Land, power, and the sacred : the estate system in medieval Japan / edited by Janet R. Goodwin and Joan R. Piggott.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Goodwin, Janet R., 1939- editor.

Piggott, Joan R., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Manors--Japan--History--To 1500.

Manors.

Land tenure--Japan--History--To 1500.

Land tenure.

History.

Japan--History--To 1600.

Japan.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xxxvii, 532 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press, [2018]

Summary:

Landed estates (shoen) produced much of the material wealth supporting all levels of late classical and medieval Japanese society. During the tenth through sixteenth centuries, estates served as sites of de facto government, trade network nodes, developing agricultural technology, and centers of religious practice and ritual. Although mostly farmland, many yielded nonagricultural products, including lumber, salt, fish, and silk, and provided livelihoods for craftsmen, seafarers, peddlers, and performers, as well as for cultivators. By the twelfth century, an estate "system" permeated much of the Japanese archipelago. This volume examines the system from three perspectives: the land itself; the power derived from and exerted over the land; and the religion institutions and individuals that were involved in landholding practices.Chapters by Japanese and Western scholars explore how the estate system arose, developed, and eventually collapsed. Several investigate a single estate or focus on agricultural techniques, while others survey estates in broad contexts such as economic change and maritime trade. Other chapters look at how we learn about estates by inspecting documents, landscape features, archaeological remains, and extant buildings and images; how representatives of every social stratum worked together to make the land productive and, conversely, how cooperative arrangements failed and rivals battled one another, making conflict as well as collaboration a hallmark of the system.

Contents:

Estates : their history and historiography / Joan R. Piggott

Medieval Japan's commercial economy and the estate system / Sakurai Eiji (translated by Ethan Segal)

Ōbe Estate in the archaeological record / Nishida Takeshi (translated by Michelle Damian)

Tōdaiji's estates in its documentary record : perspectives on Ōbe estate

Endō Motoo (translated by Janet R. Goodwin)

Hine Estate in Izumi Province : archaeology, landscape reconstruction, and village structures / Hirota Koji (translated by Janet R. Goodwin)

Agricultural expansion and irrigation in the early medieval age / Kimura Shigemitsu (translated by Kristina Buhrman)

Loggers and cultivators of Nabari : Tōdaiji's Kuroda Estate in Heian times / Joan R. Piggott

Hijiri and temple monks : contrasting styles of estate management / Nagamura Makoto (translated by Janet R. Goodwin)

Beyond the secular : villages, estates, and the ideology behind Chōgen's land reclamation projects / Ōyama Kyōhei (translated by Janet R. Goodwin)

Claiming the land : Chōgen and the development of Ōbe Estate / Janet R. Goodwin

The Jōdoji Amida Triad : how its iconography advanced Chōgen's mission / Yoshiko Kainuma

Nyoin power, estates, and the Taira influence : trading networks within and beyond the archipelago / Sachiko Kawai

Networks of wealth and influence : spatial power and estate strategy of the Saionji Family in early medieval Japan / Rieko Kamei-Dyche

As estates faded : late medieval maritime shipping in the Seto Inland Sea / Michelle Damian

Bad neighbors and monastic influence : border disputes in medieval Kii / Philip Garrett

The akutō on Ōbe Estate : lawsuits, evidence, and participation in the late Kamakura legal system / Dan Sherer

Warriors and estates in Muromachi-period Harima / Noda Taizō (translated by David Eason)

Teaching Japanese estates : old challenges and new opportunities / Ethan Segal.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 473-510) and index.

ISBN:

9780824872939

0824872932

OCLC:

1010998144