In the study of how the Japanese medieval imperial court was actually operated, a concept of "bureaucratic farming" has been offered, and when considering auch an idea, the role played by bureaucratic families (ie 家) becomes very important. In the present paper, the author takes up the Benkan 弁官 and Geki 外記 Bureaus at the time and examines the "medieval family" institution existing among the secretaries (shi 史 and geki) who were responsible for the everyday operations of these two bureaus, focussing on the establishment of families as managerial units and primogeniture succession from fathers to sons, especially the political status corresponding to the establishment of main branches and their exclusive inheritance of family wealth. Section one traces the split that occurred in the head of the Benkan secretaries, the Ozuki 小槻 family, into the Mibu 壬生 and Omiya 大宮 lines in relation to the formation process of the "medieval family." As a result, the author shows that the establishment of these two lines into "ie" was finalized in 1273 after several generations of dividing up the official family genealogy. Section two turns to secretarial head of the Geki Bureau, the Nakahara 中原 family, showing the transformation of an ancient uji 氏 (clan) into a medieval ie. Section three examines changes that gradually occurred from the fourteenth century on in the sixth levels of subordinate bureaucrats working at the two bureaus in response to abovementioned changes in secretarial head families, showing that in contrast to their superiors, who were also active as scholarly (hakase 博士) families, these subordinate government officials became an independent class of job-oriented professionals. The author concludes that it was during the late Kamakura era that a transformation occurred in the staff organization of the Benkan and Geki Bureaus, which formed the nucleus of medieval court day to day operations What remains to be studied, then, is the relationship of actual bureaucratic duties to such organizational changes.

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The word so-mei 祖名 (or oya-no-na ; the name of one's ancestor) appears here and there in the Shoku-Nihon-Gi's "Senmyo" 続日本紀宣名 and the Man'syoshu 万葉集. The preceding research holds that so-mei means the magical souls of the legendary ancestors of each uji 氏, or their consciousness of norms and prestige based on their traditional service (tsukasa ツカサ) to generations of kings. Before Taika 大化 era, so-mei contained the idea of the possession of shinabe 品部. A centralized kingship ideology, that the possession of shinabe was subordinate to tsukasa, has been assumed, leading to the conclusion that so-mei is an idea expressing uji dependency on royal authority. However, an essential feature of the bemin 部民 system is control based on the direct mutual personal relationship among human groups. Therefore, the function of so-mei in bemin system must be related to the direct influence upon human groups under the control of each uji, regardless of dependency on the royal authority. Consequently, the idea of so-mei (or its origin na 名 ; Name) should be elucidated as an idea about the relationship of the rulers and ruled in the bemin system. This article first reexamines the expression na-wo-tatsu 名を立つ (obtain a name) in the Man'yoshu, and refutes understanding that so-mei meant prestige based on accomplishing duties given by the Emperor. The principal function of na is to determine the relation of the speaker and the spoken about. As many people related the stories about na from generation to generation, it began to create the authority of who spoke about and change the relationship from the speaker and the spoken about to that of the ruler and the ruled. Secondly, the author examines the expression koyo-no-akumei 後葉の悪名 (or nochi-no-yo-no-ashiki-na ; a bad name in later ages) in the Nihon-Shoki 日本書紀, the idea of no participating in the rise and fall of each uji or its occupation in the government. The stories about na, which become oral tradition and genealogy, produced self-consciousness among people at each level ; i. e, the ruler uji and the ruled shinobe, thus arranging human groups in a ruling order under the na ; i. e, o-mei 王名 (or kimi-no-na ; the name of the king) and so-mei. Thus, under such superficial ideology, it was the idea of na that operated to stratify and decentralize the ruling order of each uji. under the bemin system.

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In the present paper the author analyzes the political movements of colonists in Hokkaido during mid-Meiji Japan. From the early Meiji period on, the residents of Hokksido had placed under special governance, which denied them local political autonomy institutione and exempted them from military conscription, thus on the occasion of the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution, they were not endowed with the right to vote, as the politicization of Hokkaido initially appeared as a response to the problem of the foreign treaty revisions proposed by foreign minister Okuma Shigenobu 大隈重信, That is to say, the treaty revision question, which stimulated the organization of local powers on the prefectural level by political parties aiming at the opening of the Imperial Diet, meant for Hokkaido colonists a chance to demand their elevation to the social status of "Japanese citizens," while the pros and cons concerning the proposed revisions ushered in a situation that could not help determining political party affiliation on the part residents of Hakodate and Sapporo. In addition, concerning the directions taken by political parties after the opening of the Diet concerning the question of the colonization of Hokkaido, which should have been an issue of "national" importance, there was also a feeling in Sapporo and Nemuro of potential conflict with "prefectural" (or "mainland") Japan, which was causing a certain amount of fear and anxiety there. During the early sessions of the Diet, the residents of Hokkaido, mainly in Sapporo and Hakodate, began to petition the Diet on a number of issues. Activists in Hokkaido, while insisting that the issue of increasing funds for colonization projects was a "national question" strongly opposed the call in prefectural Japan for the reduction of tax and corvee burdens to promote labor and capital vitality in the private sector. Meanwhile, in Hakodate a plan was devised to set up a "Hokkaido Assembly" endowed with the right to deliberate over colonization project funding. In the midst of dissatisfaction there concerning directions taken by Hokkaido administrative agencies concerning colonization projects, this movement aimed at the adoption of such principles as "politics based on public opinion," and "more balanced roles between the public and private sectors." Such opposite approaches to petitioning the Diet on behalf of Hokkaido, which stemmed from conflicting interests among local entities within the territory, made any unified movement impossible. While both approaches ultimately aimed at the integration of Hokkaido residents as "Japanese citizens, and Hokkaido was in fact institutionally "prefecturalized" around the turn of the century, at the stage discussed in this paper, Hokkaido politics were not merely a simple question of integrating the territory and its citizenry into prefectural Japan.

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