Introduction to the Tannowa Mojo

H-Japan Introduction to the Tannowa mojo

Discussion published by Thomas D. Conlan on Friday, April 10, 2020

(Apologies for cross posting)

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to share with you a new website which was created thanks to the joint efforts of Kyoto University and the East Asian Studies Department at Princeton. In order to deepen the knowledge and awareness of Japanese history and culture throughout the world, we have decided to disseminate digital images of the documents, which are owned by the Kyoto University Museum, as well as transcriptions of these documents and their English translations.

Please explore the following website.

http://komonjo.princeton.edu/tannowa

The Tannowa documents have never before been available in their entirety in Japan or elsewhere. These reveal much about local governance in central Japan during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

If you click on the image of each document, you can see its transcription and translation.

In all there are 53 documents translated, which can be found in five scrolls. Let me provide a brief overview of each scroll.

The first scroll contains many Kamakura era records, and shows the residual power of the Kujō , who were proprietors of the estate. The Kujō maintained influence over these lands through the fourteenth century. One can also trace the rise of the Tannowa, who were thekumon, who were responsible for writing records for the estate.

Scroll two contains ten documents, the majority of which were written by Kusunoki Masanori, the second son of the famous Kusunoki Masashige. Masanori fought for the Southern Court through 1373, but from 1374 through 1380 he fought for the Northern Court, before once again joining the Southern Court.

Masanori was apparently left-handed (see my explanation regarding the slant of his characters). For those of you who examine handwritten documents, I hope that you will pay attention to this as there are undoubtedly other examples of left-handed writers.

The third scroll contains a wonderful compilation of documents, with records from Ashikaga Takauji and Tadayoshi and other figures. The Tannowa fought in the battles of 1333-36, as well as the tumultuous Kannō Disturbance of the 1350s. The last documents in this scroll describe battles of 1460, the Ōnin War (1467) and a final campaign from 1517 where the Tannowa fought under the command of Hosokawa Takakuni on the Inland Sea.

Citation: Thomas D. Conlan. Introduction to the Tannowa mojo . H-Japan. 04-10-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/discussions/6105741/introduction-tannowa-mojo Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Japan

The fourth scroll contains a number of kuzen an, revealing promotions of the Tannowa on behalf of the Southern Court. For those interested in medieval paper, this type of paper is known as shukushi, and was made from recycled documents, which were dissolved in water. The ink from the previous records stained the paper grey. Shukushi was only used by Imperial chamberlains (kurōdo). Nevertheless, as the Southern Court’s fortunes waned, it lacked access to create shukushi and merely stained the documents with ink. Among the very latest documents issued by the Southern Court, even this was impossible, and they were not darkened with ink at all.

Scroll five contains an oath whereby the warriors of Izumi vouch for Tannowa documents which had been destroyed in the conflicts of the 1370s.

I should note too that you can also access this website from https://komonjo.princeton.edu/

If you check out the header, you will see a reference to the “Tannowa Collection”

I should add that for a good place to view my various websites, including the Mongol, Heiji, Onin and Komonjo, please go to my homepage https://scholar.princeton.edu/tconlan

The actual links are: http://commons.princeton.edu/onin/ https://komonjo.princeton.edu/ http://digital.princeton.edu/heijiscroll/ http://digital.princeton.edu/mongol-invasions/

I even have an early 2003 version of my Mongol Scrolls website up as well. http://digital.princeton.edu/mongol-scroll-original/

Finally, the Mongol and Heiji sites can also be accessed via Bowdoin College’s website http://learn.bowdoin.edu/heijiscroll/ http://learn.bowdoin.edu/asian-studies/mongol-invasions/

I hope that the Tannowa site provides some diversion during these difficult times.

Best wishes,

Thomas D. Conlan Professor of East Asian Studies & History

207 Jones Hall Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544-1008