十世紀の国郡行政機構 : 在庁官人制成立の歴史的前提

抄録

The evaluation of a historical character of the local administrative mechanism of the 10th century, which was composed of kuni 国 (a province) and gun 郡 (a district), is an important problem for understanding the flow of the history of Japan from ancient times to the middle ages. It was formerly understood that management of gun by kuni was reinforced in the 10th century. However, strong doubts have arisen on this point in recent years. In this paper, the author attempts a new, overall evaluation concerning the local administrative mechanism of the 10th century and comes to the conclusion that the conventional opinion is merely a one-sided understanding of the events of the 10th century. The local administration under the Ritsuryo 律令 system was carried out by hokushi 国司, who were appointed from the central aristocracy, and by gunji 郡司, who were local powerful clans under the kokushi. In the latter part of the 9th century, however, the overseers of kokushi, called zuryo 受領, came to personally take administrative responsibility of kuni. As a result, zuryo began to delegate administration not to subordinate kokushi but to local influential persons, including gunji and migrant aristocrats. They were able to obtain both economic and political benefits by taking advantage of their duties. This form of administration was formally approved by a law issued in 902 A.D. Influential local persons called zoshikinin 雑色人 engaged in the administration of kuni, functioning as kuni-no-tsukai 国使, hogandai 判官代 or as constituents of tokoro 所, and were authorized to take charge of the administration of gun as gunji without official titles stipulated in the Ryo 令 codes, This assumption of the general duties of local administration by influential persons in the region was the biggest change in the local administrative mechanism of the 10th century. In accordance with these changes, the role of gunji, instead of the role of kokushi, became more important in some areas of local administration. Moreover, because people who had the same social attribute as zoshikinin conducted both of the duties of kuni and gun, the administrative unity of kuni and gun was strengthened. Corresponding to the appearance of this new management form, the bureaucratic arrangements of local administration progressed. As the result of the bureaucratic arrangements of local administration by influential persons in the region, it became possible for zuryo to appoint to kuni level positions their personal subordinates who were not related to the region. Against these actions of zuryo, local influential persons organized resistance movements characterized by listings of grievances called Kokushikaseishuso 国司苛政愁訴. In the middle of 11th century when these movements had ceased, the Zaicho-kanjin system of local bureaucracy was formed, and the political status of influential persons in the region was established.