In the present article, the author describes the use of riverfront land (kashichi 河岸地) in areas of Edo occupied by common townsfolk (machikata 町方) during the middle and late kinsei period in Japan and analyzes the legal relationships which formed around such land utilization. In the townships of Edo where shipping played an important role, the existence of riverfront land within their borders was deemed to be an excellent opportunity for the growth of local economic prosperity. Despite its importance, however, the subject of this land type has not been very well covered in the existing research literature. Furthermore, in the research that has been done on this subject, one finds no analysis of those persons who were directly involved in the use of the riverfront, leaving us with no idea of how this land type was connected to the unique societal features of the townships of Edo. Now, with the growing interest in the study of the spatial aspects of urban history, it is time we looked in depth at this particulal. portion of town geomorphology in the city of Edo. The author's specific problematic concerning this theme involves a consideration of urban space as mutually determining and being determined by the various social activities of its occupants : thus his interest in analyzing the space known as kashichi in relation to machikata social formation. To begin with, in principle all riverfront land in Edo was placed under the proprietorship of the Tokugawa Bakufu ; however, the owners of residences bordering this land were given occupational rights over it. These local landlords, as the recognized occupiers of this land, were therefore responsible for initiating litigation procedures whenever the Bakufu attempted to restrict utilization and were burdened with the cost of keeping the waterways in the vicinity navigable. This latter task, involving dredging work, provided a way in which to legitimize a landlord's occupational rights over a particular stretch of riverfront. Historically speaking, while at the beginning of the Edo period most occupiers of riverfront located in the central city were actually residing near there, along about the second half of the seventeenth century, we find almost all of them in absentia living somewhere else. At the same time, we find them becoming less and less interested in the problems concerning riverfront utilization and therefore attempting to avoid any responsibility for necessary litigation or dredging work. On the other hand, those merchants and artisans directly dependent on riverfront land for their livelihood in the capacity of tenants or renters became alienated from its occupational rights, as well as from subjects of litigation over the maintenance or expansion of riverfront use. In the present article, the author focuses on the riverfront area known as Shin-Sakanaba 新肴場 located in the township of Honzaimoku-cho 本材木町, in order to present a case study of how the legal structure concerning riverfront use changed in the midst of restrictions imposed by the Bakufu during the Tempo Era reforms (1830-43). We see how the holders of the occupational rights of Shin-Sakanaba initiated litigation in resistance to the Bakufu's tightening of restrictions, but soon withdrew their complaint, thus forcing the area's tenants, a group of fish wholesalers, to start legal proceedings of their own. It was also at this moment that the fish wholesalers also took responsibility for local dredging work. In the end, these tenants won their case and at the same time were successful in capturing the occupational rights over half of the area. Here the author shows the collapse of a structure of legal rights through a "hollowing out" of a society of absentee town landlords, who were the original residents, and also the appearance of locally-based communities bound together by "legitimate" store-front owners.
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