Journal of Historical Studies

THE HISTORICAL SCIENCE SOCIETY OF JAPAN

No. 864 　March 2010

Articles
Temple-Shrines and Local Society in Medieval
　 Japan………………………………………………………KIDA Kiyoshi(1)
The Kabo Reforms(1894-95) and the Concept of
Royal Power in Korea…………………………………… ITO Shunsuke(2)

Current Topics
On the Nature of the Crisis in Iran in June 2009 :
　 Thirty Years After the Revolution……………YOSHIMURA Shintaro（35）

Book Reviews (Unless otherwise noted, the works are written in Japanese)
KITAI Toshio, The Iwashimizu Shrine and the Honganji
　 Temple in the Sengoku Period…………………KAWABATA Yasuyuki（43）
HIROTA Masaki, Discrimination in the History
　 of Japan ………………………………………… KUROKAWA Midori（46）
HAMAMOTO Mami, Islam in “Holy Russia”
　 ………………………………………………NISHIYAMA Katsunori（49）
SATO Tsugitaka, A History of Sugar in the Daily Life
　of the Muslim World …………………………………… OZAKI Kikuko（52）

Exhibition Reviews
The　Railway Museum……………………………… KAMETANI Hiroaki（56）

Announcements: A Statement Concerning the Enforcement
of the Law on the Administration of Public Archives………………… （60）

<Summary>

Temple-Shrines and Local Society in Medieval Japan: The Case of Kawakami Shrine in Hizen Province
KIDA Kiyoshi

In Medieval Japan, a local temple-shrine was one of the social groups which constituted the local society. As a political and economic organization, it had to struggle hard to survive, just as other social groups in Medieval Japan. This article takes up the case of Kawakami Shrine in Hizen Province on the Island of Kyushu, and examines how the temple-shrine as a whole and its members (Buddhist monks and Shinto priests) adapted to changing political and economic circumstances.
Kawakami Shrine was Hizen-no-kuni-chinju, the shrine for the guardian deity of Hizen Province. This deity was conceived of as the guardian of the peace of both the province and the provincial government (kokuga). It was a religious institution under the protection of the provincial goverment. A Buddhist temple, Jintsuji, was attached to the shrine. Many priests and monks served in Kawakami Shrine, amongst whom the zasu（the chief Buddhist priest）and the daiguji (the chief Shinto priest）occupied the highest posts in the hierarchy.
Financially, the administration of Kawakami Shrine was supported by tax-exempt paddy fields (menden) owned by the provincial government, which periodically carried out cadastral surveys to determine, renew, and re-arrange the distribution of these fields. As the authority of the provincial government declined in the 14th century, the administration of Kawakami Shrine was faced with increasing difficulties.
Under these circumstances, Kawakami Shrine was compelled to diversify its economic activities to lessen its reliance on the tax-exempt paddy fields formerly provided by the provincial government, and to strengthen its relationship with the local society. While the clergy as a whole tried to attract and enlist the influential families in the region, each priest, on his own individual basis, accumulated economic interests in local society through donation, purchase, and inheritance. As a result of these developments, Kawakami Shrine grew into an autonomous social and economic organization, which played a significant role in local society.

The Kabo Reforms (1894-95) and the Concept of Royal Power in Korea
ITO Shunsuke

This article is an attempt to examine the nature of the modern reformist movement in Korea, focusing on the concept of “royal power” and its changing implications in the context of various factors which surrounded the movement.
Originally, the Moderate Enlightenment Group was rather traditional in its political outlook, in the sense that it believed in a regime based on the idea of “all people under one king”, and tried to strengthen the substantial powers of the monarch. In contrast, Pak Young-hyo insisted that the royal powers should be limited, referring to the idea of constitutional monarchy in Western Europe. Actually, however, even Pak Young-hyo ?s argument was traditional in a sense, since it was based on the premise that a monarch had a political role to play.
In the first stage of the Kabo Reforms, the Moderate Enlightenment Group, while aspiring to enhance the symbolic authority of the monarch and to establish a regime based on the idea of “all people under one king” under King Kojong, in reality tried at the same time to conduct actual politics under the leadership of Taewongun. Theoretically speaking, a king was expected to have both symbolic authority and political ability. However, since Kojong was connected with the Min clan, the Moderate Enlightenment Group could not leave actual political powers in his hands. Consequently, they were compelled to separate symbolic and political powers.
In the second stage of the Reforms, Pak Yong-hyo joined the cabinet, under the auspice of Inoue Kaoru. A conflict took place, however, between the Moderate Enlightenment Group and Pak Yong-hyo, as a result of a disagreement over who was the legitimate successor to the Chosun Dynasty (i.e. Taewongun or Kojong), and this eventually led to the collapse of the Reforms. In this process, a rather paradoxical phenomenon was observed, in that each party was compelled to behave, under the pressure of actual political developments, in a way quite opposite to its own concept of royal power.
This paradox, which was the result of the intersection of ideology and political behavior under the pressure of real politics, was the very nature of the Kabo Reforms.