1993 Volume 1993 Issue 43 Pages 199-242,en7
In this essay, first, I try to make a conceptualization of the word AKUTO that was repeatedly used in the orders and the commands of the Kamakura Shogunate. It is presumable, I think, that in the prime of the Kamakura Shogunate, in other words, through the latter three-quarters of the thirteenth century, the word AKUTO continued to be used as a term of criminal law. Assumably it implied more or less four kinds of criminal acts; that is to say, was equivalent to four types of crimes, such as YOUCHI (burglary), GOTO (robbery), SANZOKU (bri-gandage), and KAIZOKU (piracy). I think it nearly correct that there is no doubt about this in the light of the articles (Article 3 and Article 32) of the SHIKIMOKU (alias dictus JOEI-SHIKIMOKU or, rather, GOSEIBAI-SHIKIMOKU), the fundamental statute of the Kamakura Shogunate. Moreover, I must point out a fact of some importance that with the passage of time, especially with the decline of the Kamakura Shogunate in the fourteenth century, as types of criminal acts, the categories of the concept AKUTO enlarged comprehensively, and in conse-quence the primary usage of the word AKUTO came to reduce its clearness. In the last stage of the Kamakura period, it came to be remarkably difficult to regard the AKUTO acts as those mere criminal, which came under the four types, namely, YOUCHI, GOTO, SANZOKU, and KAI-ZOKU. (I don't think that it came to be utterly impossible to regard the AKUTO acts as such, though.)
Secondly, depending upon historical materials, I try to inquire into several questions concerned with the suppression policies enforced on the AKUTO offenders by the Kamakura Shogunate. As a result, I think, I manage to make a few facts of some importance nearly clear. The facts are as follows. The first is that, in the Kamakura period, the AKUTO act was considered as a very grave offense that could be ranked with MUHON (rebeldom) or with SETSUGAI (murder), and it was known to the people who belonged to the Kamakura Shogunate and their contemporaries as a crime that deserved DANZAI (punishment), which had to be executed by means of any penalty of the three types, namely, SHIZAI (death penalty), RUZAI (banishment), and SHORYO-MOSSHU (forfeiture of estate). The second is that the competence and the duty to arrest the AKUTO offenders were mainly imposed upon SHUGO (sheriffs appointed by the Kamakura Shogun) and JITO (bailiffs in manors appointed by the Kamakura Shogun); but actually this scheme of arresting the AKUTO offenders couldn't obtain the desired results, because the SHUGO and the JITO were apt to neglect to fulfill their duties. (Moreover, they even sheltered the AKUTO offenders on occasion.) The third is that the Kamakura Shogunate tried to cope with AKUTO-HOKI (infestation of banditti) through AKUTO-KEIGO (guard against banditry), in other words, it set up TONOI-YA (sheds for night watch) and KEIGO-YA (sheds for vigilance) all over the country, not to speak of KAGARI-YA (sheds equipped with torch-light) in Kyoto and Kamakura, as a line of the chain of its suppression policies, in order to advance the apprehension of the AKUTO offenders. And the fourth is that the Kama-kura Shogunate designed to make the most of FUBUN (rumors) about the AKUTO offenders as the information relating to them with gather-ing KISHO-MON (written oaths) from GOKENIN (the Kamakura Shogun's vassals). In short, the Kamakura Shogunate devised so much variegated countermeasures against the AKUTO offenders, nevertheless, it couldn't eradicate them after all. On the other hand, the AKUTO offenders went on increasing in number from day to day.
