'The Struggle For Lordship in Late Heian Japan The Case of Aki' by Peter J. Arnesen, 1984

The Society for Japanese Studies
The Struggle for Lordship in Late Heian Japan: The Case of Aki Author(s): Peter J. Arnesen Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1984), pp. 101-141 Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/132183 Accessed: 02/06/2010 10:39
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PETER J. ARNESEN
The Struggle for Lordship in Late Heian Japan: The Case of Aki
Sometime duringthe sixth month of 1139, FujiwaraNaritaka, the scion of a once-powerfulAki family, commendedhis landholdingsto a minor Kyoto noble named Nakahara Moronaga.The Fujiwara's fortunes were no longer what they had been, and Naritaka hoped that throughMoronagahe would obtain the patronageof someone powerful enough to reverse the decline. As it happened, his hope was forlorn. Moronaga was not as well-connected as Naritaka thought, and though Naritaka's heirs may have retainedan interest in at least some of their lands as late as the Muromachiperiod, by 1167 they had been forced to surrendermany of their rights to one Saeki Kagehiro. Naritaka, though he shared the surnameof the Regents' House in Kyoto, was a man of merely local importance.The history of his family's decline would therefore be of little interest were it not for two facts. First, the Aki Fujiwaraprovide us with one of the best documented cases of local lordship to be found anywhere in Heian Japan, with the evidence being particularlyrich for the eleventh century. Second, while Naritaka was a nonentity outside of Aki, Saeki Kagehiro enjoyed a certain prominence. His prominence, however, was derivative; it arose because Kagehiro enjoyed close ties to one of the great men of the twelfth century. The man in question, Taira Kiyomori, was the scion of an obscure branch of a none too influentialfamily, but both his father and grandfather had been trusted retainers of the ex-emperors
Research for this study was supported at various times by fellowships from the Japan Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Center for Japanese Studies of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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Shirakawa and Toba.' Kiyomori's own career had begun fairly quietly--he served in his youth as a member of Shirakawa's household, then worked in a variety of the government offices that ministered to the imperial family, and later acted as both governor and Toba's cat's-paw in the provinces of Higo and Aki. Because of his crucial role in suppressing the Hogen and Heiji Rebellions, however, Kiyomori entered the 1160s as one of the most powerful members of the Heian Court. Indeed, from 1160 to 1181 Kiyomori's influence was so great that historians used to argue that his rise marked the beginning of warrior rule inJapan. This view has come under increasing attack of late, for it is now clear-that Kiyomori's hegemony developed more gradually than we used to think, and that his ties to local warriors were tenuous. Yet while there is a growing tendency to treat Kiyomori as a mutant courtier, rather than as a rising warrior, most historians would concede that there were some provinces where Kiyomori's ties to the local warriors were fairly close. Aki, it is argued, was amtong the strongest of these local bases, and in Aki, it was Saeki Kagehiro who led the Taira's partisans.2 Kagehiro was himself a prominent official in the Aki provincial office and the hereditary priest-administrator (kannushi) of the Itsukushima Shrine. During a ten-year stint as governor of Aki (104656), however, Kiyomori had conceived an intense devotion to the Deity of Itsukushima--going so far as to name it the tutelary deity of his family-and had made Kagehiro his retainer.3 Though Kiyomori's direct ties to Aki were severed when he surrendered the governorship in 1156, his brothers held this post for the next two years, and an official in Kiyomori's household was governor from roughly 1166 to 1173. Even during the few years when the governor
1. Kiyomori's branchof the Kanmu Heike, which was descended from Prince Takami, seems to have abandonedthe capital and produced little but provincial The descendantsof Takami's governors before the rise of Kiyomori'sgrandfather. brotherTakamunewere somewhat more prominent,but the family really did not amountto much before the twelfth century. See Sonpi bunmyaku,4 vols., Shintei zoho Kokushi taikei 58-60.2 (YoshikawaKobunkan, 1962-64), 4:3-34. 2. See JeffreyP. Mass, "The Emergenceof the Kamakura Bakufu," in Medieval Japan, ed. John W. Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), chap. 1. is not fully understood,but see Kokura 3. Kiyomori'sdevotion to Itsukushima shinko ni tsuite," in Seto.naikaino shakaishiteki Toyofumi, "Heike no Itsukushima Shoten, 1952), pp. 1-34. kenkyu, ed. Uozumi Sogoro (Kyoto: Yanagihara
1974), pp. 127-34; and Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval
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was not one of his cronies, Kiyomoriwas quite capable of influencing a governor's decisions, and his relationshipto Kagehiro must occasionally have allowed him to bypass the governor altogether. Most scholarsare convinced, therefore,that from 1146on Aki was a Tairaenclave. We know, after all, that the Tairawere able to carve out an interest in at least three Aki sh6en, that Kagehiro was the dedicated instrumentof Kiyomori's will, and that Aki long held out againstthe Genji.4And if none of these points is conclusive, thereis another that seemingly is. Specifically,it is widely believed that in Aki the Tairasucceeded in installingjito, those bailiff-like officials who, in later times at least, were the quintessentialmanifestationof their patrons' ability to control the countryside.5One bit of evidence for this thesis, that relatingto the shoen of Mibu in northwesternAki, is provocative, but too fragmentary to be very revealing. The task of characterizing the Taira's use of jito has therefore been heavily dependent on documents that reflect Saeki Kagehiro's lordship over the former holdings of FujiwaraNaritaka. It is scarcely surprising,then, that, small fish though Naritaka may have been, the history of his family's lordship-and of Kagehiro's succession thereto-has been intensively examined. The subject has attracted the attention of our most eminent Japanese colleagues, has been woven into the standardtheories on the evolution of local lordshipin Japan,and has even won lengthytreatmentat the hands of Jeffrey Mass.6 Since Mass's writings are both readily accessible and similarin outlook to much of the best Japanese scholarship,it behooves us to review his findings. According to Mass, the Fujiwara's holdings passed uneventfullyand primogenitally throughat least five generations of the family. Thoughthese holdingswere sadly diminishedby the time Naritaka got his hands on them, the Fujiwara's ancient claims were sufficiently potent that their inheritance by Saeki Kagehiro was enough to enable the latter to win appointment as
jito of the entire district of Takada in 1176. Indeed, even after Kagehiro's stock fell with the collapse of the Taira, his heirs were
4. See, e.g., Ishii Susumu, "Heishi-Kamakura ry6seikenka no Aki kokuga," 257 (September 1961):1-12. Rekishigakukenkylu 5. See Mass, Warrior Government,chap. 4. 6. See, in additionto the works cited in notes 2 and 5, JeffreyP. Mass, "Patterns of ProvincialInheritancein Late Heian Japan," Journal of Japanese Studies 9.1 (Winter 1983):67-95.
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able not only to maintain their hold over at least parts of Takada, but even to win enrollment as shogunal vassals.7 Mass's views are not only seconded by the Japanese scholarship of the past three decades, they are also based on a substantial, and hitherto unquestioned, body of documentation. Indeed, the weight of scholarly opinion supporting this view of Fujiwara-Saeki lordship is so enormous that it may seem blasphemous to challenge it. Nevertheless, the entire thesis is dependent on the credibility of a crucial series of inheritance documents that were assembled by the Fujiwara and their heirs, and inheritance documents are among the most frequently forged of medieval sources. What I shall argue, in fact, is that on at least three occasions the Fujiwara found it necessary to lie about the history of their lordship, and that, in order to give substance to their falsehoods, they had to forge a number of inheritance and land transfer documents. It is these, unfortunately, that have lain at the center of virtually all discussions of late Heian Aki and of the Taira's place there. Still, while it is a bit of a shock to have to discard hitherto unquestioned sources and assumptions, the history of the Fujiwara's landholdings remains extraordinarily well documented and has a good deal to tell us about the growth of local lordship in early medieval Japan. Indeed, given the extent that we continue to think about the history of early warrior lordship in terms of the essential bankruptcy of the late Heian state and the enormous de facto power of a provincial warrior class, the picture that emerges from the Fujiwara's documents is both novel and interesting. To anticipate points that I shall elaborate below, the Fujiwara were district magistrates whose local influence was heavily dependent upon their being confirmed in office by the provincial government. Even when they were successful in obtaining this confirmation, they faced severe competition for control of the countryside from other families enjoying both official connections and close ties to the land. By the mid-twelfth century, when the Fujiwara were no longer successful in winning appointment as district magistrates, and when their local rivals were successfully commending large portions of the Fujiwara's former bailiwick to shoen proprietors, the Fujiwara's position was so shaky that even the transfer of their rights to Saeki
7. I should point out that Mass speaks of Kagehiro as the jito of seven go in Takada, not of the district itself. There were but seven go in Takada, however, and I doubt that what I have said above distorts what Mass meant to say in 1974.
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Kagehiro,and Kagehiro'sties to Kiyomori, were insufficientto win back their prerogatives. The Aki Fujiwara, in other words, afford us a picture of how severe, and how diverse, were the difficulties besetting those who aspired to local lordship in Japan. Of course, we have long known that local lords had to worry about the possibility of militaryattack by their fellows, or of the denial of their immunitiesfrom taxation, but it does not appearthat either conquest or the loss of immunities undidthe Fujiwara.Before assessing what did undo them, however, we need to examine some of the conventionalwisdom on the origins of local lordship.
Lordship and the Public Domain
To understandthe growth of local lordship, we must first discard the notion that by 1025or so the productive land of Japanhad been largely made over into immune estates, or sh6en. It is true that shoen were being carved out as early as the eighth century, but the total number in existence by the eleventh century seems to have been fairly small.8 Thus, while it is legitimate to argue that the proliferationof shoen had an enormous impact upon the development of local lordship from 1100 on, it appears that the local seigneuries of the eleventh century grew up largely within the provincial domain. Indeed, most scholars would agree that it was essentially fromthe local officialdomthat provinciallordlingswere drawn. Three centuries earlier, of course, such a development would have seemed impossible. Japan's provinces (kuni), districts (gun), and subdistricts (go) had then been arrayed in a rigid territorial hierarchy,and local governance had been closely controlled by the
8. This point, which finds vigorous expression in, e.g., Amino Yoshihiko, "Sh6en-k6ry6seino keisei to k6oz," in Tochiseidoshi 1, ed. TakeuchiRiz6, Taikei Nihonshi s6sho 6 (YamakawaShuppansha,1973), pp. 178-79, has been only indirectly expressed in the English literature.(See, e.g., G. CameronHurst, III, Insei [New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1976],p. 259.) Precise figureson eleventhcenturysh6en are elusive, but it now looks as thoughT6daijimay have had roughly thirty sh6en (Joan R. Piggott, "Hierarchy and Economics in Early Medieval Todaiji," in Court and Bakufu in Japan, ed. Jeffrey P. Mass [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982], pp. 54, 77-83), and that even the mighty Regents' House may have had as few as 100 or so (Yoshie Akio, "Sekkanke-ry6no s6zoku kenkyf josetsu," Shigaku zasshi 76.4 [April 1967]:1-44). In contrast, the imperialfamily alone is thought to have established more than 1,000 shoen after roughly 1090.
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ImperialCourt.9By the mid-eleventhcentury, however, local governance had been altered in at least three ways. First, the complex tax system adaptedfrom Chinese models had been radicallysimplified.Instead of levying four distinct categories of taxes directly from individual households-a practice that required provincial governments to maintainelaborate census registers and update them regularly-the Japanese now levied but two broadcategories of imposts, both of which were based on land area. For purposes of the present study, these categories may be referred to as "taxes" (shoto kanmotsu) and "miscellaneous services" 1 (manz6 kuji, or kokuyaku), Second, it was becoming increasinglyrare for provincialgovernors to spend much time in the provinces. Instead, a governor normallyentrustedthe routinemattersof provincialgovernanceto a permanentstaff of "resident officers" (zaicho, or zaicho kanjin) in the province to which he had been appointed. This resulted in the vesting of considerablymore power in local figuresthan would have been permitted by eighth-century law codes, but few governors allowed that to worry them. The typical governor thought it quite enough to send a personalrepresentative(mokudai)to preside over matters the resident officers, and to handle whatever extraordinary his from edicts" arise (chosen) "governor's by dispatching might in the secretariat capital.11 private Finally, by the mid-eleventhcentury the old territorialhierarchy of province, district, and subdistrict had broken down, and the of the provinces' taxable land was being completely administration restructured.The details of this reorganizationare elusive, but the following generalizationsare fairly well accepted.12First, taxable land was increasingly administeredthrough units of two distinct
is in order.Althoughthe wordgo is generallyrenderedas 9. A note on translation commuof the g6 to any naturalagrarian the or relationship "township," "village," nity is problematic.Since it is clear, moreover,thatthe ancientgo covereda farlarger area than the medieval "village" (mura), I have thought it best to call the go a "subdistrict." 10. These categories are essentially the same as the "taxes" and "corvee" of Underthe Shoen-Kokugaryo System,"Journalof NagaharaKeiji's "Landownership the note 6. dislike implications 1:2 I comparative Studies 1975):270, (Spring Japanese of the term "corvee," however. 11. TakeuchiRiz6, "Zaich6 kanjinno bushika," in Nihon hokensei seiritsu no ed. TakeuchiRiz6 (YoshikawaK6bunkan, 1957), pp. 3-11. kenkytu, 12. What follows is based upon SakamotoShozo, Nihon 6cho kokkataisei ron (T6ky6 DaigakuShuppankai,1972), pp. 266-305.
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sorts. The first were made up primarily of land that had been on the tax rolls since the remote past. While such land was to be found throughout the country, there were pronounced regional differences in the way it was managed. In two areas-the first extending from the provinces of Kaga, Mine, and Owari eastward, and the second comprising the provinces of Satsuma and Osumi in Kyushu-the old districts had retained their political significance, and it was through the district magistrates (gunji) that the ancient public domain was controlled.13 In central, and most of western Japan, however, the importance of the district was fading, and it was increasingly through the subdistricts and their magistrates (g6ji) that the ancient domain was administered.14 For instance, Aki lay in this region, and most scholars believe that it was as subdistrict magistrates that the Aki Fujiwara rose to power. Alongside the old districts and subdistricts, however, land units of an entirely different sort were emerging as well. These went by a variety of names-including betsumyo, beppu, betsuno, mura, and ho-but they all shared the following characteristics. First, they were made up not of the anciently cultivated public domain, but rather of newly reclaimed land. Second, their relationship to the old districts and subdistricts was a horizontal one-the new lands lay largely outside the jurisdiction of district and subdistrict magistrates, and rendered their taxes directly to the provincial office. Third, they were generally established in the following manner. An individual, whether a person or a religious corporation, would ask the provincial government for permission to reclaim a specificed body of land for cultivation. Typically, he would profess a desire to foster the weal of the province by his actions, and would stipulate that while he would of course render the proper taxes (shoto kanmotsu) on the lands he reclaimed, he wished-as a reward for meritorious service, perhaps, or in order to endow a pious foundation-to be exempted from the miscellaneous services (manzo kuji) levied on them. If his petition were granted, and if he succeeded in his reclamation project, he would thereby have established what amounted to a semi13. In a numberof these provinces,however, landunits calledin were dividedoff from the old districts. Satsuma's Iriki-inis a famous case in point. 14. A cautionarynote is in order here. Not all the g6 appearingin medieval documentsare ancient subdistricts.Some are in fact made up of reclaimedland and are a species of the betsumy6discussedin the next paragraph. For example, virtually all the g6 in Hitachi fall into this betsumyo category, as do many other g6 in the Kanto.
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immuneproperty within the provincialdomain. His holding would be subject to taxation, but he would have clear title and would owe the government substantiallyless than was owed on comparable portions of the ancient domain.15 There can be little doubt that semi-immune holdings of this sort-which Japanese scholars tend to lump together under the name betsumyo16-were an important element in the creation of eleventh-centuryseigneuries. Indeed, to the extent that one regards the reclamationof land by provincial figures as the foundation of "feudal lordship" in Japan, the emergence of the betsumyo will seem more nearly crucialthan important.But no matterhow potent we assume the lordshipof a man over his betsumyo, we have still to make sense of a ratherdifferentsort of local lordship.The fact is that the greatest local seigneurs-men whose later commendations would create the enormous shoen of the twelfth century, for example-claimed dominion over areas that extended well beyond the confines of their reclaimedlands.17Typically, the scale of these lordships was on the order of one or more subdistricts, or even districts, of the provincial domain, and their holders were either district of subdistrictmagistrates (gunji or goji). Unfortunately, it is far from clear what the relationship was between the prerogativessuch men enjoyed as magistratesand those they enjoyed as landholders.Most scholarsassume, however, that it was the reclaimedlands of the betsumyo that formed the indispensable core of even a district magistrate'slordship. Accordingto this view, the creation of betsumyo and the grantingof immunitiesto them representedthe conceding to local magnatesof effective control over both peasantry and agriculture in order to obtain the magnates' cooperation in increasing the flow of regular taxation
15. Neither the predominanceof reclaimed land nor the autonomy of the betsumyo is nearlyas clearcutas the conventionalwisdomwouldhave it, however. See Yoda-hono seikakuto kokugabuninjiti no seiritsuni TamuraHiroshi,"Suo-no-kuni tsuite," Shigakukenkyu 112 (August 1973):1-22;Nishik6riTsutomu, "Wakasa-nokuniTara-no-shojito-shiki no keifu ni tsuite," Shigakukenkyu132 (June 1976):1-22; and idem, "Otabumino jiisokei kisai to furetsukisai ni tsuite," HiroshimaDaigaku
Bungakubu kiyo 38 (December 1978):24-51.
in eithera shoen 16. Takingit as given that a myo was a unitof tax accountability or the publicdomain,a betsumyomay be seen as a myo that accounted"separately" from those subject to a magistrateor to his shoen counterpart. for the termryoshu, andam doing 17. I am here using "seigneur"as a translation so because it seems clear that historiansuse both terms to refer to men who were lords of both land and the men inhabitingit.
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(shoto kanmotsu).'8 Such concessions, it is argued, allowed a betsumyo's holder to secure personal lordship over all peasants cultivating his betsumyo, and ultimately to exert control even over lands they cultivatedelsewhere. It was this personallordship, many scholars would argue, that made a man an effective and useful magistrate. But even if we assume that a man's position as lord of a betsumyo contributedto his effectiveness as a magistrate,just how strongcan we assume that his hold was over the whole of his district or subdistrict?This question is far frombeing resolved, but there is a growing body of scholarship that argues that the lordship of such magistratescannot have been very strong. Specifically, it is argued that, however strong a magistrate's control of his betsumyo, his authorityover the rest of his bailiwick was not the personal dominion of a proprietor,or of a masterover his dependents, but ratherthe closely circumscribed, public authority of a government functionary. Such "lordship," it is suggested, depended heavily upon the man's office, and would collapse if that office were denied him.19Of course, since most magistrateswere also warriors,the acceptance of this view requires that we also believe that sword and bow were a less potent defense againstgovernmentalfiat than most of us used to think, but then Mass has arguedvery much the same point for more than a decade. As we shall see shortly, moreover, the lordshipof the Aki Fujiwarawas, if anything,even more precariousthan the above model would suggest.
The Fujiwara and Mita
Let us returnto FujiwaraNaritaka. In the document with which Naritakacommendedhis landholdingsin 1139,he claimed that while his family had traditionally been magistratesof all seven subdistricts in the district of Takada in Aki, he himself controlled nothing beyond the two Takada subdistricts of Mita and Kazahaya. It was these that he was commending, and as proof of his title he was surrendering a large number of evidentiary documents-among which were eight documents proving the descent of the Fujiwara's
18. The classic exposition of this view is Oyama Ky6hei, "Kokugary6ni okeru
ry6shusei no keisei," in Nihon chuisei n6sonshi no kenkyu, by Oyama Ky6hei
(IwanamiShoten, 1978), pp. 70-102. 19. See, e.g., NagaharaKeiji, "Sh6ensei no rekishitekichii," in Nihon hokensei seiritsu katei no kenkyui, by NagaharaKeiji (IwanamiShoten, 1961), pp. 40-64.
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holdings, a ananother eight showing that he and his forebears had indeed been magistrates of Takada.20 All sixteen of these documents survive, and they trace the story of the Fujiwara's lordship all the way back to 1031. However, there also survive a number of documents that Naritaka did not surrender in 1139, but which have nonetheless loomed large in most studies of the Fujiwara. These include: (1) a 1053/2/5 governor's edict appointing Fujiwara Yorikata district magistrate (gunji) of Takada; (2) a 1078/9/2 edict appointing Yorikata subdistrict magistrate (g6ji) of Mita and Kazahaya; (3) a 1078/10/3 settlement (yuzurijo) in which Yorikata releases Mita and Kazahaya to his son Yorinari; and (4) an 1110/3/10 settlement in which Yorinari releases Mita and Kazahaya to his son Naritaka,2' While the mere fact that these documents were not surrendered to Nakahara Moronaga in 1139 is peculiar, and while one of them displays some striking stylistic anomalies, most historians have trusted them implicitly. In 1981, however, Yamada Sh6 made a convincing argument that all four documents were forgeries, and that they must have been concocted when Naritaka's heir rereleased the Fujiwara's lands to Saeki Kagehiro in 1167. His demonstration has made such a hash of the generally accepted chronologies of Fujiwara lordship that we had best retrace the chronology that emerges from the documents Naritaka did give to Moronaga.22 The first four generations of Fujiwara are easily dealt with. On 1031/6/3, Fujiwara Morinaka released Mita and the beppu of Shigeyuki to his son Morimitsu, commanding him to seek appointmeit as district magistrate (tairyo) when the governor was next in the province. On 1048/7/2, Morimitsu, who was then district magistrate (gunji) of Takada and a man of eighty or ninety, released the sathe properties to his son Moriyori. Nine years later, Moriyori, who
20. Asano Tadasuke-shi kyuzo Itsukushima monjo (hereafter, Asano Itsukushima monjo), no. 1, in Hiroshima-kenshi, Kodai-chtusei shiryo hen (hereafter, HKKS), 5 vols., ed. Hiroshima-kenshi Hensanshitsu (Hiroshima: Hiroshima-ken, 1974-80), 3:1467-71. 21. Gohanmotsu-chq, nos. 1-3, 12 (HKKS 3:3-4, 10). I favor "settlement" or "release" as a translation for yuzurijo, notwithstanding Mass's use of the term 'will." Not only is "release" closer in meaning to the original Japanese, but yuzurijo were often used to effect inter vivos, as well as post mortem, settlements. 22. Yamada Sh6, "Aki-no-kuni Takada gunji to sono shoryo kishin: monjo no nagare wo chishin to shite," Shigaku zasshi 90.1 (January 1981):36-66. Mass was unaware of this article at the time he wrote, and so made free use of the suspect documents. See "Provincial Inheritance," pp. 86-87.
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was by then district magistratehimself, released these lands to his son Morito, and in 1068 Morito released the same lands to his son
Yorikata.23
With Yorikata's succession, the story gets more detailed. Four years after succeeding Morito, Yorikata was officially appointed subdistrictmagistrate(g6ji) of Mita, but on 1077/12/10he released Mita and Shigeyuki to his son Yorinari. He must have remained active, though, for on 1083/3/10 he was appointed magistrate (tairyo) of Takada, and his appointment was proclaimed to the province by the Great Council of State.24 By 1095, Yorinari had come into his own. On 1095/8/15 he petitioned for provincialconfirmationof lands in all seven of Takada's subdistricts; in 1096/6 he was appointed district magistrate (gunji) of the four Takada subdistrictsof Mita, Kazahaya, Ohara, and Kotachi; and on 1097/3/15he was appointed subdistrictmagistrate (g6ji) of Awaya and Funakias well. His careerwas not entirely smooth, for at some point he fell into a dispute with his younger brother,but ultimatelyhe was twice confirmedas districtmagistrate (tairyo) by the Great Council of State. On 1114/3/10 he released most of his Mitaholdingsto his son Naritaka,and in 1139/1Naritaka was appointed subdistrictmagistrateof Mita.25 Such, at any rate, is the story that Naritakasought to perpetuate in 1139, and which most scholars would now accept. Shortly, we shall have to consider whether this story is really credible, but first let us examine two of the lessons that have been drawn from the story as it stands. The first of these is that every Fujiwaraexcept Naritakawas district magistrate(gunji) of Takada,and that by 1096
23, Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 1-4 (HKKS 3:157-59). Note that my
readingof Morinaka'srelease differs from Mass's.

24. Ibid., no. 5 (HKKS 3:160); Aki-no-kuni Choko zassho, no. 12 (HKKS 5:1366-67); and Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 4 (HKKS 3:5). Mass was unaware of the
existence of the Choko zassho documents at the time he wrote.

25. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 14 (HKKS 3:166-67); Gohanmotsu-cho, nos. 7-11 (HKKS 3:7-9); Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 6 and Itsukushima monjo bui, no. 1 (HKKS 3:160-61, 1542); and Aki-no-kuni Choko zassho, no. 69
(HKKS 5:1404).Thereare actuallythree versions of Yorinari'spetitionto release his holdings-a 1098petition(Shinshutsu,no. 6), an 1114petitionwith a slightlydifferent version in the Chokozassho that bears the date text (Bui, no. 1), and an unpublished of the second, but has the content of the first. This last version is surely the most reliable. See Yamada, "Aki-no-kuni,"p. 60, note 43; and SakaueYasutoshi, "Akino shory6 shfisekito denry6,"Shigakuzasshi 91.9 no-kuniTakadagunjiFujiwara-shi (September 1982):36,note 41. 26. This last point emerges from Gohanmotsu-cho,no. 7 (HKKS 3:7).
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their hereditary claim to the office was explicitly recognized.26 This magistracy, however, was not very potent. On the contrary, the Fujiwara's authority seems at first to have been restricted to the single subdistrict of Mita, and even there to have been conditioned by the higher authority of still another line of district magistrates. Thus, the district magistrates who approved the sale of certain Mita paddies in 1056 and 1070 bore the surname of Oshi, not Fujiwara.27 This situation is puzzling, but not inexplicable. As Matsuoka Hisato has argued, the term gunji, or "district magistrate," probably encompassed a variety of men during the eleventh century, few of whom enjoyed district-wide authority. The majority of these men would instead be charged with the administration of a particular subdivision of the district. If, as was often the case, a man's charge happened to correspond to one of the old go, or subdistricts, there would be two perfectly sensible ways to refer to him. The first would be to call him the subdistrict's gunji, or the particular "district magistrate" who was responsible for that subdistrict. The second, however, would simply be to call him the "subdistrict magistrate," or goji.28 It is possible to argue, therefore, that the Fujiwara's "district magistracy" was in fact a hereditary right to administer Takada's Mita subdistrict, and that it was this right the Fujiwara transmitted when they spoke of releasing "Mita-go" to their sons. This argument not only draws support from the fact that it was to the Mita goji-shiki, or "subdistrict magistracy," that Fujiwara Yorikata was appointed in 1072, it also explains why Fujiwara Yorinari could be appointed to the "district magistracy" of four Takada subdistricts in 1096, but to the "subdistrict magistracy" of two others a year later. Yorinari's six posts, in other words, would all appear to have been subdistrict magistracies. In contrast, the Oshi who emerge as district magistrates in 1056 and 1070 may well have had a district-wide authority, though the extent of their power over the Fujiwara is obscure.29 But if the subdistrict magistracy was a major component of the Fujiwara' s lordship over Mita-and later over other lands as well-it was not quite all. They also held the beppu of Shigeyuki, and the
27. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 10, 34 (HKKS 3:163-64, 203). 28. Matsuoka Hisato, "G6ji no seiritsu ni tsuite," Rekishigaku kenkyu 215 (January 1958):18-32. 29. Ibid.
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languageused to referto this land makes it clear that their rightshere were far strongerthan their rights over Mita as a whole. While the precise characterof this "beppu" does not emerge from our documents, most scholars assume that Shigeyuki was a betsumy5 of the sort discussed above. They have been forced to make a major qualificationhere, since it is clear that Shigeyuki was created by purchase, ratherthan by reclamation,but by and large they think as
follows.30
Until the 1070s, the Fujiwaralordship had extended no farther than Mita, and had consisted of two sorts of rights. Over Shigeyuki, a betsumyo created by purchase, the Fujiwara'srights were probably quite extensive. If Shigeyuki was treated as were most other betsumyo, for example, it would have been exempt from the levying of miscellaneous services (manz5 kuji) by the province, and the Fujiwarawould themselves have enjoyed these services. Over Mita as a whole, however, and later over most of Kazahaya, the Fujiwara's rights can have amounted to no more than the prerogatives assigned a subdistrict magistrate. The Fujiwarawere presumably responsible for collecting and forwardingtaxes, and they may have been allowed to impose a small supplementary levy (kajishi)of their own, but they can have done little else. This view of the Fujiwara'slordship has proved compelling for two reasons. First, it is in excellent accord with the story told by the documents that FujiwaraNaritakareleased to NakaharaMoronaga; and second, it corresponds closely to the view that most scholars have of the natureof subdistrictmagistrates'seigneuries. Let us see, however, whether this view can really be maintained. The Fujiwara and Takada AlthoughI have thus far described a fairlypeaceful transmission of lands throughseven generationsof Fujiwara,it is clear that in fact there was a severe shake-upin the family's holdingsduringthe 1080s and '90s. We have alreadyseen that on 1083/3/10FujiwaraYorikata was appointed district magistrate (tairyo) of Takada, and that the Great Council of State proclaimedthis appointmentto the province on 1083/6/7. What I have not yet mentioned, however, is that the province failed to act on this appointmentuntil 1085/2/16.31
30. For a particularly clear exposition of the following view, see Matsuoka Hisato, "Kaisetsu," HKKS 3:9-15. 31. Gohanmotsu-cho, nos. 4, 5 (HKKS 3:5-6).
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The reason for this delay is never explicitly stated, but we know that a month after he was finally confirmedas district magistrate, Yorikataalso sought confirmationof his title to extensive tracts of dryfield in Mita and Kazahaya. In one of the documents that he submittedat this time, Yorikatalisted several cho of dryfieldin one of Kazahaya's villages, and then made the following claim. The Kazahaya dryfields, he maintained,were his hereditaryancestral property. Yet ever since the late provisionalgovernor (gonno-kami), one Morit6sukune, had died without a son of any merit, these fields had suffered extensive encroachments. Thus, even though Yorikata, who was Morito's descendant (matsuyo), had ultimatelysucceeded to the district magistracy,he still held nothing of the dryfields.The problem, he continued, was that the preceding district magistrate, one Yoriyuki, had been extremely ill and had either himself sold off his prerogatives,or else had had them embezzled. In any case, Yorikatawished now to have them restored.32 This claim is surely linked to the events of 1083-85, but the linkages must be understood in terms of several fairly strikingelements of Yorikata's story. The first is his identification of his forebearas "Morit6sukune." Sukune is a "rank title," or kabane, but it happensto be an inappropriate ranktitle for a Fujiwara.True, the Aki Fujiwarawere not necessarily tied to the Kyoto Fujiwara, whose rank title was ason, but it is clear that Yorikataand his line were ason, nonetheless.33It is impossibleto avoid suspecting,therefore, that Yorikatawas not a paternaldescendantof Morito,and that Morito was not a Fujiwara. This suspicion is strengthened by Yorikata's statement that Morit6 had died without a capable son, and that ultimately it was Yorikata-a more remote descendant-who had succeeded to his estate. This claim directly contradictswhat purportsto be Morito's 1068/3/10 release of his holdings to his "son" Yorikata, as does Yorikata'sstatementthat a certainYoriyukihad been districtmagistrate before Yorikatawas. Indeed, the three claims we have examined belie not only Morit6's release, but virtuallythe entire history of "Fujiwara" lordship down to 1083. It may be, of course, that it is the story that Yorikatatold in 1085 that is false, ratherthan the documents his story belies. There are, however, at least three considerationsthat make his story credible.
32. ShinshutsuItsukushimamonjo, no. 53 (HKKS 3:264-68). 33. See, e.g., Gohanmotsu-ch, nos. 4, 5, 7-11 (HKKS 3:5-10).
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First, while it is easy to imaginewhy Yorikata's descendants might have found it desirableto forge a set of documents that would show the transmissionof Mitalands from Morinakadown to Yorikata,it is difficultto imaginewhy Yorikatashouldhave wished to tell the story he did if such a set of documents-whether spurious or genuinehad already been in existence in 1085. It is even more difficult to imaginewhy Yorikata's descendants should have thought it worthwhile to concoct a documentthat put this story in Yorikata'smouth. Second, Yorikata'sstory sheds light on what are otherwise some rather puzzling phenomena. It is difficult to imagine, for example, why the Great Council of State should have deigned to act upon an appointmentto a district magistracyunless there had been such an enormous conflict over the post that the issue could not be resolved at the provinciallevel. The fact that the province then waited nearly two years before acceding to the Council's decision would also seem to bespeak a bitter conflict. Furthermore,there are several documents of the 1080s that may well reflect-albeit somewhat dimlythe prioralienationof some of the magistracy'sMita landholdings.34 Finally the sequence of transmissions from Morinaka, to Morimitsu, to Moriyori, to Morito, to Yorikata that is reflected in existing documents would seem peculiar even without Yorikata's story. If we accept it, after all, we must then believe that Mita and Shigeyuki were held by five generations within the space of thirtyeight years (1031-68). On balance, therefore, it seems best to conclude that Fujiwara Yorikatasucceeded to an estate that had previously been held by a completely different family. Neither the identity of this family nor the extent of its holdingscan be firmlyestablished, but the following points are suggestive. First, the Oshi who was district magistratein 1070was referredto as the gon-no-osuke, a title that meantprecisely the same thing as did Morito's title of gon-no-kami. We know, moreover, that the Oshi, who were an ancient Aki family, bore the rank title of sukune.35
refer to certainMita lands as the formerholdingsof Shir6Taifu-dono,a designation that bespeaks someone of the right rank for one of Yorikata'skinsmen. If this was Yoriyuki,then his sellingoff of his prerogativesmusthave extendedto Mitaas well as Kazahaya. was not a kami, but by the late Heian period governors (kami) were signing their edicts as osuke, and thus the two terms in the text must be seen as equivalentin the no. 43 (HKKS 3:234-47).
present context. For the Oshi's status as sukune, see Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, 35. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 34 (HKKS 3:203). Technically, an osuke 34. Thus, Aki-no-kuni Choko zassho, nos. 1$, 23, 31 (HKKS 5:1368-70, 1372),
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Second, we know that in 1095 Yorikata's son Yorinari claimed to have inherited land in all seven of Takada's subdistricts, and that in 1096-97 he was confirmed in the magistracy of six of them. It therefore seems possible that the estate to which Yorikata had succeeded was scattered across all of Takada, and that the Fujiwara's district magistracy was a real one, not just an inflated title for the control of one or two subdistricts. While such a hypothesis may seem to depart recklessly far from the conventional wisdom on the emergence of the subdistrict as the basic unit of provincial administration, we know of at least two Aki families that enjoyed much the sort of authority that I am here postulating for the Fujiwara. These families were the Fujiwara of Nuta and the Oshi of Yamagata. Nuta was the easternmost of Aki's districts, and the Nuta Fujiwara were apparently its district magistrates. In any case, they are known to have had virtually the entire district converted into a single shoen, of which they then became hereditary bailiffs (geshi). The Yamagata Oshi achieved rather less than this, but still did well for themselves. They were almost surely district magistrates of Yamagata, in northwestern Aki, and held large tracts of land there. Their commendations created the shoen of Mibu, Terahara, Shijihara, and Hirata, and still left them land in the villages of Haruki, Ichiori, Misumino, and Kawado.36 What I am suggesting, in other words, is that by perhaps the second half of the eleventh century there were at least three districts in Aki where single families had managed to achieve district-wide authority. These were the districts of Nuta, administered by a Fujiwara family, the district of Yamagata, administered by an Oshi family, and the district of Takada, which seems also to have been administered by a branch of the Oshi. Moreover, in at least two of these districts, the magisterial dynasties eventually adopted the names of their bailiwicks as their own surnames. Thus, by the 1180s the Yamagata Oshi were calling themselves Yamagata and the Nuta Fujiwara were calling themselves Nuta. While it is unclear whether
36. On the Nuta, see Kawai Masaharu, "Kobayakawa-shino hatten to Seto (YoshikawaKobunnaikai," in Chusei bukeshakai no kenkyu,by Kawai Masaharu kan, 1973), pp. 359-61. An introductionto the Oshi's lordship may be found in Geibichihoshikenkyu Mibu-no-sh6," TamuraHiroshi,"Heianmakkino Aki-no-kuni 106 and 107 (Joint Number, 1976):1-12.
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the TakadaOshi ever styled themselves Takada,we know that their Fujiwaraheirs did so style themselves.37 To those acquainted with warrior developments in the Kanto, where families like the Chiba of Shimofusa's Chiba district were both districtmagistratesand warloadsof considerablepower, all this will seem strikingly familiar. Indeed, the emergence of district magisterialdynasties in Aki as well as in the Kanto will seem all the more strikingin view of the fact that Aki was in a region where the administrative importanceof the districtis thoughtto have declined. Yet while it is importantto recognize that genuine district magistracies survived in Aki, and that it was to one of these that FujiwaraYorkata had succeeded by about 1085, it would not do to assume that his position was one of much power. On the contrary, his own succession had been won only after a bitter struggle,and his estate would not long survive him.
The Beginnings of Decay
In the sixth month of 1096, the governor of Aki appointed Fujiwara Yorinaridistrict magistrateof Takada. He did so, he declared, because Yorinari-in accordance with the release of his father Yorikata-had been so listed in the previous governor's calendarof Had the governor himself been a recent appointee appointments.38 in 1096, his action in this matter would seem the straightforward confirmationof a right that was unquestioned. We know, however, that the governor, one FujiwaraAritoshi, had been in office since 1090, and we ought therefore to wonder what had kept him from confirmingYorinari earlier.39One possibility is that Yorikata had died recently, and that it now seemed desirable to reconfirm a release that had taken place earlier. Anotherpossibility, however, is that Aritoshi's appointmentas governor had provided the opportunity for someone to contest Yorinari's position as magistrate, and that it was only now that Aritoshi had managed to sort out the dispute. That a dispute arose sometime is quite beyond doubt. According
37. On the Nuta and Yamagatasee notes 36 and 91. On the TakadaFujiwaraas
Takada, see Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 54 (HKKS 3:268-70), and Itsukushima Nosaka monjo, nos. 1702, 1804 (HKKS .2:1206, 1277-78). 38. Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 7 (HKKS 3:7).
39. Aritoshi was governor from 1090 until 1098/1/27. See Chuiyuki,1102/1/6 (HKKS 1:221, no. 868); and Kugyo bunin, 1124 (HKKS 1:212-13, no. 847).
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to Yorinari'sson Naritaka, Yorinarihad had twice to be appointed district magistrate-and that by order of the Great Councilbecause of a dispute between Yorinariand "his younger brother" (shatei).40 This statement has traditionallybeen interpretedas an explanationfor the fact that, even thoughthe Councilhad confirmed Yorinarias magistratein 1098,it had had to issue a second confirmation in 1109. It is equally possible, however, that Naritaka's statement is an explanationfor the fact thatany such orderswere issued. of the GreatCouncilis such an extraordinary Indeed, a proclamation vehicle for an appointment to a districtmagistracythat I thinkits use here must reflectthe existence of a severe conflictat the local level. What I am suggesting is this. At Yorikata's death-which had surely taken place by 1095/8/15--one of his kinsmen had been sufficiently disgruntledabout Yorinari's inheritance to have challenged that inheritance in court.41 Whether this challenge was edicts confirmlodged before 1096-and the series of gubernatorial a Yorinari's be seen as thus judgment on the ing prerogativesmay case-or whetherit was the very issuance of these edicts in 1095-97 that had elicited a suit, is ultimately unimportant.In either case, Yorinariwould have been embroiledin a dispute by 1097, and we oughtprobablyto regardthe GreatCouncil's 1098/2/20proclamation of Yorinari's appointmentas district magistrate (tairyo) as a judgment in Yorinari's favor. This judgment can scarcely have stuck, for a similarone had to be issued in 1109, and there is precious little evidence that Yorinari ever enjoyed many of the prerogativeshe claimed in the 1090s. His son, moreover, seems never to have controlledmuch more than the subdistrict of Mita. Yet while the fact of collapse is obvious, its causes are not. The Fujiwara's documents simply fail us at this point, and we must look to evidence of a rather different sort. The phenomenonthat most meritsour attentionis the conversion of immense tracts of Takada's public domain into shoen. We know that this process was well underway duringYorinari'slifetime, for a documenthe drew up in 1127reveals that the subdistrictof Toshima
40. Asano Itsukushimamonjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1467-71). The term "younger brother"is not necessarilyto be taken literally.It would be naturalfor Yorinariand his partisansto claimthata rivalclaimantto theirrightswas eitherYorinari'syounger brotheror the younger brotherof someone from whom Yorinaritraced his rights. 41. I deduce that Yorikatawas dead by 1095/8/15 from the fact that on that date Yorinariwas seeking to claim lands by right of inheritance.See ShinshutsuItsukushimamonjo, no. 14 (HKKS 3:166-67).
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had become a shoen, and that this shoen had drawn in parts of Kazahaya.42By 1138, the subdistrictof Funaki had probablybeen joined with Kurubeki-go,in the neighboringdistrict of Takamiya,to and by 1149still produce the shoen known as Yoshishige-no-sh6,43 anothershoen had absorbedbetween two and four of Takada'sother subdistricts. These shoen were surelythe productsof commendations,but the commendorsare obscure. The most likely candidates, however, are the Fujiwara'sfellow officials. Such men are known to have been purchasingland in Takada from a very early date, and they even springup among the "cultivators" of Fujiwaraholdings. For example, there are three registers of Mita and Kazahaya dryfields that Yorikatadrew up in 1085, and which have traditionallybeen interpreted as reflectingpeasant landholdingin the Fujiwaradomain. By comparingthe names of the men appearingin these registers with those of men appearingin certaineleventh- and twelfth-centurybills of sale, however, it is possible to show that some of these men were anything but peasant-like. To cite but one example here, Fujii Chikahiro, who appears in the 1085 registers as the "cultivator" (sakunin)of eight tan of Mitadryfield,is known to have been at least a scribe (shosho), and perhapseven an administrator(hogandai) in the provincial office.44 A non-bucolic aura also surroundsmany of the cultivators appearingin an 1154registerof Mita lands. Of the sixty-six cultivators listed there, ten are priests, and so are not listed by surname.Of the fifty-six men whose surnames are known, however, fully thirty-six
42. Ibid., no. 15 (HKKS 3:167-74). 43. Yoshishige'shistoryis obscure, but fromthe descriptionof landsit is thought to have covered (see Hiroshima-kenno chimei, Nihon rekishi chimei taikei 35 [Heibonsha,1982],pp. 713-14) andfrom the fact that Funaki-godisappearsfromour records during the Heian and Kamakuraperiods, I deduce that Yoshishige had absorbedFunaki.Furthermore, since TairaChikanori was its ryoke, I suspect thatthe sh6en must have been commendedto Chikanori'sgrandfather,FujiwaraKiyotaka, while the latter'sson, Mitsutaka,was governorof Aki in 1136-38. See Kugyobunin,5 vols., Shintei zoho Kokushi taikei 53-57 (Yoshikawa K6bunkan, 1964-66), 1:450;
and Sonpi bunmyaku, 2:44-48, 4:6. 44. The registers are in Itsukushima Nosaka monjo, no. 1876 (HKKS 2:1344-59) and Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 35, 53 (HKKS 3:203-29, 264-68). For Fujii Chikahiro, see Koji ruien shoshu monjo, nos. 2, 3 (HKKS 3:1519-21), and Aki-no-
kuniChokozassho 50, 51 (HKKS5:1378-79).The registerscontainonly given names, but there seems to be little doubt of the identityof people appearing in both registers and land transfers.
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bear the names of families known to have had members serving in the provincial government.45 Whilethere is but one case in which a specificcommendorcan be lived in identified,that one is quite significant.By 1149,the Fujiwara the shadow of an immense estate known as Yoshida-no-sho. Yoshida sprawledacross the borderbetween Takadaand the neighboring district of Takamiya, encompassing not only the Takamiya subdistrictsof Takaharaand Takamiya(by then renamedYoshida), but also the Takadasubdistrictsof Oharaand Toshima.46Until the Kamakuraperiod, however, it also included a portion of Kotachi that was controlled by a family that would ultimately supplantthe Fujiwaraas lords of Kazahaya. The first member of this family of whom much is known is a certain "Saeki" Tamehiro.In 1177,Tamehirowas a shoen officialin Takadahara,a section of Kotachi that then belonged to Yoshidano-sho, but in 1216 he was appointedjito, or bailiff by shogunal appointment,over three areas-Takadaharain Kotachi, and Nagata and Mehogaki in Kazahaya. By that time, moreover, all three of these lands belonged to the ItsukushimaShrine.47 Because Nagata and Mehogaki comprised a large part of old Kazahaya, one naturallywonders how Tamehirogot his hands on them. One possibility, of course, is that Tamehirowas a kinsmanof Saeki Kagehiro, and that he had thereforereceived a portionof the rights that Fujiwara Naritaka's heir commended to Kagehiro in 1167. This is the implicit assumption underlyingMass's assertion that Kagehiro's descendants were enrolled as shogunal vassals.48
in this register(for which see 45. A convenienttable of the individualsappearing

Aki-no-kuni Choko zassho, no. 68 [HKKS 5:1384-1404]) appears in Okuyama Kenshi,
"Mita-go Fujiwara-shino ryoshusei," Geibi chihoshi kenkyui131 and 132 (Joint Number,August 1981):7-8.The familieswhose memberscan be shown to have held local office are the Fujii, Fujiwara,Hata, Izumi (Izube), Minamoto,Oshi, Saeki, and Tajibe.
46. See Mori-ke monjo, no. 15, in Dai Nihon komonjo, lewake 8, Mori-ke monjo,
(hereafter,DNK 8), 4 vols., ed. Tokyo Teikoku Daigaku (Shiryo Hensangakari, 1920-24), 1:18-34. 47. Ibid., nos. 1487-92 (DNK 8.4:390-95);and Hagi-han batsuetsuroku (hereafter, HB) 58: Nait6 Jirozaemon, nos. 35, 62-64, in Hagi-han batsuetsuroku, 4 vols.,
ed. Yamaguchi-ken Monjokan (Yamaguchi: Yamaguchi-ken Monjokan, 1967), 2:422-23, 427-28. All subsequentcitations will be to this edition. 48. Mass, "ProvincialInheritance," p. 89. Tamehiro is the individualwhose yuzurijoMass cites in note 78 on that page.
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Unfortunately,this thesis depends on the fact that Tamehiroand his successors referredto themselves as Saeki, and there are a number of indications that the designation was spurious. In the first place, we know that Tamehiro's son and grandson were styled Ko T6ji and Ko Heiji, respectively, a fact that suggests that they were really members of the Takashina family, not the Saeki.49Second, we know that Tamehiro's line was related to the Ibarafamily, who werejit6 of the village of Ibarain Mita. The Ibara, however, do not claim Saeki ties; instead, they trace their descent from a younger brother of K6 Moronao. What is interestingabout this claim is not the tie to Moronao-which is not to be believed-but ratherthe implicitassertion of Takashinadescent. Finally, a genealogy of Tamehiro's brother's descendants also gives their name as Ko, or Takashina.50 Furthermore,there is ample reason to believe that Tamehiro's forebears had been in Takada long before the advent of Kagehiro. The point to be noted here is that in every case where we can identify one of Tamehiro'smale relatives, the man has the character "tame" as the initial element of his given name. This includes members of three different lineages across a span of at least two centuries. The consistency in naming is so striking that it seems reasonable to suspect that any man in the Mita and Kazahaya land registers who has a "tame" as the initial element in his given'name may well be a relative, too.51 As it happens, there are four such individualsin an 1127register of Kazahayalands, at least three of whom meritour attention.These men, named Tametake, Tameyuki, and Tamet6, held 13 cho 3 tan 180 bu of land between them, all but 6 tan of it in paddy. Of this, Tameyuki held 3 cho 9 tan of paddy in an area called Yanagi, and
49. HB 58: Naito Jirozaemon, nos. 64, 66 (2:428-29). "K6" is an abbreviated for "Takashina," just as "Gen" is for "Minamoto,"or "Sei" for "'Kiyorendering wara." 50. For the ties to the Ibara, see HB 58: Naito Jirozaemon, nos. 36, 79 (2:423, 434); and Tojihyakugomonjo, no. 35 (HKKS 5:827).The Ibara'sgenealogy appears in Furoku,i-67, and that of Tamehiro'sbrotherin Furoku,mi-49. The originalof the Furokuis in the Mori-keBunko in Hofu, Yamaguchi-ken, but I was allowed to copy of the originalin the Hiroshima-kenshi Hensanshitsu.I here employ the photographs system used in Yamaguchi-ken numbering Monjokan,ed., Yamaguchi-ken Monjokan 2 (Yamaguchi: 2: Mori-kebunkomokuroku shiryomokuroku Yamaguchi-ken Monjokan, 1965). 51. Ibid. Use of name evidence is an extremelyimportant technique,but not all families are as readily amenableto it as is this one.
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Tametakeheld another3 cho 8 tan in areas known as Nagata, Saki, Yokoo, Taguchi,and "the shoen's paddy." Tameto's landwas even more scattered, but he held 6 tan of dryfieldin Nagata.52 What is striking about this is that in 1212 one of Takashina Tamehiro'skinsmen held lands in Nagata that had "Yanagi Mountain's Takayokoo" on their southernborderand Yoshida-no-shoto the east. Unfortunately,place names such as Yanagiand Yokoo are ambiguousenoughthat we cannot be sure that the same places were being referred to in 1127 and 1212, but it sounds very much as though these men lived in precisely the area where Tamehiro's descendants were based until the sixteenth century.53Still another interesting point is that a notation appended to the entry for Tametake's "shoen paddy" states that that particularholding had been absorbed by Toshima-no-sho. We know that Toshima was eventuallyabsorbedby Yoshida-no-sho,and that a partof Kazahaya known as Aritomiwas also regardedas a partof Yoshida's Toshima subdistrict.Given the example of Tametake's "shoen paddy," one wonders whether Aritomi was also a part of Toshima-no-sho by 1127, and whether it too was held by Tamehiro's kinsmen.54 Indeed, one wonders whether it was in fact the Takashinawho had created the shoen under discussion. The evidence here is far from conclusive, but there are at least some indications that they could have done so. We know, for example, that Tamehiro'sholdings in Takadaharawere a part of Yoshida duringthe twelfth century, and it is quite possible that his Kazahayaholdingswere as well. If so, then virtually the whole of Kazahaya would have been included in Yoshida at some point, and it is difficultto imaginewho, other than the Takashina,could have commendedthis land out from under the Fujiwara. Furthermore,the men who were hereditary lordlings of Kunishi, a village in central Yoshida-no-sh6, also claimedTakashinadescent, and one wonders whether they too may In any case, there can be little not have been Tamehiro'skinsmen.55
52. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 15 (HKKS 3:167-74). 53. Mori-ke monjo, no. 1491 (DNK 8.4:393-94); HB 58: Naito Jirozaemon, no. 73
(2:432); and Geihan tsushi, 5 vols., comp. Rai Gyohyo (Hiroshima:Hiroshima Toshokan, 1907-15) 3:983, 1064(referringto Taya Castle). 54. On Aritomi's position within Yoshida, see Mori-kemonjo, no. 1359 (DNK 8.4:363).
55. The Kunishi, for whom see HB 15: Kunishi Hayato-ke (1:406-09), claim
descent from Ko Moroyasu's son Morotake,but their evidence is not persuasive.
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doubt that the Takashina were heavily involved in activities that would result in the creation of Yoshida-no-sh6 and the removal of Kazahaya from Fujiwarahands. Whilethe natureof the Takashina'spenetrationinto the Fujiwara domainis obscure, the beginningsof the process can be traced back at least as far as 1085.56In other words, by the time he was being confirmedas district magistrateof Takada, FujiwaraYorikatamust alreadyhave had to deal with a family that would ultimatelyremove a substantialchunk of his estate from the control of his descendants. Moreover, while it is unclear how many such nascent lordlings Yorikatamay have had to contend with, the fact that the majorityof Takadawas commended out from under Yorikata's son and grandson surely reflects both the existence of a profoundchallenge to the Fujiwara'sauthority, and the Fujiwara'scomplete inability to cope with this challenge. Indeed, by the time poor Naritaka was on the scene, not even the patronageof TairaKiyomoriwould be enoughto reyerse the decay. The Taira and the Advent of Jit6 In 1114, FujiwaraYorinarigrantedNaritaka the majorityof his Mita holdings, but apparentlyreserved Kazahaya to himself. It is Yorinari,at any rate, whom we see attemptingto assert the Fujiwara's authorityover Kazahayain 1127,and it is over Mitaalone that we see Naritakabeing granteda subdistrictmagistracyin 1139/1. In fact, by the time Naritaka was about to commend his family's holdings to NakaharaMoronaga,he could show title to but a small fraction of what his father had claimed some four decades earlier. Despite the diminished position to which he had succeeded, however, Naritakaat least had before him a model for consolidating his hold over what little remained to him. Just as others had engineeredthe conversion of Funakiand Toshimainto sh6en, Naritaka could himself attempt the conversion of Mita and whatever he held of Kazahaya, and could stipulatethat he and his heirs be kept on as bailiffs. This, in fact, is precisely what he attemptedwhen he commended his lands to Moronaga.57
56. Individualsnamed Tamesada,Tamesue, Tametoki, and Tameyukiappearin Yorikata's 1085registers.
57. Asano Itsukushima monjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1467-71). In making this commen-
dation,Naritakacited the recentcreationofshoen in "this and other provinces," not merely in "other provinces," as Mass suggests in "ProvincialInheritance,"p. 87.
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Things did not work out, however. The precise reasons are unclear, but the followingpoints are worth noting. First, Naritaka's documentationwas not very good. For whatever reason-but probably because of the succession disputes in which his father and grandfatherhad been embroiled-he had no chain of documents to prove the succession of his forebearsto theirMitaholdings.True, he did have enough evidence to establish his family's rights from 1083 on-though he probablylacked an explicit transferof the estate from his grandfatherto his father58-but the period before that was a blank. He therefore had little choice but to forge a series of documents that would fill in this gap as well as possible, and would also shrinkhis ancestors' estate down to the size of the holdings that he then enjoyed.59Furthermore,althoughhe had an enormous bundle of genuine documents with which to prove his forebears' purchase of Mita and Kazahayapaddy, these did not always make it possible to trace the land all the way into Fujiwarahands. It must have been difficult, therefore, for Nakahara Moronaga to convince the authorities that Naritaka's title was as good as he said it was.60 Kazahaya must have been particularlysticky. We have already seen that in 1127 Yorinari sought to register his title to Kazahaya lands, and that by that time parts of it were alreadylost to Toshimano-sho. We do not know what the result of Yorinari'sactions was, but in 1144Naritakasubmittedhis father's seventeen-year-oldpetition to NakaharaMoronaga.61 Clearly, an attempt was being made to sort out just what Naritaka'srightswere, but before that-or any
58. Releases do exist, but they are almost surely forgeries. Furthermore,the
language of Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 7 (HKKS 3:7) and Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo,
no. 14 (HKKS 3:166-67) implies an intestate succession. 59. It cannot be proved that it was Naritakawho did the forging,or that this is when he did it, but this seems the most plausibleexplanationfor when the event occurred. See also below. 60. SakaueYasutoshi, in his "Aki-no-kuni,"pp. 11-33, makes a gallantattempt to explainaway the anomaliesin the Fujiwara's bills of sale, but I feel thathe has read too muchinto his Tajibeevidence, andhas pushedan extremelyprovocativeanalysis beyond what his evidence can support. 61. At the end of what appearsto be a partial,and incompetently drafted,copy of Yorinari'spetition,Naritakastates that the "original"(shomon)was submittedto Moronagain 1144(see Nosaka monjo, no. 77 [HKKS 3:684-87]). It is not entirely clear that Yorinari'spetition is the originalreferredto, but since a documentthat
Naritaka's adopted son drew up in 1167 (Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 40
[HKKS 3:233-34]) reflects a total ignoranceof the petition, it is apparentthat the Nakaharamust have had the petitionthen, and had probablyreceived it in 1144.See also Matsuoka, "Kaisetsu," HKKS 3:17; and note 65 below.
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other issue-could be resolved, Taira Kiyomori became Aki's governor. In 1146, which is when he was granted Aki, Kiyomori was not yet very powerful. We would be mistaken, therefore, to expect to relate Naritaka's continuingdifficultiesin Mita to some policy goal of Kiyomori's. On the other hand, Kiyomori was a trusted retainer of the ex-emperor Toba, and he must therefore have championed Toba's policy of increasingthe imperialfamily's holdingsin sh6en.62 Under the rightcircumstances-if NakaharaMoronagahad been on good terms with either Kiyomori or Toba, for example-this policy might have redounded to Naritaka's favor. In fact, however, it seems to have cost Naritaka his rights in Kazahaya. The crucial development here was the establishment of Yoshida-no-sho. This cannot be dated precisely, but a chronicle of Kyoto's Gion shrine states that in 1149 the "patron's rice" (honke-mai)due to the ex-emperorfrom Yoshida was commended to the shrineas an endowment.At the time, the chroniclecontinues, Yoshida's patronwas the ex-emperor,and its proprietor(ryoke)was the Kazan'in family.63 If this account is to be believed, the man who was proprietorof Yoshida-no-shomust surely have been Kazan'in Tadamasa, a second cousin of the reigning emperor and a former official in his household. But Tadamasa's ties were not solely to the imperial family; he also would eventually take one of Kiyomori's daughters as a wife for his heir.64Given these connections, it seems likely that Yoshida-whose relationshipto the Fujiwara'sholdingshas already been noted-was established throughthe commendationof a large body of land to the Kazan'in and imperial families, and that Kiyomori may have served as a go-between. It was, after all, precisely so that they could foster such commendationsthat Toba made men like Kiyomori governor. By failing to convert their own holdings into a shoen before
62. Toba's lust for sh6en is treated in Ishii Susumu, "Insei jidai," in Hoken shakai no seiritsu, edited by the Rekishigaku Kenkyukai and Nihonshi Kenkyiikai, Koza Nihonshi 2 (T6ky6 Daigaku Shuppankai, 1970), pp. 207-9. 63. Shake jjo6 kiroku (HKKS 1:269, nos. 1079, 1080). For a strikingly different version of the shoen's history, however, see the passage of the same source quoted in HKKS 1:289-90, no. 1146, where the sh6en's commendation is ascribed to 1156, and Kiyomori is made the ryoke. In 1156, however, Kiyomori is unlikely to have been of high enough rank to be a ryoke. 64. On the Kazan'in, see Sonpi bunmyaku, 2:197-98.
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someone else could convert Yoshida, therefore, the Fujiwaraand Nakaharamust have doomed their claims to Kazahaya. The mere fact that Naritakahad been forced to submitfurtherdocumentation on Kazahayain 1144suggests that there was some ambiguityin his title, thoughwe cannot tell where it lay. In any case, it appearsthat Kiyomorimust have creditedthe competingtitle of someone willing to commend his rights to Toba and Tadamasa. While it cannot be proved that all of Kazahaya was thereby absorbed into Yoshida, Aritomi must have been, and the example of Takadaharasuggests that not only was the rest of Kazahaya absorbed, but that it may have been the Takashinawho made the commendation.The Nakaharaand Fujiwara cannothave given up withouta struggle,for in 1153 Nakahara MoronagareturnedYorinari's 1127 petition to Naritaka for updating,but by then it was too late. Kazahaya was thereafter outside the Fujiwara'scontrol.65 Yet Kiyomori's influencecannot have been entirely baleful, for though Naritaka's claims to Kazahaya were quashed, the conversion of Mita into a shoen was permitted.The conversion was completed in 1154, while Kiyomori was still governor, but the subsequent history of the sh6en is a bit of a mystery.66 It is clear, however, that within a few years Mita-no-sh6lost the protectionof virtually everyone associated with its creation. The ex-emperor Toba, whose edict had established the shoen in the first place, died in 1156. In 1158, Taira Kiyomori, who had been succeeded as governorof Aki firstby his brotherTsunemori,and then his brother Yorimori, replaced FujiwaraSueyuki as Deputy Governor-General of Kyushu (Dazai daini). Because it was felt that Sueyukiwas owed compensationfor the loss of Kyushu, the governorshipof Aki was bestowed on his son, and the Taira's direct hold over the province ended.67 In 1162, moreover, Nakahara Moronaga either died or
65. At the tail of Yorinari'spetition, there is an addendumdated 1153/12and 74, at 174]).The most likely explanationfor its presence there is that by 1153 the Nakaharawere finally about to get some of the Fujiwara'slands made over into a on KazahayafromNaritaka.Yet information shoen, and thereforesought additional while Mitawas convertedinto a shoen in 1154,Kazahayawas not. ThoughNaritaka's heir would still claim title to Kazahayain 1167,the documentin which he madethis claim shows complete ignorance of the extent of the Fujiwara'sformer interests there. See above, note 61. 66. Mita's conversion into a shoen at Toba's order is clear from Aki-no-kuni
Choko zassho, no. 68 (HKKS 5:1384-1404). bearing Naritaka's signature (Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 15 [HKKS 3:167-
67. On FujiwaraSueyuki and his son, see Kugyo bunin, 1:447, and Sankaiki,
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retired, and his estate was allowed to pass to his uncle, rather than to his adopted son.68 Somewhere along the way, Mita reverted to the public domain. By 1166, however, an officer in Kiyomori's household had become governor of Aki, and the Taira were reascendant in the province.69 In 1167, therefore, Minamoto Yorinobu, who had been adopted as Naritaka's heir during the 1140s, decided to forget the Nakahara and seek out Kiyomori's patronage. Rather than approach Kiyomori directly, however, he commended his lands to the Itsukushima Shrine-the principal Shinto establishment (ichinomiya) of Aki and the object of Kiyomori's intense devotion. He was aided in this by the fact that he was related by marriage to Saeki Kagehiro-the priest-administrator (kannushi) of Itsukushima and a trusted Taira retainer-but was hampered by the fact that he had never gotten back his evidentiary documents from the Nakahara. He was not one to be hindered by trifles, however; he simply submitted whatever copies he had of documents previously granted the Nakahara, drew up enough forgeries to establish the titles of Yorikata, Yorinari, and Naritaka, and sweetened the deal with a proposal to endow prayer services for Kiyomori.70 But neither loftiness of purpose nor a sympathetic governor was enough to resurrect a corpse. Kagehiro did manage to win the exemption of at least a part of Mita from miscellaneous services
1158/8/10 (HKKS 1:294, no. 1163). Tamura Hiroshi has argued-in "Shoen-koryosei no seiritsu to tenkai," in Hiroshima-kenshi: Genshi-kodai (Hiroshima: Hiroshimaken, 1980), p. 451-that Aki was the Taira's proprietary province even under Takayuki, but that thesis is based upon a misidentification of the Fujiwara Takayuki who became governor in 1158. 68. Moronaga's (actually, by 1162 he was called Moronari) sudden disappearance from office, and his uncle's inheritance of his estate, are apparent from Geki bunin: tsuika, in Zoku Gunsho ruiju, vol. 4.2, ed. Hanawa Hokinoichi (Zoku Gunsho Ruiju Kanseikai, 1904), pp. 965-66; and Nakahara keizu, in Gunsho keizubu-shu, vol. 6, ed. Hanawa Hokinoichi (Zoku Gunsho Ruiju Kanseikai, 1973), p. 31. Moronaga's adopted son Narinaga is a shadowy-and perhaps shady-figure known mainly from his dealings with Saeki Kagehiro (see below, note 72). His sudden disappearance from office in 1162 (Geki bunin: tsuika) would seem to bespeak a scandal. 69. The governor was Fujiwara Yoshimori, on whom see Ishii, "HeishiKamakura," pp. 11-12, notes 24-25. Yoshimori eventually developed stronger ties to Go-Shirakawa than to Kiyomori, however, and in 1179/11 Kiyomori had him purged. See my "Suo Province in the Age of Kamakura," in Court and Bakufu in Japan, ed. Mass, p. 100. 70. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 17, 40 (HKKS 3:176-77, 233-34); and Yamada, "Aki-no-kuni," pp. 44-56.
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(manzo kuji) to the province, but taxes (shoto kanmotsu) had still to be paid, and Kazahaya remained out of reach. Furthermore, the advent of a new governor in 1173 brought a demand for services from one of Mita's villages, and Kagehiro had to petition for its exemption all over again.7' In 1174, however, a man named Nakahara Narinaga approached Kagehiro. He was, he declared, the adopted son of Nakahara Moronaga, and though Moronaga had died too suddenly to leave a will, Narinaga had nonetheless inherited his father's lands in Takada. He had hitherto hesitated to press his claim, but with the death of his master, the prior of Hosshoji, he was now free to pursue his own interests. Having recently had a vision of the Deity of Itsukushima, however, he wished not to keep the land himself but instead to commend the entire district of Takada to the Itsukushima Shrine. His only stipulation was that he and his heirs be kept on as stewards (azukari dokoro), and that Fujiwara Naritaka's heirs be kept on as bailiffs (geshi).72 Itsukushima was delighted to accept this commendation, and its officials immediately set about petitioning to have the whole of Takada made over into shrine property. Yet while it was clearly Narinaga and the shrine's hope that Kiyomori's devotion to Itsukushima would lead him to push this petition through the court, that hope was forlorn. Although Narinaga could easily endow the shrine with the documents that Fujiwara Naritaka had presented to Nakahara Moronaga, Takada was not his to give. Of Takada's seven subdistricts, Toshima and Ohara pertained to Yoshida-no-sho-as did at least parts of Kazahaya and Kotachi-and Funaki had been absorbed by Yoshishige-no-sho. Moreover, both shoen enjoyed exwas an imperial shoen, and tremely strong patrons-Yoshishige Yoshida's proprietor was related by marriage to Kiyomori himself. This left only Mita and Awaya up for grabs, and of those it was only to Mita that Narinaga could even pretend to enjoy a claim.73
71. Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 17 (HKKS 3:14-15). 72. Itsukushima Nosaka monjo, no. 1769 (HKKS 2:1249-50); Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 42-43 (HKKS 3:247-49); and Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 18 (HKKS 3:15). The identity of Narinaga's master is clear from Sonpi bunmyaku, 3:525. Given the inheritance of most of Moronaga's estate by his uncle (see above, note 68), Narinaga's claims sound slightly fishy, but then it was not in Kagehiro's interest to doubt them. 73. Although most scholars assume that it was Mita and Kazahaya that Narinaga could most readily commend, there is absolutely no evidence that Itsukushima enjoyed an interest in Kazahaya during the Heian period, whereas it is quite clear that it had rights in Mita and Awaya.
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It is not surprising,therefore,that the shrine'spetition met with a fairly cool reception. The earliest indicationwe have of any action on the shrine's request dates from 1176/7, when FujiwaraYasufusa, who was then governorof Aki, is supposed to have orderedthat the seven subdistrictsof Takadabe made over to the shrine, and that it be obliged to render only the taxes on these lands, not the miscellaneous services. Yasufusa had already been in office for eight or nine months by the time this order was issued, however, and it is difficult to believe that even a neophyte would have been foolish enough to confirm the shrine in lands that were already in the possession of well-placed nobles. Indeed, it looks very much as though it was 1179before Saeki Kagehirocould get any meaningful action on the shrine's petition, and that even then he could lay his hands on no more than Mita and Awaya.74 Our evidence on this point begins with a letter that a certain Gyoren, who was Fujiwara Yasufusa's agent (mokudai) for the governance of Aki, wrote to Kagehiroon 1179/10/18.In it, Gyoren informed Kagehiro that he was sending him two governor's edicts-one confirmingthe ItsukushimaShrine's residual authority over lands it had previouslyexchangedfor two villages in the district of Yamagata, and the second grantingKagehiro authorityover the subdistrictof Awaya. Awaya, he noted, had hithertobeen accorded to Gyoren himself, but he was now ready to admitthe superiorityof
Kagehiro's claims.75
This last statement notwithstanding,it is clear that Kagehiro's majorclaim to Awaya lay in the fact that FujiwaraYorinarihad been appointed to the subdistrict's magistracy in 1096. This can have given Kagehirolittle basis for a plea to control Awaya in 1179, and there are hints in Gyoren's letter that Yasufusa and he were swayed more by pressurefrom Kiyomorithanthey were by legal arguments. Furthermore, Yasufusa's edict granting Kagehiro authority over Awaya did not afford the latter much room to profit by this appointment. True, Kagehiro was made the subdistrict's magistrate (goji), but he was also requiredto render both taxes and miscellaneous services.76In fact, it was not until 1180that Kagehiroestablished a meaningfullordship over either Mita or Awaya.
74. Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 19 (HKKS 3:15-16). That Yasufusa was already governor in 1175 is clear from Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 45 (HKKS 3:251-52), and Itsukushima Nosaka monjo, no. 1554 (HKKS 2:1023). 75. Kanshi-bon Itsukushima monjo, nos. 61-62 (HKKS 3:95-96). 76. Aki-no-kuni Ch6ko zassho, no. 72 (HKKS 5:1405), and Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 55 (HKKS 3:269-70).
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The crucial event here was Kagehiro's appointmentas jit6 of Mita and Awaya on 1180/8/27. Whilejito are rare enough in the Heian literature that we cannot be sure what this appointment meant, most scholars believe that it afforded Kagehiro a position more or less equivalentto that of a geshi, or "bailiff."77 To assume this, however, is to assume that Kagehirohad obtainedprecisely the position that the Fujiwarahad sought to reserve to themselves in 1139, and one ought therefore to wonder what the Fujiwara's Minamoto heirs thought of this development. The answer is clear. On 1180/9/7, one day after the provincial office issued an order confirmingKagehiro's appointmentas jito, MinamotoYorinobu'sson Yoritsunadasheda letter off to Kagehiro, demandingto know by what warranthe had obtained this appointment. His father, he pointed out, had rendered the miscellaneous services on these lands for thirtyyears, and in the three or four years since Yorinobu's death, Yoritsunahad arrangedfor his retainersto administer these lands, render all payments due from them, and serve in the capital at the shrine's behest. His present attainder, therefore, was patently unjust.78 What this letter suggests-beyond the obvious fact that Yoritsuna was irritated-is that until 1180/8, Kagehiro's authorityover Mita and Awaya must have been extremely loose, while that of the Fujiwara'sMinamotoheirs must have been fairly strong. We shall soon want to ponder the sources of the Minamoto's strength, but first let us consider the ways in which Yoritsuna'sletter challenges the conventional wisdom on twelfth-centuryAki. Most scholars, as we have seen, are convinced that Saeki Kagehiro was jiti of all Takadaas early as 1176,and thereforeprovidesus with a particularlystrikingexample of a Heian periodjito.79 As it happens, however, this thesis is based upon an 1174 document ostensibly releasing the seven subdistrictsof Takada to Kagehiro personally,and on an 1176edict in which Kagehirois appointedjito of these subdistricts by Fujiwara Yasufusa. Both documents are copies, and both are peculiar. In the first place, the 1174 document, a copy of a release by
77. See Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 20, 56 (HKKS 3:180, 270); and
Uwayokote Masataka,"Itsukushimashary6 to Heishi no jit6sei," in Nihon chulsei seijishi kenkyu, by Uwayokote Masataka(HanawaShob6, 1970), p. 273.
78. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 54 (HKKS 3:268-70), and Itsukushima
Nosaka monjo, nos. 1702, 1804 (HKKS 2:1206, 1277-78).

79. Mass, Warrior Government, pp. 107-11.
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NakaharaNarinaga, closely parallels a similar release of the same lands to the ItsukushimaShrine. However, the release to the shrine, which bears the same date as that to Kagehiro, explicitly states that Narinaga'sadoptive father did not leave a will, while that to Kagehiro implies he did. Since the very existence of parallel releases to Itsukushimaand Kagehirois peculiar, since it is likely that Moronari did not leave a will in Narinaga'sfavor, and since it was the shrine's other officials, rather than Kagehiro himself, who petitioned for confirmationof Narinaga's donation, the 1174 release to Kagehiro must be regardedwith suspicion.80 The 1176edict is suspicious as well. We have already seen that it is difficultto believe that Yasufusa can have released the whole of Takada to anyone in 1176, and Gy6ren's 1179 letter to Kagehiro implies that it was only in that year that Yasufusa's administration took cognizance of Kagehiro'sclaims to Awaya.81But even supposing that Yasufusa could have blundered badly enough to have confirmedItsukushimain a temporarypossession of Takada,would he also have appointedKagehiro jito of all Takadaon the same day? And if he did, why would the Minamotowait until 1180to express their opposition to such a development?82 The most likely answer is that Kagehiro'spre-1180 jito-shiki is a If it of before can 1180, myth. Kagehirowasjito anything only have been of the village of Okoe in Mita-a post to which he was ostensibly appointed in 1173-and the office cannot have been terribly To suggest this, of course, is also to argue that Saeki significant.83 was Kagehiro somethingless than the strongmanof Aki he is gener-
80. See Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 42-44 (HKKS 3:247-51); and notes
68 and 72, above. 81. Indeed, it looks as thoughit was only in that year that his claims even to the Mita magistracywere recognized. See Gohanmotsu-cho,nos. 22, 23 (HKKS 3:1819); and Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 46 (HKKS 3:252).
82. UwayokoteMasataka raisedthis questionin connectionwith Kagehiro's1179 to ajito-shiki, but for some reason did not raise it for the 1176appointappointment ments. 83. On Kagehiro'ssupposedpost asjito of Okoe, see Gohanmotsu-cho,nos. 16, 15(HKKS3:12-14); and Mass, Warrior Government,p. 109.One of these documents is extremelypeculiar,however-it is half the old kokufuform, and half a rusudokoro an 1176 confirmation of Itsukushima's rights in Okoe kudashibumi-and no. 25 [HKKS3:20])makes no mentionof jito post. On the other (Gohanmotsu-cho, nos. 22, 23 as g6ji-jitoof Mita(Gohanmotsu-cho, hand, Kagehiro's1179appointment [HKKS 3:18-191), which has always puzzled historians, would seem to be easily understoodif one assumes that the jit6 post was over the betsumy6 of Okoe.
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ally thought to have been, but the fact is that this heretical thesis is in better agreement with the sources than is the orthodox one. Indeed, the overwhelming impression that emerges from the documents of the 1170s is of the looseness of Kagehiro's authority, rather than of its strength. The decade began well enough, for under Fujiwara Yoshimori's governorship the Itsukushima Shrine obtained the shoen of Mibu in Yamagata, and was also awarded semiimmune holdings in the Yamagata villages of Haruki and Ichiori, and the Mita village of Okoe.84 There was intense opposition within the provincial office to the immunity of these villages, however, and Kagehiro had to seek the reconfirmation of Okoe in 1173, when Takashina Nariakira was governor, and all three villages when Nariakira was succeeded by Yasufusa in 1175. The 1175 confirmations did not stick, however, and by 1179 the shrine's authority over Haruki, Ichiori, and probably over Okoe was again challenged by elements within both the provincial office and the villages themselves. Indeed, even the shoen of Mibu was getting out of hand.85 It is against this background that the events of 1179-80 must be interpreted. On the same day that Fujiwara Yasufusa granted Kagehiro the magistracy of Awaya, he also forbade Aki's resident officials to abridge Itsukushima's residual authority over lands it had exchanged for Haruki and Ichiori. In the next month he not only confirmed Kagehiro's authority over the shrine's semi-immune holdings in Mita, but also recognized Kagehiro's claim to succeed to the Fujiwara's subdistrict magistracy there. And it was only when opposition continued under Yasufusa's successor that Kagehiro was made jito of Mita and Awaya.86 But who were these defiant rustics, and what was the source of their strength? In Yamagata, the rebels were probably descendants
84. Yoshimori's role in the creation of Mibu, Haruki, Ichiori, and Okoe is reflected in Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 41 (HKKS 3:234-47), Fulkan monjo sanjo-shu monjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1531-32), and Gohanmotsu-cho, nos. 15-17 (HKKS 3:12-15). 85. Gohanmotsu-cho, nos. 15-17, 21, 23, 25 (HKKS 3:12-15, 17-20); Kanshi-bon Itsukushima monjo, nos. 61, 62 (HKKS 3:95-96); Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 55 (HKKS 3:269-70); Futkan monjo sanjo-shta monjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1531-32); and Aki-no-kuni Choko zassho, no. 72 (HKKS 5:1405). 86. These events may be traced by reading the documents in the following sequence: Aki-no-kuni Ch6ko zassho, no. 72 (HKKS 5:1405); Fuikan monjo sanjoshu monjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1531-32); Gohanmotsu-cho, nos. 23, 22 (HKKS 3:18-19); Kanshi-bon Itsukushima monjo, no. 63 (HKKS 3:97); Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 24 (HKKS 3:19-20); and Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 20, 56 (HKKS 3:180, 270).
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of the Yamagata Oshi whose commendations had created the shrine's holdings there. If so, their defiance may well have been dealt with in conjunctionwith the suppressionof theirMibukinsmen in 1179/11.87 In Mita, our list of candidatesis ratherlonger. We have already seen that there may have been a large numberof provincial officials holding land in Mita, and the same may have been true of Awaya. But while any one of these men may have bridledat Kagehiro's pretensions, the single most likely source of Kagehiro's difficulties in Takada is Minamoto Yoritsuna. Yoritsuna was a member of an extremely powerful Aki family, albeitone whose influencehas only recently come to be appreciated. His kinsmen's commendations created the shoen of Uchibe and Kabe, and they held furtherlands in the districtsof Anan and Kamo, as well, perhaps,as in the province of Bingo. His kinsmanYorimune was head of the provincial armed forces-and may briefly have served as Aki's shugo under the Minamoto shogunate-and it is likely that the Minamoto who appear as Aki's senior resident officials throughoutthe twelfth century were his relatives as well. Yoritsunahimself lived on his family's holdings in Kabe, and while this may at first seem to suggest that his control over Mita was indirect, his connections were such that he cannot have been a man to be trifled with.88 Indeed, Yoritsuna's connections with the provincialoffice were so extraordinarythat it is impossible to believe that the problems that beset Kagehiro there and in Takada can have arisen without Yoritsuna's connivance. Kagehiro must himself have thought as much when he sought Yoritsuna's attainder,and the latter's subsequent protestations of innocence can ultimately have availed him little. On the contrary, the fact that in 1180/11 Kagehiro was confirmedas subdistrictmagistrateof Mita and Awaya, and that for the first time the miscellaneous services of these two areas were consigned to the ItsukushimaShrine, suggests that Kagehiro'shold on Yoritsuna's lands was strengthened, rather than weakened.89
87. Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 21 (HKKS 3:17).
88. The Aki Minamoto'ssignificancewas firstpointedout in AkiyamaNobutaka, "Mori-shi no kokujin ry6shusei no tenkai," Geibi chihoshi kenkyu 131-32 (Joint Number, August 1981):23-24; and Yoshie Akio, "Kokuga shugo buko," Toky6
Daigaku Kyoy6gakubu jinbun kagaku kiyo 77 (March 1982):165-78. Some con-
troversy surroundstheir findings,but it is easy to adduce even more evidence than they have done.
89. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 21 (HKKS 3:180-81); Nosaka monjo, no. 4 (HKKS 3:435); Gohanmotsu-cho, no. 26 (HKKS 3:20-21); and Itsukushima Nosaka monjo, no. 1555 (HKKS 2:1024).
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Kagehiro's emergence as jito, in other words, is probably best interpretedas part of a belated attempt by the Taira to strengthen their control over Aki. The restiveness of local officialsin one of the few provinces where the Taira enjoyed at least some local power must always have been irritating,but it had probablybeen tolerable for as long as Kiyomori's star was on the rise in the capital. By the second half of 1179, however, Kiyomori was locked in an intense power struggleat Court, and in the next year the Genji would rise against him. It thereforebecame crucial for the Taira to strengthen their hold over as many resources as possible, and the resistance of men like Yoritsunaand the Oshi was no longer to be countenanced. In 1179/11,therefore, Kiyomoriattaintedthe fractiousjito of Mibuno-sho, and by 1180 he had arrangedfor Yoritsuna's attainderas
well.90
Of course, a policy of ruthlesslyfavoringmen like Kagehiroover

men like Yoritsuna was not without risk. It appears, in fact, that
both Yoritsuna's kinsmen and the YamagataOshi went over to the This is Genjiin 1180-85, and thus helped deliver Aki to Yoritomo.91 an issue that we shall returnto below, but firstlet us considerwhere the documents portrayingKagehiroas jito over all of Takada can have come from. Unfortunately, this is far less clear than the issue of Fujiwara Naritaka'sforgeriesof 1139,or of MinamotoYorinobu'sof 1167. It is well known, however, that in the aftermathof the Jokyu War (1221), the Saeki's holdings were confiscated and bestowed upon Throughoutthe FujiwaraChikazane, a trusted shogunalretainer.92 fourteenth century, moreover, Chikazane's descendants were engaged in a vigorous campaignto expand theirlandholdings,and thus
90. See notes 86 and 87, above. Oshi 91. On Yoritsuna'skinsmen,see the articlescited in note 88. The Yamagata from Aki is knownto have A Yamagata Tametsuna are somewhatmoreproblematic. [HKKS 1:375,no. 1410]),but his gone over to Yoritomo(Azumakagami, 1184/10/12 descendants claimed descent from the Mino Genji. Although Tamura Hiroshi is disposed to accept this claim ("Heian makki," pp. 10-11), the fact that Tametsuna sharedthe "tsuna" elementin his given namewith the Oshiletsuna whose commenno. 13 dations created Itsukushima'sfirst holdingsin Yamagata(Gohanmotsu-cho, [HKKS 3:11]), and that his descendantswent on to serve as jito of Mibu-no-sh6, suggests that he really was an Oshi. 92. Ishii Susumu denies this thesis ("Heian-Kamakura," pp. 4-5), dating the Saeki's loss of theirholdingsto 1194,but I am persuadedby Matsuoka,"Kaisetsu," HKKS 3:27-28.
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sought to acquire control of former Oshi holdings in Yamagata, of the villages of Ibara, Mita, Nagata, Mehogaki, and Takadaharain Takada, and of various other lands as well.93 Such campaignswere frequently occasions for fraud, and it should be apparent that if Chikazane'sdescendants could have shown that Kagehirowas jito of all Takada, their own claims to lands within the district would have been strengthened.As it happens, all three of the documents purportingto prove Kagehiro's claims to this honor are copies (anmon) ratherthan originals,and so do not bear signatures.94 They would thus have been extraordinarilyeasy to forge, and it is my guess that this is precisely what Chikazane's descendants did. The Perils of Lordship:A New Perspective Thus far, I have arguedthat on three occasions the Fujiwaraand their heirs concocted forgeries to trace the history of their title. In two cases-the one I ascribe to Naritaka, and the one Yamada Sho has ascribedto Yorinobu-the commissionof a forgerycan scarcely be doubted. While the cooking up of documents by Fujiwara Chikazane'sdescendants is somewhat more problematic,the thesis that it was only over Mita and Awaya that the Saeki acquired a of this article, therefore, meaningfullordshipis not. In the remainder I should like to sketch out the new view of lordship, and of the struggle for it, that emerges from our sources. One point to be noted is that the Fujiwaracan no longer be cited as providingextraordinarily early examples of the bequest of local While it is magistracies.95 plausiblethat Oshi Morinaka,Morimitsi, and Morito had a hereditaryclaim to be appointedmagisMoriyori, trates of Takada-and that this claim later passed to Fujiwara Yorikataand Yorinari-our earliest real "bequest" dates from 1114, and deals with land, not office. Second, it would seem extremely dangerous to assume the
93. I shall deal with this issue in a future study. In Japanese, see Kadoshige Hajime, "Kamakura-Nanbokuch6ki Itsukushima-sha shihai no tokushitsu," Shigaku kenkyu 147 (April 1980):22-47. 94. Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 43, 46, 48 (HKKS 3:247-48, 252-54). The third of these is purportedly an 1182 release of thejito-shiki by Kagehiro to his son Kagenobu. 95. For English-language expressions of the importance of Fujiwara evidence on this point, see Mass, "Provincial Inheritance," pp. 85-90, and Nagahara, "Landownership," p. 283.
136
s subdistrictmagistraciesover Mita and equivalenceof the Fujiwara' Kazahaya to the district magistracyenjoyed by Yorikataand Yorinari. While the latter, as I have suggested, was probablyinherited from Oshi Morito, the formerwere in Fujiwarahands before Moriti is likely to have died. Thus, a Fujiwaraappearsas subdistrictmagistrate of Mita in 1066, and of Kazahaya in 1076, but an Oshi was district magistrateof Takada as late as 1070.96 It is also unwise to give much credence to the centrality of to the Fujiwara'searly lordship. In the only crediShigeyuki-beppu ble transmission of property from father to son that exists in the Fujiwaradocuments-that from Yorinarito Naritakain 1114-the beppu of Shigeyuki is never even mentioned. Indeed, the only unambiguous references to Shigeyuki we have are in endorsements that were added to several bills of sale by Yorinari and various
officials, and these probably all date from around 1120.97 It seems
quite clear, moreover,that by 1120Shigeyukiencompassedvirtually the whole of Mita, and slightly more than 38 cho of paddy in Kazahaya; in other words, it corresponded almost exactly to the lands to which FujiwaraNaritaka could make a credible claim in 1139.98 One suspects, therefore, that it is the overwhelmingimportance of Shigeyukito Naritaka'slordship-rather than to that of his ancestors-that is reflected in the documents he forged. To voice this suspicion, however, is to suggest that Shigeyuki was not like the betsumyo discussed above, and that the Fujiwara's lordshipmay have been quite unlikeanythingwe are accustomedto. Recall here that most scholars believe that betsumyo were created by reclamation and were exempt from miscellaneous services. Moreover, betsumyo are thoughtto have been crucial to the developmentof local lordship,in thatthe holderof a betsumyowas able to exploit his right to levy miscellaneous services from his betsumyo's cultivatorsin order to reduce them to a position of personaldependence, and thus ultimately to claim lordship over the lands they cultivated elsewhere.
96. monjo, 3:203). 97. zassho, Sakai Seitaro-shi shozo Itsukushima monjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1467); Nosaka no. 3.4 (HKKS 3:431-32); and Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, no. 34 (HKKS These include Nosaka monjo, no. 3 (HKKS 3:430-35), and Aki-no-kuni Choko no. 4 (HKKS 5:1364). As Sakaue points out ("Aki-no-kuni," pp. 21-22), the
to the firstof these mustdate to aroundthe 1120s,andI suspectthatthe endorsement second may as well. 98. On the natureof Shigeyukiduringthe twelfth century, see Sakaue, "Aki-nokuni," pp. 21-28. I do not agree with all of this, however.
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If this were what happenedin Mita, however, one would expect Shigeyukito have loomed large in the Fujiwaradocumentsfrom the very beginning. Instead, it first emerges at about the time the Fujiwara were going into decline, it is never referred to in any of the Fujiwara'scredible land transfers, it is known to have been created by a lengthy series of purchases, and there are no indicationsthat it enjoyed any sort of exemptionwhile in Fujiwarahands. What, then, was its significance? We can only speculate here, but there are a number of clues to work with. First, it would appearthat before succeeding to Morit6's estate the Fujiwara were high-rankingofficials in the provincial office, with their particularcharge being the bureau of taxation (saisho). They probably lived in southern Mita, however, and by 1052 they were purchasingland there. By 1066, they had assumed the subdistrict magistracy of Mita, by 1069 they were purchasing land in neighboringKazahaya, and by 1076 they were magistrates there as well.99We also may at least speculatethat by the 1070sthey had marriedinto the Takada Oshi family. Second, while it is difficult to tell much about the Fujiwara's purchases, it is clear that by 1065a great deal of land was being sold
because of inability to pay the taxes on it.100 Given the Fujiwara's
position in the tax office, it must have been easy for them to benefit from such forced sales, but it is by no means clear what they thereby acquired. The price they paid for paddy was quite low-only equal to about two years taxes on the land. It seems likely, therefore, that what they were purchasingwas not the complete usufruct, but only the right to impose some sort of supplementallevy (kajishi) on the land's cultivators. Presumably,they also assumed responsibilityfor collecting and forwardingthe land's taxes, and it may be that that is the significanceof the land's being incorporatedinto a beppu, or a landholding that received a "separate directive" to render its
dues. 101
99. See Shinshutsu Itsukushima monjo, nos. 8, 9 (HKKS 3:162-63); Nosaka monjo, nos. 1.3, 3.2, 3.4 (HKKS 3:428, 430-32); Sakai Seitaro-shi shoz5 Itsukushima monjo, no. 1 (HKKS 3:1467); and Aki-no-kuni Choko zassho, nos. 3, 5 (HKKS
5:1363-65).I am here assumingthat the "Wakahogan-dono,""Wakasaisho-dono," and "Oishi-dono"appearing in some of these documentsare "Taifu-no-suke-dono," Fujiwara.Oishi is a place name in southernMita. (See Geihan tsushi 3:972.) 100. Sakaue, "Aki-no-kuni,"pp. 15-21. I thinkthat Sakauepushes his argument too far, but much of what he says is extremely useful. 101. TamuraHiroshi discusses the price of land in "Sh6en-k6ry6sei," p. 426. Although "separate directive" is a perfectly plausiblemeaningfor beppu, the true
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Such prerogatives would not have been very extensive, of course, and other local officials must have been able to compete for similar rights. We know, in fact, that such men were buying land even in Mita and Kazahaya, where the Fujiwara's presence was greatest, and they must have been more active elsewhere. True, the Fujiwara's position as subdistrict magistrates of Mita and Kazahaya, and later as district magistrates of Takada, may have given them some degree of control over these men, but it cannot have been very potent. We know, after all, that the Takashina succeeded in creating their own beppu in both Kotachi (Takadahara) and Kazahaya (Mehogaki, and perhaps Aritomi), and that they commended at least one of these to a Kyoto proprietor.'02 Furthermore, it is clear that whatever benefit the Fujiwara derived from their magistracies could continue only for as long as the government maintained them in office. By the beginning of the twelfth century, however, Aki's governors were becoming less and less accommodating. If the 1110/3/10 release forged by Yorinobu can be assumed to reflect at least a partial truth, the district magistracy inherited from the Oshi must have collapsed within a year of its second reaffirmation by the Great Council. The subdistrict magistracies lasted rather longer, but that over Kazahaya may have collapsed by 1127, and that over Mita at Yorinari's death.103 It would appear, therefore, that until he finally won appointment as magistrate of Mita in 1139/1, Fujiwara Naritaka can have been nothing more than the holder of the Shigeyuki beppu, and that that is why Shigeyuki looms so large in Naritaka's forgeries. Indeed, since his 1139 appointment was at the hands of an agent of the former governor, rather than of the incumbent, one wonders whether he was ever any more than the holder of a beppu. 04 Viewed from this perspective, Naritaka's commendation of Mita and Kazahaya-far
significanceof the beppu is a hotly debated question, and the readermay wish to accept the above remarkwith some caution. 102. All the bracketedholdingsappearas beppu in some contexts. no. 12 (HKKS3:10).The date of 103. For the 1110release, see Gohanmotsu-cho, the Kazahayamagistracy'scollapse cannotbe proved, but one wonderswhetherthe that certainKazahayalands lay withinShigeyuki(see Sakaue, "Aki-nocertification kuni," pp. 21-22) may not be the only claim to Kazahayathat Yorinariwas able to preserve by his 1127petition. 104. Fujiwara Mitsutaka, whose mokudai was the chief officer authorizing
Naritaka's appointment in 1139/1 (see Aki-no-kuni Choko zassh6, no. 69 [HKKS 5:1404]; and Asano Itsukushima monjo, no. 1 [HKKS 3:1467-71]), had already left
office the precedingmonth. See Kugyo bunin 1:450.
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shoen.
from seeming the peculiar behavior of a man whose position was fairly strong'05-looks like a desperate attempt to recapture the Fujiwara'slost glory. But how had their position been lost, and why was it never recovered? This is hard to say, though certain points are fairly obvious. Clearly, in an environmentwhere the Fujiwarawere but one of the families carving out beppu in Takada, it was crucial for them to retain their magistracies if they were to have any control over the beppu of others. Equally clear, however, is the fact that from the 1080s on the Fujiwara's prerogatives were under a sustained challenge, both from their kinsmen and from men like the Takashina. Moreover, while a prerogative challenged is not necessarily a prerogativelost, it is apparentthat by the turn of the century Aki was beginningto undergo changes that may well have favored the Fujiwara'srivals. The first of these was that from 1098on virtually every man appointedgovernorof Aki had extremely close ties to the imperial family, and the second was that large stretches of the province were being made over into sh6en. It is quite possible, therefore, that if the Fujiwara'srivals showed a willingness to forward a larger sum of taxes than the Fujiwara did, or if they expressed a desire to commend their beppu to the imperial family, Aki's governors would have had every incentive to undercut the In any case, the Fujiwara's authoritywas Fujiwara'sauthority.106 undercut, and much of Takada was incorporated into imperial
By 1139, the situation was bad enough that the Fujiwara had scented disaster and were themselves anxious to commend their holdings. But why, once they made this move, did it fail? We simply do not know. I have suggested a numberof reasons that the shortlived Mita-no-shomay have expired, but it is still unclearwhy Taira Kiyomori's patronage, which was presumablywon by 1167, could not have resurrected it. It may be, however, that time had run out-that the Court was simply unwillingto allow too much more land to be removed from the public domain. Ultimately, this is a hypothesis that cannot be examined on Aki evidence alone, and
105. For Mass's speculationon Naritaka'scommendation,see "ProvincialInheritance,"pp. 87-90. I would add here that Naritaka'scosignerwhen he madethis commendationwas not his eldest daughter,but ratherher husband. 106. There is an annotatedtable of Aki governorsin Hiroshima-kenshi: Genshikodai, ed. Hiroshima-ken, pp. 658-85. I shalldeal with Aki shoen in a separatestudy.
140
which therefore lies beyond the bounds of this study. It is worth noting, however, that few of Aki's shoen were established after 1170, and that Ishii Susumu has shown that in the province of Noto fully eighty-two per cent of the land area known to have been made over into shoen by 1265 had already been made over by 1150.107 Of course, to accept the propositions developed above is implicitly to recognize that the factors affecting the struggle for local lordship were so complex that even a man as powerful as Taira Kiyomori could not always protect the interests of a local client, even when the latter lived in a "Taira enclave" and was himself as influential as Saeki Kagehiro. This really need not surprise us, however, for it has always been clear, even when we trusted documents that we ought not to have done, that the 1170s saw significant resistance to Saeki Kagehiro's pretensions in Aki, and that Kiyomori's capacity to counter that resistance was limited. As late as 1179, Kiyomori could effect changes in Takada only by exerting pressure on Aki's legitimate governor, and even that was not enough to ensure that local officials would comply with the orders he extorted. And while it may well be true that Kagehiro's appointment to the jito-shiki of Mita and Awaya in 1180 allowed Kiyomori at last to install a personal command structure in Takada and to consolidate Kagehiro's position, it is also clear that such a move must inevitably have alienated the recalcitrant officials. To the extent that the men alienated were men like Minamoto Yoritsuna, the cost of winning Takada cannot have been easy to bear. On the contrary, it is clear that a number of elements in Aki were sufficiently disenchanted with the Taira to rise against them in the Genpei War, and thereby to carve out a new position for themselves under the shogunal regime of Yoritomo. While it is not at all clear how Minamoto Yoritsuna may have behaved during the war, it does look as though his descendants may have done substantially better for themselves than did Saeki Kagehiro's. Thus, it would appear that the descendants of Yoritsuna's younger brother Yoritaka would continue to hold the Mita village of Kihara as late as the Muromachi period, and that the Awaya family of Awaya may also have been Yoritsuna's kinsmen.'08 It is true, of course, that these holdings
107. Ishii, "Insei jidai," pp. 208-9. 108. I rely here on genealogiesin Furoku,a-112 (for the Awaya), a-121 (for the Kihara). The link is quite clear in the Kihara case, though the compiler of their genealogysoughtto equateYorinobuwiththe founderof the KawachiGenji,andalso in Yamagata,ratherthan in Mita. The Awaya, however, claim placed Kihara-mura
141
were far smaller than those claimed by FujiwaraNaritaka's father, but they were something,and their presence ought to remindus that Kiyomori's impact on the countryside was substantially less than that of his Genji successors. Perhapsit will serve also to remindus that, however cherishedthey may be, both assumptionsand sources need occasionally to be reexamined.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN descent from a Kanto Genji family that moved down to Aki with the M6ri in the 1330s. Nonetheless, the given names of the two membersof this family who were active in the early fourteenthcenturymake it clear that they served the Itsukushima (Chikazane'sdescendants)ratherthan the Mori, and suggests that they were really descended from MinamotoYorinobu.

'The Struggle For Lordship in Late Heian Japan The Case of Aki' by Peter J. Arnesen, 1984

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'The Struggle For Lordship in Late Heian Japan The Case of Aki' by Peter J. Arnesen, 1984

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The Society for Japanese Studies

Journal of Japanese Studies

Arnesen: Heian Lordship

Journal of Japanese Studies

Amesen: Heian Lordship

Journal of Japanese Studies

Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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readingof Morinaka'srelease differs from Mass's.

existence of the Choko zassho documents at the time he wrote.

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in this register(for which see 45. A convenienttable of the individualsappearing

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descent from Ko Moroyasu's son Morotake,but their evidence is not persuasive.

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Amesen: Heian Lordship

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Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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Nosaka monjo, nos. 1702, 1804 (HKKS 2:1206, 1277-78).

Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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Of course, a policy of ruthlesslyfavoringmen like Kagehiroover

Amesen: Heian Lordship

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Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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office the precedingmonth. See Kugyo bunin 1:450.

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Arnesen: Heian Lordship

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