Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History

Karl F. Friday, Karl F. Friday

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351692014
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Japanese History
• Index: History

Scholarship on premodern Japan has grown spectacularly over the past four decades, in terms of both sophistication and volume. A new approach has developed, marked by a higher reliance on primary documents, a shift away from the history of elites to broader explorations of social structures, and a re-examination of many key assumptions. As a result, the picture of the early Japanese past now taught by specialists differs radically from the one that was current in the mid-twentieth century.

This handbook offers a comprehensive historiographical review of Japanese history up until the 1500s. Featuring chapters by leading historians and covering the early J?mon, Yayoi, Kofun, Nara, and Heian eras, as well as the later medieval periods, each section provides a foundational grasp of the major themes in premodern Japan. The sections will include:

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• Geography and the environment
• Political events and institutions
• Society and culture
• Economy and technology

The Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History is an essential reference work for students and scholars of Japanese, Asian, and World History.

Part I
Geography and the environment

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1
Geography in history and history in geography

Fujita Hirotsugu, translated by David Eason

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Historical geography is an area of study likely to be unfamiliar to many readers. As the name suggests, this field focuses on the relationship between geographic and historical phenomena. While it scarcely seems necessary to elaborate at length upon the simple correspondence of either geography with space or history with time, switching those pairings—pondering the relationship of geography to time or history to space—significantly changes our perspective.

The march of time is an inherently dispassionate process, whereas history is formed from the particular impressions of individuals. It is, for example, an immutable law of nature that, in the span of a single minute, a given object will free-fall a fixed distance, regardless of its mass. On the other hand, in the course of these same sixty seconds, events of major import may occur or, depending on the people and places involved, the interval may flit by without anyone taking notice. It is this latter passage of time inexorably tied to the idiosyncrasies of human experience and perception that is expressed as “history.”

Furthermore, in the same way that history stands in stark relief to the disinterested march of time, so too do the terms “geography,” “region,” and “landscape” each emphasize the particularities of place in opposition to that otherwise amorphous conceptual container known as “space.” Indeed, it can be said that the academic study of geography serves to problematize precisely this point—in truth geography is a rather odd character among the academic disciplines. At the same time, however, historical geography serves as the field of inquiry in which historical phenomena are subjected to geographic scrutiny.

In the field of historical geography, the flow of time receives top billing, while space is relegated to an ancillary development. Perhaps the most fitting concepts in geography with which to represent space are either “region” or “landscape,” although in historical geography “landscape” is by far the more important term. Nevertheless, historical geography is, in the final analysis, a branch of the larger field of geography. And as a key term in geographical studies, “landscape” is defined as “any portion of a larger surface that, as a unit of space bearing distinctive properties borne from its relative position, can be distinguished and separated out from the unshared characteristics of its surroundings.”¹

Landscapes of this sort, or rather composed of these features, are diverse and range from landforms and other natural phenomena to quintessentially human elements like buildings. In the field of geography, the distribution of such objects is represented on maps, from which further insights are then derived. Likewise, maps also serve as a vital medium of expression when research results are explained. The landscapes that are taken up in the study of geography are historically constructed and exist right before our eyes. Historical geography addresses this issue of historical presence.

What is historical geography?

While there are numerous ways to conceptualize historical geography, all can be broadly divided into three categories. The first involves the reconstruction of landscapes and their divisions at given points (or periods) in time. The foundation for this sort of work consists of locating the landscapes and place names that appear in historical documents, and identifying them with modern places. Next, the historical landscape is reconstructed as such identifications accumulate and are added to maps. And finally, these map reconstructions become the jumping-off point for geographic analyses.

It is often possible to search maps for place names appearing in historical sources. For this level of work, the internet has become increasingly useful and convenient. It is also possible to search for place names designating small-scale territorial units on the cadastral maps of agricultural lands created during the early Meiji (1868–1912) period. Such cadastral maps were produced as appendices to land registers for property taxes. Accordingly, they record the address, classification (residential, paddy field, dry field, vacant land, forest, pond, etc.), owner, area and the like of each property unit; and, for comparison with land registers, they designate the boundaries of each section.²

Of particular importance here with respect to landscape is the fact that it is possible to identify villages and settlements, which appear on the cadastral maps as aggregates of units designated as residential properties. There are cases in which properties that were dry fields when the first cadastral charts were created in the early Meiji era have since become residential areas; and it is possible to ascertain the point in time at which this change occurred, through cross-referencing with land registers. Looking in the other direction of time, there are cases in which lands that were dry fields in the early Meiji period had been residential areas in earlier times—such as during the Edo period (1600–1868). This can be confirmed by local surveys of the parcels, noting, for example, vestiges of earlier buildings or elevated plots that must have once been the foundations of houses.³ The importance of this sort of on-site investigation to historical geography shows its affinity to the parent field of geography—and its fundamental difference from historical research based on written texts.

Through comparison of sequential map reconstructions of landscapes at particular points in time, it is possible to analyze geographic changes between the periods in question. Such investigation of geographic change represents the second way to define “historical geography.” In any event, it should be clear that maps are held in high regard by historical geographers. An example of this perspective very close to home for me, is the heavy use of historical maps as instructional aids in World History and Japanese History courses at high schools as part of students’ education in “the history of geography.”

Geographic research esteems various sorts of statistical analysis of populations by geographic units. The advance of computer technology in recent years has become a major force supporting such efforts. The Geographic Information System (GIS) utilized in automobile navigation systems offers one example of what is possible here. GIS is a system that expresses information compiled in databases in map form (or, more strictly, as data on latitude and longitude). Facilities (such as convenience stores and gas stations) along the route on which the automobile is traveling can be instantly searched for and displayed on the map. At a higher level of sophistication, the results of statistical analyses of scholarly data can also be displayed on maps.

Urged onward by this sort of technological revolution, geographical research is expanding. And this development in turn has given birth to the third way to conceptualize historical geography. That is, historical geography can be broadly thought of as the application of geographic research backward to historical periods. This definition accords closely with my own views.⁴

In the remainder of this chapter, I would like to introduce the major themes of research and points of contention among scholars in the field of historical geography. I will divide my discussion into three parts, organized by period.

Historical geography on the prehistoric epoch

The field of geography includes physical, as well as human, geography. The study of natural phenomena—topography and the geological processes that give rise to it—examines developments that predate written records, and indeed, trace back to the epoch before the birth of humanity. Human geography, on the other hand, explores the relationships of human beings with nature. As such, while it emphasizes geographic perspectives, it depends heavily upon archaeological excavation. Such a focus is sometimes referred to as “archaeological geography.”

The five-volume Kōza kōko chirigaku (“Course in Archaeological Geography”) series edited during the 1980s, under the general supervision of Fujioka Kenjirō, represents a monumental achievement in this field. Although Fujioka passed away in 1985, without living to see the series reach completion, this project marked the culmination of a distinguished career that began with college studies in archaeology and, from graduate school onward, shifted to a specialization in geography.⁵

During this same decade, Yasuda Yasunori pioneered a new style of research. Recognizing the correlation between human history and environmental change, he gathered layers of sediment from excavation sites throughout Japan, and analyzed the contents of that soil for pollen and diatoms, enabling him to precisely reconstruct shifts in climate and forest vegetation, as well as fluctuations in water levels. Until Yasuda, pollen analysis was generally regarded as falling within the province of archaeology, because the soil samples examined were extracted from remains unearthed in archaeological excavations. Pollen, however, did not simply fall straight to the ground. Rather, pollination occurred when spores were carried by insects or blown by the wind, resulting in the discovery of specimens from plants found in otherwise distant biomes and indicating a pattern of widespread diffusion apropos to geographic study as well. Yasuda advocated that his approach, focusing on the massive impact on human history wrought by changes to climate and vegetation, be labeled “geoarchaeology.”⁶

Yasuda’s methodology had been influenced by the work of Kusaka Masayoshi, in the 1970s and 1980s. Focusing on the restoration of past environments, Kusaka deftly incorporated research into alluvial d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• Part I Geography and the environment
• Part II Political events and institutions
• Part III Society and culture
• Part IV Economy and technology
• Index