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Late medieval Japan witnessed a growth in the power of the
commoner, as seen in the spread of corporate villages "(so)" marked
by collective ownership and administration and other self-governing
features. This study of a community of so villages in central Japan
from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries reconstructs
the life of these villages by analyzing the rich and abundant
communal records largely written by the villagers themselves and
carefully preserved in the local shrine.
The author show how these villagers founded and operated a
shrine-centered organization that brought coherence, order, and
prestige to the community at the same time it formalized the
differences among the residents along gender and class lines. The
Tokuchin-ho so was a governmental, social, and religious
institution that facilitated the movement toward localism, but, the
author argues, its growing collective power and organization also
benefited its local proprietor, the great monastic complex of
Enryakuji. Political and economic resources flowed vertically
between the client-village and the patron-proprietor as they
collaborated to secure internal peace and wide-reaching commercial
interests.
The book traces the transformation of the so as late medieval
decentralization gave way to politically unified early modern
society, with its enforced transfer of merchants from villages to
towns, confiscation of shrine land, and the relinquishment of the
so's political authority. Despite these efforts, as a powerful
organization experienced in promoting communal order, the so was
able to maintain its medieval legacy of self-determination,
substantially preempting bureaucratic intervention in local
governance.
The local records allow the author to study the so from the
villagers' perspective, and she presents new information on the
position of women in rural communities, the local mode of economic
surplus accumulation, the detailed social and economic functions of
a shrine, and the reaction to nationwide cadastral surveys. The
book is illustrated with 21 halftones.
This volume marks an important moment not only in the study of
gender and women in Japanese society but also in the development of
collaborative efforts between Japanese and western scholars on the
subject. It is a product of half a decade of international seminars
and discussions held among scholars of various disciplines and
perspectives who share the goal of promoting a better understanding
of the historical and contemporary constructions of gender in
Japan.
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