Comparative Study between the Medieval City and Modern City in Japan

Abstract

When I compare the town in Middle Ages with that of Modern Ages, I found a pretty remarkable difference in quality between the former and the latter, although both are towns under feudlism. In my article, I go through the process of changes from the Middle Ages to the Modern Ages, from the viewpoint of prospect of towns.How many towns were there? How were they scattered? The towns in Middle Ages were rather few. They were 500 and so. On the other hand, in the Modern Ages. I found much more towns-nearly 4.000, most of which came into existence in the Modern Ages.It is remarkable that the towns in the Middle Ages generally enlarged to grow into those in the Middle Ages and many of those which were formed in the Modern Ages also lay their foundation in the former ages.The characteristic of the towns in the Middle Ages is that of some villages, some farm villages which scattered about. The military, industry and commerce, each of those three was on its way to separate from agriculture, and the social division of labour between the towns and the villages had not been completed on the contrary, in the Modern Ages, the towns were completely separated from the villages. The city, where the military class and commercial class live, is quite different from the villages, a dwelling place for the agricultural class. Accordingly the towns changed into a large, single group consisting of many houses that are in close order. This changes was inclined to be hastened through the agreement or the planned construcion of towns of “Daimyo-Lord” in the Modern Ages.The rapid increase of population is the most distinct characteristic of the towns in the Modern Ages. This phenomenon was brought about as many people removed from the farm-villages to the towns from the latter half of the 16th century. In this process, “Ji Samurai”-who lived in the village, the landowner and merchant became “Samurai”-who lived in the town, or upper class merchants in the town, and many of middle and lower class farmers, common tradesmen or artisan.To make a long article short, the town in the Middle Ages, which had character of community connected with the land, changed and grew into the towns in Modern Ages, modern society in which gainning profit and making the most proffessional ability are fundamental.