Heian-kyo ̄: from royal center to metropolecapital. The character of the late capital changed considerably.^14 Yamanaka considers this
fifth- stage capital as a city in the Weberian sense because it had become the market center of
the realm.The early Heian capital—ninth and tenth centuries
Recent researchers have pointed to the strong effects of an increasingly dynamic circulating
economy on early Heian- kyō during the ninth and tenth centuries—engaging both elites and
lower rankers, it weakened the ritsuryō command economy based on taxes in kind.^15 Ports along
the Yodo River became busier as movement of goods and people between the capital and prov-
inces expanded, with travelers utilizing new ferries, bridges, and other transport facilities. Such
developments altered the codal assumption of a settled population that moved little.^16
Evidence of resulting changes appears in official annals and supplementary laws (kyaku),
including official orders concerning warehouses, markets, harbors, and commercial specialists.
Protocols in the early tenth- century Engi shiki as well as entries in courtier journals like Fujiwara
Tadahira’s (880–949) Teishinkōki also indicate that the court was depending more on goods
brought from distant Kyushu and the Inland Sea region.^17
Archaeologists’ excavations also show a growing gap between the material cultures of capital
residents and those of the nearby countryside: urbanites used glazed ware brought in from Mino
and Owari, beyond the inner provinces (Kinai), but rural dwellers did not.^18 Meanwhile artisans
and merchants in the capital grew busier providing goods and services for urban elites and com-
moners alike.^19 The distinctive aristocratic residential architecture known as shindenzukuri was
taking form, albeit without the elaborate pond- centered gardens that characterized later “mature
shindenzukuri,” as Takahashi Masaaki calls it.^20 While archaeological digs in today’s densely popu-
lated Kyoto are limited in size, newly uncovered sites constantly provide new clues to how urban
life changed as the monarchy and its courtiers became permanently urbanized.^21 Indeed, Hotate
Michihisa considers the urban monarchy (toshi ōken) with its urbanized aristocrats (toshi kizoku) as
the primary agents of change at the time.^22 The sovereign, his ministers, and lesser officials with
their households large and small were all consumers of goods and services brought from across
the archipelago. Hotate also points to a supplementary law of 895 that prohibited sons and grand-
sons of nobles from taking up residence outside the capital. It confirmed, he thinks, growing
consciousness of the gulf in status between urban rulers and rural subjects. About this same time,
tax- paying residence units (kyōko) disappear from the historical record, replaced by “resident
households” (zaike) that paid rent to government offices or nobles as their landlord. The latter
was a clear vector of aristocratization.
Research on governance and labor organization in early Heian- kyō by Kitamura Masaki and
Kushiki Yoshinori has shown too how new challenges altered both court administration and social
organization. For instance, code writers had not provided for dealing with inadequate and aging
infrastructure—there are few references to either in the eighth century annal, Shoku Nihongi. By
the ninth century, however, the court had to order officials and residents to work together to
clean and maintain streets, curbs, ditches, river embankments, and bridges. This was no small
task—in 828 there were 370 bridges in the capital. Serious flooding in 855 also led to calls for
deepening ditches throughout the capital, another huge undertaking.^23 Authorities in the right
and left capital agencies (Ukyōshiki, Sakyōshiki) found themselves hard pressed to gather the
needed resources and labor. As one strategy, in 827 unused land was to be rented out so that
proceeds could be used for such costs. That had the unhappy effects, however, not only of making
the royal center look like the countryside; cultivators also tended to make holes in dikes and
canals to irrigate their fields, thereby weakening riparian defenses. Still another issue was