供御人と惣 : 近江菅浦の歴史

Abstract

Suganoura 菅浦 at present belongs to Nishiasai-mura 西淺井村 Ikagun 伊香郡, Shiga-ken 滋賀縣. As an old port on the northern coast of Lake Biwa, it appears in a poem of the Manyoshu 萬葉集, which was collected and edited towards the turn of the eighth century. Though a small community with a population of some four hundred, Suganoura increasingly attracts students of Japanese history because of the valuable written sources which it holds. The total of these sources amounts to 1, 250 items. They range in time from the second half of the eleventh century to that of the eighteenth century, but are concentrated between 1295 and 1572. These sources give us great help in studying the society of this community and its relations with its neighbors. In this essay the author treats the activities of the community members known as Kugonin 供御人 and So 惣 around the period of some two hundred years ranging from the second half of the thirteenth century to that of the fifteenth century. Kugonin were privileged persons who contributed provisions to the Tenno 天皇 (Emperor), in the case of Suganoura contributing carp, loquats, and other foods ; in turn, they could trade very freely far and wide. In medieval Japan commerce was corried out by such a privileged class of local communities. So 惣 was the committee among villagers which was the kernel of communal activities and had property and the right to judge. The activities of the So 惣 of Suganoura became noted in the course of its conflicts since 1295 with that of neighboring Onoura 大浦 over arable lands. In the latter half of the fifteenth century this So, under an able leader named Seikuro 清九郎, became increasingly consolidated, surmounted more than one crisis, and gained independence.