流通システムからみた中世農村における市場の機能

抄録

The rural markets in medieval Japan have been examined but not clearly in detail in historical studies. Therefore, the central function and the sphere of influence of these markets or market towns have been inferred from the reconstructed landscape in historical geography. The present paper lays emphasis on flow itself and examines the types of flow processes from analysis of the activities of merchants who took part in flow between rural areas. This study places the markets in this flow process and deals with their functions. The study is limited to the latter medieval period.
The flow processes of goods from the places of production to those of consumption are classified into twelve types (Figure 3; type a-type l). Altogether, these can be called the flow system. The simplest type is transport by a single producer (type k) or merchant (type a) and each type through retail market is type l or type b. Merchant types are subdivided as follows: Two merchants sharing flow in type a/b, who meet at markets collecting produce, form type e/f. After markets collecting produce, type g/h flows through shonin-yado (establishments where merchants gather and trade with each other). Adding wholesalers to type a/b or type g/h, we get type c/d or type i/j.
Local flows, whose distances from the place of production to that of consumption are short, form type a/b or type k/l. The conditions of this type of local flow are, for example, that the produce is made everywhere. Flow not meeting these conditions can be called long distance flow (type a-type l).
It can be concluded that the central function of rural markets, examined in view of these various flow process types is chiefly retail. However, flow types which bypass retail markets (satouri; type a, c, e, g, i, k) are found locally.
Tsuminato (chief ports), shonin-yado and markets can be seen as nodal points in flow. In tsuminato all types of produce are gathered and merchants collect and buy it. Shonin-yado are located at not only tsuminato but also other spots along roads and there produce is traded between merchants. Markets as such, however, are thought to be distributed more densely. Flow can be found from the place of production to that of consumption in various types of flow processes through spatial organization of nodal points in flow.
This study indicates various possibilities of examining commodity flow patterns from a new viewpoint.