Rulers, Peasants and the Use of the Written Word in Medieval Japan: Ategawa no shō 1004-1304 (Welten Ostasiens / Worlds of East Asia / Mondes de l'Extrême-Orient) - Hardcover

Fröhlich, Judith

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3039111949 ISBN 13: 9783039111947

Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2007

Synopsis

This book provides new insights into the creation and use of written texts in medieval Japan. Drawing upon lawsuits from Ategawa no shō in central Japan between the early eleventh and early fourteenth centuries, the author analyses the use of writing by various social groups – temple priests, warriors and peasants. Though these social groups had different levels of literacy and accordingly followed different communicative traditions, their use of writing had common features. In the semi-literate society of medieval Japan the dissemination and reception of written texts took place primarily through speaking and hearing. Documents of the medieval period therefore had a distinctly oral characteristic. Priests, warriors and peasants all alluded to motifs in their legal pleas that were in essence given by the oral world of tales, legends and gossip. By showing that literacy was not in conflict but interacted with orality, the author uncovers an important aspect of the use of the written word in medieval Japan.

About this title

About the Author

The Author: Judith Fröhlich was born in 1973. She studied History, Japanese and History of Art at Zurich University. In 1999 she graduated with a master thesis on the social and economic history of medieval Japan. In 2004 she completed her Ph.D. thesis on which this book is based. Her current research is about national identity and the perception of the West in nineteenth-century Japan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3039111949
• ISBN 13: 9783039111947
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 223