General and Trans-temporal Methods for Studying Large-scale Military Household Documents From the Medieval to the Early Modern Period: Documents of the Masuda Family

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Most research on military household documents has focused on specific areas in either the medieval or the early modern periods. In our research project, however, we approached the more than18,000historical documents and records from the Masuda family, a hereditary chief retainer (karei) of the Hagi-han, with a much more general and trans-temporal methodology.To begin with, we have completed the catalog of the expansive Masuda family historical records and digitized the major portions. We have also researched about the relevant Masuda family clans as well as other military families from the Chfigoku area as a basis for comparison. Such comparisons allowed us to understand better the characteristics of the Masuda family historical records, and we gained a better perspective on the relationship between the historical documents and the actual happenings in the fiefs.We were also able to gain insight to the relationship between the Hagi-han and the Tokugawa government, the process of administrative and financial reforms, and the retainers' management of the fiefs. In addition, we have digitized the large number of pictorial documents of the Masuda family's fiefs.A completed catalog of the Masuda family's documents is appended to this research project report for pubic. use. The digitized documents have been placed on the medieval period section of the Historiographical Institute of Tokyo University website for public use. The early modern period portion is scheduled to be opened to the public in the near future. We are confident that the research outcome of this project will be widely used by researchers.