Predators, Protectors, and Purveyors: Pirates and Commerce in Late Medieval Japan

Abstract

OVER the course of late medieval Japan (ca. 1333–1590), some leaders of seafaring bands who appear in historical sources as “pirates” (kaizoku ) gained widespread acceptance as important figures in the political and economic structure of the time.1 Japan in this period was subject to two large historical processes: decentralization in the political realm and commercialization in the economic. Contests over the post of shogun and the imperial succession, internecine inheritance feuds, and the rise of local elites resulted in a decentralized political order in which no one could fully enforce a claim to be the ultimate arbiter of sanctioned violence. In such an environment, often only brute force sufficed to resolve disputes.2 At the same time, the economy was growing increasingly complex. Estate (shoen ) networks linking proprietors and producers competed with, intersected with, and sometimes evolved into cash-based regional, transarchipelagic, and overseas commercial networks.3 In much of Japan, especially the Seto Inland Sea (Setonaikai ) region, commercialization occurred most dynamically in the littoral. A range of traditional and new authorities established ports, toll barriers, lodges, and other infrastructure