Village and rural life in medieval Japana multitude of boundary disputes at the edges of the territories of neighboring communities that
had become rivals, but also in some cases in the form of a powerful social insubordination that
could lead to revolt (tsuchi ikki or tokusei ikki).
A large number of medieval historical archives have been published, accompanied by critical
commentary. Sources on rural life in medieval Japan remain relatively sparse for the period
before the thirteenth century (although there are a few documents that evoke rural life in the
Heian ibun) but the spread of writing practices in the second half of the middle ages provides a
clearer and more precise picture.^2 There are two distinct types of sources: those that emanate
from people or institutions outside the village but that nonetheless describe its practices, and
those emanating from the villagers themselves. As can be expected, sources of the former type are
more plentiful than those of the latter type.
Accounts based on an experience of life among villagers are rare, but one must be pointed out:
the quasi- ethnological account by Kujō Masamoto (1445–1516), an aristocrat of the Kyoto court
who kept a diary during his stay from 1501 to 1504 in one of his estates in Hineno, not far from
present Wakayama. This text, known under the name Masamoto kō tabi hikitsuke (“the charms of
the travels of the noble Masamoto”), describes how Masamoto tried to place his estate, which was
under threat of invasion by outside forces, under a regime of direct administration.^3 The work
describes daily life in the village, the workings of the justice system, power relations between
prominent local residents, rituals and holidays, the liveliness of popular noh theatre, and
the like.
Most of the other sources that have reached us have to do with conflicts between village com-
munities belonging to estates and the owner of said estates. Monastic communities kept archives
and recollections of those conflicts more often than warrior families, and some of those archives
are in a good state of preservation. One noteworthy example are the records of the Tōji monas-
tery, which provide, sometimes over decades, a record of the conflicts that opposed the inhabit-
ants of an estate (historians use the term shōke no ikki to describe them) to a steward, or even
sometimes to the lord himself, or to a neighboring village.^4
Archives emanating from village communities can be classified into two main categories.
They can consist of sets of rules decreed by the community itself to organize cohabitation—for
example practices on common land owned by the village, fishing practices, receiving foreign
travelers, gambling, etc.—or of court judgments made against uncooperative or delinquent
members—for instance the destruction of his house or his expulsion from the village.
Some village communities kept a large number of such texts in the local shrine, and some of
these have reached us in a satisfactory state. This is the case for those found in the village
of Sugaura on, near Lake Biwa, that record, over several centuries, the emergence of the power
of the community, power struggles with lords and neighboring communities, methods for
decision- making, and other matters.^5
Finally, during a conflict that could lead to violence, the village could sometimes assemble to
swear a common oath (renpanjo), describing the causes of this mobilization and demonstrating to
the local deities the will of the confederate villagers to see their demands to the very end. Vil-
lagers thus formed leagues, bound by an oath, called an ikki. Most of these oaths were written
down twice. One version was burned during the ichimi shinzui ritual, and its ashes mixed to the
sacred water of the shrine where the inhabitants of the village were assembled, and drank by
those who shared the oath. But another version of the oath was held in a secret place and dutifully
preserved. This is how some of these documents were discovered during the twentieth century,
usually hidden within shrines.
The conflictual nature of the period’s society, often described by contemporary as the gekokujō
(“the world turned upside down”), can be perceived through the extant written documentation.