The Genesis of Kinsei Political Power in the Chusei Period : The Case of the Imagawa

Abstract

The main aim of this essay is to examine the characteristics of the political strength of the Imagawa family, Sengoku Daimyo of Suruga and Totomi Provinces, by inquiring into the land surveys (kenchi) which it carried out in the late 16th century. The author examines the land surveys of the Imagawa from two dimensions : from their scope -how broadly the survey could cover the land at one time -and this depth -how thoroughly the lord could survey the territory. With respect to the scope of the surveys, examining critically the views put forth by Mr. Arimitsu Yugaku in his essay in the journal, Nihonshi Kenkyu #138 (Jan. 1974), the author concludes that the surveys covered much wider areas than his local theory permits, and that his attempt to explain the motivation of the surveys from the content of the first article of the Imagawa Kana Mokuroku (the Imagawa family code), which provides guidelines for local lords concerning the conditions under which they could force customary cultivators to quit their tenancies in favor of cultivators who would pay higher rents, is itself in error. As to the depth of the surveys, the author investigates both their form and contents. She concludes that: 1)the surveys were not merely redigested reports from local land lords, but were actually carried out in a positive manner, including on-the-spot inquiries by Imagawa functionaries. 2)the surveys, by calculating the incomes from a strip of land -nengu (tribute) and kajishi (additional rents)- in terms of currency (kanmon), and by unifying these incomes into a monetary tax assessment system, represent a certain thoroughness which, while not directly related to "the abolishment of saku-ai" (those intermediary sub-rents abolished by Hideyoshi's surveys), can clearly be interpreted as a foreshadowing that the Imagawa would soon put an end to the multi-strata shiki-system characteristic of Japan's medieval period. With the help of an examination of commercial policies of the Imagawa, the author concludes that the Sengoku Daimyo represents an epoch-making type of political power, a power which grew by bringing under its span of control new areas heretofore out of the reach of the locally based lords (zaichi ryoshu) of the previous period ; and it is in this sense that she is able to see a Kinsei-type political power born, out of the chusei period.