Community And Commerce In Late Medieval Japan

Author : Hitomi Tonomura
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1992-01-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780804766142

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Community and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan by Hitomi Tonomura Pdf

Late medieval Japan witnessed a growth in the power of the commoner, as seen in the spread of corporate villages (so) marked by collective ownership and administration and other self-governing features. This study of a community of so villages in central Japan from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries reconstructs the life of these villages by analyzing the rich and abundant communal records largely written by the villagers themselves and carefully preserved in the local shrine. The author show how these villagers founded and operated a shrine-centered organization that brought coherence, order, and prestige to the community at the same time it formalized the differences among the residents along gender and class lines. The Tokuchin-ho so was a governmental, social, and religious institution that facilitated the movement toward localism, but, the author argues, its growing collective power and organization also benefited its local proprietor, the great monastic complex of Enryakuji. Political and economic resources flowed vertically between the client-village and the patron-proprietor as they collaborated to secure internal peace and wide-reaching commercial interests. The book traces the transformation of the so as late medieval decentralization gave way to politically unified early modern society, with its enforced transfer of merchants from villages to towns, confiscation of shrine land, and the relinquishment of the so's political authority. Despite these efforts, as a powerful organization experienced in promoting communal order, the so was able to maintain its medieval legacy of self-determination, substantially preempting bureaucratic intervention in local governance. The local records allow the author to study the so from the villagers' perspective, and she presents new information on the position of women in rural communities, the local mode of economic surplus accumulation, the detailed social and economic functions of a shrine, and the reaction to nationwide cadastral surveys. The book is illustrated with 21 halftones.

Author : Hitomi Tonomura
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1989
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:551888946

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Community and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan by Hitomi Tonomura Pdf

Author : Ethan Issac Segal
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2020-03-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781684175079

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Coins, Trade, and the State by Ethan Issac Segal Pdf

Framed by the decline of the Heian aristocracy in the late 1100s and the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate in the early 1600s, Japan’s medieval era was a chaotic period of diffuse political power and frequent military strife. This instability prevented central authorities from regulating trade, issuing currency, enforcing contracts, or guaranteeing property rights. But the lack of a strong central government did not inhibit economic growth. Rather, it created opportunities for a wider spectrum of society to participate in trade, markets, and monetization. Peripheral elites—including merchants, warriors, rural estate managers, and religious leaders—devised new ways to circumvent older forms of exchange by importing Chinese currency, trading in local markets, and building an effective system of long-distance money remittance. Over time, the central government recognized the futility of trying to stifle these developments, and by the sixteenth century it asserted greater control over monetary matters throughout the realm. Drawing upon diaries, tax ledgers, temple records, and government decrees, Ethan Isaac Segal chronicles how the circulation of copper currency and the expansion of trade led to the start of a market-centered economy and laid the groundwork for Japan’s transformation into an early modern society.

Author : Suzanne Gay
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2001-09-30
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780824864880

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The Moneylenders of Late Medieval Kyoto by Suzanne Gay Pdf

The Moneylenders of Late Medieval Kyoto examines the large community of sake brewer-moneylenders in Japan's capital city, focusing on their rise to prominence from the mid-1300s to 1550. Their guild tie to overlords, notably the great monastery Enryakuji, was forged early in the medieval period, giving them a protected monopoly and allowing them to flourish. Demand for credit was strong in medieval Kyoto, and brewers profitably recirculated capital for loans. As the medieval period progressed, the brewer-lenders came into their own. While maintaining overlord ties, they engaged in activities that brought them into close contact with every segment of Kyoto's population. The more socially prominent brewers served as tax agents for religious institutions, the shogunate, and the imperial court, and were actively involved in a range of cultural pursuits including tea and linked verse. Although the merchants themselves left only the faintest record, Suzanne Gay has fully and convincingly depicted this important group of medieval commoners.

Author : Suzanne Marie Gay
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 082482461X

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The Moneylenders of Late Medieval Kyoto by Suzanne Marie Gay Pdf

Annotation. The Moneylenders of Late Medieval Kyoto examines the large community of sake brewer -- moneylenders in Japan's capital city, focusing on their rise to prominence from the mid-1300s to 1550. Their guild tie to overlords, notably the great monastery Enryakuji, was forged early in the medieval period, giving them a protected monopoly and allowing them to flourish. Demand for credit was strong in medieval Kyoto, and brewers profitably recirculated capital for loans.As the medieval period progressed, the brewer-lenders came into their own. While maintaining overlord ties, they engaged in activities that brought them into close contact with every segment of Kyoto's population. The more socially prominent brewers served as tax agents for religious institutions, the shogunate, and the imperial court, and were actively involved in a range of cultural pursuits including tea and linked verse.Although the merchants themselves left only the faintest record, Suzanne Gay has fully and convincingly depicted this important group of medieval commoners.

Author : Peter D. Shapinsky
Publisher : Michigan Monograph Series in J
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 9781929280810

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Lords of the Sea by Peter D. Shapinsky Pdf

"Lords of the Sea revises our understanding of the epochal political, economic, and cultural transformations of Japan's late medieval period (1300-1600) by shifting the conventional land-based analytical framework to one centered on the perspectives of seafarers usually dismissed as 'pirates'"--Provided by publisher.

Author : Judith Fröhlich
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2007
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 3039111949

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Rulers, Peasants and the Use of the Written Word in Medieval Japan by Judith Fröhlich Pdf

This book provides new insights into the creation and use of written texts in medieval Japan. Drawing upon lawsuits from Ategawa no shō in central Japan between the early eleventh and early fourteenth centuries, the author analyses the use of writing by various social groups - temple priests, warriors and peasants. Though these social groups had different levels of literacy and accordingly followed different communicative traditions, their use of writing had common features. In the semi-literate society of medieval Japan the dissemination and reception of written texts took place primarily through speaking and hearing. Documents of the medieval period therefore had a distinctly oral characteristic. Priests, warriors and peasants all alluded to motifs in their legal pleas that were in essence given by the oral world of tales, legends and gossip. By showing that literacy was not in conflict but interacted with orality, the author uncovers an important aspect of the use of the written word in medieval Japan.

Author : Karl F. Friday
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 433 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351692021

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Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History by Karl F. Friday Pdf

Scholarship on premodern Japan has grown spectacularly over the past four decades, in terms of both sophistication and volume. A new approach has developed, marked by a higher reliance on primary documents, a shift away from the history of elites to broader explorations of social structures, and a re-examination of many key assumptions. As a result, the picture of the early Japanese past now taught by specialists differs radically from the one that was current in the mid-twentieth century. This handbook offers a comprehensive historiographical review of Japanese history up until the 1500s. Featuring chapters by leading historians and covering the early Jōmon, Yayoi, Kofun, Nara, and Heian eras, as well as the later medieval periods, each section provides a foundational grasp of the major themes in premodern Japan. The sections will include: Geography and the environment Political events and institutions Society and culture Economy and technology The Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History is an essential reference work for students and scholars of Japanese, Asian, and World History.

Author : Morten Oxenboell
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2018-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9780824872649

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Akutō and Rural Conflict in Medieval Japan by Morten Oxenboell Pdf

This volume offers the first in-depth analysis in English of an understudied phenomenon in medieval Japanese history: the so-called akutō (literally, “evil bands”). Employing chronicles, laws, and legal documents from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as recent Japanese scholarship, Morten Oxenboell examines the significance of akutō in legal proceedings to provide a nuanced understanding of how rural communities organized for and engaged in violent conflicts. He deconstructs the image of akutō as instigators of violence by underlining the significance of the term as a rhetorical device used by litigants to voice their grievances in Kamakura legal proceedings. The many instances in which akutō appear offer a clear example of the ways in which the new legal vocabulary concealed realities behind rhetorical flourishes and narratives of violence and predation. Violence was certainly a part of the negotiation for rights and privileges in the estate system, and Oxenboell demonstrates how conflicts developed and were untangled by local actors, who were rarely given a voice in sources from this period. By peeling away the rhetoric, he presents us a unique view of rural populations organizing their communities in the face of violence, whether as victims of outside aggression or as aggressors themselves against landlords or neighbors. The book therefore goes beyond the usual focus on elites in medieval Japanese history by concentrating on local mobilization schemes and strategies, which were often framed and defamed by central elites. Rural residents, who could not rely on the authorities for protection, handled their own security concerns via complex social mechanisms that tied together locals and absentee landlords in an uneasy relationship of mutual dependency. By examining the fissures in this relationship—in the form of akutō complaints—Oxenboell shows that violent activism was part of the daily management of estates and that such conflicts do not indicate an absence of order but rather a system of checks and balances that helped create a vibrant society.

Author : Conrad Totman
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 722 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2014-09-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781119022336

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A History of Japan by Conrad Totman Pdf

This is an updated edition of Conrad Totman's authoritative history of Japan from c.8000 BC to the present day. The first edition was widely praised for combining sophistication and accessibility. Covers a wide range of subjects, including geology, climate, agriculture, government and politics, culture, literature, media, foreign relations, imperialism, and industrialism. Updated to include an epilogue on Japan today and tomorrow. Now includes more on women in history and more on international relations. Bibliographical listings have been updated and enlarged. Part of The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.

Author : Jeffrey P. Mass
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Page : 556 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN : 0804743797

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The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World by Jeffrey P. Mass Pdf

This pioneering collection of 15 essays argues that Japan's medieval age began in the 14th century rather than the 12th, and marks the beginning of a fundamentally new debate about how Japan's lengthy classical period finally ended.

Author : Baohui Zhan
Publisher : Hong Kong University Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2015-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9789888208395

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Revolutions as Organizational Change by Baohui Zhan Pdf

By comparing peasant revolutions in Hunan and Jiangxi between 1926 and 1934, Revolutions as Organizational Change offers a new organizational perspective on peasant revolutions. Utilizing newly available historical materials in the People’s Republic of China in the reform era, it challenges the established view that the great Chinese revolution of the twentieth century was a revolution “made” by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP). The book begins with a puzzle presented by the two peasant revolutions. While outside mobilization by the CCP was largely absent in Hunan, peasant revolutionary behaviors were spontaneous and radical. In Jiangxi, however, despite intense mobilization by the CCP, peasants remained passive and conservative. This study seeks to resolve the puzzle by examining the roles of communal cooperative institutions in the making of peasant revolutions. Historically, peasant communities in many parts of the world were regulated by powerful cooperative institutions to confront environmental challenges. This book argues that different communal organizational principles affect peasants’ perceptions of the legitimacy of their communal orders. Agrarian rebellions can be caused by peasants’ attempts to restructure unjust and illegitimate communal organizational orders, while legitimate communal organizational orders can powerfully constrain the mobilization by outside revolutionary agents such as the CCP. “In this thorough comparative account of the peasant risings in Hunan and Jiangxi and the role of the Communist Party, Professor Zhang casts new light on both the risings themselves, and what they can tell us about peasant risings in general. This work is strong in both theory and detailed historical research.” —Richard Rigby, professor, China Institute, Australian National University “Professor Zhang has beautifully crafted a comparative study of divergent peasant revolutions in two Chinese regions during Mao’s long revolutionary war. He brings to this task a broad and deep knowledge about revolutionary theory, and also a razor-like analytical sensibility, which enables him to examine the pros and cons of existing perspectives.” —Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley, associate professor of sociology, Georgetown University

Author : Karl F. Friday
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 498 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2018-04-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780429979163

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Japan Emerging by Karl F. Friday Pdf

Japan Emerging provides a comprehensive survey of Japan from prehistory to the nineteenth century. Incorporating the latest scholarship and methodology, leading authorities writing specifically for this volume outline and explore the main developments in Japanese life through ancient, classical, medieval, and early modern periods. Instead of relying solely on lists of dates and prominent names, the authors focus on why and how Japanese political, social, economic, and intellectual life evolved. Each part begins with a timeline and a set of guiding questions and issues to help orient readers and enhance continuity. Engaging, thorough, and accessible, this is an essential text for all students and scholars of Japanese history.

Author : William Wayne Farris
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2006-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9780824841591

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Japan's Medieval Population by William Wayne Farris Pdf

This volume charts a course through never-before-surveyed historical territory: Japan’s medieval population, a topic so challenging that neither Japanese nor foreign scholars have investigated it in a comprehensive way. And yet, demography is an invaluable approach to the past because it provides a way—often the only way—to study the mass of people who did not belong to the political or religious elite. By synthesizing a vast cache of primary and secondary sources, William Wayne Farris constructs an important analysis of Japan’s population from 1150 to 1600 and considers social and economic developments that were life and death issues for ordinary Japanese. Impressive in his grasp of detail and the scope of his inquiry, Farris makes the argument that, although this age initially witnessed the continuation of a centuries-old demographic stasis, a far-reaching transformation began around 1280 and eventually gained momentum until it swept through the Japanese archipelago. Between 1280 and 1600, Japan’s population approximately trebled, growing from 6 million to 17 million. Crucial to the demographic breakthrough was the resolution of two central problems facing both the rulers and the ruled. The first was how to supply a burgeoning population with sufficient food; the second, how to keep the peace. Japan’s Medieval Population will be required reading for specialists in pre-modern Japanese history, who will appreciate it not only for its thought-provoking arguments, but also for its methodology and use of sources.

Author : Thomas Keirstead
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2014-07-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781400862719

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The Geography of Power in Medieval Japan by Thomas Keirstead Pdf

In this reevaluation of the estate system, which has long been recognized as the central economic institution of medieval Japan, Thomas Keirstead argues that estates, or shoen, constituted more than a type of landownership. Through an examination of rent rolls, land registers, maps, and other data describing individual estates he reveals a cultural framework, one that produced and shaped meaning for residents and proprietors. Keirstead's discussion of peasant uprisings shows that the system, however, did not define a stable, closed structure, but was built upon contested terrain. Drawing on the works of Foucault,de Certeau, and Geertz, among others,this book illuminates the presuppositions about space and society that underwrote estate holding. It traces how the system reordered the social and physical landscape, establishing identity for both rulers and subjects. Estate holders, seeking to counter the fluid movement of populations across estate boundaries, pressed into service a social distinction between "peasants" and "wanderers." Peasant rebels made use of the fiction that the estate comprised a natural community in order to resist proprietorial exactions. In these instances, Keirstead contends, the estate system reveals its governing logic: social and political divisions were articulated in spatial terms; power was exercised (and contested) through geography. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.