近世中期における「孝子」顕彰の実態とその意義 : 孝子万吉を事例に

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that from the end of the seventeenth century onwards bakuhan authorities, motivated by the intensely political and hierarchal narratives of ‘moral education’ and‘ benevolent government’, started to grant monetary rewards to commoners who displayed exceptional filial piety. Much less familiar, however, is the fact that there were also many private initiatives concerned with bestowing rewards and praise upon filial sons and daughters. Moreover, examination of these private activities seems to suggest that their motives were of intellectual, social, and cultural nature and that they took place within a network of like-minded men. In this paper I will introduce and examine the case of Mankichi, a filial boy from the Ise province. Using a variety of sources, I will reconstruct the events that led up to Mankichi’s official bakufu reward in 1787, and will detail the activities of a private network of hatamoto surrounding Mankichi before as well as after this reward. It will become clear that the private celebration of filial children must be understood in a hitherto ignored context in which filial piety was appreciated as an aesthetic quality.