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                    10. DEVISE BY TAIRA TADANAO, 1203
                                        (SK, II.)
THIS document relative to a little Buddhist church that stood in Satsuma kori, near Iriki in, is
given here more for its intrinsic interest than for its relation to the main theme of this volume.
  Taira no Tadanao, the devisor, was the gun-zhi (magistrate of the kori), as his father Tadanaga
had been before him, and as his son Tadatomo (Satsuma Taro in the lists in No.8) would be after
him. According to the Ko zho-shu rai-yu ki, Tadanao had been, before the coming of Shimadzu
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Tadahisa, ji-to of Ei, Ibusuki, Chiran, and Kiire, all in the south, as well as of Satsuma kori; but
it may be inferred from the land report of 1197 that Tadanao was replaced as ji-to by Tadahisa,
on his arrival in Satsuma about 1196, in nearly all of these districts. Tadanao was then the gun-zhi
of Satsuma kori.
  Some time later Tadanao repaired the ruined old church and made it his family chapel; and
inasmuch as it was within the myo-den which he was holding as gun-zhi, he felt at liberty to
exempt the church land from the taxes which would otherwise be due him from it. It is even more
noteworthy-and there are more important examples of this character in this period-that the
church(tera) was treated in this devise in the same manner as would be a piece of real property or
a shiki derivable from it. Why could it not be so treated, when the church possessed land and drew
a revenue from it, and also received contributions of the faithful, and therefore represented an
income? From the material point of view, the za-su shiki (cf. n.1) of a tera was in reality parallel
to the myo-shu shiki of a myo-den or the gun-zhi shiki of a kori. A church as a whole could be,
and often was, passed on from hand to hand as a shiki. And when its founder or patron was, as
in the present example, a private layman, he or his successor was its collator, who would dispose of
it as he wished. The reader will be reminded of closely similar examples found in the cartularies of
medieval Europe. The subject is treated at length in Paul Thomas, Le droit de pro-priete des laiques
sur les eglises, 1906, and Emile Lesne, Hist. de la propriete ecclesiastique en France, I, 1910, pp.
131 ff. U. Stutz's works on the Eigenkirche are well known.

"THE gun-zhi of Satsuma kori, Taira no Tadanao, respectfully says
  That the za-su shiki1 of Hirare-ishi2 Dera3 is devised
    [To his] seventh son Kamedo-Maru.4
"The four limits:5

                   the east is bounded by balk of rice-land;
                   the south is bounded by the river;
                   the west is bounded by the western edge of Mt. Nishiyama;
                   the north is bounded by the valley Yutani.

"The aforesaid church, though it was an old church, was, at the time of the late Ason
Tadanaga, repaired [by him], and was endowed with land as the wherewithal to
perform Buddhist services intended to secure the prosperity of his descendants. There-
after Tadanao marked the four limits [of the land] and exempted it from taxation.6
Now, as his estate is being distributed amongst his children, this land is devised,
together with all the accompanying documents, to his seventh son Kamedo-Maru.
Since the said church bears no obligation to either the sho or the kuni,6 henceforth the
gun-zhi should not arbitrarily interfere with its affairs. If [any of Tadanao's succes-
sors] should act in contravention of this letter, an accusation should be made at the
shu-go's [office], presenting this document, and declaring that [the accused] should
not be considered as Tadanao's descendant. Thus is the devise made.
  "Ken-nin 3y. 5m. 27d. [7 July 1203].                Taira,7 (monogram).
                                              "Eldest son, Taira,8 (monogram)."




  1 The shiki of the head of the church. It might be intended perhaps that the devisee should take
the tonsure and become the actual chief priest of the church, and so pray for the blessings of the
family. This, however, need not be assumed, for the office of za-su might conceivably be a mere
title and income, instead of the post of a real presiding priest.
  2 The old church was situated near the residence of the gun-zhi, Some later documents relative
to the church are found in SK, according to which Tadanao's descendant, Tadahiro, reinvested the
church, in 1294, with the land referred to in this letter.
  3 Tera is the Japanese equivalent to the Sinico-Japanese zhi, a Buddhist church.
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  4 The boyhood name of Shichiro bo Tadakane.
  5 The customary way of defining boundaries.
  6 This was a private arrangement. We must suppose that the church was exempt toward the
gun-zhi, but the latter was obliged, as toward the kuni and the sho, to make good the deficiency in
the tax returns caused by this private exemption of a part of the land he controlled. Therefore, his
successor desired, in his letter to the shu-go, in 1236, that the church land be made publicly immune.
San-goku mei-sho dzu-ye, xi, 5-6. An interesting parallel to the European eleemosyna.
  7 Tadanao.
  8 This is the Tadatomo of Nos.8 and 9. The counter-signature of the heir, as in this instance,
occurs, but not regularly, in letters of devise.