Correspondence

From Judith Fröhlich

In his detailed review of my book Rulers, Peasants and the Use of the Written Word in Medieval Japan: Ategawa no shō, 1004–1304 (MN 63:1), Thomas Conlan raises interesting issues about the use of writing, the organisation of rural society, and the mechanics of law in premodern Japan. I would like to thank the editor of Monumenta Nipponica for giving me the opportunity to respond to these issues.

Conlan claims that I fail to acknowledge Michael Clanchy's argument that "the medium is not the message" (p. 161). Clanchy and other medievalists, including Mary Carruthers, Patrick Geary, and Brian Street, have offered approaches to the study of orality and literacy that are of interest also for the study of non-European societies. According to these scholars, a linear transition from orality to literacy to printing or the tremendous influence of media on social changes, suggested by McLuhan's dictum "the medium is the message," was not applicable to the case of medieval Europe. Obviously, the knowledge of writing could not exclusively account for the tremendous rise in literacy that had then taken place. Other factors, including the social milieu, the occasions of the use of writing, the forms of writing, and the interaction between orality and literacy, had to be considered as well. Matthew Innes summarized the new research trend as follows:

There has been a shift from a "strong" thesis about the inevitable implications of literacy to a "weak" thesis that stresses the complex interaction between literacy and other factors, and the gradual, often imperceptible, pace of change. There has been a focus on literacy as a social practice, rather than literacy as a technology sweeping extant cultural patterns aside.¹

A new methodology for premodern sources also marked the research in Japan. Having developed the so-called "theory of historical sources" (shiryōron), scholars highlighted the various functions of documents according to time, space and actors. Morimoto Yoshiki framed the recent debate by claiming that a "context-bound view of historical sources" (shiryō no genbashugi) had replaced the former "idealistic view of diplomatic sources" (monjo no risōshugi).² Building upon the "weak" thesis of European scholars and adhering to the new approaches of Japanese medieval studies for the methodological framework of my book, I naturally agree with the proposition that "the medium is not the message."

Ategawa no shō represents an ideal case to study the various uses of writing in medieval Japan, given that documents of this particular estate are handed down to us from different social groups, including the peasantry from the thirteenth century onwards. An example for "literacy as a social practice" is the use of the Goshuin engi, the founding story of Mt. Kōya, on Ategawa no shō. As discussed in chapter three of my book, I claim that the increase in literacy in administrative and legal spheres in the thirteenth century deprived the Goshuin engi of its fundamental role to legitimize land claims of the priests of Mt. Kōya. However, Conlan faults me for failing "to take account of evidence suggesting that this record was not used to justify land claims" (p. 163), arguing that the priests of Mt. Kōya gave the Goshuin engi to Retired Emperor Shirakawa in 1088 "so that he would designate Kōya as a holy centre" (p. 163). But Conlan's explanation—with which I incidentally concur—does not refute my assumption that the Goshuin engi was used as title deed.³ Apparently Conlan did not consider the "diachronic polyfunctionality" of documents, an expression coined by Roger Sablonier to indicate that people used and reused documents for different purposes according to the time and situation.⁴

Conlan also elaborates on the use of writing among lower levels of society. In chapter five of my book, I analyze petitions, written by the peasants of Ategawa no shō in the year 1275. One of these petitions is famous because it is almost entirely written in katakana. This is most unusual given that the common format of petitions was kanbun. Hence, it was most likely not a professional scribe but the...