The Multilayered World of Medieval Japanese Legal History^*

Between the Ōnin War (1476–1477) and the late 16th century, the central Japanese military government lost much of its administrative power. During this transitional period, in which the central government was in the hands of the ever-adaptive Ashikaga shogunate, ephemeral alliances (known in Japanese as ikki) were often formed among country warriors, village leaders, farmers, Buddhist monks, Shinto priests, or city folk in order to resist attacks perpetrated by outsiders, neighboring powers, and bandits, as well as other military threats. The result was an intricate system of surviving medieval institutions, emerging local autonomous leadership, and new warlords competing for political power, the ability to resolve conflicts, and the rights to collect taxes throughout the archipelago. Law followed suit, becoming plural and multilayered, with multiple legislative agents operating in a sea of different customary norms and legal texts inherited from previous centuries.

The volume Muromachi, sengoku jidai no hō no sekai, edited by Matsuzono Jun’ichirō and published in 2021 by the Japanese publishing house Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, focuses on the legal complexities of the roughly one and a half centuries that encompass the late medieval and early modern period known in Japanese history as the »Warring States Period« (Sengoku jidai). Even though there is no shortage of Japanese textbooks on legal history, this is a rare piece considering its chronological focus and the way it introduces students to current debates in each area. In the introduction, the editor delineates the general aspects and guidelines of the book as well as his views on the role of law, ethics, and custom as normative principles. As in his previous works, Matsuzono searches for ways to understand and conceptualize the various terms and forms of Japanese normativities – particularly the central ideas of hō and ri, which can be loosely translated as »law« and »principle« – from local sources rather than by comparing and forcefully adopting European legal concepts. Matsuzono’s thought process is guided by questions such as: what legislative powers are behind each norm? What norms supersede others? Should written norms be understood as commands or were they the codification of practical or customary rules? Given the lack of simple answers and the absence of clear-cut limits between the various normative orders in force at the time, the book is aimed at presenting state-of-the-art research while pointing students to new research paths in Japanese legal history.

The main topics of the volume are the numerous legislative authorities of the period, the extent of their administrative and enforcing powers, the role of law in various spheres of life, and the general intricacies of the legal systems put in place in the period, with short considerations regarding |previous centuries – including the Kamakura, and the Nanboku-chō or Northern and Southern Courts periods. With the exception of Matsuzono’s four texts (introduction, the first chapter of the first part, the eighth chapter of the second part, and the epilogue), all contributions are by scholars originally specialized in Japanese political, social, economic, and religious history rather than legal history.

The first nine chapters, gathered under the title Shokenryoku no hō (»The Laws of Various Authorities«), explore the numerous autonomous administrative levels and normative orders of Japan. These include the laws of the shogunate, norms enacted by shogunate-appointed local governors (shugo), laws by local military leaders (ryōshu), powerful regional warlords and their domanial codes (bunkokuhō), laws governing temples and sanctuaries (jishahō), and village and city ordinances. Chapters such as the ones by Hirai Kazusa, Fujii Takashi, and Goza Yūichi show a keen awareness of the difficulties in defining some key concepts such as shugo, local laws and the bunkokuhō, with numerous references to significant past contributions to each area. Especially interesting is Kubo Ken’ichirō’s contextualization of different orders and norms enacted by local warlords that are not normally classified as codified domanial norms. Moreover, as in all chapters of the book, every author indicates source collections and other materials that might guide students interested in following the proposed research topics. For instance, Koike Katsuya’s analysis of temple laws begins with a standard definition taken from the Kokushi daijiten (»Great Dictionary of National History«) – which the author uses to structure his chapter – and suggestions of edited compilations of primary sources.

The eight chapters of the second part, Hō no shoryōiki (»The Various Areas of Law«), cover classical Japanese legal commentaries, the relationship between law and families, the role of law in medieval economics, war codes, the complex interplay between Buddhism and secular laws, the influence of natural disasters on normative creation, and the transformation of customary norms into written law. Interesting insights and future research topics are put forward by authors such as Mieda Akiko, whose panorama of systems of social division (mibunsei) ends by proposing further analysis of the two criteria used in medieval Japanese social taxonomy: whether the individual had an official post (kan’i) or not, and if they were a person (hito), a child (warawa), a monk (sōryo) or an outcast or non-person (hinin). Other contributions, such as Ikoma Tetsurō’s chapter on religion and law, focus on the transformations these topics underwent during the period covered by the book. Although most chapters present general panoramas of their topics, some choose specific examples to enrich their narratives by showing concrete analyses of primary sources, such as in the case of Kawauchi Masayoshi’s take on city ordinances, Nishikawa Kōhei’s study on law and natural disasters, and Noritake Yūichi’s discussion of military norms. The book ends with a chronological table for the main events of Japanese legal history between 1392 and 1590 and an epilogue in which Matsuzono reminds the reader of the many challenges put forward by the chapters, such as the difficulty in analyzing regional differences, and his hopes for future research.

In general, the volume introduces the many ways in which legal texts, especially those from the six-volume compilation of primary sources Chūsei hōsei shiryōshū, can be used to further research in each area. All historical terms are accompanied by pronunciation guides (furigana or rubi), helping readers unfamiliar with specific terminology. By showcasing the many possibilities of engagement in the intersection of Japanese history and Japanese legal history, this volume evidences a certain degree of openness to the debate that may point to new exchanges between Japanese legal historians and international scholarly debates. Furthermore, the general guidelines of the book in its quest for strengthening Japanese definitions of legal concepts fall in line with calls made by European scholars to emancipate Global Legal History from its Eurocentric notions and explore the creation of new conceptual tools for non-Western legal histories.¹ Certainly, taking the sugges|tions presented in Matsuzono Jun’ichirō’s volume beyond the traditional national borders of Japanese legal history to new areas, such as the study of the contacts between Japanese and non-Japanese normative orders, will require deep reflection on different worldviews, forcing scholars to further develop new conceptual frameworks capable of dealing with the incommensurable distinctions rising from these settings.