How did the motivations described in the previous chapter translate into reality? In the early-modern period thousands of Jesuits served abroad as missionaries. Restricting our survey, we have basic information on the fifty-three Jesuit missionaries who travelled between Germany, Mexico, and China in the seventeenth century. Most joined the Society before they turned nineteen, and the youngest, Daniel Januske (1661–1724), was fifteen. Once admitted, they would wait on average another thirteen or fourteen years before being selected as a missionary. Of our fifty-three, at least eleven taught as professors. Ten died en route, but those who reached their stations would typically enjoy a tenure there of almost two decades. The most enduring, Joseph Neumann, arrived in Mexico in 1680 and died in 1732, fifty-two years later, at the age of eighty-four. He was already twenty-five when he joined the Society but had to wait only five years before being sent abroad. The single most impressive facet of these men's collective biography, however, is their global movements.

From Germany to China and Mexico

In the sixteenth century, the struggles against Protestantism within the Holy Roman Empire made Germany a net importer of missionaries. Canisius considered the entry of twenty Italians into the Society as momentous as gaining a single German.