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#51 51. LETTER OF COMPROMISE BY OSAKI NORIMICHI, 1303 (Terao docs.; also KK, [.) IT has been show above1 how strongly the historic family of Osaki had been established in Keto in and Togo, and how they disputed the powers of the Shibuya. Early members of the family had filled posts in the civil government of the kuni at Togo, where the Osaki continued, at least till the middle of the fourteenth century, to wield considerable influence, so that the region preserves to this day traditions which closely associate the name of the family with this ancient seat of the provincial government. When the civil posts once held by the Osaki had, in the early feudal ages, become mere shiki and come to mean but small shares of local dues connected with little or no official business, the family still clung to the shiki, and strove to preserve them in the midst of the stronger men into whose hands had fallen most of the superior rights of the place, and through whom only the nominal officials could hope to obtain their meager incomes. The following document exemplifies this state of affairs. The name of the other party to the compromise does not appear, but he probably was Terao Koreshige, with whom Osaki Norimichi thought it politic to compose his difference. "THOUGH [Norimichi] brought suit that [. . .]2 had, in violation of precedents, seized the sho-sei's3 income from Iriki in, it has been agreed by compromise that, as regards To-no-hara, [. . .]2 will annually render two toku five to [of rice]. [This agreement] shall henceforth [be valid] independently of the settlement [that may be made] of the other various mura [of the in]. This is the letter of compromise. "Ken-gen 2 y. 8 m. 10 d. [21 September 1303]. Osaki Norimichi, (monogram).
1See the last paragraphs of No. 8. 2The name of the other party understood, but unknown to us. 3Sho-sei means a secretary or clerk. It doubtless regers to the historic position of a clerk in the old kuni government, once known as shi-sei.