THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

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#15
15. OATH OF THE TOMO, 1247
(Iriki-in docs., also KK, I, and SK, III.)
THE Shibuya brothers and their families had arrived in Satsuma and just established themselves
in their respective domains (see No.13). The late Professor Y. Shigeno thought that they had not
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come thither, as did Nikaido Yukihisa to Ada two years later, with proper mandates of the sho-gun
investing them with ji-to shiki, but had simply come and assumed the shiki. (Sappan shi-dan shu,
140-142, 145.) "It was not that they first took [the places] with the permission of the feudal
government," said Shigeno, "but that, having once taken them, it apparently condoned the act"
(142). This seems to the present author to be improbable, or else Shibuya Jo-Shin could not have
asserted before the sho-gun's council, as he did three years later, that he was granted the shiki at
Iriki in 1247, the year of his arrival (see next No.).
Certain it is, however, that, no sooner did the first lord of Iriki take his quarters there than he
came in collision with local chiefs. Among the stronger warrior-residents whom he found here were
the Okura and the Tomo, mutually related by marriage.¹ The latter had been ben-zai shi of the in,
and were holding myo-shu shiki at the fertile To-no-hara within the in, while one of them was a
kuni official. The Tomo had, however, according to No.16, done a sort of homage to the former
jito-general Chiba, and taken back their hereditary myo-shu shiki at his hands as a fief held of
him; and then, for an offense, had forfeited it. When the new ji-to Shibuya Jo-Shin arrived in
the in, the Tomo thought it politic to write this oath, a form of negative fealty worthy of careful
study; for this act, the Tomo were again granted the myo of To-no-hara as a fief held of the new
lord. We may assume that the Tomo, by their homage to Chiba, had ceased to be the sho-gun's
immediate vassals, but become his rear-vassals, with the ji-to as their direct lord. This state was
made all the clearer by the present oath, as the myo-fief was now no longer a pure reprise, as it had
been under Chiba, but virtually a new investiture. The Tomo declined to admit this state of things,
and hence the dispute with Jo-Shin disclosed in No.16. Tomo Nobutada's failure to regard himself
as Jo-Shin's vassal may in part be attributed to the relatively weak element of feudal contract
which is indicated in this oath: the oath was probably accompanied by no other distinctive form of
expressing personal dependence and faith, such as was observed in the acts of homage and reception
in European feudalism; and the import of the oath seems to be purely negative, and to contain or
imply no promise of auxilium and concilium.
The document, owing to its use of the local dialect and its errors in writing, contains a portion
impossible to decipher, which is marked here thus,^a- ^-b.

"STATEMENT under oath.

"The origin² of this oath is as follows. As regards the ta and hata^a- which are set apart
as land for Lord Ji-to's own cultivation,³ in part of Kariokashi,^-b as forming a portion
of his income,⁴-if we should, during ten successive generations, speak ill and falsely,
or do wrong [concerning them] in matters public or private even of the smallest
detail, or act contrariwise to his Lordship's interest; or if, despite the fact that
[Nobutada] has by him been reinvested [with the myo-shu shiki at To-no-hara⁵], we
should sever ourselves from Lord Ji-to and bring our complaint to the higher powers,⁶
-then To-no-hara would be confiscated. If this statement were false, punishment by
the invisible powers of Great Bodhisattva⁷ Hachiman,⁸ the guardian deity of Japan,
especially of the great myo-zhin⁷ of Idzu,⁸ Hakone,⁸ and Mishima,⁸ and generally of
the deities of the more than sixty kuni [of the country], would be visited upon
Nobutoshi, Nobutada, and Nobusuke.
"Ho-ji 1y. 8m. 5d. [5 September 1247].
"Tomo Nobusuke, (monogram).
"Tomo Nobutada, (monogram).
"Dai sa-kwan,⁹ Tomo Nobutoshi, (monogram)."

¹ Cf. Nos.2, 4, 5, and 9.
² A formal way of beginning an oath, even when no "origin"(moto) was going to be stated.
³ If the reading ta- (or te-) tsukuri is correct, it probably means the lord's own demesne as
distinguished from tracts held and used by others under his superior right. For an example of the
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ji-to's demesne, see the sho-gun's orders of 1208 and 1278 found in Mibu kwan-mu mon-zho (Koku-
shi tai-kei, XII, 1380-1382).
⁴ Toku-bun, literally, profit; here the word refers to land which was attached to the office of
ji-to. See the orders referred to in n.3.
⁵ This reading of the clause is suggested by the next document.
⁶ Kami; here referring to the sho-gun's council at Kamakura or his deputies at Hakata or at
Rokuhara, Kyoto. See the next document.
⁷ These religious terms reveal the influence which Buddhism was exercising upon Shinto. All the
deities enumerated in the oath are of Shinto, but beliefs about them had been strongly tinged by
Buddhist ideas. The Bodhisattvas (Japanese, Bo-satsu) were superior beings in Buddhism next in
importance to the Buddhas. Myo-zhin was a Sinico-Japanese term of Buddhist signification
applied to Shinto deities.
⁸ These deities were specially revered by the sho-gun's house.
⁹ Dai sa-kwan was an office in the provincial government.
Nobutoshi was father of Nobutada and Nobusuke. See signatures at the end of the document
No.9.