Study of Kazarisho and Other Books on Garments and Accessories

2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24820053
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Japanese history
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: NAKAI Maki 早稲田大学, 国際教養学術院, 助手 (30631329)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-08-31 – 2014-03-31
• Keywords: 服装史 / 故実書 / 院政期文化

Research Abstract

In medieval Japan, many books on garments and accessories, including swords, harnesses, and carts, were written and compiled by courtiers as guides to the complicated proprieties of court life. While these works have been a rich resource for the study of clothing, research on the books themselves has not necessarily been extensive, leaving much room for investigation, starting from the search for better manuscripts, textual criticism, and the collation of quotes, to study of the authors' aims and motives. Based on this premise, this project undertook research on one of these works, Kazarisho by Minamoto Michikata (1189-1239).
With the support of the grant, I was able to examine different manuscript versions, collect related literature, and investigate the content of Kazarisho and other works. As a result, I could reconstruct the sequence of the passages likely to be closer to the original, correct transcriptions, and gain new insight into the character of these works.