Community in Medieval Japan & Kings in All But Name
HITOMI SATO
(Kônan Daigaku, Kobe)
Community in Medieval Japan:
Religion, Community Structure, Conflicts and
‘Civil War’ in the Kinai and Neighboring Areas (14th-16th Centuries)
What did being a "community" mean in Medieval Japan? Medieval local
communities developed their complex multiple-layered structure during the 14th
to 16th centuries, when incessant nation-wide wars engulfed the archipelago.
These Japan-wide civil wars intersected with local conflicts that involved largely
local communities. This paper aims to analyze the development of community
structures and their particular relationships with the state of war during the
Southern and Northern Courts (1336 to 1392) and the Sengoku (1467 to ca.
1600) periods, with some examples drawn from the peripheral areas of the
Kinai (the central regions around Kyoto).
THOMAS D. CONLAN
(Princeton, USA)
Kings in All But Name:
Ritual, Religion and Ōuchi daimyo of Western Japan
1350-1550
The Ōuchi family were kings in all but name over much of the Japanese
archipelago, while their city of Yamaguchi functioned as an important regional
entrepot, with an expanding population and a host of temples and shrines. They
relied upon ritual assertions of hegemonic authority, the transfer of their ancestral
deities, and the apotheosis of one of their leaders to assert hegemonic authority,
conquer much of western Japan, and garner recognition as a King of Japan by
officials in Korea and China.