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While we can name numerous examples of conflict over water in different time periods and regions, their nature is, needless to say, by no means monolithic.  We will take up a conflict in the Kamakura Period surrounding irrigation water for one village community that belonged to a manor in Tamba Province (Hyogo Prefecture), and we will consider characteristics unique to Medieval Japan in the ways in which conflicts over water took place and people forged relationships out of such conflicts, by reading remaining documents and specifically finding out why the conflict broke out and how it was resolved.

[Instructor]

WATANABE, Masao

Associate Professor at Tokyo University's Historiographical Institute.
major is history of Japanese legal system. I hope to illuminate the specific ways in which relations between the law, the system, and rights historically transformed by looking at historical sources. I am currently interested in the roles played by non-academic individuals with legal knowledge and expertise in the structural change of social order in the 14th century.