How the Executive Officers of the Muromachi Bakufu Kept the Records Entitled Ukagaigoto Kiroku 伺事記録

Abstract

With the intention of examining the vicissitudes of the Muromachi shogun's immediate direction of legal and administrative affairs, the author undertakes a textual criticism of one single, incomplete, and newly located register (hikitsuke 引付) of the shogun's direct judgement or approval (gozen-sata 御前沙汰). This register, entitled ukagaigoto kiroku, was recorded during the 2nd year of Entoku, or 1490, by SEI Motosada 清元定, a bugyonin 奉行人 or one of the shogun's executive officers. Only six and half leaves of the original remain in the Tenri Central Library ; their reverse sides consist of scattered parts of two of nine scrolls of the holograph diary of YOSHIDA Kanemigi 吉田兼右 for the years 1533-1534. Upon comparison with two already known records of the same title, from 1490 and around the 1540s, and other related materials, the author clarifies that the records under this title were made by the officials in charge who submitted matters for the shogun's approval (ukagaigoto), each official compiling records of the matters he personally dealt with : theoretically all these officials kept such kind of partial records for their own use. Furthermore, the author contends, with evidence from some entries for the year 1539, from the diary of ODACHI Joko 大館常興, one of the shogun's consultants (naidansu 内談衆), that in addition to these particular records, an official annual general collection of the duplicate registers was compiled by the bakufu under the same title, covering all matters brought up for consultation during the year. Such a collection, however, has not been located thus far, while the extant texts are limited to the sporadic records made and preserved by such bugyonin as INO Mototsura 飯尾元連 (alias Sosho 宗勝), his grandson INO Takatsura 堯連 and SUWA Sadamichi 諏訪貞通, the officials in charge, who added their signatures at the end of the line in which the date was written on a given document. The author concludes that these findings will help us to understand that the gozen-sata procedure, once conducted primarily in the presence of the shogun, was changing at the end of the 15th century into one conducted without the presence of the shogun.