This is a study on the spaces as a Square in the medieaval settlements which have interesting grounds for the existence of the Squares.
The typical five Settlements such as Ikeda-sho, Hieda, Kaizuka, Imabori and Sakai are studied.
In each settlement, the socio-economic or the spatial reasons why the Squares exist and the process of the formation and the development of the Squares are studied.

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How local seigniors, called Kokuga-zaicho (国衙在庁) or Gokenin (御家人), changed during the Kamakura period remains a problem. I try to make clear this ploblem in the case of this. The author examines the case of Saika region in the downstream area of the Kinokawa River in Kii Province. First of all the author analyzes the members of the Kishu-sogoku (紀州惣国), that was called the Saika-ikki (雑賀一揆) alliance for joint protest, in the year 1562. All of the know members are classified into the middle class of the late medieval village not the local seignior class. Their bases of operation were their home villages, and they were closely tied to the organization of those villages. The Kishu-sogoku was therefore an intervillage organization. In this area, the local seigniors, who had been Kokuga-zaicho or Gokenin during the Kamakura period, were absorbed into the villages where they lived. This absorption was not a normal development in their character. The essence of their character disappeared with the growing power of the villages. It was one typical course of change among the local seigniorst. In the case of Kongoubuji Temple close by this area, the change was essentially similar. In this area, almost all the local seigniors, who had been called Gesu (下司) and Kumon (公文) during the Kamakura period, had been ruined by the villages. But after their ruin, the positions of Gesu and Kumon remained in the village organization. The people who served in these positions were essentially the same as "local seigniors" in the downstream area of the Kinokawa River, who had changed into the village middle class. The former case is one of absorption of the seigniors' role, and the later case is one of absorption of the seigniors' families. The former case exemplifies the essence of this change. The author then tries to clarify the functions of village organizations. The tax account books were compiled by the villages, not by the feudal lords. The Kishu-sogoku paid the taxes, and were not interfered with by the lords. Village organizations demanded that Shugo (守護 the governor of Kii Province) must not interfere in their affairs, in spite of the fact that he was the lord of those villages at that time. The villages built castles for themselves, and did not interfer with one other. Village organizations in this area had much stronger autonomy than in other areas. Such organizational power in this area ruined the local seigniors of the late medieval age.

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Recent studies of the late medieval villages have tended to concentrate on samurai status rather than village commoners. This paper is a case study of a village called Suganoura-sosho, in which the samurai rank did not exist. The author shows the process of the formation of the so (or sosho; a self-governing communal organization in medieval villages) from the Kamakufa through the Muromachi period. Suganoura's village code of 1302 was written in the form known as ansho. Ansho is a document testifying to debt repayment which the creditor handed over to the debtor in the case of the original note being dedtroyed, etc. From this code, we know that the village koro rank (elders selected from among the main residents) in Suganoura financed the cost of a lawsuit brought by the resident or ganization of Suganoura. Next, the author surveys the transformation of the village resident composition. (1)In the 13th century, Suganoura consisted of two ranks, hon-kugonin (original residents, who had acquired the privilege of suppliing food to the emperor) and sinka-no-kugonin (new residents, who had not officially acquired the privilege of kugonin). (2)In the 14th century, all the residents had acquired the rank and the privilege of kugonin, and the so organization had come into existence. (3)In the 15th century, the representatives of Suganoura were twenty elders called otona, who were selected from among all the households (called zaike) in the village. The sosho (or so) organization was administrated by these otona. In the early 14th century, a dispute arose between Suganoura and neighboring Oura-no-sho, Each zaike, in Suganoura shared the costs of the lawsuit on a Per capita basis, and the residents' organization began to draw up and collect documents pertaining to the lawsuit. The origin of the so organization can be traced back to this time. Finally, the author investigates the zaike-yaku (zaike dues) imposed in Suganoura. In the early 14th century, a principal had been established that each zaike bore its dues on a per capita basis. (1)Ushiro-zaike (zaike in retreat) were exempted from zaike-yaku. (2)Zaike of widows and others in poor economic situations were partly exempted from zaike-yaku. The author asserted that the Suganoura's code of munabetsu (a cash tax levied on each house) was established not by Suganoura-sosho but, by the Azai family, the feudal lord of Suganoura.

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This paper deals with the location of the assembly venue and the guard station in Kyoto of the early Edo period. It considers 'Sashidashi' of the Tensho era, and 'Kenjaku-aratame' of the Enpou era. 1.In many occassions, the assembly venue is not located near the center of Cho. 2.Also, the guard station is usually not located at the edge of Cho. Therefore it is concluded that the houses which are communal possession in Cho increased in number, and since watchmen of Cho lived in the assembly place, it became impossible to distinguish between a assembly venue and a guard station.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the continuous roles of ura-tone, village leaders, in order to establish that the grassroots socio-political structure of Wakasa Bay seaside villages did not change from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The first section investigates the structure of the villages in the sixteenth century. Soju, made up of ura-tone and otona, local political systems of villagers which ruled various aspects of village life, gradually developed. Each soju combined with others sharing common economic structures to form soju organizations, in order to widen their respective spheres of influence. Soju organizations were not under the direct control of sengoku-daimyo, feudal lords, in the sense that internal village problems were settled independently. The second section investigates the structure of the villages in the sixteenth century. Ura-tone and otona came to be called shoya and kumigashira in this era. However, the leaders of the villages and the people continued to settle internal disputes independently. This grassroots socio-political structure, called naisai, was the same as that which had existed since the fifteenth century. Murakata-sodo, protests against shoya, broke out when shoya which had ties with the Shogunate tried to benefit from its authority. Villagers refused to subordinate themselves totally to the Shogunate. This shows that villages were not the smallest political unit of the Shogunate, but were governed according to the general will of the villagers. In conclusion, the quasi-independent position of the seaside villages remained largely unchanged during the transition from 'medieval' to 'early modern' in Japan.

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In this paper, the author aims to clarify the criminal conflict resolution zaika no seibai (punishment of crimes) during Japan's late medieval period through accommodation, adjustment, and regional arbitration of inter-group conflicts. Specifically, after identifying the different types of conflict resolution, this paper focuses on the seibai form, which involved the demolition or burning down of the injuring party's dwelling. In addition to analyzing the manner in which crimes were handled, the relationship between these practices and criminal conflict resolution by public authorities during the late medieval period is explored. The results are as follows. 1. In conflicts during this period, accommodation sometimes took on the character of a criminal proceeding: an accommodation was reached between the injured party's group and the injuring party's group, in which the injuring party's group inflicted a punishment (seibai) on the injuring party for the crime. According to the countervailing logic of this form of accommodation, punishment of the injuring party by the injuring party's group was seen as equivalent to revenge for the crime by the injured party. 2. The accommodation ritual of geshinin to kemuri, which entails the burning down of a dwelling, is different from the form of accommodation and conflict handling described in (1). In this form of accommodation, the injuring party was not excluded from the group to which he belonged. Also, in this form of accommodation, the countervailing logic behind the injured party's revenge was considered fundamental-an attempt was made to establish accommodation by diminishing as much as possible the legitimacy of exacting revenge, and compelling the injured party to accept the injuring party's apology. Accordingly, this form of accommodation sought to abjure any examination of the injuring party's offense. 3. These two forms of accommodation both tended to handle offenses in the context of conflicts between small groups or interested parties; that is, these crimes were not perceived as crimes against the social order as a whole. However, amid this prevailing tendency in the latter half of the 16th century, the ikki (league) of the local lords of Omi Province, presumably on the grounds of a violation of the social order of the region as a whole, punished an entire self-governing village (soson) that had resorted to military force. As the representative of these local lords, the vassal corps of the sengoku daimyo Rokkaku family, entered into the Rokkakushi-shikimoku, the legal code of the daimyo, which punished self-governing villages that resorted to military force in conflicts. This suggests that the drive toward criminal conflict resolution by public authorities in the late medieval period was at least partially a response to demand from local venues of conflict resolution.

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