The purpose of this study is to investigate the rights to open street stalls in early modern Edo. There were many street stalls located in plazas, called hirokouji 広小路, and the observation of them is indispensable to capturing a total sketch of Edo's city space and grasp urderstanding in more detail the activity of the city's inhabitants. Other studies of street stalls or plazas in Edo have either attempted to reconstruct their appearance in minute detail, or have been concerned with regulations laid down by the Edo Bakufu concerning the use of plazas. However, little is known about the people connected with plaza street stalls, and the major results of rcent investigations into urban popular social history has yet to be applied to their study. Due to this lack of historical research in the areas of sociology and folklore, it has been proposed that the communities made up of street stalls were peculiar and heterogeneous from the communities ordinary urban inhabitants. However, this proposal is groundless. In order to add more positive research on the subject, the author makes a cast study of street stall development in the Shinohashi Plaza at one of bridges crossing the Sumida River. He focusses mainly on how people formed rights over the management of street stalls, then, taking recent studies of the urban popular society into consideration, attempts to clarify the significance of the street stall communities. The results of this study are as follows. Small dealers, who were so poor that they could not set up stores at the front part of neighborhood land divisions (machiyashiki-omotedana 町屋敷表店), looked for other locations where they could secure shops that faced a busy street traffic. It was this, need that resulted in large groups of street stalls being built up in Plazas here and there around Edo. Edo Bakufu gave permission to open a street stall because the part of the street stall rent was appropriated for the costs of the urban administration system of Edo Bakufu. This Bakufus control led to the enlargement of street stalls groups as well as complications about how to share management rights. And the power of that enlargement overflowed the Bakufus control. Some larger merchants also began to purchase these rights. In conclusion, the author emphasizes that these communities of street stalls did not exist separately from ordinary urban society and notes the growth and maturity of street stalls as a natural factor of urban popular society.

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Penitentials, established as a literary genre up to the sixth century in Ireland and later on in England, were introduced along with the Irish system of penance by the missions from both Islands to the Continent, where ancient forms of penance had lost their effect. On the Continent, many continental or frankish penitentials were compiled based on the Irish and Anglo-Saxon penitentials. Then, at the beginning of the ninth century it was stated in some decrees that every priest in the Carolingian kingdom must learn the penitentials. However, the Council of Chalon-sur-Saone (813) repudiated the penitentials for the reason that "their errors are clear, while their authorities are uncertain," and because they imposed "light and unusual penances for grave sins." Furthermore, the Council of Paris (829) decided that all the penitentials, which "imposed different penances than the canonical laws," should be delivered to the flames. Up until now, some scholars, especially P. Fournier and G. Le Bras, have assumed that the penitentials were confused, mediocre canonical collections, understanding the causes of their condemnation in the following points: First, they were too lax; secondly, relating to marriage and baptism, principles contrary to Roman-Frankish customs were contained in Theodor's penitential; and thirdly many penitentials were drawn up according to the arbitrary decisions of each authr or compiler, so that they became contradictory to each other. On the first point, although the terms of penances imposed in the penitentials were shorter than those under canon law, the penitentials assigned penances to trivial sins such as drunkenness and gluttony, of the laity not treated in canon law, so one could not say sweepingly that the penitentials were lax. On the second point, such principals are not main matters of the penitentials and not all of the penitentials are concerned with them. On the third point, there were many penitentials which claimed to be attributed to prominent persons, such as Beda, so the penitentials not always lacked the authority for confirming validity. As to authority they should be doubted only from the attitude that approved Validity only of the law derived from the Roman bookcase (scrinio romanae). From this viewpoint, like in case of the Council of Paris; the introduction of canon laws were attempted in order to eliminate the confusion caused by the coexis-tence of diverse penitentials. To preserve the unification so established in the sphere of penance, the manifold penitentials must be eradicated. It seems unlikely that the whole of the Frankish church of this era gave consent to these strictures on the penitentials; however, as if they were well considered, the "Penitentials of a new tone" appeared made up of texts confirmed by the canonical authority: that is synodal and papal decrees and works of Fathers. However, the penitentials compiled befor the Carolingian ecclesiastical reform were also used in them. Therefore, the latter did not take the place of the former. This indicates that the clergy of this era recognized that, compared with canon law, the penitentials covered a wider range of sins up to the private areas of life and treated them more generally and systematically. The penitentials continued to be used until the twelfth century, when on the basis of theological changes, confession became more important than before and the Summa confessorum appeared.

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In postwar Japan, the analysis of water control in Ming and Qing China gives much attention to such subjects as the process by which the Chinese expanded their sphere of life, the form of local communities, and the relationship between state power and rural society. However, except for polemic studies of 'an irrigation association' in the Huabei region, we have tended to concentrate upon explicating the problem of water control mainly in the Yangze valley, especially in Jiangnan delta. Further investigation is needed upon that same subject in the Huabei region, particularly Hebei (Jjhu), where the agricultural production was inferior to the Huazhong and Huanan regions. After the Yuan dynasty located its capital in Beijing, it became a matter of urgent necessity to develop grain cultivation around the capital and to lighten the economic burden of transporting tribute grain from the southern districts to the capital. This paper describes a sequence of projects undertaken by Xu Zhengming (徐貞明), who was well known by his technical writing named Lushui ketan (〓水客談), describing in detail water control in Jifu. He also organized a state project from 1585. The environment such hydraulic construction in the Hebei region and the character of the project itself comes to light by this investigation. As a result of this study, the following point become clear. First, throughout Hebei province, the areas Xu Zhengming picked out as cultivable land can be roughly classified into three: that is, Yongping (永平) Prefecture and the eastern side of Shuntian (順天) prefecture, the Lugou (〓溝) valley, and the Hutuo (〓沱) valley. Xu Zhengming intended to introduce a wet rice plant yielding high productivity per crop. Second, Xu Zhengming's advocacy won several proponents among official circles from 1584, which was probably caused by the exhaustion of economic strength in the Jiangnan delta area as a result of the ill-balanced allocation of the tax and corvee labor servrice during the period. Third, the reason why Xu Zhengming had to gave up this project has been generally attributed to political discordance between the Tonglin (東林) clique, who supported this hydraulic construction, and a 'reactionary' anti-Tonglin clique, who oopposed it on the ground that their illegal control over cultivated or uncultivated land, the latter which generated firewood and reed, might be interfered with by this project. However, according to the other sources minutely describing this hydraulic construction, such as the memorial written by Wang Zhidong (王之棟), a local offcial and landlord, the effectiveness of this project was somewhat doubtful in the first place. From suth a technological viewpoint, political or ideological interpretationd of this issue, which are based on the sources described from those who supported this project, demand some modification. To properly investigating hydraulic construction in Jifu (during that period, we have to analyze more closely the ecological surroundings and regional variation in the Hebei area, and accumulate more case studies throughout Ming and Qing period.

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