官務家成立の歴史的背景

抄録

In the later Heian period, the officials who were in charge of political affairs used to keep the official documents issued in the process of fulfilling their duties in their own hands. These documents were handed down from generation to generation as the hereditary property of the aristocratic families From the viewpoint of the aristocracy as a whole, this practice means that they were entrusted with official documents by the government. Therefore it was considered to be a national loss when a fire broke out in one of these residences and the documents were reduced to ashes. Under such circumstances, in the Benkankyoku (弁官局) which issued orders as to the Daijokan (太政官)'s policies, it was the Daifushi (大夫史) who took custody of the documents. The main duties of the Daifushi were as follows : i)to investigate the former examples of political affairs, ii)to draw out the Daijokanpu (太政官府), the Kansenji (官宣旨) and the Senji (宣旨), and iii)to take charge of the Kanfudono (官文殿), the house for storing documents, which belonged to the Benkankyoku. Originally the Daifushi was supposed to be chosen among a wide range of nobles, but this position had never been occupied by the upper nobles of such as the Fujiwaras and the Minamotos. The Daifushi was an important post, but never thought to be a high and noble status. Around the middle of the 11th century Takanobu Ozuki (小槻孝信) was appointed as Daifushi, and from then on, the position was inherited by the Ozuki family. As a result, the Ozuki family was called as "Kanmuke", which means a family that inherits the Daifushi. The main reasons for the choice of the Ozuki family to this position can be assumed as follows : firstly, they had an excellent Skill of preserving documents ; secondly, their family was a specialist of mathematics, who fixed the amount of taxes to be imposed on and collected from various provinces. Moreover, since the middle of the 11th century, in Ochokokka (王朝国家), the government tended increasingly to intervene directly in affairs of the provinces. Accordingly, the Benkankyoku became the administrative center to deal with political matters. And, by making the position of the Daifushi hereditary, the government entrusted main duties of the Benhankyoku to a family -the Ozukis.