The Establishment of Urakata System in Wakayama Han

Abstract

It was in the 17th century when the Nanki Tokugawas (or the Tokugawas in Wakayama) reigned over Wakayama Han that ura came to be generally used as the name of an offlcial administrative division, distinguished from mura. This paper aims to make clear how ura came to be used as an official name of an administrative division in Wakayama Han of the Nanki Tokugawas. In the 17th century the markets for fish catch became well-organized with the formation of the castle towns, and fish fertilizer became to be in great demand in agricultural areas. Consequently, income from the: produce by fishery began to increase in the villages along the coastline in Wakayama. The han government of Wakayama began to reform and establish a tax-collection system by arranging various kinds of institutions which could cope with the changing realities of the villages along the coastline in Wakayama Han. That was the background of why ura became distinguished from mura. Fishing villages in Wakayama Han were burdened with kakomai, a kind of tax, and this system of kakomai came to be institutionalized over the whole area of the han. This kakomai system can be thought to have played the role of the ground to discriminate ura from mura. The original form of kakomai in the Middle Ages was kako-yaku which was imposed in a form of compulsory labor, not of paying rice as tax, but in the 17th century it began to take the form of paying rice as tax. In Wakayama this change began in the period of the Asanos' reign, and the Nanki Tokugawas institutionalized it late in the 17th century after many reforms. In addition, this paper introduces the whole content of Kataura Yori Nishikura Made Kakomai Kiwame Cho (Aug. 18 in the sixteenth year of Keicho, 1611), whose. complete content has been quite unknown, though it has been very frequently quoted in preceding studies in the history of Wakayama Han.