"The urban history of medieval Japan and the function of law"

<p>　Urban history considers not only law and institutions, but also more various features such as culture and knowledge as "urbanity" and put emphasize on them today. But it has made a new question "What is the essence of urbanity?." In such circumstances of study, what is the significance of law and institutions of urban history ?<br>　About the study on Japanese medieval urban history until today, I enumerate 4 features. Firstly, Japanese medieval cities didn't have administrative division from rural area, territorial law, especially in capital Kyoto and developed area around Kyoto at that time. Secondly, "Urban-like area" study by Amino Yoshihiko have had a big impact on Japanese medieval urban history, but the study didn't cover capital Kyoto and developed area which had various stakeholders. Thirdly, the study on territorial town communities in medieval-and-pre-modern-ages and various networks in medieval era Kyoto also had an impact, but it didn't discussed about more big problems which communities and networks couldn't resolve and the authority's deal in such case. Fourthly, the study on political history has developed and emphasized the role as the political, legal, economic, cultural center of capital Kyoto, but it didn't linked with urban history. And we don't have enough studies about the relation between first half and the latter half of medieval era through 4 features of studies.<br>　Based on these fruits of urban history, we should study on dispute resolution and emergency management which various stakeholder, networks and communities couldn't deal with in cities. Such problems tend to occur because of the essence of urbanity and occur more often in big cities than local towns. And such problems link with the study of legal history.<br>　For the purpose, I suggest the multifaceted analysis of dispute resolution in Japanese medieval cities. Through analyzing the accessibility to trials and networks, the real function of law and precedents, the relation with territorial governance such as the debt remission law "Tokusei-rei" and traffic barrier, and the long-time change of them, I want to reveal the essence of urbanity. </p>