History 407/507 Sem Medieval Kyoto

Course Description

From its founding in 1794 through the mid-1600s, Kyoto (also referred to as Heian or Miyako) was Japan's premier city. In fact, until the establishment and growth of the castle towns of Osaka and Edo from the late 1500s, it is fair to say that, with the exception of the warrior capital of Kamakura in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Kyoto was Japan's only city. Other population centers - Nara's cluster of temples, the trading ports of Hakata and Sakai, Kamakura as an administrative center after 1333 - are more usefully thought of as towns

Yet Kyoto's morphology, its role, and its prominence were all changing and fluid elements. Until 1185 Kyoto was the unchallenged center of culture and legitimacy, presided over by a hereditary Imperial aristocracy. From 1185-1333 (the Kamakura period) it shared political power, and economic and cultural prominence with Kamakura, the capital of Japan's first "warrior government" (bakufu). After the destruction of both Kamakura and its bakufu in 1333, and the establishment of Emperor Go-Daigo's revolutionary regime in Kyoto, the Imperial city's pivotal roles as political, cultural, and economic center were reclaimed. Yet in this new medieval age only occasionally was Kyoto pre-eminent in all these areas at the same time. Competition between the aristocracy and the Muromachi bakufu, and between bakufu and regional warlords, defined a fluid struggle for political leadership; aristocratic and warrior competition over cultural leadership and ensured multiple artistic expressions; and the expansion of trade guilds, growing monetization, and Kyoto's nodal location, contributed to what Gay has noted as a long-term transformation from a political and administrative city to a commercial center (see Gay, The Moneylenders of Late Medieval Kyoto, 171). And, after 1600, when Kyoto was overtaken by Osaka and Edo in population and economic vitality, Kyoto entered another phase of its development, in part characterized as a craft and artisan center where citizen rule was pronounced.

For the medieval period there are multiple stories and foci of attention. So, we will look at the broader political rhythms, some of the role of institutionalized religion, the development and parameters of work and of play, some issues of gender and sexuality, at medicine and illness in the life of the urban population. In so doing we will try and obtain a sense of institutions as well as the texture of daily lives.

Course Policies

Active participation in class discussion; serving as a "discussion leader" at least twice (this is normally done in conjunction with one to three others, rather than being a solo effort).

A term paper of around 4500-5500 words, due 6/3

Required Texts

Mary Elizabeth Berry, The Culture of Civil War in Kyoto.
Suzanne Gay, The Moneylenders of Late Medieval Kyoto.

General Bibliographical Note

For an overview of the period, good starting points are John W. Hall, Japan From Prehistory to Modern Times; H.P.Varley, Japanese Culture; George Sansom, A History of Japan, 1334-1615.

Useful bibliographical information may be found in, e.g., Goble, Kenmu: Go-Daigo's Revolution; Mass, The Origins of Japan's Medieval World; the "Works Cited" section of The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 3, Medieval Japan (1990). Bardwell Smith's bibliographical essay in G. Elison & B. Smith, Warlords, Artists and Commoners, is extensive for publications dealing with the sixteenth-century through 1980, and still extremely useful. Useful edited collections include John Hall, Nagahara Keiji, and Kozo Yamamura, Japan Before Tokugawa; John Hall and Toyoda Takeshi, Japan in the Muromachi Age; John Hall and Jefrey Mass, Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History; Jeffrey Mass, The Origins of Japan's Medieval World; Hitomi Tonomura, Anne Walthall and Wakita Haruko, Women and Class in Japanese History.

Useful journals include Monumenta Nipponica, Journal of Japanese Studies, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. Bound sets are held in the Knight Library, the most recent issues are in the Current Periodicals section of the Knight Library. Monumenta Nipponica, volume 51 (1996), has an index to volumes 1-50; on-line index: http://monumenta.cc.sophia.ac.jp/mnindex.html . The Journal of Japanese Studies index (hard copy in vols. 11, 21, 25) is on-line at http://depts.washington.edu/jjs .

Course Schedule