FROIS (FROSS), LUÍS. - Jesuit, missionary and historiographer, b. in Beja (Portugal) in 1532, or more probably in 1528, d. at Nagasaki on 8 July 1597. Sent to India while still a novice, he completed his studies at the College of St. Paul in Goa; then he was sent to Japan, a first time in 1554, and then definitively in 1563. He worked a great deal on the island of Kyushu, in Miyako (Kyoto) and in the kingdom of Bungo, also accompanying the visitor Fr. A. Valignano on his visit to the various houses of the Order.
Besides important readings and reports on Japan and East Asia, widely circulated and fruitful in vocations in Europe, his fame is linked above all to his Historia do Japão, in three parts: general introduction, history of the years 1549-78: history of the years 1578-88. The work, considered lost from the outset, was rediscovered in 1804-95 in the Ajuda Library in Lisbon by Fr. G. M. Cros, who however extracted only a few excerpts from it; later the introduction and the history of the years 1549-78 was published in German translation by G. Schurhammer and A. Voressch, Die Geschichte Japans (1549-78) von p. L. F. nach der Handschrift des Ajudabibliothek in Lissabon übersetzt und kommentiert (Leipzig 1926). The last part (1578-89; in reality the author carried it down to 1593), not rediscovered, has been discovered more recently by Fr. D. Schilling, partly in the Colonial Archive of Lisbon and partly in the Paolo Sarda Library (cf. D. Schilling, Neue Funde zur »Historia do Japão« von p. L. F., in Zeitsch. für Missionärz. und Religionärz., 23 [1933], pp. 337-43); but it has not yet been published in full. Lastly, the Castilian text on the 26 Japanese martyrs was rediscovered by Fr. R. Galdos, with the author's autograph signature: L. F., Relación del martirio de los 26 cristianos crucificados en Nangasáquí el 5 de febrero de 1597 (Rome 1935).
The historical-critical value of the work is without equal, because the author, according to the information of the Order, «ad historiam aptus atque natus», uses first-hand documentation, minute and diligently studied; and moreover he was an eyewitness of many events.
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