G. Resource Studies on Warriors and the Samurai Class in Medieval and Early Modern Times

• OHTOMO Kazuo (National Institute of Japanese Literature)
• KURUSHIMA Noriko (Historiographical Institute The University of Tokyo)
• KONDOU Yoshikazu (Graduate School of Kanagawa University)
• SAEKI Shinichi (Aoyama Gakuin University)
• TAKAKU Tomohiro (Kobe City Museum)
• TAKAHASHI Yuji (National Museum of Nature and Science,Tokyo)
• TOMITA Masahiro (Toyama University)
• Markus RÜTTERMANN (International Research Center for Japanese Studies)
• MAESHIMA Satoshi (Niigata Prefectural Museum of History)
• AOUAMA Hiroo
• ADACHI Fumio
• IWABUCHI Reiji
• IHARA Kesao
• OHKUBO Jun'ichi
• KURUSHIMA Hiroshi
• KOJIMA Michihiro

This is incremental research presenting questions in order to construct general historical images of Japanese bushi (or samurai). In this research, we examine the possibility of new periodical and historical images of bushi based on buke (or bushi family) documents and other materials.

Buke documents as historical materials have been conventionally engaged with as (1) subjects of analysis to utilize in historical descriptions or (2) subjects of research into old documents centering on style classification. In these efforts, research has proceeded in a segmented way depending on the conventional division into periods, such as medieval and early modern. In addition, conventional attitudes in historical research ever since the early modern period, as well as the modern science of history, have placed excessive emphasis on old materials, with scant attention to the relationships between these old documents and various other historical materials.

There are certainly some problems associated with the conventional fragmented research method. This is because they do not give necessary consideration to the relationships between historical facts, such as intermittent uprising of warrior governments between the end of the 12th century and the second half of the 19th century or the existence of "bushi" or "samurai," and political ideologies, including reproduction and creation of bushi images since the modern period. As comparative historical studies have indicated, a long period of warrior administrations and bushis becoming administrative officers are phenomena specific to Japan. However, the process of bushi developing into undertakers of civil services has not been fully understood yet, while the influences of the changes in their political and social roles on physical materials such as documents are still unknown, too. In other words, what makes bushi a bushi is not self-evident at all.

Documents and other bushi materials have been handed down and exist within a continuity based on a certain time structure with intermediation of family lines. Though this calls for close attention, this schema should not be taken as fixed. For example, the contents and characteristics of documents can be changed (as seen with medieval title deeds transformed into ritual materials in the early modern period). It is necessary to observe the dynamic aspects of documents as physical objects, which can be moved, counterfeited, frequently copied, altered, have their information concealed, and repeatedly reedited as material groups. Through this kind of approach, it is possible to gain a greater awareness of bushis, the subjects of these activities, as well as their continuity and discontinuity in the history. At the same time, it will enable an understanding of the way of the state and society surrounding them and establish a new framework other than the conventional periodization.

The purpose of this research is to dissolve the conventional framework of periodization and analyze buke documents and relating materials with special emphasis on original documents from the viewpoint just discussed. In the process, the group will also pay attention to recent research trends that underline the necessity of researching buke documents from an organic historical viewpoint. For the time being, the group will focus on the format and outer appearance of documents, as well as their lifecycle as physical objects. In addition, the group will consider the social influences of buke documents in terms of their preparation, conservation, and functions, by comparing them with the cases of court nobles and temple or shrine documents, as well as those handed down among common people. With regard to their functions as physical objects and the reasons for their being handed down, the group will introduce a new viewpoint, seeing buke documents as representations of bushi or buke (a tool to demonstrate prestige, for example). The group will also examine the structure of their relations with other historical materials, such as weapons and armor, paintings, waka materials, tea utensils, flower arrangement-related materials, etc. In the process, the group will pay close attention to archaeological materials, including lacquer paper documents in the medieval and early modern periods, which so far have not been researched in any depth.

The group's research will center on buke documents of the medieval to early modern periods owned by NMJH. On the basis of cooperative work with not only research institutions within the National Institutes for the Humanities, but also other historical museums in Japan, the group aims at the establishment of sufficient systems for integration and examination of a wide range of materials. Along with that, in order to deal with the difficulty that historical museums and resource centers, including NMJH, have been having in their attempts to exhibit document materials, to the group hopes to explore new ways of document exhibition in cooperation with information engineering and other scientific fields.