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Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre

1786 - 1823
French Missionary, Missions Etrangères de Paris (MEP)
Roman Catholic
Malaya and Singapore

Mathurin-Pierre Pécot was born in Louvaines, Maine-et-Loire, France, on September 20, 1786, just three years shy of the French Revolution.[1] Growing up during this time of political and social turmoil, churches, seminaries and schools, and various other religious and social institutions were closed as vast changes were happening in the country. However, by the time of Napoleonic rule from 1799, these institutions became functional again allowing for a teenage Pécot to pursue his calling towards the priesthood and join the seminary. On April 1, 1811 Pécot was ordained a priest at Angers, where he became a vicar at the Notre Dame parish. He remained there for three years until December 2, 1813 when he became parish priest of Faye where he resided for six years.[2] In December of 1819 he entered the MEP seminary, being called to foreign mission work, he left for Siam on March 20, 1820.[3]


Between his departure from France in 1820 to his arrival in Penang in November of 1821, Father Pécot found himself making several stops first in Calcutta, then in Bangkok, and then Macau.[4] In October of 1821 he set sail on the Angélique for Singapore and Malacca where he was hosted by a Father Daniel, a Dominican from Goa, after which he set course for Penang, arriving on November 13, of that same year after a long journey around Asia.[5] Beginning his mission work proper in Penang, Father Pécot was placed to work with Father Rectenwald, and while Pécot was enthusiastic about the work there was to be done, both Rectenwald and Pécot seem to have butted heads. Rectenwald finding Pécot to be brash and disruptive, although he admitted that he Pécot was quite popular and influential amongst the congregation, he seemed to be threatened by this, and Father Pécot in turn found that Father Rectenwald was already too old and sickly and past his prime in leading the mission in Penang.[6]


While Father Pécot did not spend too much time in Penang, his short time there was rather fruitful as he pushed forth an endeavour that the French missionaries had long held in mind since their first arrival in Penang.[7] This was to create a catechism in the local Malay language to be more accessible to the growing Catholic population in the country. While Pécot did not have a strong grasp of the language himself, he worked closely with a catechist Aloysius Bretaud who had a strong education and vast knowledge of the Faith from his studies at the Collège Général, and who was multilingual, being fluent in Malay, Siamese, Latin and had a working knowledge of French.[8] With Aloysius expertise at hand, Pecot set to work choosing the relevant texts, including hymns, daily prayers, and Bible readings to be translated from their original Latin, to add to the catechism.[9] After compiling these and translating them into the relevant Malay language, the manuscript was then sent to the MEP seminary in France for approval and printing, a task it seemed they could not get done locally in Malaya.[10] However, due to the long and arduous process of editing and gaining approval by the MEP superiors, Pécot would not get to see the texts published in his lifetime.[11] It would however contribute to larger works published in three volumes in the Malay language in Paris between the years of 1826 and 1828, one of which was entitled Kebaktian Sahari Harian dan Sembahiang Iang didjadikan deri Parochius Romanus.[12] What would become one of the greatest of his contributions to the mission in Malaya.


During this same time though it seems there were several conflicts going on in the fight for territory, between the Siamese, the English, the Portuguese, and the Chinese, to name a few, Father Pécot had much turmoil to work around in his goals for the mission work in Malaya.[13] With all this upheaval and with Father Rectenwald to contend with, Father Pécot felt that his efforts would be best suited somewhere else and in April 1822 he decided to set sail again for Bangkok much to the delight of Bishop Florens based in Bangkok, who believed Pécot’s education and zeal for the mission would be invaluable to growing the Catholic community there.[14] After spending sometime there, he travelled around different parts of Siam before he decided to make an expedition to Lior, where he found a severe lack of Christian practice.[15]


A little while later he got news of Father Rectenwald’s passing and after discussion with the bishop, it was decided Father Pecot should return to Penang to help with the mission there, although Bishop Florens himself was ailing, Pecot did not see himself taking over as Bishop.[16] Therefore in July of 1823 he set sail for Penang once again, but it had seemed that all that sailing and continuous travelling had caught up with Father Pécot, despite his youth, he seemed to have contracted some form of water-born disease and upon his return to Georgetown, he fell ill. Father Pécot passed away on July 21, 1823, and was buried in the Church of the Assumption, Penang.[17] Despite his short life and his short years of mission in Siam and Malaya, Father Pécot seemed to have left a lasting impression on all those who he had worked with and would later be remembered through the catechisms he helped contribute to.

Notes

  1. ^ The France-Asia Research Institute (IRFA), “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”,accessed January 25, 2024, https://irfa.paris/en/missionnaire/0337-pecot-mathurin/.
  2. ^ IRFA, “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”
  3. ^ IRFA, “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”
  4. ^ Anthony Reid and Helen Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula,1821–23”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 93, no. 317(2020): 167-192. https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2020.0029.
  5. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 170.
  6. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 170
  7. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 171
  8. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 171
  9. ^ Shanthini Pillai, Suziana Mat Saad, and Ng Lay Shi, “French Translocalities andAlternative Colonial Genealogies of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Malaya”,Asiatic, 16, no.2 (2022): 48.
  10. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 171
  11. ^ IRFA, “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”
  12. ^ IRFA, “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”
  13. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 170
  14. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 170
  15. ^ IRFA, “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”
  16. ^ Reid, and Reid, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”, 191
  17. ^ IRFA, “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”

S.A. Richard

The writer has a degree in history with a minor in archaeology from Monash University, and a masters in folklore and ethnology from University College Dublin. Her research interests lie in the fields of cultural, social and religious history, as well as in literary, folkloric and oral narrative traditions.

Bibliography

Pillai, Shanthini, Mat Saad, Suziana, and Ng Lay Shi, “French Translocalities and Alternative
Colonial Genealogies of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Malaya”, Asiatic, 16, no.2
(2022): 42-55.

Reid, Anthony and Reid, Helen, “The Voyages of Father Pécot in the Peninsula, 1821–23”,
Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 93, no. 317 (2020): 167-192.
https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2020.0029.

The France-Asia Research Institute (IRFA), “Pécot, Mathurin-Pierre – Biography”, accessed
January 25, 2024, https://irfa.paris/en/missionnaire/0337-pecot-mathurin/.