<論説>中世村落の構造とその変容過程 : 「小村＝散居型村落」論の歴史地理学的再検討

Abstract

永原慶二氏の中世「小村＝散居型村落」論に関する歴史地理学的再検討を行なった。薩摩国入来院の場合、中世前期の在家は広い薗畠と結合して概ね台地上に集落を営み、畠作農業を基盤としていた。そこではサコ田はむしろ粗放な経営に委ねられ、通説のようにサコ田が在家の生産基盤であったと考えることはできない。しかし中世後期の門体制に至ると、河川沿岸の段丘平野が水田化され、かつての薗畠が水田化された事例もみられる。そして水利が一層整備される近世中期には、門集落が台地上より払拭され、段丘平野部に集中するようになり、ここに農民の生産・生活の場が台地上から段丘平野へと移行するダイナミックなプロセスが見出される。そしてこのプロセスのなかで、中世村落の原型は、台地上の畠作をめぐって、山野の農業的用益権を共同するテリトリー集団に求められる、と推定した。

This article tries to reexamine the "hamlet=farmstead community" model of medieval Japan, one of the significant types of the medieval community, presented by Keiji Nagahara (1962). This model shows that, in the mountainous area where the hamlet or the farmstead (Einzelhof) was the eminent forms of settlement, the medieval community was in the unit of each small settlement, as the agriculture was based on the small paddy field at the valley (sakoda) neighbouring on the settlement. But, according to the reconstructive analysis of the arable land and the settlement, in Irikiin, Satsuma-no-kuni, the typical field of this model, several results are gained as follows ; a) At the former period of the medieval era, the 13th and 14th centuries, each settlement was located mainly on the upland (the plateau of the volcanic ashes), surrounded with the wide garden field (sono). Their management was based on the upland agriculture, not on "sakoda". b) In the 14th and 15th centuries, the fields on the lowland (river terrace) were gradually made irrigated to make the paddy fields, and the sono fields were transformed to "maeda" (the paddy fields neighbouring on the settlement). c) Accompanied with this development, the location of the settlement was changed from upland to lowland, and each settlement was combined with the paddy field, which shows that at this stage, the paddy field agriculture became predominant over the upland agriculture. Synthesizing these facts, the dynamic process of the structural change of the rural community, can be pointed out, which would be called "from upland agriculture to paddy field agriculture".