Harvard-Yenching Institute

The Kawashima: Warrior-Peasants of Medieval Japan

Author(s): Suzanne Gay
Source: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jun., 1986), pp. 81-119
Published by: Harvard-Yenching Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2719076 .
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The Kawashima: Warrior-Peasants of
Medieval Japan

SUZANNE GAY
John CarrollUniversity

M\/[EDIEVAL Japan is usually perceived as a society domi-

nated by fiercewarriorswith a small supporting cast of monks
and aristocrats. The largest segment of the population, the peasant-
ry, is often ignored, and for good reason: peasants left no written
record to speak of. Most references to them are oblique, imbedded
in literary works or official documents pertaining to the administra-
tion of land. The peasants loomed large only when they were seen
as a threat to the ruling class-during uprisings, in particular-
and not very often at that. In the last three decades peasant studies
have proliferated in Japan, and by imaginative means scholars
have reconstructed a portrait of the generic "medieval Japanese

I wish to thank theJapan Foundation for funding my research for this article in 1978-79, as
well as the East Asian Council of Yale University which supported its initial writeup in 1980
with a Sumitomo Fellowship. ProfessorJohn W. Hall of Yale University and ProfessorKuroda
Toshio of Osaka University gave me important guidance in understanding the Kawashima in
the context of medieval Japan, while Umata Ayako of Baika Women's College painstakingly
read the documents with me and recommended many of the important supplementary
sources. Previous incarnations of this study include: Chapter IV of my dissertation, "The
Muromachi Bakufu in Medieval Kyoto" (Yale University, 1982); "The Muromachi Bakufu
in the Kinai Region: The Case of the Kawashima Dogo" a paper given in Japanese at the In-
ternational Conference of Orientalists in Japan (Tokyo: May 9, 1980); "The Kawashima: A
Warrior-Peasant of Central Japan," a paper given at the Association for Asian Studies An-
nual Meeting (Washington, D.C.: March 24, 1984). I also wish to thank Professor Martin
Collcutt of Princeton University for his valuable comments at the AAS Annual Meeting.

81
82 SUZANNE GAY
peasant." Even so, peasants tend to come across as a faceless lot,
precisely because they left so few records. An important exception is
the Kawashima *41, family of Nishigaoka NM, southwest of Kyoto.
Fundamentally a rich peasant family, the Kawashima was thrust in-
to the lowest ranks of the warrior class by a quirk of fate: in 1336
Ashikaga Takauji kfIJJ4, founder of the Muromachi bakufu,
designated the Kawashima a bakufu vassal. In part because of this
appointment, the family kept extensive records pertaining to its ac-
tivities both as bakufu vassal and as wealthy peasant.' The family's
development in the latter capacity is no less impressive than its war-
rior functions: in the fifteenth century, taking advantage of its local
prominence, the Kawashima engaged in successful entrepreneurial
activities at the village level to emerge as wealthy late medieval
peasants par excellence. The Kawashima's evolution, divided here
between its warrior and peasant roles, presents a unique and com-
prehensive picture of local life in late medieval Japan. In total, the
Kawashima documents have considerable impact: they supplement
the faint and over-generalized image of the medieval Japanese pea-
sant and they give that group an immediacy and an identity hitherto
lacking. At the same time, they reveal local aspects of bakufu rule in
central Japan.

KAWASHIMA FAMILY HISTORY

The Kawashima family claims descent within the Satake ftit

branch of the Seiwa Genji XPiPWlJclan which traces its origins to

' Kawashima monjo 1!CiVi (hereafter KM), in Osaka University's collection of

photographed documents, and Kawashimakemonjo*igC (hereafter KKM), in Kyoto
FuritsuSogoShiryokankiyo AyMiffy AV;f4MfiW, 6 (March 1977) and 7 (March 1978).
The numbering used to cite documents will be that of KKM, except for about twenty-seven
documents in KM not included in KKM; they will be referred to as KM, and that numbering
system will be used. The Osaka University collection of photographs (KM) was produced in
the 1950s from the original documents in the Ky6to Shiry6kan. The discrepancy between the
total number of documents published by the Shiry6kan in 1977-78 (KKM) and the number
in the Osaka collection can only be accounted for by the twenty-odd years separating the
production of KM and the publishing of KKM. Presumably the twenty-seven documents
not found in KKM were lost or acquired by others (including institutions, perhaps even
the Kawashima family itself?) during that time. At any rate, they are not included in the pub-
lished collection, and the Osaka collection, though only a photographic reproduction, is the
more complete of the two.
 KAWASHIMA 83
the ninth century Emperor Seiwa.2 Yoshisue A*, the fifth son of
Satake Masayoshi , is said to have founded the Kawashima fami-
ly in rather hapless circumstances. From the 1 170s he served
Minamoto Yoritomo RN,R*A,founder of the Kamakura bakufu, in
an unknown capacity, but at some point, due to an "accidental
defamation," he and three of his brothers had their lands con-
fiscated by Yoritomo. The family lands in Hitachi SR Province,
near present-day Tokyo, were all given to the fourth brother,
Takayoshi MA, the only one not purged, and he settled there.
Yoshisue escaped punishment, but was put in the charge of a war-
rior of Suruga PAYR Province, near Mt. Fuji. To escape this virtual
banishment and make a new start, Yoshisue turned to Konoe
Motomichi AMXA, a member of one of the most prestigious of the
aristocratic families. Motomichi was moved to grant Yoshisue geshi
T P3 (local shoen RW manager) rights to the southern section of
Kawashima Sh6en, an estate under Konoe proprietorship. This
would in time become a prime location: the Nishigaoka district of
Yamashiro [St Province within walking distance of the Katsura
Detached Palace, and a few miles southwest of Kyoto, the cultural
and economic hub of Japan. Yoshisue took Kawashima as his new
family name and became the patriarch of the family which lives in
the same area to this day. In 1215 Yoshisue was succeeded by his
son Yoshiyasu X2, who was also granted the office of geshi by the
Konoe.
These "facts" about the origins of the Kawashima are found in
family genealogies, but the first independent documentation of the
Kawashima is a 1312 geshi appointment bestowed by the Konoe
upon Kawashima Noriyasu , eighth generation family head.4
The genealogies simply assume that the Kawashima held the geshi
office from the time Yoshisue took up residence in Nishigaoka. This
assumption is probably valid, but it should be kept in mind that
genealogies are often written to glorify their subjects and to imbue
2
Information on Kawashima family history is derived form KKM, no. 183 ("Minamotoke
Kawashima no denki" ? R2k) and no. 184 ("Minamotoshi Satake Kawashima no
keizu" ft ;R?V4*- iL* ); "Kawashima keizu" *- Al, and "Kawashima
kadengakusho" ? both in ZokugunshoruijuiRM MIA, ed. Zoku Gunsho Rui-
jil Kanseikai (Keizai Zasshi, 1960), 5.1:520-26 and 525-32.
3An alternate pronunciation is gesu, but geshi was the more common medieval form.
4 KKM, no. 196 (1312/11/14).
84 SUZANNE GAY
them with as illustrious origins as possible. Hence they are not en-
tirely trustworthy and are better used in conjunction with more
official documents. It is clear from other sources, however, that by
the early fourteenth century the Kawashima had attained a position
of some local prominence. A careful study of changes in district
(gun g) borders in the late Kamakura period has revealed that the
Kawashima was busily accumulating land near its home base.5 A
very different indication of social prominence was the marriage in
1318 of nineteen-year-old Zensh6b6 , a "close relative" of the
Kawashima, to Kakunyo *Pn, the great-grandson and successor of
Shinran VW, the founder of the popular Jodo Shinshuii
school of Buddhism.6 Though not in the top ranks ofJapanese socie-
ty, Kakunyo may have been a collateral member of the minor
aristocratic Hino Htf family; at any rate, he is known to have hob-
nobbed with Kyoto aristocrats who considered him a poet of some
merit. Marriage into such circles was no small thing for a peasant
family like the Kawashima. Kakunyo's prominent place inJapanese
religious history is due to the fact that he founded the Honganji *401
+, the major temple of the Shinshua, and he intended Zenshobo, his
third wife, to be his successor there. She predeceased him, however,
in 1349 at the age of fifty.
From 1336, the Kawashima attained the status of Muromachi
bakufu vassal. Several documents confirm this development: there
are two bakufu orders to the Kawashima for military service dated
1336,7 as well as the all-important directive (migyosshoOk0) from
Ashikaga Takauji, founder of the Muromachi bakufu, granting the
Kawashima as bakufu vassal (jito gokenin 1R k) half the Konoe' s
proprietary rights to Kawashima Estate in return for a pledge of
military service.8 Several bakufu orders for military service appear
in the next few years, as well as a Kawashima request for bakufu
recognition of military service rendered. Thus the Kawashima fami-

5 Sugiyama Hiroshi bIIl "Otogunigun no j6ri ni tsuite" Z in

ShIenkaitaikateino kenkyiu
:M48 ODft (Toky6 Daigaku Shuppankai, 1959), pp. 2-
11.
6 Inoue Toshio * Honganji* (Shibund6, 1962), pp. 73-74. Zensh6b6 does
not appear in the Kawashima genealogies.
7 KKM, no. 48-v (1336/9/27); no. 48-vii (1336/7/2).
8 KKM, no. 49 (1336/8/11).
 KAWASHIMA 85
ly, which started out as geshi of Kawashima Estate, in the early
Muromachi period moved into the local overlord class by allying
itself with the warrior government. Vassalage to the bakufu also
brought the Kawashima into the lower ranks of the warrior class.
Such simultaneous possession of different rights and statuses was
not uncommon as the stratified estate system began to break down
in the fourteenth century.
The Kawashima retained these offices and even added to them in
the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: in 1440, thirteenth
generation Sadayasu At was appointed administrator (daikan fWM)
of neighboring Kamino Lrt Shoen, a T6ji it# estate, in return for
restoring irrigation facilities. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, under the leadership of Chikanobu VV3 and Yasunobu s
, fifteenth and sixteenth generation heirs, the family became a ma-
jor landholder. Land acquisiton, generally through outright pur-
chase, occurred at a remarkable rate, and included property as far
away as Tanba Xj, an adjacent province. In the early sixteenth
century Yasunobu adopted Kawashima Toshinobu idJR- of
northern Kawashima Estate, apparently a collateral family. The
adoption may have been to compensate for the death in battle of
seventeenth generation Narinobu 4U- in 1524. Narinobu's son,
Kazunobu -, eventually assumed control of the family, but in the
meantime the entire northern Kawashima family was absorbed,
with its lands, into the main southern Kawashima family.9 This is
one of several references to collateral family members, and it can be
assumed that by this time the Kawashima clan was fairly extensive.
Sixteenth generation Chikanobu fought in the Onin UZ&V War on
the Hosokawa 0WItside, at the order of Shogun Yoshimasa XA.
This alliance with the Hosokawa proved to be fateful for the
Kawashima in the confused Sengoku period which followed: in 1565
Matsunaga Hisahide 1'*LXA, vassal of Hosokawa rival Miyoshi
Nagayoshi f-A, killed Shogun Yoshiteru X", and with the
Miyoshi seized the lands of former bakufu vassals whom they
replaced with their own allies. Eighteenth generation Kawashima
9 Up to this time, the main Kawashima family, the subject of this study and writing its
name with the characters *-O, had lived in southern Kawashima Estate and owned some
land in northern Kawashima Estate. The collateral family, writing its name with the
characters 1 lived in nothern Kawashima Estate.
86 SUZANNE GAY
family head Kazunobu was banished to Tango #i&?ion the Japan
Sea, and his lands were handed over to the Miyoshi's local vassal,
the Kaede 4Ak family. Instability cuts both ways, however, and in
three years Kazunobu was back in Nishigaoka, having routed the
Kaede. He procured a commendation of his lands from Oda
Nobunaga 1dBfficwho had since defeated the Miyoshi-Matsunaga
forces and become the effective ruler of the central provinces. In
return for valorous military service to Nobunaga, the Kawashima
house was given in fief new lands, among them the portion of adja-
cent Tsukiyomi A MtShrine which the family had long claimed.
Things looked good for a while: in 1573 Hosokawa Fujitaka !4,
protector of the powerless Shogun Yoshiaki XR and loyal to Oda
Nobunaga, was given the Nishigaoka area as his domain, and he
reconfirmed the holdings of his old vassal the Kawashima, in the per-
son of nineteenth generation Hideari 3X. He even added some
lands from the neighboring Katsura estate as well. The Kawashima
was by now a very large local landholder. But fortunes change fast
in unsettled times, and the rise of Toyotomi Hideyoshi W?:M was
to prove detrimental to Kawashima interests. In 1582 he confiscated
the greater part of the Kawashima lands. Twentieth generation
Tadanobu ,8 . served Hideyoshi in Echizen LAj on the Japan Sea,
but his lands were not returned.
In the early seventeenth century, the Kawashima house eventual-
ly regained its base lands, but the family was not for many years to
be closely associated with the country's rulers. Designated a goshi a
? by the Tokugawa bakufu, the Kawashima continued to reside in
the same place and to play a prominent role in village affairs. This
was one of two fates typically to befall prominent local warriors in
the Edo period. In the late sixteenth century, Hideyoshi had
established a policy of officially classifying all warriors and peasants
as members of either one or the other class (heino bunri AA 34-). He
carried out this policy by disarming the peasants and taking most
warriors off the land to reside in the daimyo's castle where they
drew a stipend. Goshi like the Kawashima comprised the lowest
stratum of the warrior class which remained in the village more or
less as rich peasants.
Although the estate system was dead by the Edo period, Kawa-
shima documents of that time are remarkably similar to those
 KAWASHIMA 87
of the medieval period. The Takatsukasa 1 P, a branch of the
Konoe and one of the five noble families from which the imperial
regent was traditionally chosen, took the place of the Konoe as
stipendiary of Kawashima lands. The Kawashima was to see that
the Takatsukasa received their annual income, a responsibility
essentially the same as that of the medieval geshi office, and one
which continued until just before the Meiji Restoration. In all, Edo
period documents in the Kawashima collection number about 1200,
and some attest to the Kawashima's activities as tax farmer for the
Takatsukasa. Many deal with familiar activities such as the pur-
chase and sale of land, moneylending, etc. There are also maps
from the Edo period showing the extent of the Kawashima holdings.
The familiar problem of water rights crops up from time to time.
The majority of the Edo period documents are poems that may be of
little literary value but are indicative of the family's genteel status as
prominent members of the peasant class.
In spite of the Kawashima's local prominence, the family's finan-
cial situation became increasingly precarious in the Edo period. At-
tempted remedies included periodic stipends from various daimyo
and the sale of family land, but these measures did not succeed in
restoring the family's fortunes to their medieval level. In 1667 the
Kawashima joined the ranks of the officials of the Mizuno AcX,
daimyo of Fukuyama gW domain. Put in nominal charge of fifteen
foot soldiers and five police, the Kawashima family drew a pension,
but in 1677 they had to relinquish both office and pension, probably
because of financial difficulties in Fukuyama. In the early years of
the eighteenth century, twenty-second generation Yukimotoz5i at-
tempted to get the Kawashima off to a new start by putting in order
the family's documents, especially those on land-related matters,
and by drawing up a family genealogy. In the latter half of the eigh-
teenth century, a Kawashima woman was married to the Confucian
scholar Nakai Chikuzan rJtkr[, who lived on Kawashima lands
for ten years as guardian of twenty-fifth generation Fumishige i:9.
It was Chikuzan who finally restored order to Kawashima finances,
chiefly by selling a good deal of land. Even after Fumishige reached
adulthood, Chikuzan continued to be in charge of Kawashima
finances. He used his close ties with the Hosokawa daimyo to have
Fumishige educated there, and to plead for a nominal post for the
88 SUZANNE GAY
impoverished Kawashima house. As a result, from 1784 until the do-
main system was abolished in the early Meiji period, the Kawashima
received a yearly stipend from the Hosokawa.
Sensing that the spotlight of history was again about to shine on
the Kawashima family, twenty-eighth generation Arinao * A cut his
ties with the Takatsukasa family on the eve of the Meiji Restora-
tion to participate, albeit in a small way, in the overthrow of the
shogun and the restoration of the emperor in 1868. He stored
weapons for the Satsuma-Ch6shui OWffd+I rebels, and at one point
even left home to spend two years in hiding. Arinao served as a ban-
nerman (hatamotoAt*) in the imperial army, and for his efforts was
granted a position in the Imperial Household Agency and in 1911
was appointed attendant of Oharano 7tY Shrine. In 1914 the
Kawashima family was further rewarded with the designation
shizoku ?t, that is, a warrior family from pre-Restoration times.
Such official recognition bestowed considerable prestige upon the
Kawashima and established the family as a pillar, though a slender
one, of the new regime.
Meiji period documents in the Kawashima collection number
about 250, over half of which concern Arinao. There are several let-
ters to him from prominent Restoration figures. His pretensions to
greatness are reflected in correspondence showing his concern that
the Kawashima collection be included in compilation projects under-
way from the late nineteenth century at the Historiographical In-
stitute in Tokyo. Indeed, for a family of relatively modest stature,
the Kawashima had done remarkably well over the centuries in
preserving its past through documents.
Twenty-ninth generation K6tar6 MtM became a physician in
the German tradition, unusual for a Japanese educated in the early
Meiji period when the Dutch still dominated the field of medicine in
Japan. His practice was apparently a successful one, for he rebuilt
the family estate. The medical profession also called thirtieth genera-
tion family head K6sabur6 i a prominent Kyoto physician. In
1931 he built Kawashima Hospital on the southwestern outskirts of
Kyoto where Yoshisue had first settled over seven hundred years
earlier.
 KAWASHIMA 89

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The Kawashima is well known in the field of Japanese medieval

history. In addition to passing references to the family in numerous
works, there are several studies devoted exclusively to the Kawa-
shima. The thematic diversity of these works attests to the wide
range of the family's activities: the history of Kyoto,"0 irrigation
in the medieval period,1" late medieval peasant rebellions,"2 the
development of estate in the Kyoto area,13 and the Japanese family
system.14 Studies devoted exclusively to the Kawashima have tended
not to be comprehensive but to focus on a particular aspect of the
family's local activities, such as land acquisition, overlord-peasant
relations, tensions within the peasant class, etc.15 Surprisingly little
has been made of the Kawashima's bakufu connection in any of
these works. This is partly due to the popularity of peasant studies
among Japanese historians in the last few decades, resulting in em-
phasis on the Kawashima as rich peasant and downplaying the
family's warrior status. While it is true that most of the documents
themselves concern the family's local activities, the Kawashima's
tie to the central authorities, including the traditional proprietors as
well as the bakufu, was another important aspect of the family's
history deserving some emphasis. By means of its bond of vassalage
to the bakufu, the Kawashima house acquired a powerful guarantor
whose prestige and intimidation value was considerable. Not only
were Kawashima lands relatively immune from incursions by near-
10 Kurokawa Naonori ,)It IJll, "Nairan no tenkai" 0L"&O , in Kyotono rekishi;-Y,i
c'rP (Gakugei Shorin, 1970; second ed., 1979, rpt. 1980), 2:510; Kurokawa Naonori,
"Kyuitei to bakufu" 99 L 44ff, in Kyotono rekishi(Gakugei Shorin, 1968), 3:70.
" H6getsu Keigo ! A , Chuiseikangaishinokenkyu zP j% CD
iMt. W (Meguro Shoten,
1950), pp. 125-29, 343-44.
12 Mizukami Kazuhisa ?-X, "Bunmei jiishichi, juihachinen no Yamashiro no kuni
ikki ni tsuite" i:t-L, t A J; o 1C , Rekishigakukenkyuf.fRr?;WR,
6.3 (March, 1936): 48-56; Nagahara Keiji A V --I, "Sh6en kaitaiki ni okeru n6mins6 no
bunkai to n6min t6s6 no keitai" E
RekishihyoronffZRi, 44-45 (April-May 1953): 1-26, 42-56.
13 Uejima Tamotsu ?, A , Kyokoshoien sonrakuno kenkyuAiJ 3J.M , , (Tachibana
Shob6, 1970), pp. 126-29, 296-99, 337-50, 352-54, 374-75.
14 Aruga Kizaemon : Nihon kazokuseidoto kosakuseido E3*V19E L 'J'
$II9 (Kawade Shob6, 1938).
15 These works, in addition to those cited in notes 10-14, are cited extensively throughout

this article.
90 SUZANNE GAY
by peasants or overlords, but with such a powerful backer the
Kawashima could without compunction wring from the peasants ex-
horbitant amounts of tax, rent, and interest on debts. A closer look
at Kawashima activities will demonstrate that the Muromachi
bakufu played a considerable though indirect role in the Kawa-
shima's local development. At the same time, the Kawashima
carried the bakufu's influence to the countryside.
An important reason the Kawashima has been a popular subject
of research by Japanese scholars is the relative wealth of documen-
tary evidence available on the family. Unusual for a medieval fami-
ly of comparatively low social standing, the Kawashima maintained
an extensive collection of documents, mostly pertaining to land.16
Numbering over 1500 in total, the documents extend from the thir-
teenth to the nineteenth centuries, including over 350 dating from
the medieval period. They include family genealogies, maps and in-
ventories of lands, bills of sale, testaments and wills, documents per-
taining to litigation, especially of land disputes, and documents con-
cerning relations with the bakufu. Such scrupulous attention to the
recording of land-related matters even at this level of society in-
dicates that to a remarkable extent legal process and written
evidence were highly respected in medieval Japan.
The Kawashima as well as their neighbors had rights to lands
which, under the estate system, were subject to the overlordship of
central proprietors (honke ** or ryJke 'p,M), both religious and
aristocratic. The proprietors kept their own collections of shoen
documents, some of which contain valuable references to the
Kawashima, either direct or indirect. For instance, a document in
the collection of the aristocratic Sanjinishi family, which held
lands in Nishigaoka, mentions the details of a land dispute directly
involving the Kawashima."7 In addition, the Kawashima's role as
bakufu vassal makes the presence of references to the Kawashima in
bakufu sources a strong possibility. When, for example, a bakufu
official mentions in his diary that the shogun has ordered his
Nishigaoka vassals to come to Kyoto, it can be inferred that the
16
See footnote 1.
17 SanetakakokiJ0Qj$' , fourteen entries from 1497/10/1 to 1521/10/17, in Zokugunsho
ruiju(Zoku Gunsho RuijuiKanseikai, 1957), 3.2:452, 578; 4.1:70, 332; 4.2:98, 649; 5.1:277;
5.2:587, 755, 767.
 KAWASHIMA 91
Kawashima were among them. 18 Fragmentary though they are,
these references are crucial supplements to the incomplete picture
provided by the Kawashima family collection alone. Taken to-
gether, the Kawashima family collection, bakufu documents, and
temple and aristocratic sources provide a relatively complete picture
of the Kawashima family.

THE KAWASHIMA AS BAKUFU VASSAL:

THE APPOINTMENT AND ITS REPERCUSSIONS

In the first month of 1336 Ashikaga Takauji invaded Kyoto in the

hope of establishing control there once and for all. He was quickly
driven out by Emperor Godaigo's fbW troops under Kitabatake
Akiie ILAM*, however, and was forced to flee to Kyushu to
regroup. After several months of arduous fighting there he emerged
as undisputed leader, and in the spring he started the long cam-
paign back to Kyoto with a considerably increased force. Takauji ar-
rived in the Kyoto area in the sixth month of 1336, and could con-
sider his position there secure by the ninth month.
During the three months of the summer of 1336, Takauji faced
the forces loyal to Godaigo. Naturally, they would resist more fierce-
ly in Kyoto, their last bastion, than elsewhere. To conquer the city,
Takauji enlisted the services of a number of local peasant leaders in
the area, among them the Kawashima, the Terado P, the Takeda
e i, and the Daini tA, all of the Nishigaoka area. In the
eighth month of 1336, Kawashima Yukimasa received a directive
(migyosho) bearing Takauji's signature."9 According to the terms of
their agreement, the Kawashima would render military service to
Takauji in return for vassal status and half the central proprietor's
rights to Kawashima Estate asjitoshiki Jl. In this way these locals
of relatively modest stature, now known as bakufujito gokenin*_',00
WA, were partially freed by Takauji from their bond to the central
proprietors, and in return were placed under the protection of the
bakufu, an arrangement which was understood to be perpetual.
Awarding half the proprietor's rights to a local supporter and
18 Chikamoto
nikki7G E3"d, entries for 1465/11/3,11,12, in ZohozokushiryotaiseiIMr!,
i,Et4j, ed. Takeuchi Riz6 t)F3T- (Rinsen Shoten, 1978), 10.2:16-17, 26-28.
19
KKM, no. 49 (1336/8/11).
92 SUZANNE GAY
designating him ajito, a device frequently utilized by Takauji, was
called a hanzei #T-. What actually happened to the land itself in the
Kawashima's case is a matter of some dispute: either ownership of
the land itself, not just control of its products, changed hands,20 or
each plot was unrealistically divided in half, amounting in practice
to a simple division of the products of the land between proprietor
and jito.21 The latter is perhaps more likely, since the Kawashima
continued as tax farmer for the Konoe. Awarded by Takauji
without prior consultation with the central proprietors, hanzei grave-
ly damaged the latter's interests and the estate system itself. But
Takauji reaped the results he wanted from this policy: an in-
digenous military force in Kyoto and victory in the struggle against
Emperor Godaigo.22
The lot of the central proprietors was perhaps not as dismal as it
appeared since half their interests remained untouched. It is true
that the geshishiki appellation abruptly disappears from the
Kawashima genealogies after Yukimasa's time, implying that their
institutional tie with the Konoe had ceased and was replaced by the
jitoshiki of the bakufu appointment. Later documents, however,
make quite clear that the geshi office continued to be held by the
Kawashima, along with its responsibilities and privileges. It is possi-
ble that the Edo period compiler of the genealogy, in a deliberate at-
tempt to depict the family as convincingly as possible as a member of
the warrior class, simply dropped the geshi appellation at this crucial
point. At any rate, the jitoshiki from Takauji included only half
the proprietary rights to Kawashima Estate, and the Konoe still re-
mained proprietor of the remaining half.
The bakufu, for its part, found itself on the horns of a dilemma
because of its contradictory policies. To defeat the forces of
Godaigo, Takauji enlisted prominent local leaders like the
Kawashima by rewarding them at the expense of the proprietors.
On the other hand, Takauji understood that the support of those
Sat6 Shin'ichi fk , Nihonno rekishi9: Nanbokucho
no doranF *40)Ff
20
9: jII OD
RbAL
(Chii6k6ronsha, 1965), pp. 209-10.
21
ShimadaJir6A 3t0,P "Hanzeiseidono seiritsu* t OD
J. A,, ShichotjM4,no. 58
(April, 1956); rpt. in RonshaNihon rekishi5: MuromachiseikenA F , 5: @
iTB, ed.
OgawaMakoto/J\)[16 (Yuiseid6,1975), pp. 72-73.
22
Sat6 Kazuhikoft JfPgi, Nihonnorekishi11: Nanbokuch5
nairanH* ODi 11:JAILtI
M3L (Sh6gakkan,1974), p. 76.
 KAWASHIMA 93
very proprietors would ultimately be crucial to the survival of his
government, and in his campaign from Kyushu to Kyoto he had
issued decrees condemning warrior incursions into the central pro-
prietors' lands as illegal.23 It was impossible to support local war-
riors without damaging the central proprietors; conversely, bakufu
defense of proprietary interests limited the rewards it could confer
upon its local supporters. This was a destructive and at the same
time unavoidable policy which became a source of increasing fric-
tion within the bakufu. Under Takauji and his brother Tadayoshi
0:X, the office of shogun developed a dual character: Takauji, as
personal lord of the country's warriors, controlled the mandokoroWAFi
(the bakufu chancellery), the samurai dokorofrJ (the bakufu agency
for vassal affairs), and the onshogata,Rt (the bakufu organ which
awarded lands to warriors), while Tadayoshi, representing the
public, territorial aspect of bakufu authority, controlled the judicial
organs which decided disputes on the basis of established law.24
Judicial decisions tended to favor the central proprietors,25 while
Takauji and his chief vassal K6 no Moronao ,gii: were committed
to warrior interests. Tensions erupted in the Kann6 JRZ& Incident of
the first month of 1352, and Tadayoshi, whose main supporters
were the militarily weak bureaucrats of the bakufu's judicial
organs,26lost the struggle and his life to the superior forces of Takauji.
In the seventh and eighth months of the same year, to underscore
his victory, Takauji issued decrees which permitted the levying of
hanzei on the products of the land, and allowed the physical division
of the land as well.27 Included among these was a hanzei on
Yamashiro Province affecting warrior families and estate pro-
prietors.28 To what extent this decree was enforced or who specifi-
cally was affected is not clear, but it no doubt reinforced the
23
Shimada, "Hanzei, " p. 6 1.
24
Sat6 Shin'ichi JFt; , "Muromachi bakufuron" V Jfe=, f in IwanamikozaNihon
rekishi7, chusei3 ?t9?W El* 7, tt#t3 (Iwanami Shoten, 1962), pp. 5-6.
25
Sat6 Shin'ichi, "Muromachi bakufu kais6ki no kansei taikei" @JaRT*fff,
t#:, in Chuasei O&
nohi to kokkat':)Ff , ed. Ishimoda Sh6 TitB 1IE and Sat6 Shin'ichi
VE; A (T6ky6 Daigaku Shuppankai, 1960; rpt. 1965), p. 492.
26
Sat6, "Muromachi bakufu kais6ki," pp. 487-88.
27
Shimada, "Hanzei," pp. 65-66.
28
MuromachibakufuhJVBJ4ffWJ, no. 39 (1352/7/8), in Chu7sei hoseishiryoshu4t&$fjiIJI
0- (hereafter CHS), ed. Sat6 Shin'ichi ft: j- and Ikeuchi Yoshisuke WYRR
(Iwanami Shoten, 1957; rpt. 1974), 2:171.
94 SUZANNE GAY
Kawashima's recently increased local land rights. Proprietary in-
terests were still given some consideration, but the bakufu's overall
policy had clearly become one of favoring warriors at the expense of
the central proprietors. The hanzei policy which crystallized under
Yoshimitsu continued this trend, though it took into account the
proprietors' interests to some extent as well.29 Tensions between pro-
prietary and local interests continued throughout the late medieval
period, and are well-documented in the Kawashima collection.
Though seriously wounded by the bakufu policy, the proprietors
continued to defend their interests with considerable vigor.
In return for a generous increase in land rights gained at the ex-
pense of the central proprietors, the new bakufu vassals of
Nishigaoka were required to participate in bakufu military cam-
paigns. The first order for service came a month before Takauji's
bestowal of vassal status upon Kawashima Yukimasa. In the
seventh month of 1336, Yukimasa received an "urgent order to
arms" (gunsei saisokujo 1-{JI4)W) bearing Takauji's signature, and
commanding that Nitta Yoshisada's VfBAA "ruffians" (ky5to 1V*)
be wiped out.30 In this document Takauji cited a directive (inzen R
.) from the office of the retired emperor to legitimize his case. This
is the only instance in the Kawashima documents in which Takauji
made any pretense of having imperial backing. Two months later,
Yukimasa was again ordered to fight for the shogun at Tennoji TFE
E in Settsu I t,31 and the genealogies confirm that on the very next
day he indeed fought bravely.32 The next documentation of military
service is at the end of 1350, when Godaigo attempted a comeback.
This time Kawashima Kageyasu C X was ordered to Kawachi 14P
Province to help exterminate enemy "remnants."33 Although the
Kawashima's military service was confined to central Japan, family
members were required to go well beyond their home province of
Yamashiro to serve the bakufu in its resolution of the Nanbokuch6
M1LMconflict. Once the conflict ended, the Kawashima family was

29
More details of this policy are given in the section on relations with the central pro-
prietors.
30 KKM, no. 48-vii (1336/7/2).
31
KKM, no. 48-v (1336/9/27).
32
KKM, no. 184, "Minamotoshi Satake Kawashima no keizu."
33 KKM, no. 48-i (1350/12/8).
 KAWASHIMA 95
rarely called upon to serve: in 1427, thirteenth generation Sadayasu
At fought under bakufu retainer Hosokawa Mitsumoto i5d
in Harima 41 Province.34 Fifteenth generation Chikanobu also
served the Hosokawa in the Onin War and sixteenth generation
Yasunobu in 1487 served in Omi ;kUL:.Yasunobu lived to the ripe
old age of eighty-eight, but his eldest son Narinobu was not so for-
tunate. The only Kawashima to die in battle, he perished in 1524 in
Settsu Province at the age of thirty-five, predeceasing his father by
eleven years. During the sixteenth century the Kawashima, like
other warrior families, was increasingly drawn into the frequent
fighting, usually as vassals of the various warriors vying for control
of Kyoto.
Until about 1350, the Kawashima's role in bakufu campaigns
against the forces of Godaigo was probably significant. Thereafter
the family was called upon for service only about three or four times
a century. It is probably accurate to characterize such vassals as a
type of military reserve that the bakufu could tap when necessary.
The bakufu's relationship with the Kawashima was essentially a
military one, but exactly where the Kawashima fit into the bakufu
organization is not clear. There apparently was a direct line to the
shogun since the initial appointment bears the signature of Takauji
himself.35 For more routine matters, the samurai dokoro,the bakufu
agency in charge of vassal relations, would have been the logical
channel of communication. Only while the Yamashiro shugo q-
and the head of the samurai dokorowere the same person (1353-84),
however, did that agency have jurisdiction over Yamashiro Pro-
vince where the Kawashima lived.36 Later, the samurai dokoro's
sphere of control shrank to the city of Kyoto, while the Yamashiro
shugo was responsible for the area immediately outside Kyoto, in-
cluding Nishigaoka.37 This suggests that the Kawashima, as a minor
warrior family, would have been a direct vassal of the Yamashiro
shugo. The office of Yamashiro shugo, however, differed from that of
34 KKM, no. 184, "Minamotoshi Satake Kawashima no keizu."
35
KKM, no. 49 (1336/8/1 1).
36 Haga Norihiko ATftS, "Muromachi bakufu samurai dokoro-sono ichi, sono ni"
1 VJj - eQ OD1, -7 e 2, in Muromachi seiken, p. 40.
Haga Norihiko, "Muromachi bakufu samurai dokoro t6nin (tsuki, Yamashiro shugo)
37
bunin enkaku k6sh6k6" @RfVX, ) , Toy Daigakukiyo
39k E 16 (August, 1968): 96.
96 SUZANNE GAY

other provinces in that its occupant was changed with extraordinary

frequency so as not to allow him to build up a following in
Yamashiro that might threaten the shogun.38 At any rate, in no
Kawashima document does the name of any Yamashiro shugo ap-
pear, strongly suggesting that the Kawashima's relationship with
the bakufu bypassed the Yamashiro shugo altogether.
An alternative theory is that the Kawashima were among the
many minor warriors connected tangentially to the shogun's direct
troops (chokkatsugunA-i*I). At the core of these troops were the
closest vassals (kinjui Kff), a very small, select group. Surrounding
them were the attendants (zuihei h usually sons or brothers of
bakufu officials or of shugo. Weak by themselves, they harbored
strong feelings of personal loyalty to the shogun. These two groups
together made up the shogunal bodyguard (shin 'eigun MEW). Below
them were the numerically superior band of retainers (hjkoshiu#@
V). On the fringes of these warrior groups were such humble figures
as the Yamashiro peasants cum bakufu vassals. The Kawashima
documents support this theory insofar as they record the
Kawashima, along with the rest of the shogunal guard, in attend-
ance at various religious observances.40 More indirect support
is offered by Ninagawa Chikamoto's W)IIRTE order that the
Nishigaoka peasant vassals come to Kyoto and remain there while a
peasant rebellion was being suppressed in 1465.4' As deputy head of
the mandokoro, Chikamoto was responsible for private shogunal
house matters.42 Taken together, the evidence indicates that the
Kawashima could have been tangentially related to the shogunal
troops, a group which was independent of the shugo and personally
tied to the shogun himself. After the decline of the Ashikaga house,
the Kawashima developed a close relationship with the Hosokawa,
among the greatest of the shogun's vassals. This might be perceived
as an extension of the earlier Kawashima tie with the shogun.
38
Uejima, Kyokoshoen,pp. 347-48.
39 Sat6, "Muromachi bakufuron," pp. 21-23.
0 KKM, no. 48-ii (1338/11/7), no. 48-iii (1338/10/23), no. 48-iv (1337/8/16).
41
Chikamotonikki, p. 16, entry for 1465/11/3.
42
Kuwayama K6nen Ll A, "Chiukini okeru Muromachi bakufu mandokoro no k6sei
to kin6" 43Jz JZ$' { 6 7>JOge JOD ? WE",in Nihonshakaikeizaishikenkyu,chuseiFi
$titt9E, 1mjt-, ed. H6getsu Keigo Sensei Kanreki Kinenkai (Yoshikawa
K6bunkan, 1967), p. 121.
 KAWASHIMA 97
In addition to occasional military duty, the Kawashima had other
duties which were apparently none too onerous. Among these was
attendance at religious rituals as part of the shogunal bodyguard.
The first recorded instance of this was on the fifteenth day of the
eighth month of 1337 when Kawashima Yukimasa participated in
the capacity of a guard (keigoyaku j[t) at the annual ho/joe
-e
ceremony at Iwashimizu Hachimangui An /AA5 ', a Shinto shrine
south of Kyoto.43 The hojoe, celebrated in the imperial court and in
temples and shrines since the late Nara period, consisted of releas-
ing live birds and fish in honor of the Buddhist injunction against
killing sentient beings. By participating in this ancient ceremony,
Shogun Ashikaga Takauji identified himself with the established
authorities in Kyoto. In the following year Kawashima Yukimasa,
as part of the shogunal guard, attended two religious rituals fraught
with political meaning: the Hachiman sankei *R at the end of the
tenth month, and the Ima Kumano -,-ft sankei early in the
eleventh month.45 A sankei was a type of religious pilgrimage; in the
Hachiman sankei, for instance, the shogun paid obeisance at
Iwashimizu Hachimang'u, which enshrined Hachiman, the guard-
ian deity of the Genji family from which the Ashikaga shoguns were
distantly descended. Moreover, Iwashimizu Hachimangu was the
guardian shrine of Kyoto, so the shogun's very presence there con-
stituted a plea on his part for the peace and security of the city. The
Ima Kumano pilgrimage was an abbreviated version of a
pilgrimage to Kumano Shrine near the southern end of the Kii
Peninsula, which emperors and aristocrats had undertaken from
mid-Heian times, and which had become quite the rage in the
Kamakura period even among warriors and common people. A
proxy Kumano Shrine called Ima ("here") Kumano Shrine was
established in Kyoto itself to serve as an accessible alternative to
the long journey to Kumano. Again, Takauji's ostentatious attend-
ance here with a large bodyguard was another way of asserting his
ascendancy in Kyoto. Eighty years later, the bakufu similarly com-
manded its vassals of Yamashiro Province to participate in the hojoe

4
KKM, no. 48-iv (1337/8/16).
44
KKM, no. 48-iii (1338/10/23).
45 KKM. no. 48-ii (1338/11/7A.
 98 SUZANNE GAY
that year at Iwashimizu Hachimangu-,i and it is most likely that
Kawashima Sadayasu was among them. Sparse though the
evidence may be, it seems that as a bakufu vassal the Kawashima oc-
casionally participated in religious rituals, and that this participa-
tion was a form of symbolic support for the shogun.

SUPPRESSION OF PEASANT UPRISINGS

With the fifteenth century outbreak of peasant uprisings de-

manding debt amnesties (tokusei ikki f* -R), the bakufu needed
Kawashima support more urgently than ever.47 Usually instigated
by rural leagues of both warriors and peasants, these uprisings
consisted of mass attacks on major cities like Kyoto by mobs which
burned and looted the moneylenders' neighborhoods, and destroyed
their all-important receipts. A particularly effective tactic requiring
careful organization and planning was to blockade the city en-
trances, thus not only creating chaos, but bringing commerce to a
halt as well. The purpose of these uprisings was to force the bakufu
to issue debt amnesties, and more often than not, at least in the
beginning, the bakufu acquiesced to the leagues' demands.
Although these uprisings were initially led by prominent
peasants, this became increasingly rare in the fifteenth century as a
gulf formed between them and the cultivators. The rich peasants'
preemption of the agricultural surplus by taxation and money-
lending made them natural enemies of the cultivators. Thus the
solidarity of the village was undermined and uprisings diminished
greatly in number by the end of the fifteenth century.48 Cultivators

46
Toji hyakugomonjo,o 3+Hf z;, ?, no. 129 (1419/8) in Dai Nihonkomonjo-iewake
tHb t ij, (T6ky6 Daigaku Shuppankai, 1959; rpt. 1973), 10.6:157.
47 General information on tokuseiikki may be found in Kurokawa Naonori ,) II IJ,

"Chiisei k6ki no n6min t6s6-I. Doikki, kuni ikki" I. - 1

-tR, in Koza Nihonshi 3: hoken shakai no tenkai g Hr_ 3: tH 0O fi, eds.
Rekishigaku Kenkyiikai and Nihonshi Kenkyiikai (T6ky6 Daigaku Shuppankai, 1970), pp.
227-50; Kurokawa Naonori, "Kyoto no sh6en" IBOODON, in Ky5to no rekishi3:298-304;
Nagahara Keiji 7*i nojidai tOf
, Nihon no rekishi10: gekokujo O o0:Tkli O l4-
(Chii6k6ronsha, 1965), pp. 99-102; Sasaki Ginya 1 4 ; Nihonno rekishi13: Muromachi
bakufuH*ODM 13:gJM1 f, (Sh6gakkan, 1975), pp. 178-203; David L. Davis, "Ikki in
Late Medieval Japan, " in MedievalJapan:Essaysin InstitutionalHistory,ed. John W. Hall and
Jeffrey P. Mass (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), pp. 221-27.
48 Inagaki Yasuhiko t;i;g, "Onin-Bunmei no ran" I;;&C: ?J1QL,in Iwanamikoza
Nihon rekishi7, chasei3 t;gXi g ttHl 7, 43t 3 (Iwanami Shoten, 1963), p. 173.
 KAWASHIMA 99
became increasingly indebted to the rich peasants, making a united
village front against the urban moneylenders less likely. For the
Kawashima perhaps more than other prominent peasants, the ten-
sion inherent in being both a bakufu vassal and a member of village
society was acute: these uprisings were peasant movements directed
against the overlords, and the Kawashima could be considered a
member of either group. Because of its alliance with the bakufu and
its extensive moneylending and land acquisition, however, the
Kawashima was an unlikely candidate for leadership of upris-
ings.49
Peasants of the Nishigaoka area played a major role in many of
the uprisings of the fifteenth century in the Kyoto area. In the ninth
month of 1454, the bakufu advised the great monastery T-ji, a ma-
jor overlord, that ringleaders (chohonyoriki *t4 ) of uprisings
must be dealt with: if such people lived in Toji's lands (probably in-
cluding Kamikuze ?lXt Estate adjacent to Kawashima Estate), a
list of their names and places of residence should be submitted to the
bakufu.50 In the ninth month of 1462 the bakufu communicated to
T-ji that there were rumors of planned uprisings in the Nishigaoka
area, and Toji should report the leaders' names to the bakufu.
The bakufu emphasized that such activities were forbidden and
threatened punishment to those involved.51 This uprising, called
the Kansho VIE Rebellion, marked a turning point for the bakufu
in its attempts to curb the increasingly frequent raids upon
Kyoto. The seige began as usual, with the peasant army occupying
the seven entrances to Kyoto. This time, however, instead of
issuing a debt amnesty, the bakufu, aided by city militias, routed
the rebels and pursued them back to their villages where houses
were burned and ringleaders arrested. In the following year yet
another stern warning was issued to discourage "daimyo, closest
vassals, the band of retainers, and other vassals" against participat-
ing inin upris 52
ing uprisings.

49 In "Nihon chiisei toshi no k6z6" F

1i;*PL,BrOAXJ, Nihonshikenkyui *-TW,
nos. 139-40 (1974): 29, Wakita Haruko WHig mentions an uprising of 1547 in which the
Kaede, a prominent peasant family of Nishigaoka, participated as debtors, unusual because
wealthy peasants normally were moneylenders and so were natural targets of the uprisings.
50 CHS 2:222, no. 165 (1454/9/4).

51 CHS 2:232, no. 189 (1462/9/21).

52
CHS2:233, no. 191 (1463/9/28).
100 SUZANNE GAY

Clearly, on the eve of the Onin War there were enough hints of
uprisings in the Nishigaoka area to cause the bakufu some concern.
The Kawashima were among those warned not to take part, but
there is no solid evidence that they either did or did not participate.
Finally, in three important documents dated the eleventh month of
1465, the Kawashima are directly mentioned, but the meaning is
somewhat open to interpretation. In the form of quotations in the
diary of Ninagawa Chikamoto, deputy head of the mandokoro,the
documents relate bakufu exchanges with the Nishigaoka vassals.
On the first day of the eleventh month, the diary relates, the man-
dokorosent this order to its Nishigaoka vassals:
There have been uprisings demanding debt amnesties in your area. This is an in-
tolerable situation. Those who are of the same mind as the people [the leaders
of the uprising], even if they are bakufu vassals, shall have their lands confiscated
forthwith.5

The Kawashima is the first of eight addressees, all bakufu vassals of

Nishigaoka, leading one scholar to cite this as proof that they in fact
led the uprising.54 It is equally plausible, however, that the bakufu
only meant to warn its vassals in the area against participating, and
the entry for the eleventh day supports the impression that the
Kawashima did not instigate the uprising but rather was a victim of
it.

Nishigaoka bakufu vassal Kawashima Shogen 44M` replied that the uprising in the
area had caused him extreme hardship, and he would be in dire straits if the bakufu
did not resolve the matter.55

The last entry is for the twelfth day of the eleventh month; it quotes
a shogunal order that the vassals of Nishigaoka move to Kyoto while
the uprising is being suppressed.56 This could be interpreted in two
ways: the Kawashima and other vassals should move to Kyoto
either to prevent them from participating in the uprising, or to help
protect the city while the uprising was being suppressed. The latter
seems the most plausible interpretation, since the Kawashima's
main duty as bakufu vassal was to render military service.
53
CHS2:233-34, no. 194 (1465/11/3).
54 Nagahara, Gekokujo,pp. 97-99.
55 nikki, pp. 16-17, entry for 1465/11/11.
Chikamoto
56
nikki, p. 17, entry for 1465/11/12.
Chikamoto
 KAWASHIMA 101

In the sixteenth century the Kawashima continued to occupy a

position squarely within the ruling class, at least where peasant
uprisings were concerned. A list of Kawashima holdings dated 1520
bears the signature of a bakufu functionary in one corner, signifying
bakufu protection and assurance that the Kawashima would be ex-
empted from future debt amnesties.57 Such magnanimity would not
have been extended to a vassal suspected of complicity in uprisings.

THE BAKUFU 'S ROLE IN KAWASHIMA LITIGATION

The Kawashima was frequently involved in local land disputes,

and its special relationship with the bakufu might be expected to
have worked in its favor. In fact, however, there are few instances of
bakufu intervention, and not all of them resolved disputes in the
Kawashima's favor. They are nevertheless important as indications
of another facet of the Kawashima's relations with the bakufu.
In the seventh month of 1428 Kawashima Sadayasu complained to
the bakufu that he had been unjustly dismissed by the central pro-
prietor, the Konoe, from his post of geshi of Kawashima Estate, in
spite of the fact that he had faithfully paid the yearly tax of 40
koku E regardless of the size of the harvest.58 Two months later
one Aitamamaru ~3JSE was appointed geshi of Kawashima Estate,
but this document contains many errors of simple format and bears
an obviously faked and unreadable signature, suggesting that it
is not authentic.59 Lamentably, there are no other documents that
shed light on the matter, so it is impossible to know whether the
bakufu took action. Other sources indicate that the Kawashima was
still geshi of the Konoe lands at a later time, implying that the matter
was resolved in the Kawashima's favor. Significant here, regardless
of the outcome of the case, is that the Kawashima, a mere geshi
within the estate system, could, by virtue of its status as bakufu
vassal, make an appeal over the proprietor to the bakufu. This case
is also noteworthy because, while the bakufu routinely settled such
disputes between proprietors and local estate officials after the Onin
War, before that time it did not usually interfere in estate matters.
57
KKM, no. 130 (1520/7).
58 KKM, no. 203 (1428/7).
59 KKM, no. 65 (1428/9/3).
102 SUZANNE GAY

For the Kawashima, an added benefit of vassalage to the bakufu was

that it provided another avenue of recourse in disputes with the pro-
prietor.
There were two other local disputes involving the Kawashima
in which the bakufu intervened. The most involved of the two
concerned an area of land called Katsura Shinmen gffi claimed
by the Kawashima. In 1478 and in 1542 the Kawashima received
bakufu confirmation of two pieces of land in Katsura Estate, and
these may have been related to their claim on Katsura Shinmen in
the same area.60 The dispute raged from the late fifteenth century until
well into the sixteenth, centering on the Kawashima's failure to
pay the yearly tax to the proprietor of the land in question, Sanetaka
5M of the Sanj6nishi family, a prominent aristocratic house.6"Docu-
mentation of the dispute is in the form of diary entries, and tends
only to allude to the matter without going into detail, but Sanetaka
seems to have accepted the presence of the Kawashima on the land
as long as the tax was paid. The Kawashima agreed to pay, grudg-
ingly. Their claim to the land may have been backed by the bakufu
confirmation, but the family was still required to respect the rights
of the central proprietor.
The other local dispute, extending over the first half of the six-
teenth century, concerned the applicability of a debt amnesty to a
piece of land the Kawashima had bought from nearby Matsuo
Tsukiyomi Shrine. In 1522, in response to a complaint from the
Kawashima,62 the bakufu handed down a decision on the matter:
normally the land would have been returned to the original owner if
the bakufu declared a general amnesty, but since Matsuo Shrine
had deceitfully led the Kawashima to believe otherwise, the bakufu
would exempt the land, and the cultivators were ordered to pay
taxes to the Kawashima, rather than to the shrine.63 This reversed
an earlier decision of 1520 in which the bakufu had maintained that
the land in question was indeed liable to debt amnesties.64 In 1533

60
KM, no. 50 (1478/11/22); KKM, nos. 33 and 145 (both 1542/10/18).
61
Sanetakakoki, fourteen entries from 1497/10/1 to 1521/10/7.
62
Kawashima Sezaemon monjo i in Hennen monjo FW ;., no. 126, in
Kyoto University's archives (Komonjoshitsu * unpublished).
63
KKM, nos. 28, 131, and 134 (all 1522/6/2).
64
KKM, no. 27 (1520/8/21).
 KAWASHIMA 103
the problem still was not settled: Matsuo Shrine had appealed and
was claiming the land as its own. The bakufu again ruled in the
Kawashima's favor, directing the cultivators to submit taxes to the
Kawashima, not to Matsuo, and advising the Kawashima to con-
tinue to collect taxes.65 In 1537 the bakufu informed its Nishigaoka
vassals that it had confirmed the Kawashima in the Matsuo
holding.' Apparently Matsuo Shrine continued to press its claim, for in
1539 the Kawashima reminded one Wada Hachir6 i 1UAJ, a
Nishigaoka peasant, that he should be paying taxes to the
Kawashima, not to Matsuo Shrine.67 The following year Matsuo
Shrine demanded exactly the opposite of the cultivators, in defiance
of the bakufu decision.68 Though the bakufu defended Kawashima
interests in this convoluted case, it could not prevent a powerful
religious proprietor from defying its authority. Also evident here are
the complications arising from the bakufu's debt amnesty policy.
The Muromachi bakufu derived both concrete and symbolic sup-
port from the Kawashima in its early years in Kyoto. Thereafter it
called on the Kawashima for help occasionally, as in the suppression
of uprisings and in various military campaigns. More importantly,
the capacity to organize locally prominent figures like the
Kawashima as bakufu vassals enhanced the peace and stability of
the Kyoto area. For the Kawashima, the bakufu connection offered
another channel of legal recourse in local disputes, and upgraded
the family's status from estate official to bakufu vassal. How impor-
tant this was can be seen in the dramatic emergence of the
Kawashima as an important local leader in the fifteenth century.

THE KAWASHIMA IN NISHIGAOKA: WATER CONTROL

One of the most vital components of agriculture is water; hence

its administration is a crucial aspect of rural politics, indicating
authority over an area. In medieval Japan this authority was local
and independent of the central proprietors because frequently

65
KKM, nos. 29, 30, and 140 (all 1533/10/16).
66 KKM, no. 31 (1537/9/3).
67
KKM, no. 171 (1539/8/2).
68
Matsuo tsukiyomi monjo *%AA CX, 18-IV-iii, in Kyoto University's archives
(Komonjoshitsu, unpublished).
104 SUZANNE GAY

several estates were located around a single water source."

Nishigaoka is a case in point: it consisted of eleven sub-districts (go
9), all using water from the Katsura River flowing through the area
in the Imai A,# Canal, but each sub-district had a different pro-
prietor." Moreover, some sub-districts had as many as three
proprietors, with a total of fifteen proprietors among the eleven sub-
districts. Obviously, water rights had to be shared locally among all
the residents of the estates.7" Basic cooperation among them was
necessary, since fifteen different proprietors residing in the capital
could not mediate everyday disputes. The problem was solved by
the formation of contracts among prominent peasants who were
able to administer water use because of their local authority, in-
dependent of the central proprietors.72 One example of this was a
contract among three major Nishigaoka peasants, Suetsugu *J of
Kamikuze, Yasusada %2 of Kawashima, and Chikamoto VW of
Terado, drawn up around 1340.73 The three agreed to share water
equally among their districts and to deny water rights to anyone
who might use more than his share. Significantly, they signed their
personal names, not their estate office titles, indicating that this
cooperation among three different districts for the sake of the
residents' livelihood transcended estate boundaries and excluded the
proprietors.74 This three-way contract illustrate how water was
typically shared in central Japan, and indicates the extent to which
local problems were solved by local leaders, without interference
from any higher authority. The autonomous village of later cen-
turies was already showing signs of incipient development in the
fourteenth century.
69
Kurokawa, "Juigo,jiiroku seiki no n6min mondai" tf, t7*'O1w , Nihon-
shi kenkya rP-Wt,, 71 (March 1964): 31.
70
Nagahara, Gekokuji,p. 125.
71 H6getsu, Chaseikangaishi,p. 343.
72
Nagahara, Gekokujo,p. 125.
73 KKM, no. 52 (Ryaku6 t reign period [1338-42]/7/9). Both H6getsu and Nagahara
refer to Kawashima Yasusada as a wealthy peasant of Kawashima district, but in my opinion
he was a member of the northern Kawashima, a collateral branch of the subject of this study,
which is the main Kawashima family of southern Kawashima Estate. This document may
have come into the KKM collection in the early sixteenth century when sixteenth generation
Yasunobu adopted Toshinobu of the northern Kawashima, thus absorbing that family into
the southern Kawashima.
74 Kurokawa, "Juigo, juroku," p. 31.
 KAWASHIMA 105
When water administration problems became desperate due to
negligence or bad weather, the estate proprietor had to intervene and
call on experienced help whose authority was locally recognized.
Such a situation arose in the first half of the fifteenth century.
Kamino, a estate in the Nishigaoka area, though very well supplied
with water from the Katsura River, was in an area that flooded easi-
ly.75 Costly repairs to dikes and irrigation facilities were frequent
and had to be borne by the residents, not by T-ji, the proprietor.
But damage was so chronic and so extensive that repair costs
became oppressive, amounting to as much as one-fifth or one-sixth
of the yearly taxes. T-ji's attempts to collect for repairs led to bitter
confrontations with the peasants. In 1430 the residents complained
to T6ji that the situation had got completely out of hand to the ex-
tent that even wet paddy land (suiden tAI) had not been maintained
and had been allowed to revert to field (hatake M). The residents
pleaded for help from T-ji, but the situation dragged on unresolved
for ten years. Toji considered assessing the land as field rather than
wet paddy to lighten the peasants' tax burden, but rice, grown in
wet paddies only, was a vital crop for the proprietor-it provided
most of his yearly income-and Toji was finally forced to make
repairs. This was done by appointing thirteenth generation
Kawashima Sadayasu the manager (daikan {<W) of Kamino LEff
Estate, and a prosperous peasant, Terazaki , the myJshufiA76 on
the condition that they rectify the situation with their own resources
and authority. The problem was of considerable proportions, and
solving it included the repair of existing irrigation facilities and the
addition of new ones, the restoration of fallow land, and the opening
of new land." In return, taxes for the next three years would be
waived, and two-thirds of the fourth year's taxes would be used for
irrigation, with only the remaining one-third going to T6ji. Thus
the Kawashima was able to extract good terms in return for its ser-
vices, which T-ji obviously valued highly. Terazaki was also treated
well: when a few years later he paid for flood repairs, T-ji made him

75 Details of this incident are from H6getsu, Chuiseikangaishi,pp. 121-29.

76
A myoshuwas a local landholder above the cultivator level but not included in the official
class.
77
Toji hyakug,5monjo,ya -;' section, 3-5, in Kyoto University's archives (Komonjoshitsu,
unpublished).
106 SUZANNE GAY
the perpetual myoshu of Kamino, and granted him one-fifth of its
own tax income (in addition to his own income) if he would pay for
future repairs. So in economic terms T-ji got off easily, losing
relatively little income given the probability that Kamino's produc-
tivity would increase with better water control. T-ji lost much of
its authority over the estate, however, by relinquishing the all-im-
portant control of water to the Kawashima. The Kawashima gained
important authority within Kamino estate, and Toji's willingness to
entrust that authority to the Kawashima indicates that the family
was already experienced in local administration. But it is also
reasonable to assume that T6ji chose the Kawashima for the job
partly because as one of eight bakufu vassals in the area, the
Kawashima's status and local authority already transcended its own
lands, making it a natural choice for an important post on another
estate.
When many different interests depended on the same water
source as in Nishigaoka, disputes were inevitable. In one of these,
involving Matsuo Shrine and five Nishigaoka districts, Kawashima
Chikanobu acted as a mediator (kunyzunin DAA).78 Residents of the
five districts had unlawfully dug a new canal within the Matsuo
Shrine precincts, causing great damage to Matsuo lands by divert-
ing water from the main canal. The bakufu ordered the five districts
to fill in the new canal, maintain the dike, and install a floodgate to
be closed at times of heavy rain. Furthermore, they were to build a
bridge over the canal so that bakufu messengers could pass easily.
Finally, as a penalty they were instructed to submit to Matsuo Shrine
seven koku of rice in the tenth month of each year, and not to be
hostile toward the shrine's deity. (This last may have been asking
too much!) The Kawashima was more or less the district represen-
tative in this case, but probably was not directly involved in the il-
legal actions causing the suit. Its role in the matter is an example of
how the bakufu could use minor vassals as local intermediaries. The
verdict itself demonstrates the bakufu's protection of the pro-
prietor's lands against illegal entry.

78 wo ? section, no. 311(1462/3/11), in Dai Nihonkomonjo-iewake,

Tojihyakugffmonjo, 10.6:
378-79.
 KAWASHIMA 107

MONEYLENDING

Control of water gave the Kawashima a dimension of authority of

overwhelming importance in an agricultural society. More lucrative,
however, was moneylending, increasingly feasible for the upper
class of the peasantry as it enriched itself on the cultivators. By lend-
ing money at exhorbitant rates-as much as fifty percent or more an-
nually-with oppressive conditions of repayment, the creditor could
gain back his loans in interest alone in a couple of years. There are
only two overt examples of moneylending by the Kawashima. The
first is contained in a list of debtors, creditors, and amounts loaned
which was drawn up by the bakufu in order to carry out a condi-
tional debt amnesty.79 According to this list, in the ninth month of
1481 the Kawashima loaned ten kanmon W?; to one Shinkaizen
J6zaemon Mototsura jjiltEwjmtR.8" The other example of
Kawashima moneylending is in a document of appointment (buninjo
VfIAk) dated 1502.81 Kawashima Yasunobu had earlier made a loan
in the amount of seventy kanmon to the village of Mizuo A%. The
loan was not repaid so the following arrangement was agreed upon:
Yasunobu was appointed manager (daikan) of the village, receiving
from this office three kanmon per month for six years, an amount
which was in reality the interest on the debt (over 50 percent annual-
ly, or 300 percent over the six years). At the end of the six years he
was to appoint a new manager. In this way the village as a whole
bore the burden of the debt, onerous as it was. No transfer of land
took place and the debt was repaid in the form of a salary for an
office which existed on paper alone. This is an example of a com-
mon form of rural moneylending in the Muromachi period, when

79 "Conditional debt amnesty" is my translation of buichitokusei3'-_B, the condition

being that if the debtor would pay the bakufu one-tenth (later increased to one-fifth) of his
debt, the remainder would be cancelled. A hardening of the bakufu's attitude toward both
creditors and debtors can be detected in this policy, begun in 1454. See CHS 2:84-85, no. 239
(1454/10/29). Henceforth the bakufu was determined not only to maintain law and order in
the face of uprisings, but also to garner for itself some economic gain.
80 KubarihikitsukeP| If, in Dai Nihon shiryo k P , ed. T6ky6 Teikoku Daigaku
f4Z
Shiryahensanjo, (T6ky6 Teikoku Daigaku Z6han, 1927), 8.12:585-91, entries dated 1481-
86. The kubarihikitsukewas the bakufu office handling lawsuits and their preliminary paper-
work.
81 KKM, no. 96 (1502/6).
108 SUZANNE GAY

the debtor could not produce cash quickly enough from commercial
sources, as could be done in the cities, and as a conse-
quence the village was held responsible communally.
In the case of individual loans, high interest rates placed a great
burden on the peasant who was frequently forced to forfeit his land
to the creditor and become his tenant. In this way wealthy peasants
like the Kawashima were able to amass land as part of their
moneylending activities. Such activity is relatively easy to detect in
the documents: bills of sale (baiken Lc-) often in fact represent the
pawning of land (shichikenchi 94*-) for a loan, with the date in-
dicating when the land was put up as collateral. If the owner was
unable to repay the debt within the prescribed period, the land was
considered "sold" to the moneylender for the amount of the loan.
If the owner was able to repay the debt, the bill of sale was destroyed
and the land was returned to him. The surest way to tell if a bill of
sale might indicate forfeiture of land-since there was no such thing
as a certificate of forfeiture-and not a normal sale of land is by its
date. Taxes were usually paid in the fall after the harvest; hence,
bills of sale dated in the tenth and eleventh months quite often repre-
sent moneylending on the part of the "buyer." The same applies to
the winter and early spring months, when the cultivators were
forced to subsist largely on what they had saved. If the crop was
poor, many peasants would need a loan to get through the lean
months. By no means were all bills of sale simply moneylending in
disguise. But of seventy bills of sale in the Kawashima collection,
fifty-five fall in the winter months, strongly suggesting brisk money-
lending activity by the Kawashima.82

LAND ACQUISITION

The Kawashima's most conspicuous activity in Nishigaoka,

whether it was by loan defaults, by purchase, or by inheritance, was
the acquisition of rights to land. By the late Kamakura period, the
Kawashima was already a local landholder of some note. But it was
in the Muromachi period that Kawashima lands expanded dramat-
82
I am indebted to Umata Ayako , m+, assistant professor of Japanese history at
Baika Women's College, for pointing out this "hidden reality" behind most winter bills of
sale.
 KAWASHIMA 109
ically. At that time land acquisition most commonly took the form
of the purchase of kajishi myosshushiki hniM , a new office which
emerged in the fourteenth century and became common by the late
fifteenth century. This office, quite outside the old estate system,
allowed the rich peasant to absorb the agricultural surplus, but it
was only a surtax on the cultivators and did not usurp the land itself
from them. Furthermore, the right to surtax had to be purchased to
be exercised. The rich peasant became, in effect, a local landlord
in a contractual relationship with the cultivators who paid a fixed
annual rent or tax and were otherwise independent. The tax burden
placed on the cultivator was now heavier than ever, though pro-
ductivity was also increasing, due to rapidly improving agricul-
tural technology. The Kawashima enjoyed local prominence in this
arrangement, but at the same time the cultivators tended to defend
their own interests quite effectively through the emerging village.83
The real victim of the new system was the central proprietor
who no longer had any control over the relationship between the rich
peasant and the cultivator because the right to surtax could be sold
without consulting him.84
As a result of extensive purchasing of the right to surtax,
Kawashima holdings in the early sixteenth century stood at nearly
three times their size two hundred years before. Remarkably, this
acquisition for the most part took place in the space of about forty-
five years, from 1484 to 1529, a period of economic prosperity and
expansion in the Kyoto area following the Onin War. There are 68
bills of sale dated during those years which list the Kawashima as
buyer, while there are no more than two such documents outside
that period. On the other hand, there are seven instances of the
Kawashima selling land, and all but one occurred before this
period. In addition to bills of sale, there are also numerous wills and
testaments, but most of these are to collateral family members, and
in such cases land usually reverted to the main branch of the family
upon the death of the holder, so they do not represent permanent
changes in landholding.
In concrete terms, Kawashima lands increased from about nine
83 Bit6 Sakiko t ?T, "Kinai sh6ry6shu no seiritsu" 'J)piti, in Nihon
shakaikeizaishikenkyil,chiisei S Et
Pf vol., pp. 340-46.
84
Kurokawa, "Juigo, jiiroku," p. 34.
110 SUZANNE GAY

cho BT(twenty-two acres or 8.9 hectares) in 1313 to about twenty-six

cho (about sixty-four acres or twenty-eight hectares) in 1522.85 Their
home base, Kawashima Estate, was only about four cho in area, and
with their additional holdings they probably held at most only about
nine cho in the early fourteenth century. By 1522, in contrast, their
holdings numbered twenty-six or twenty-seven cho.86Even these
figures may be low because the total amount of land acquired by the
Kawashima in the forty-five years of feverish activity exceeded thir-
ty-two cho.87
By the late fifteenth century the Kawashima held a wide variety of
rights to land. This indicates a position of overwhelming local pro-
minence,88 and a likely position from which to accumulate even more
rights to land. Starting with the offices of geshi and jito of the estate,
the Kawashima was able to claim the daikan office of Kawashima
Estate, involving collection rights to all taxes thereon.89 The family
also gained hanzei rights both from Takauji in 1336 and, as ex-
plained earlier, again in the Onin War, when all participants at the
provincial warrior (kokujin MJA)level were given them.90 This fur-
ther impoverished the proprietor because now three-quarters of his
income had at least nominally been granted to the Kawashima.9" In
addition, the Kawashima had taken control of local water ad-
ministration, and by 1480 the family held the daikan office of all
lands in Kawashima district belonging to the Yamashina [Uf-4fami-
ly, aristocratic descendants of the northern branch of the Fujiwara.92
The Yamashina yearly income from its Kawashima lands
85 KKM, nos. 44 (1313/2), 130 (1520/7), and 137 (1526/11). The latter figure equals the

total of holdings listed in nos. 130 and 137. There could well have been more.
86
One cho= 2.45 acres= .992 hectares.
87
This is the total of land acquisitions listed in the graph in Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," pp.
334-40.
88
Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," pp. 322-23.
89 KKM, no. 76 (1485/3/6).
90 There is no such hanzeiin KKM, but Bit6 infers from the wording of KKM, no. 76
(1485/3/6), that the Kawashima had in fact claimed half the proprietor's income during the
Onin War. Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 323.
91 The figure of three-quarters refers to that fraction of the Konoe's pre-1336 income. In
the meantime, productivity had generally improved, so the actual amount of income collected
by the proprietor was most likely greater than one-quarter of the pre-1336 crop. So too, no
doubt, was the Kawashima's income.
92 Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 325, cites documents in Tokikunigozakki 2 42 to sup-
port this assertion.
 KAWASHIMA 11

amounted to 16 koku of rice, a portion of which the Kawashima, as

tax farmer, received. The combination of all these rights to lands,
each with some material compensation, put the Kawashima family
in a position of wealth and preeminence throughout Kawashima
district whence it could with relative ease acquire other lands.
The Kawashima accumulated land particularly in Kawashima
district, but also quite extensively in the surrounding districts as
well, especially Kamikatsura ?_1, Oka [K],and Tani 6 to the north
and west. That area was most likely attractive because of the
prevalence there of irrigation canals,93 vital for farming, but lands to
the south may have been unavailable, given the presence there of
the Terado, another major peasant family, and Kamikuze Estate,
under the strong proprietorship of T-ji.
Most of the Kawashima's land purchases were of kajishi or surtax
rights, explained above. The right to surtax the cultivators by itself
did not give the Kawashima outright control of land because the
cultivators actually had primary claim to it.94A fraction of the land
accumulated by the Kawashima, however, was under their com-
plete control. Called isshikiden-tffI, these lands were sold together
with all rights pertaining to them, including proprietorship. In this
comprehensive type of landholding the new owner gained outright
control over the land as well as more than twice the income of the
surtax type of holding.95 Most of these comprehensive holdings were
among the lands acquired in the family's home base of Kawashima
district, while the Kawashima was essentially the landlord of its
other holdings, collecting a yearly surtax and otherwise allowing the
cultivators an independent existence. The comprehensive type of
landholding, by contrast, allowed the landlord greater control over
the resident cultivators. Such holdings were relatively few, how-
ever, and many were acquired from relatives, probably to pre-
vent them from going out of the family, and not because they were
particularly desirable.96 The Kawashima most likely did not have an

93 Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 318.

94 Tabata Yasuko EA T, "Chuisei k6ki Kinai dog6 no sonzai keitai-Kawashimashi,
Samukawashi o chuishinni" lt&*P +*O) *-)II ?4,L{A, Nihon-
shi kenkyui
82 (January 1966): 21.
95 Tabata, "Chiisei k6ki," p. 22.
96
Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 331.
112 SUZANNE GAY
interest in gaining proprietary control over all their lands, but simp-
ly sought the economic advantages of being a landlord. At any
rate, these two different forms of landholding, surtax and com-
prehensive, the former far more prevalent, determined the type of
local authority the Kawashima would wield in the coming decades.
The obvious question that comes to mind is why the Kawashima
bought so much land in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth cen-
turies. About one-third of the land changing hands was acquired
from relatives. Although single inheritance was by now prevalent
among warrior families, the sory0 t,gi system of divided inheritance
was still widespread among wealthy peasants like the Kawashima.
Under this system land could not leave the family, so it is quite possi-
ble that when for some reason-death, indebtedness-relatives had
to dispose of their land, the Kawashima as soryo was compelled to
buy it.97 It is also true that a large number of the bills of sale prob-
ably represent moneylending activities. But regardless of how or
from whom the land was acquired, the Kawashima accumulated a
large amount of it in this short period. Even if the area's peasants
had been particularly hard-pressed to sell, this is not an adequate
explanation for the Kawashima's extraordinary ability to increase its
holdings at this time. One likely source of capital was the lucrative
moneylending activities outlined above.98 It has also been suggested
that the Kawashima, like many wealthy peasants of the economical-
ly advanced region around Kyoto, took control of the local market
as the central proprietors' influence waned in the fifteenth century,
and that this generated a good deal of capital.99 There is no overt
reference to market activities by the Kawashima in the documents,
but it is more than likely that the Kawashima as a typical wealthy
peasant family was intimately involved in the local market-produc-
ing and selling cash crops and handicrafts, perhaps even holding the
market on the family compound. None of these activities would
necessarily be documented, but even without documentation this
scenario is easy to imagine. Indeed, there is no reason that the
Kawashima would have acted out of step with other wealthy
peasants of central Japan as they rapidly established their local
97 Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 329.
98
Uejima, Kydkoshoen,p. 375.
99 Kurokawa, "Jiugo, jiiroku," p. 35.
 KAWASHIMA 113
authority. In short, the Kawashima accumulated land so quickly in
the decades following the Onin War because the family occupied the
most advantageous slot in rural society, the upper stratum of the
peasant class, to take full advantage of the wave of prosperity sweep-
ing centralJapan as the proprietors' real control steadily weakened.

RELATIONS WITH THE CENTRAL PROPRIETORS

Land acquisition by the Kawashima took place at the expense of

the central proprietor, the Konoe. In fact, from the time Takauji
entered Kyoto in 1336, the Konoe, along with other aristocrats,
suffered a series of blows to its landed interests that eventually re-
duced its income to a mere fraction of its former size.
The first blow to proprietary interests came in 1336, with the
appointment by Takauji of prominent Nishigaoka peasants like the
Kawashima to the rank of bakufu vassal. This hanzei, as we have
seen, effectively cut in half the income of proprietors like the Konoe.
But very powerful religious proprietors like T6ji were given better
treatment by the bakufu: for example, the bakufu initially awarded
the wealthy Nishigaoka peasant Daini the jito office over lands on
T6ji's Kamikuze Estate, but quickly retreated when Toji protested.
A ruling by Tadayoshi in 1339 returned all of T-ji's lands and
stripped the Daini of its new office.Y" This contradictory policy of
conciliation toward the proprietors and the simultaneous awarding
of land to minor warriors produced the split within the bakufu be-
tween the two Ashikaga brothers that ended in Tadayoshi's death in
1352. From that time, the bakufu adopted a policy of cautiously
limiting the application of hanzei. Until 1368 the bakufu allowed war-
riors to exact hanzei in provinces at war, but stressed that the provi-
sion was temporary and that the proprietors should still control the
actual administration of their lands.101
In 1368 the bakufu issued what has come to be regarded as its
decisive statement on hanzei, clearly delineating which types of lands

'00 Ogawa Makoto 'JIt1, "Nanbokuch6 nairan" X4LXkMAL, in Iwanamikoza Nihon

rekishi6, chusei2 tg7fi El*Mt. 6, rdp1F2 (Iwanami Shoten, 1975), p. 103.
101 Peter J. Arnesen, The MedievalJapaneseDaimyo(New Haven: Yale University Press,
1979), p. 55.
114 SUZANNE GAY
should be exempt from and which liable to hanzei.'02The former
category included lands of the imperial house and major aristocrats
like the Fujiwara, and lands entirely under proprietary control
that is, without the jito office created by Takauji. Lands not ex-
empted were those to which ajito had already been assigned, and the
hanzei was to take the form of the physical halving of the land, with
each half to be under the control of either the proprietor or the jito.
Furthermore, the proprietors' rights to their now shrunken lands
would be protected by the bakufu and further warrior incursions
would not be tolerated. This decree has been characterized as ir-
reversibly damaging aristocratic interests, but even here there were
exceptions: T-ji managed to maintain its income from Kami i (Up-
per) and Shimo T (Lower) Kuze Xt? estate in Nishigaoka until the
early sixteenth century when it finally lost it not through warrior in-
cursions as such, but through the extensive purchase by rich
peasants of the right to surtax the cultivators.'03 The bakufu valued
the support of very great proprietors like T-ji enough to protect
them, while it generally desired the support of local leaders like the
Kawashima enough to harm but not obliterate lesser proprietors
like the Konoe.'04 The 1368 law has also been interpreted as actually
favoring proprietary interests: the proprietor needed total control
(ichien chigyo -FOnff) of his lands for the estate system to survive
over time, and the 1368 law guaranteed him the right to manage his
remaining lands and protected them against further warrior incur-
sions. 10
Sources indicate that even after the Kawashima was made bakufu
vassal in 1336, its relationship with the Konoe as estate manager
continued. In 1417, for example, the proprietor demanded that the
Kawashima as geshi pay its tax, of which it was forty koku in ar-
rears.'06 In 1428 the Konoe dismissed the Kawashima as daikan and
took over the job of tax collection itself.'07 The Kawashima as

102
Arnesen, pp. 55-56; Nagahara, "Sh6en kaitaiki," pp. 295-301. The bakufu document
in question is found in CHS, 2:43, no. 97 (1368/6/17).
103 Nagahara, "Sh6en
kaitaiki," pp. 321-22.
104
Arnesen, Japanese Daimyo, p. 56.
105 Shimada, "Hanzei," p. 73.
106 KKM, no. 202 (1417/10/11).
107 KKM, no. 203 (1428/7).
 KAWASHIMA 115
bakufu vassal was able to protest to the bakufu this dispute between
estate proprietor and estate manager, but unfortunately there is no
record of the bakufu's response. According to the terms of the 1368
hanzei decree, there should have been no bakufu interference in a
strictly in-house matter, but obviously the Kawashima's tie to the
bakufu affected even internal estate affairs.
It has been noted that the Kawashima as a participant in the
Onin War was included in a general grant of hanzei privileges.108 A
document of 1485 concerning the office of manager of "the Konoe
lands of Kawashima Estate" states that the proprietor's income had
been reduced by half, an obvious reference to a hanzei of some sort
in the recent past.'09 In this case it is apparent that the Konoe's in-
come from Kawashima Estate by the end of the Onin War, having
been subjected to two hanzei partitions, was reduced to one-fourth of
its pre-1336 level, a drastic decrease regardless of the state of its
other holdings, and a decrease for which the Muromachi bakufu
was directly responsible. Moreover, the Kawashima, as bakufu
vassal, could even request bakufu interference, as it did in 1428,
in matters which should have been strictly between the proprietor
and the estate manager. The Kawashima's ability to acquire land by
buying the right to surtax the cultivators was due mostly to
economic developments in central Japan but it was at least partially
buttressed by the local prominence afforded the family as a bakufu
vassal. Konoe interests were seriously damaged by the Muromachi
bakufu, though the blow was not a fatal one.
The Konoe was not the only aristocratic family served by the
Kawashima. Another was the Yamashina, with holdings in
Yamashiro Province."0 A document of 1480 indicates that the
Kawashima had been manager of Yamashina holdings in
Kawashima district for some time."' As manager, the Kawashima
was responsible for stopping unlawful incursions into the
Yamashina's lands and for collecting taxes, now considerably in ar-

108 Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 322.

'09 KKM, no. 76 (1485/3/6).
"1 See Imatani Akira V- , Tokitsugukyoki-kuge shakaito machishui
bunkanosetten PAN
- (Soshiete, 1980), pp. 15-63, for details of the family's
holdings.
"' Bit6, "Kinai sh6ry6shu," p. 323.
116 SUZANNE GAY
rears. In this case the proprietor, the Yamashina, was suggesting
that the Kawashima use its bakufu connections for the proprietor's
benefit: to enlist the military assistance of the Yamashiro shugo in
order to force the peasants who lived on Yamashina lands to pay
their back taxes. Again, there is no evidence of how or if the matter
was resolved, but the incident suggests that the proprietors did not
hesitate to call upon the Kawashima's bakufu connection for their
own gain when possible.
The Kawashima also served as estate manager for the Sanj6nishi
family. Without repeating the dispute over the Katsura Shinmen
land, let it suffice to say that the Kawashima was ultimately forced
to pay taxes on the land in question, and held an office subordinate
to the Sanj6nishi within the estate system as late as the sixteenth
century. In 1497, for instance, the Kawashima informed Sanjonishi
Sanetaka that the deputy shugo of Yamashiro had for some reason
entered the Sanjonishi's lands. Sanetaka replied that such an action
was strictly illegal and not to be tolerated by the resident man-
ager.112In 1509 the Kawashima appeared to be acting as messenger
between the two proprietors, the Sanjonishi and the Konoe, but
regrettably the reference is so vague as to fail to inform of details of
the situation at all."13
These sparse references to Kawashima relations with the central
proprietors indicate that the estate system was limping along as late
as the sixteenth century, though in mutilated form. The combina-
tion of bakufu hanzei and the rising local power of wealthy peasants
drastically reduced proprietary income during the Muromachi
period. The proprietors continued to demand their meager due,
however, with varying degrees of success. Prominent peasants like
the Kawashima, acting as estate managers, profited handsomely
from the situation.

Present throughout this discussion of Kawashima activities in the

Muromachi period has been the question of social status or class.
The Kawashima has been variously labelled by Japanese scholars as

koki-JkJX=, entry for 1497/10/1, in ShiryoKy5tono rekishi .

112 Sanetaka

ed. Ky6to-shi -IYMt (Heibonsha, 1979), 3:311, no. 7.

koki, entry for 1502/12/2, in Zokugunshorujij, 4.1:70.
113 Sanetaka
 KAWASHIMA 117
kokujin,jizamurai P*lf#, and dogo ?.114 Each term has a different
shade of meaning, and choice of usage often depends on which
aspect of the subject is being emphasized. This was especially true
in central Japan, where local warriors were often wealthy peasants
and vice versa. In eastern Japan, on the other hand, warriors and
peasants tended to be more clearly distinguished. In very general
terms, a kokujin was a local warrior, usually subordinate to a shugo
(or, rarely, to the bakufu directly, as in the case of the Kawashima),
and lord of a number of vassals himself. He was not a member of
the village and he had almost no self-administered lands. In the late
Muromachi period many of these kokujinrose to rival and often sup-
plant the shugo, becoming territorial lords themselves. The
Kawashima family obviously belongs in a humbler category, and
yet its status as a bakufu vassal alone makes kokujina valid, though
not very useful, term. Jizamurai, like kokujin, was a word in use in
the medieval period; it indicated a low-level warrior who lived in the
village where he wielded power- "a dogo-like warrior.""5 As a
direct, if minor, bakufu vassal, the Kawashima family clearly does
not belong in this category, and yet the term has often been applied
to it. Dogo is not a medieval term, but was created later to describe a
wealthy peasant who enjoyed unrivalled leadership of the village.
This characterizes the Kawashima's role in Nishigaoka, but even
here there are some problems. Dogo often led peasant rebellions, but
the Kawashima as moneylenders were more likely to be victims of
rebellions than leaders. Furthermore, the term dogo obscures the
fact that the Kawashima family performed a considerable amount
of military duty for the Muromachi bakufu, and this sharply
distinguishes it from the peasantry. Each of these terms describes
some aspect of the Kawashima family, but none satisfactorily in-
cludes both its local role and its position of vassalage to the shogun.
114
For a discussion of the problems of terminology and translation, see John W. Hall,
Nagahara Keiji, and Kozo Yamamura, "Introduction," in Japan beforeTokugawa(Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 23-26; and John W. Hall, "Terms and Concepts in
Japanese Medieval History: An Inquiry into the Problems of Translation," JournalofJapanese
Studies9.1 (Winter 1983): 1-32. A typical problem is the distinction between honkeand ryoke,
both translated here as "proprietor" or "central proprietor." Ryoshu t, a generic term
with a broad variety of meanings, has been translated here simply as "overlord." Dogo, an
inexact term at best, is rendered "rich peasant," "wealthy peasant," "prominent peasant
family," etc.
115
"Jizamurai" Wt, Nihonshijiten Hi (Kadokawa Shoten, 1966), p. 389.
118 SUZANNE GAY
Dogo is perhaps most appropriate of the three, insofar as local activi-
ties, in the final analysis, dominated the family's concerns.
The case of the Kawashima shows that status in the medieval
period was far from cut and dried, and indeed no single category is
entirely satisfactory for the family. The appellation "warrior-peas-
ant," though clumsy, is perhaps best for the Kawashima in the
Muromachi period. Social boundaries, often imposed by historians
of later centuries, were fuzzy at best, especially in central Japan,
where the commodity economy encouraged both wealthy peasants
and warriors to dabble in entrepreneurial activities. Class lines
could be crossed easily because they barely existed. Only in the Edo
period would the Confucian four-class system be applied to
Japanese society, and then rather imperfectly.
For over two hundred years the Kawashima family was a direct if
minor vassal of the Muromachi bakufu, and as such was required to
perform certain duties. As outlined above, these were relatively few
and hardly oppressive, at least if the documentary evidence is com-
plete. For the Kawashima the benefits of the arrangement far
outweighed the burdens, and these benefits affected even the
family's local standing in Nishigaoka. The Kawashima's appoint-
ment as bakufu vassal was a contributing factor in boosting the fami-
ly to a position of locally recognized leadership, and in its dramatic
expansion during the Muromachi period. The potential for this ex-
pansion was there even in the late Kamakura period, and it was for
its local prominence that the Kawashima was appointed a bakufu
vassal in the first place. But the Kawashima's local standing at the
end of the Muromachi period was so greatly heightened over what it
had been at the beginning of the period-in matters of water con-
trol, in landholding, in commercial activities such as moneylend-
ing-that the bakufu link can only be judged a boon. The late
medieval expansion of the Kawashima was both an indirect effect of
the Muromachi bakufu's policy toward its minor vassals as well as a
measure of the Kawashima's longstanding position as a peasant
leader of local prominence.
The history of the Kawashima family offers a unique perspective
on late medieval Japan. Through the eyes of a rather humble
member of society is seen the establishment in Kyoto of the warrior
government and its implications for the aristocratic and religious
 KAWASHIMA 119
proprietors. The Kawashima was by no means a passive observer of
the scene, and its services as estate manager came increasingly high.
By savvy exploitation of a favorable position at the top of rural socie-
ty, Kawashima control of land rivalled that of the proprietors by
1500. The Kawashima used its local prominence, enhanced by the
bakufu tie, to best advantage: to accumulate land, to call in debts,
to request bakufu backing in local disputes, to aggrandize itself in
the local market. At the expense of both the proprietors and
humbler members of the peasant class, such wealthy peasants let
their duties as estate officials take second place to their new role as
rural entrepreneur."6 By the late medieval period, the rural scene
was drastically changed: the estate system was all but destroyed and
wealthy peasants like the Kawashima, often having affiliations with
prominent warriors, had taken real control of the land and of village
life.

116
Kuroda Toshio ,WfflR*, "Kinai shoen ni okeru zaichi no shomondai" 3fPS0Em1- 4k'
0- 6 ODiFtS, Nihonshikenkyui
17 (June 1952); rpt. in Kuroda, Nihonchuisei
hokenseiron
H
*ml ktIJn= (T6ky6 Daigaku shuppankai, 1974), p. 252.