The present article is an attempt to clarify in what way the Kamakura Bakufu perceived and took on and made to function police protection authority for the various provinces. There were two aspects to the authority gained by Shogun Minamoto-no-Yoritomo in 1190. The first involved the protection of the capital city of Kyoto, the suppression of insurrection, and the arrest of murderers by provincial constables (shugo 守護) invested with authority exceeding the powers of individual land proprietors (ryoshu 領主). The other aspect involved police action against such crimes as night raiding and the like by Bakufu vassals (gokenin 御家人) ; it ensured and protected the law enforcement rights of land proprietors with that authority. At that time, it was Yoritomo who was most interested in this authority, to be able to establish his positions as the "leader (toryo 棟梁) of the warrior class" and bestow his vassals a place in the societal framework. However, with end of the line of Minamoto 源 Shoguns and the collapse of the military power of the imperial court as a result of its clash in 1221 with the Bakufu, the latter's vassals rose as the main force in carrying out police protection in the province, Consequently, the Bakufu had to come up with a more efficient and organized system of law enforcement. In its legal code, the Goseibai-Shikimoku 御成敗式目 the law enforcement jurisdiction of shugo provincial constables was broadened and their ultimate right to enter (i. e., police) the lands of locally-based warrior proprietors (jito 地頭) was also guaranteed. Then, after the investiture of prince Munetaka 宗尊 as Shogun, shugo, jito, and the residents of jito proprietorships were organized vertically into a Bakufu law enforcement hierarchy, while a horizontal organization made up of neighboring jito was established, thus forming a consolidated peace keeping system. Nevertheless, when the Bakufu attempted to take effective step in law enforcement to deal with the worsening problems caused by outlaw groups of warriors (akuto 悪党), sole reliance on the strength of its loyal vassals reached its limits. This is why in the "benevolent acts" (tokusei 徳政) of the Koan 弘安 era (1278-88), all land proprietors throughout Japan were mobilized in the law enforcement effort. It turned out, however that the ultimate framework of this policy came to include only Bakufu vassals. And even during the regency of Hojo Takatoki (1316-26), a scheme to mobilize residents of the aristocratic complete jurisdictional proprietorships (honjo-ichien-chi 本所一円地) also failed. Throughout its existence the Bakufu was unable to go beyond its initial framework for protecting the provinces with its corps of vassals, and the problem of how to mobilize all of the country's land proprietors into a system of law enforcement became an issue for the next generation to solve.

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This paper compares the taxation system of the Ryukyus with that of Japan proper in their respective early-modern era. The taxation system called kokudaka-system, which has its levy basis on productivity of cultivated land, was common in the early modern Japan proper. Meanwhile, the taxation system in the Ryukyu Islands that former the Ryukyuan Kingdom, was different from kokudaka-system. Satsuma-han, one of Japanese political powers, conquered the Ryukyus in 1609 and conducted a thorough survey of the islands. Satsuma-han decided kokudaka of the Ryukyus, and tried to force the local people to pay tax based on kokudaka. Despite the invader's vision, the kingdom did not apply kokudaka as its levy system; the kingdom ordered its people to pay tax by products such as rice and beans. Upon the order of the kingdom administration, leaders of the local areas (magiri and mura) commanded their farmers to produce rice and beans, or substitutive products such as brown sugar and textile goods. Focusing on these "substitutes", the paper argues that what farmers in the early-modern Ryukyus paid as tax was rather "labor" than "product".

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Among the decisions (saikyo-jyo) which were issued by Kamakura Bakufu, there were some decisions that used an assumptive word "koto-jichi-naraba". This word implied that in that case the Bakufu reserved the right to decide whether it was the fact or not. Therefore in some cases, as the result of this reservation, after many years there occured a new dispute. Why did these decisions use such an assumptive word? These may possibly have been the writs of summons (toi-jyo), not the decisions. As for the writs of summons in Kamakura period, there were two different types. One was relatively short and neutral. And the other was long and showed some value judgements. For that reason, the latter was sometimes misused as a decision. Both problematic documents (the decisions with an assumptive word and the long writs of summons) were issued before the middle of the 13th century. Accordingly we can consider these documents as the documents which were issued during the transition period of Kamakura legislation. Nevertheless as for the settlement of dispute, these documents were not so useless. According to this fact, we know that at this period Kamakura Bakufu was called for as an authority not as a coercive power.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of the village bylaws in Okinawa in the Meiji era. The form and the number of articles of the village bylaws differed greatly for every district, such as Kunigami, the northern part of Okinawa Island; Nakagami, the central part; Shimajiri, the southern part; the peripheral islands of Okinawa, and the Miyako and the Yaeyama. On the other hand, the bylaws of magiri, the unit of local government in pre-modern and the early stages of modern times, and mura, the small villages under magiri, were almost same in each district. In this study, we examined the village bylaws of the Kunigami, Shimajiri and two peripheral islands such as Kume and Aguni, because of their bylaws had many comparable articles. The following points become clear as a result of this analysis. First, the village bylaws of the Kunigami and Shimajiri were regarded as having been copied from the proclamations of the Ryukyu King's office. Second, the village bylaws of Kume Island were based upon the Kujicho, which was one type of proclamation the others. Aguni's bylaws resembled the bylaws of Kume Island, which were also regarded to be based upon the proclamations. Third, the reasons mentioned above, the village bylaws were considered to have been written by the magiri officials based upon proclamations modified to suit the situation of each area, and had been enacted in each village. Fourth, it was considered that differences of the village bylaws among the districts reflected the economic situation of every district. For example, the fines to those who broke the rule of the bylaws were not only money but also physical punishment in the Kunigami, although the fines were money in the Shimajiri. On Kume Island, the fines were paid by rice. Fifth, however, in regard to the activities in farming, which were done under compulsion and control of the magiri and mum officials. Ultimately, no individual farm management had been formed.

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In Japan's Middle Ages (C12-C14th), there were two kinds of infringement of property, known as "Tsuibu-rozeki" (_??__??__??__??_) and "Karita-rozeki" (_??__??__??__??_). The former consisted of taking by force movable property in the possession of another. The latter consisted of reaping under force of arms the rice (or wheat etc.) standing in a paddy field (or dry field) in the possession of another. Both of these kinds of infringement were forms of active self-help, based on the claim that the real right of ownership over the movables or fields belonged to oneself.
Under the trial system of the Kamakura-Bakufu, both of these cases at first were dealt with by civil law. However, (1) "Tsuibu-rozeki" was carried out on the claim that movables in the possession of another were actually harvested from land belonging to oneself, and hence should revert to oneself. Therefore during the trial the right of landownership itself on which the conduct was based became the main point of dispute. It was because of this that through the Kamakura Period "Tsuibu-rozeki" was consistently as a matter of civil law. (2) "Karita-rozeki was the act of reaping forr oneself the rice (or wheat etc.) when it had ripened in anothers' paddy (or dry) field. The basis for this action was that the other person is in illegal possession of the fields, to which one originally had a genuine right ("Yuisho"_??__??_, lit. "title"). Since this case also was based on a dispute to the right of landownership, it used to be handled under civil law. However, this latter case produced many dead and wounded, and often upset the social order.
It was because of this that the Bakufu changed the handling of this conduct from civil to criminal law in the 3rd year of Engyo (_??__??_) (1310 A. D.). Once "Karita-rozeki" was recognised as a crime, subject to criminal law, this made it easier to exercise police control and maintain peace and order.
The Bakufu banned the form of self-help known as "Karita-rozeki", in response to the unstable social conditions of the early 14th century, and thus forcibly maintained the social order. However "Tsuibu-rozeki" continued to remain a matter for civil law. Thus although the Bakufu was strongly determined to maintain social order, it was unable to completely repress all forms of self-help by resort to force.

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