中世の「古文書」

抄録

In contrast to the modern technical usage of the term "komonjo." as an academic discipline, "komonjo" in the Middle Ages simply meant "old documents", that is, outdated documents of no value. This essay looks into the standards of value that set aside some documents as "komonjo", in other words, the reasons for "monjo" being devalued to "komonjo". In the late Kamakura period, "Heike Io Monjo" (平家以往文書), which appeared in legal documents of the Bakufu courts, were the prime example of "komonjo" or "the outdated documents". The Bakufu evaluated these documents simply according to the time of issue, excluding other factors such as the political importance of the issuers. Only the documents issued after the establishment of the Bakufu had legal power, while the pre-Bakufu documents were regarded as valueless "komonjo". In contrast, the Kenmu Government set up by Godaigo Tenno evaluated documents, not on the basis of the dates of issue but on the basis of the political ties it had with the issuers. Moreprecisely, the criterion for evaluation was the degree of antagonism in relations between the issuer and the Kenmu Government. The courts of the Muromachi Bakufu, on the other hand, did not classify any documents as legally valueless "komonjo", whether based on time factors or on political factors. As we have seen, the standard for defining documents as "komonjo" related closely to the character of the power structure of the time. An understanding of the term "komonjo" as used in the Middle Ages and the basis for its definition provides a clue for discovering, in concrete terms, the meaning that the transfer of political power had at that time.