| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1993: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The Tokugawa shogun found himself at the apex of feudalland own-ership during early modern times. The daimyo's domains were en-feoffed by the shogun and the fief of a daimyo vassal was apportioned by the daimyo himself from among his domain. The daimyo was approved by the shogunate to hold such independent rights as punishing, administering and taxing within his domain. As for the daimyo's vassals or retainers, however, it has been a popular view that various rights once exercised over their fief had been reduced or skeletonized in the process of the formation and centralization of daimyo power and eventually became restricted to taxation.But some cases in which the retainers still held and exercised administrative and punishment rights have been reported. It should be examind why there existed groups of such retainers (whom I tentatively call ky-nin-ryoshu, or vassal-selineurs) and how they perceived their own enfeoffed land, especially in the process of the centralization of daimyo power and the reduction of the rights of the daimyo vasals as a result. The vassals'rights over the enfeofied land were certainly approved by the overlord and in a sense the use of them can be taken as an execution of proxy rule by the state. If so, the vassals should have dominated the fief as if they were feudal bureaucrats. But such domination ought to have been substantially the perquisite of the bailiffs (daikan) and county magistrates (koribugyo) who were administering the lord's demesne, and not of the enfeoffed vassals. Nevertheless, the enfeoffed or bestowed land and its society should be examined in terms of the vassals'views on agraian policy and the consciousness of the ruling group which serve as clues to decipher the characteristics of the upper level (daimyo) and lower level (kyunin) fiefs during the Tokugawa times in general.
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