilla Russell) to the experiences of suppression and restoration (Sabina Pavone, Eleonora Rai). There is also analysis of how martyrdom narratives were used by missionaries on the frontline: in North America they transformed a ‘double tragedy’ into ‘a victory for the Church Triumphant’ (John Steckley, p. 129). These discussions are complemented by the focus on emotions in missionary texts (Päivi Räisänen-Schröder, Elisa Frei, Jesse Sargent), deploying Barbara Rosenwein's concept of ‘emotional communities’. As with the application of martyrdom – which helped to explain adversity, created a sense of cohesion with the Society and served as foundational for collective memory (pp.15–21) – feelings of grief, disappointment and suffering are highlighted as ways of ‘forging interpersonal communion’ (p. 16).

The volume would have benefited from a structure which more closely reflected the title themes of martyrdom, suffering and failure, and the thematic scheme given in the introduction. Currently the order appears to be determined by a mix of religious order, chronology, geography and genre. An alternative might have been to frame the essays based on the type of suffering experienced (exile, for example, was a feature of multiple essays), contrasted perhaps with an answering theme from a theological, dramatic or emotional perspective. Equally, as many of the essays focused on either martyrdom or emotions, a cohesive division along these lines would have helped to focus the work's overall contribution.

The volume includes a wide-ranging discussion of many important themes, highlighting avenues for further fruitful research. The phrase ‘procured suffering’ (p. 23) is one concept used in the introduction that could be further elaborated. As noted in this volume, and others, there were tensions in the application of Christian traditions of suffering at both personal and institutional levels. Yet tradition has also been shown to be a source of rhetorical, cultural and institutional authority in times of adversity – in many ways encapsulated by the narrative of martyrdom but by no means restricted to it (see Linda Zampol D'Ortia's contribution). For example, a strong element of Leonardo Cohen's essay was the inclusion of biblical and patristic commentary in his analysis of the missionaries’ ceremonial ‘shaking the dust’ from their feet in Ethiopia, alongside sociological and anthropological approaches (pp. 206–9). A more consistent consideration of the biblical and patristic interpretative context would have done much to deepen any future analysis of the meaning of suffering, failure and martyrdom in early modern missionary writings.

Sabina Pavone describes her own contribution as an ‘open laboratory’ (p. 264). I think this is also an apt description of the volume itself, which provides a good bellwether for how the debates around Catholic missions are evolving. It also highlights the opportunity for future contributions to present a bold, overarching hypothesis. This would allow the global story of Catholic missions to move beyond a still often case-by-case treatment (albeit in the same volume) into one interconnected narrative. To this end, this volume ably makes the case that the application of the concept of martyrdom, the significance of suffering and the ways missionaries interpreted success and failure, warrants careful investigation.