Brother Jacob

This book is a fictional re-creation of the life of an actual Franciscan Renaissance monk, son of a Danish king, who studies in Paris, becomes a friar and administrator in Denmark, and flees to Mexico when the Reformation outlaws his order in northern Europe. Inspired by his contemporaries Erasmus and Thomas More, he builds hospitals and monasteries modeled on More's Utopia and becomes a radical champion of the Tarask Indians. Insisting on heartfelt goodness as opposed to formalistic piety, he strives to unite Franciscan Catholicism with Tarask tradition and mysticism and struggles with a final test of his faith.

In the foreword, the author describes how he came upon the archival material and came to write the book. As in his earlier novels, Strangerup shows himself to be a scrupulous scholar as he paints a vast panorama of Humanism and the Reformation as well as the religious and political strife in Europe and the New World.

This is a book for those interested in the history of ideas, indigenous-settler encounters as well as historical fiction of the early modern era.