S. Gay
primacy of an enduring capital city amid medieval decentralization is to think in a modern way,
emphasizing order and control, functioning judicial organs, and authorities capable of forming
and executing policy. Capital- centric thinking, moreover, implies not only a solid center but
defined, defendable outer boundaries—a nation- state, in effect. If, on the other hand, we unlock
our gaze on Kyoto we can begin to “think medievally,” acknowledging the significance of the
local with peculiar residential patterns, specific trade arrangements, and varying levels of elite
control. Then the importance of cities like Hakata as a base for international trade comes into
sharper focus, as do areas previously considered remote and peripheral, like the Sea of Japan
coastline, dotted with small but numerous communities that sustained trade with northern
regions and Korea. Instead of a pyramid, then, a more accurate image of medieval commerce may
be a series of wheels, with Kyoto at the hub of the largest one and many towns on its rim; beyond
that were small but vigorous communities linked through trade across varying terrains and seas.
This is the more complicated picture of commerce and towns in medieval Japan.
Discovering the local, embracing archeology
Until the 1970s, local history (chihōshi) was not on the professional medieval historian’s agenda in
Japan.^10 Those involved in local history either were regarded as hobbyists lacking proper research
tools or were recognized as local teachers or municipal officials with a professional need to know
their own areas in specific, limited ways. On the other hand, even if not regarded as local history,
detailed studies of individual estates were integral to the professional historian’s study of peasants
and local samurai. If anything, the study of medieval history was over- localized: many medieval
historians were more focused on specific estates than on articulating a picture of the whole.
This began to change with the rise of social history in the 1970s, and in the 1980s a new schol-
arly interest in regional and local markets required examining estates and local communities in a
larger context. The systematic excavation and cataloguing of historic sites by archeologists,
meanwhile, occurred as required at sites like Kyoto’s train station and in other areas where public
works like dams and airports were to inundate or damage historically significant sites. The pub-
lished results of such archeological digs came to the attention of historians, and interdisciplinary
research activities were held, like workshops and site surveys whose participants included profes-
sional and local historians, archeologists, and geographers.
Professional historians’ newly found appreciation of local scholars derived partly from the latter’s
knowledge demonstrated in such joint activities. Site investigations with participants from multiple
disciplines have yielded new methodologies. For example, old maps and pre- war photographs are
now studied for their possible reflection, even centuries after the fact, of medieval conditions and
topography. Even oral history has its place: local elders are interviewed for their memories of past
practices in water use and folk customs as possibly medieval in origin. Participants in these interdisci-
plinary investigations create large maps and then inscribe them with detailed local information.
Dubious as these methodologies would have been considered a few years ago, their compre-
hensiveness has great power to suggest new understandings of locales. Moreover, as post- bubble
government stimulus projects increased in the 1990s and beyond, local historians led the way in
opposing some construction projects outright for threatened obliteration of historical sites. At
least one case, in Nanao on the Noto peninsula, saw historical concerns joined with environmental:
a highway set to cut through this castle town was opposed in 2001 for threatening not only to
obliterate historical sites but to damage the vista as well.^11 The term “regional history” (chiikishi)
has replaced “local history” (chihōshi) in the professional historian’s lexicon, removing the dicho-
tomy between central and local implied in the latter term and instead, with chiikishi’s implication
of broader significance, allowing a nod of respect toward local studies.