Early Modern Society and Economy of a Silkworm Egg Industry Village, Kami-shiojiri, Ueda, Nagano, Japan, For the Historical Parallel and Contrast Studies with an English Village, Willingham, Cambs.

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This project is a historical approach to the parallel and contrast study of Japanese and English villages. Our intention is to contrast the changes of Japanese and English village societies in a historical context, using various approaches according to the documents available. Two villages have been chosen, Willingham, Cambs.in England and Kami-shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture (currently belonging to Ueda-city) in Japan. This parallel and contrast study focuses on how people adapted the skills and techniques to their daily life and developed their economy.The research group uses the original database mainly based on the relatively less used documents of family trees as well as the well-used documents of Shumon On-aratame-cho (Religious Faith Registers), in order to understand the realities of the kin-family relationships and generation continuity in Kami-shiojiri in comparison with Willingham whose data base has also been completed. Furthermore, the group succeeded in reconstructing the soc … More ial and economic history based on the geographical data. Through the fieldwork and document research, the assessment of such reconstruction results have proceeded. The subjects of the analysis cover multiple aspects including the structure of village and kin relationships of both Japanese and English rural societies, the relationship between market economy and villages, the functions and activities of social and economic organisations and even the administrative organisations of Gonin-gumi (counterpart of English frankpledge) and voluntary associations of kou and mujin (village religious guilds and private financial networks) which have not formerly been systematically researched.As a historical parallel and contrast study, this project reveals an original view of the market economy society shedding light on the features of landscape and village society, demography and kin relationships, organisations of the agriculture and silkworm egg industry, land and finance, irrigation and mountain use, religious organisations and various aspects of daily life. The details will be found in the book published in both Japanese and English. Less