Vol.
64, No. 4
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Michio HAMADA, Seigneurial justice in eighteenth-century Beaujolais:
the jurisdiction of Saint-Lager and its environs
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In order to understand
the characteristics of French absolutism, it is important to examine
the seigneurial justice system. The object of this article is investigate
various aspects of seigneurial justice as it functioned in the Beaujolais
region.
The judicial documents show
that in the majority of cases, criminal proceedings did not reach the
final judgment stage, suggesting that most conflicts were resolved outside
the official system. There were two methods of unofficial resolution:
reconciliation of the two parties through mediation by priests, notaries
or notables, and private acts of revenge by the aggrieved party. These
practices had deep roots in the traditional norms of the peasant community.
Conflicts were seen to belong to a private realm, beyond the reach of
outside authority, and therefore to be solved by the local inhabitants
themselves. Even seigneurial justice could not exercise a great influence
on the local community.
In fact, seigneurial justice
did not function efficiently in conjunction with royal justice either.
It is true that the long dispute over jurisdiction between the seigneurs
and the monarch came to an end with the beginning of the eighteenth
century, when seigneurial justice was incorporated into the royal justice
system as the court of the first instance. This meant that officers
of the royal courts also functioned as offices of the seigneurial courts,
and that the seigneurial courts could make use of facilities of the
royal courts such as prisons and law courts. Back up from the royal
justice system was particularly valuable when it came to the prosecution
of serious crimes. But problems remained. There is evidence of criminal
proceedings being abandoned half-way through in order to save costs.
Seigneurs of the eighteenth century were no longer willing to insist
on their right to administer justice to the extent of shouldering the
costs of expensive lawsuits.
In other words, it would
be wrong to overestimate the power of the seigneurial justice system,
limited as it was both by the traditional norms of peasant communities
and by the desire to reduce judicial costs.
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Takeshi ISHII
Rural society in the West Midlands in the mid-seventeenth century: a
case study of the geographic origins of indentured servants
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Indentured servants were an important labour force in colonial British
America, particularly during the seventeenth century. However, the social
origins of these servants have not been investigated until now. The
aim of this paper is to describe the socio-economic structure of the
society in which they were born and brought up. The rural area located
along the Wye in Herefordshire in the West Midlands in the mid-seventeenth
century has been selected as a case study.
Population growth in this
area proceeded only very slowly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
centuries. However, the natural increase in population was so great
that it generated a large amount of emigration. Emigrants may have come
mainly from the lower echelons. It seems that they always felt under
pressure to emigrate because they had few opportunities to improve their
standard of living within their own communities. Their economy was based
on agriculture, specifically corn and sheep, mainly cultivated in open
fields under the control of the manorial system. It was therefore difficult
for poorer inhabitants to obtain enough land to ensure subsistence.
On the other hand, the rural industries which might have generated some
employment opportunities did not exist.
The consequence was that
many inhabitants, particularly young people looking for employment,
left in search of a better land, which in some cases might well have
been an American colony.
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Kazunori MURAKOSHI
Exchanges involving brides and adopted sons in the families of daimyo
retainers in the late Tokugawa period: a supply and demand analysis
of the situation in the domain of Tokushima
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The purpose of this paper is to propose a general framework to explain
what causes inter-class exchange of brides and adopted sons among daimyo
retainers. My contention is that it was the number of children born
to a particular class which controlled the degree to which they carried
out such exchanges. If a class had many children, this meant that most
of the retainers in the class had children of their own, and were therefore
in a position to supply brides or adopted sons to other classes. On
the other hand, if a class had few children its members were in the
opposite situation of having to 'demand' brides and adopted sons from
other classes.
The example of the domain
of Tokushima in the period from the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century
is used to support my contention. Its daimyo retainers constituted a
hierarchical society, which is divided into four classes for the purposes
of this paper, although the bottom class had to be omitted because of
a lack of data. First there was an examination of which classes supplied
or 'demanded' brides and adopted sons, to what extent and in conjunction
with which other classes. Then the results were considered with reference
to the number of children born to the three upper classes.
The highest class had a
comparatively large number of children and supplied more brides and
adopted sons than it 'demanded'. On the other hand, the second class
had few children and therefore 'demanded' rather than supplied. Its
'demand' for brides and adopted sons was satisfied by the highest class.
In spite of this, it exchanged a similar number of brides and adopted
sons with the third class. The reason for this was that when a retainer
family in the second class required a bride or an adopted son but could
not find one within the same class quickly enough, it was easier for
them to find candidates from the third class. The same reasoning would
seem to be applicable to the third class.
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Tadayoshi TANIGUCHI
The impact of indigenous industrial development on fuel consumption:
a demand and supply analysis of charcoal production in the Iruma district
of Saitama prefecture during the Meiji and Taisho eras (1868-1925)
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Japanese industrialization, with reference to the impact on the regional
supply of and demand for fuel. The paper focuses on the Iruma district,
and its major industries of sericulture, silk and tea.
During the Meiji and Taisho
eras, the three industries shared similar patterns of rapid growth;
however, there were differences in their fuel consumption patterns.
In sericulture, the change from cool to heated methods of breeding caused
a dramatic shift from very low to high charcoal consumption. In the
silk industry, fuel use changed from an indigenous- only to a dual-use
pattern. In the tea sector, along with innovations in machinery, firewood
and coal came into use at certain stages in the production process.
Although the technology
of the three industries developed in different ways, their overall consumption
of the indigenous fuel, charcoal, grew. This was due to the growth of
each industry per se, but also to the way the respective production
technology propagated in each sector. The increase in charcoal consumption
had an enormous impact on local supply and demand. In 1876, before growth
in the indigenous industries really took off, half the villages in Iruma
district were self-sufficient in charcoal; by 1912, the end of the Meiji
era, the district was dependent on imports from other parts of Saitama
prefecture.
Industrial growth led to
an increase in charcoal consumption and put increased pressure on forest
resource. There were two responses: one was an increase in imports from
other areas and the other was technological improvements in charcoal
production. Without such solutions, forest resources in Iruma would
have been exhausted. From the viewpoint of the economic history of the
environment, this paper therefore proves that economic development does
not necessarily lead to environmental destruction, and suggests an underlying
model for sustainable development.