近世村絵図の歴史地理学的研究 (第一報) その分類の結果について

Abstract

In the times when the Tokugawa Shogunate was coming into actual power of politics, the muraezu (picture-maps of the villages) were made up in the villages, the tips of the political organization, by order of feudal lords whenever things had happened. The author has collected about 90 sheets of them which were compiled since the 12th year of Kan-ei (1635) to the early years of Meiji. This paper is described according to the results of classifying them.He could classify the aims of compiling into 30.Most of the scales of them are not correct. But some of them specially important, affecting the interests of several villages deeply concerning with iriaichi (common estates) or kyokaiaratame (revisions of the boundaries), were drawn with almost correct scales. On those maps we can see both the descriptions of scales and the signatures of eshi (engineers who made up the picture-maps).For bearings, the described directions on the maps and the true ones are rather same and correct, but the methods of writing letters of the four directions are not uniform.Besides of these muraezu which were made up on demand of the rulers-for compiling the kuniezu (picture-maps of the provinces) or producing the murameisaicho (detailed books of the villages), in the cases of villages of special characters, for instance those which were utilizing rivers, damaged by floods, including iriaichi of several villages, or with complicated kyuchi (territories of hatamoto, etc.), the muraezu were often compiled.The muraezu were made up by the villages themselves, the tips of the rulers, so they are not so scientific and reliable as maps under the political influences and with the varieties of technics. Moreover, on the muraezu presented to the rulers, the murayakunin (village officials) signed and sealed jointly in order to do their duties, from which many troubles were derived.