Women's Black-Seal Letters in Sixteenth-Century Japan

Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2013, vol. 8

Women’s Black-Seal Letters in Sixteenth-Century Japan Tomoko L . Kitagawa

n “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” Joan Kelly explored various ways Iof measuring the status of women in Renaissance Italy, concluding that the existing periodization in historical studies did not fit the history of women. Kelly’s work, though based on the European Renaissance, has been helpful in rethinking the history of early modern women outside Europe. While Kelly’s argument is based on the assumption that women’s historical experience was much different from men’s, epistolary practices in late sixteenth-century Japan indicate that men and women went through the same cultural transition in such a way that gender differences became minimal. In this essay, my focus will be on women’s epistolary practices during Japan’s unification era (ca. 1550–1603), which is considered to be the transition between medieval (1192–1603) and early modern Japan (1603–1868). By way of providing background I will first give an account of the scholarship on the epistolary practices of medieval Japan. I will then dis- cuss the changes in the rules of correspondence during the unification period and examine the document called black-seal letter, which exempli- fies how quickly women adopted these changes. Finally, I will suggest that the need for this gender-neutral writing arose during repeated wars, for women had to carry out traditionally male roles in the absence of men. This essay thereby calls attention to a brief period in which women in late medieval Japan experienced a “renaissance” with their male contemporaries,

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and suggests some reasons why women were integrated into a culture that until then had been separated by gender.

Letters in Late Sixteenth-Century Japan

A series of civil wars broke out in the mid-fifteenth-century, and the state of recurring wars lasted until three military leaders pacified Japan. It is important to note, however, that the unification of Japan was not accom- plished only through violence and military aggression. Epistolary exchanges had a pivotal role in making promises, issuing edicts, and finalizing agreements. Accordingly, the unifiers, the first two in particular, brought about changes in epistolary culture, and elite women, who had previously deployed a female writing style in their letters, soon adopted the newly emergent writing protocol.

1 . Epistolary Practices Prior to Unification Epistolary culture was widespread among the elite samurai class during the medieval period. Letters were written on three different types of paper: solid paper (tategami 竪紙), folded paper (origami 折紙), and cut paper (kirigami 切紙).1 On solid paper, the sentences were written from top to bottom and from right to left. On folded paper, sentences were written in two rows along the crease. Cut paper could be any paper that was smaller than the above two — often a fragmented note. In all three formats, the body of the text begins immediately without a salutation; the date and the sender’s name with signature or a seal follow; and the recipient is desig- nated at the end of the letter.2 (See Fig. 1). The choice of paper reflected the social status of the sender. According to Nirō Aida, solid paper was most frequently used by the highest authority (the shogunal house), and it was occasionally used by other elite samu-

1 On the earlier form of rules of correspondence, see Momose Kesao 百瀬今朝雄, Kōan shosatsurei no kenkyū 弘安書札礼の研究 (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 2000). 2 The date is not always recorded in every letter. Women’s Black-Seal Letters 319

Origami Sample 1 1 Content Starts Here 2 2 1

2 1 2

ird last line: Date Second last line: Sender’s Name (signature/seal) Last line: Attention Tategami Kirigami Figure 1 . Formatting of the Letters.3

rai such as the shogun’s deputies (kanrei 管領) and the governors (shugo 守護).3By contrast, lower-class samurai often wrote on folded paper.4 During the later medieval period, the rules of correspondence (shosatsurei 書札礼), acquired through the actual exchange of letters rather than from manuals, functioned as a shared code of writing. For example, one apparent rule required that at the end of the letters, senders should sign off either with hand-written signatures (kaō 花押) or with seals (in 印). In general, documents with signatures were considered to show greater respect for the recipients, because a hand-written signature was seen as evidence of a more deliberate production process for the document.5 As a result, documents with cursive signatures were more highly valued by the

3 Adriana Boscaro, 101 Letters of Hideyoshi: The Private Correspondence of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1975), xii-xiii. 4 Aida Nirō 相田二郎, Sengoku daimyō no inshō: Inpanjō no kenkyū 戦国大名の印章：印判状の研究 (Tokyo: Meicho shuppan, 1976), 37. These choices must have depended on the availability and price of paper as well. 5 Amino Yoshihiko 網野義彦 ed., Namae to keizu, kaō to inshō 名前と系図・花押と印章 (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1989). 320 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8 Tomoko L. Kitagawa

recipients.6 Since seals were easier to apply, they were often used on official documents.7

2 . The Epistolography of the Two Unifiers The first unifier of Japan, Oda Nobunaga (織田信長 1534–1582), sent out many letters as he seized political power in the late 1570s. His con- solidation of power and leadership in the mid 1570s was reflected in the changed manner of his writing. Originally from a middle-class samurai family, Nobunaga used both solid and folded paper when he first began writing letters.8 Even after he attained a much higher social status, he did not switch entirely to the high quality solid paper. In 1577, however, Nobunaga stopped writing his signature and began to stamp all of his letters.9 Nobunaga used his new seal, which included his political slogan, “spread militarism over the whole realm (tenka fubu 天下布武),” to convey his prominent status in the hierarchical structure; as a result, his stamped letters were highly respected by their recipients.10 The second unifier, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉 1536/7–1598), left behind more than 4,000 letters written after Nobunaga’s death.11

6 Atsuko Suzuki has pointed out that stamped letters could also be used among those in close or regular contact. See Suzuki Atsuko 鈴木敦子, “Hizen koku ni okeru sengoku ki no inshō shiyō 肥前国における戦国期の印章使用,” in Sengokuki inshō inpanjō no kenkyū 戦国期印章印判状の研究, ed. Arimitsu Yūgaku 有光友學 (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 2006), 319. 7 The use of seals began in the late fifteenth century. Ishimoda Shō 石母田正 has argued that their increased use was due to the standardization of the writing style of official documents in which the seal became a necessary part of the production process. The stamped documents effectively minimized the personalities of the senders and, as a result, legitimized the documents. Discussed in Murai Shōsuke 村井章介, “Shohyō: Sengokuki inshō inpanjō no kenkyū 書評：戦国期印章印判状の研究” Rekishigaku kenkyū 歴史学研究, 830 (2007): 47–48. See also Suzuki, “Hizen koku,” 322. 8 Aida, Sengoku daimyō, 38. 9 Yamamuro Kyoko 山室恭子, Chūsei no naka ni umareta kinsei 中世の中に生まれた近世 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1991), 249, 291. 10 Yamamuro, Chūsei, 249; Aida, Sengoku daimyō, 41. 11 Yamamuro, Chūsei, 280. Women’s Black-Seal Letters 321

Unlike Nobunaga, Hideyoshi continued to sign his private correspondence and documents relating to landholding, though he stamped his public directives.12 The fact that Hideyoshi separated the signed and stamped letters serves as evidence of his awareness of the rules of correspondence and of the two separate epistolary identities. During these two unifiers’ lifetimes, the rules of correspondence grad- ually changed; the use of seals in particular became an important feature to express social dignity, a use that eventually spread to the unifiers’ contemporaries, especially those in the elite samurai class. During Hideyoshi’s reign, this practice became common among the elite samurai, and gradu- ally, as Hideyoshi stamped his seal in red ink, the other elite samurai began stamping theirs in black, reserving red for Hideyoshi.

3 . Women’s Epistolary Practices Prior to unification, women who wrote letters were mostly female servants (nyōbō 女房), assisting either in the imperial court or shogunal house. Since these women often played the role of informing the public of the emperor’s or shogun’s will,13 female attendants composed memoranda in a unique language called “the language of court women” (nyōbō kotoba 女房言葉), and written in Japanese characters (hiragana 平仮名), rather than in the Sino- Japanese words and phrasing (kango 漢語) used by men in their writing.14 During unification, when the emperors were disempowered, writing by court women decreased, while the letters written by women around

12 Yamamuro, Chūsei, 291. 13 Wakita Haruko 脇田晴子, “Muromachi sengokuki no machi to mura 室町戦国期の町と村,” in Nihon joseishi 日本女性史, ed. Wakita Haruko, Hayashi Reiko 林玲子, and Nagahara Kazuko 永原和子 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1987), 90. Both the courts and bakufu employed women called nyōbō. Their writings were called the female servants’ memos (nyōbō hōsho 女房奉書). In contrast to those of male servants (hōkōnin hōsho 奉公人奉書), the female servants’ memos conveyed the wills of emperors more informally. 14 Akiko Jugaku, “Nyōbō kotoba,” in vol. 2 of Gender and Japanese History, ed. Haruko Wakita, Anne Bouchy, and Chizuko Ueno (Osaka: Osaka University Press, 1999), 136–37. The language has also been found in court diaries titled Oyudono no ue no nikki お湯殿の上の日記. 322 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8 Tomoko L. Kitagawa

Nobunaga and Hideyoshi increased, some of which are still extant.15 The most notable feature of their letters is that they had been written at the discretion of the women around the unifiers. No longer in the style of servants’ memos, each letter instead expressed an authorial purpose. In addition, most of the women’s writings followed the standard rule of correspondence set by Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. The women used folded paper with either a signature or a seal. Since the letters’ physical features, especially their size, displayed their authoritative power, women of the elite samurai households wrote on larger sheets than their lower-ranked male contemporaries. While the earlier female servants’ memos had used gendered language, letters written by the women of the elite samurai households did not follow the tradition of using female language.16 The sentences ended with the auxiliary honorific verbs –sōrō（候) and a small note called a side- note (wakizuke 脇付け) was placed beside the recipient’s name as a sign of respect.17 This type of women’s writing emerged during the late sixteenth- century culture of war and negotiation. Unlike the court women’s letters, which expressed the emperors’ wills, the women of the elite samurai class formatted their letters in the same way as their male contemporaries because they needed to communicate their own wishes and to send the letters at their own discretion. These women participated in the cultural and epistolary activities of their male contemporaries as independent individu- als, using their own black-seals to authenticate their letters.

15 Compilations of such letters can be found in various collections in Japan’s Historical Records (Dainihon shiryō 大日本史料); the most coherent group of women’s writing samples so far is in the exhibition collections, Osaka Castle Museum, Women in the Warring States (Osaka: Osaka Castle Museum, 1999). Nobunaga’s consort left black- seal letters, and Hideyoshi’s wives, consorts, and their female attendants exchanged letters with their male and female contemporaries. 16 The sentences were almost always written in hiragana or in an elegant anomalous kana (hentai gana 変体仮名). 17 These consisted of phrases such as “sincerely (mairu まいる)” and “please convey [this letter to your master (mōshitamae 申給へ)].” The equivalents in men’s writings are “sincerely (mairase sōrō 参候)” and “in reply (gohenpō 御返報).” Aida Nirō, Nihon no komonjō, jō 日本の古文書・上 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1962), 606. Women’s Black-Seal Letters 323

Women’s Black-Seal Letters

Toyotomi Hideyoshi housed his first wife, consorts, and their attendants in his residences, from where they kept in contact with him by letters, when he and his men were engaged in military expeditions. Their letters recorded the conditions of the castle town and asked to be informed of the progress of military conquests in return.18 However, these women also sent out letters to those who were not related to their house in a more formal manner, using seals and following the rules of correspondence. For example, this letter drafted by Kusu (くす), a female attendant of one of Hideyoshi’s consorts, was sent to a temple master:

This rice was prepared by Mrs. Sōshin especially for you so that you can distribute it at your discretion. Please make the best use of it for the benefit of your temple. If there are people opposed to your idea, please mention the fact that I directed you to man- age the rice. Please remind them [that I asked you to do so]. For this purpose, I wrote it [this letter] on the folded paper.

Sincerely, At the temple near by Kusu on behalf of Mrs. Kyōgoku The first day of the eighth month, Tenshō 20 (1592) (black-seal) To [the abbot of ] Ryūtaku temple (See Fig. 14.2)

This letter accompanied the rice that was sent by either Mrs. Sōshin (宗心) or Mrs. Kyōgoku (京極). It directed the master of this temple concerning the distribution of the rice, which was equivalent to currency during this time. The sender specifically asked the temple master to be responsible for it, and the letter seems to serve as proof of her will and order.

18 See Tomoko Kitagawa, “An Independent Wife during the Warring States: The Life of Kitanomandokoro Nei (1548–1624) in Letters,” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2009). 324 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8 Tomoko L. Kitagawa

Figure 2 . Kusu’s black-seal letter (46.0 cm x 64.1 cm) 19

From19the direction of the writing, and from the crease in the center, we can confirm that this letter was written on folded paper. The concluding remark is casual and short, a simple, “sincerely (kashiku かしく).” The recipient and the writer’s names are written clearly at the end. There is no suffix added to the recipient’s name because the letter was addressed to the temple rather than to a person. However, we can see the sender’s social ascendancy from the imperative tone of language used to instruct the temple master. The letter’s format, etiquette, and language usage are the same as what Hideyoshi had established and advanced among his contemporaries. The fact that a woman could make use of these epistolary protocols indicates that women were aware of the changes in the epistolary culture of their time and that they followed the new rules of correspondence. There are three women involved in this epistolary exchange: Mrs. Sōshin, who prepared the rice, Kusu, who drafted the letter, and Mrs. Kyōgoku, the mistress whom Kusu served.20 Although little information

19 This document titled “Kusu’s black-seal letter (Kusu kokuinjō くす黒印状)” or “Black-seal letter issued by Kusu (Kusu hakkyū kokuinjō くす発給黒印状)” is stored in the temple Ryūtakuji (龍澤寺) in Fukui prefecture (福井県). The photograph is from Osaka Castle Museum, Women in the Warring States, 45. For more information, see Kitagawa Hiroshi 北川央 and Atobe Shin 跡部信, “Toyotomi jidai shiryō, shiseki chōsa gaihō 豊臣時代史料史跡調査概報” in Osaka tenshukaku kiyō 大阪天守閣紀要 28 (2000): 32–33. 20 On discovering this letter in the Edo period in 1790, the monk Taian carved small statues of Hideyoshi and Kusu to honor their donations and protection of the Women’s Black-Seal Letters 325

about Mrs. Sōshin has been found in other historical records, we know that Mrs. Kyōgoku was born into a powerful warrior clan of the region and that she was a consort of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Her servant Kusu wrote this letter on her behalf, and the seal was placed to show her approval.21 Here, we see that the letters were not only drafted, written, and sent by the women but also that they were stamped to legitimize the women’s orders. Above all, what is notable here is how extended the usage of seals was among female authors; the women had their own seals like the male samurai.22 As in the case of Hideyoshi’s letters, these women also stamped letters concerning official business.23 In short, the women’s letters took the same format as the men’s, for by following the rules of correspondence regarding the seals, women in the elite samurai households could give orders in an official manner. This gender-neutral writing was practiced among the women of Toyotomi after Toyotomi Hideyoshi consolidated his political authority. An important historical fact in this study is that the usage of seals, which the unifiers standardized, enabled women to possess a stronger epistolary

temple. The letter was then read as if Kusu had donated the rice in order to relieve the temple’s financial difficulties. Consequently, the regional historical records, Gazette of Mikata (Mikata gunshi 三方郡史), which were compiled much later than the creation of Kusu’s statues, also note that Kusu “reconstructed this temple.” When Hiroshi Kitagawa and Shin Atobe discovered this historical record, they found it hard to believe that the women who served Hideyoshi’s consort could have been involved in such a reconstruction in so remote a place. Kitagawa and Atobe, “Toyotomi jidai,” 32–33. 21 Kusu was an attendant of Hideyoshi’s consort. The black-seal was actually stamped on the date, not on Kusu’s name, indicating that the stamp was not hers; if the seal had been Kusu’s then it would most probably have been stamped on her name. Therefore, this letter, which has been previously referred to as the black-seal letter by Kusu, was probably not issued by Kusu. It is highly likely that one of her mistresses, either Mrs. Kyōgoku or Sōshin, approved the letter Kusu drafted and stamped it before it was sent out. 22 Nabe (なべ), the consort of Nobunaga, Nei (寧), the wife of Hideyoshi, Matsu (まつ), the wife of Maeda Toshiie (前田利家), and Chaa (茶阿), the consort of Tokugawa Ieyasu – all participated in epistolary exchange. See Osaka Castle Museum, Women in the Warring States. 23 By contrast, they wrote their signatures at the end of personal correspondence to distinguish it from official letters. 326 EMWJ 2013, vol. 8 Tomoko L. Kitagawa

identity by de-emphasizing the gender of letter writers. Other examples of black-seal letters sent by women of the elite samurai class also confirm their participation in letter exchanges with men; by stamping their black- seals, women made their wills known and left records of their social relations with their male contemporaries.24

Historical Significance of the Gender-Neutral Writing Protocol

Japan’s unification period witnessed a great change in epistolary practices. With the reconfiguration of the social order, the standardized practice of stamping official letters with seals spread as Hideyoshi, the second unifier, distinguished public business letters from personal correspondence by using his seal. The women around him also followed his writing style and practice of stamping seals; most, if not all, examples of women’s letters with seals deal with official business. This practice enabled the emergence of gender-neutral epistolary identities by means of which wives, consorts, and attendants of the elite samurai class could confirm their assertive directives addressed to men. The rise of a gender-neutral writing protocol was due to the sharing of household business between men and women during repeated wars. The wives, consorts, and attendants of elite samurai exchanged numerous letters, taking care of the business usually carried out by men in peacetime. The black-seal letters of elite samurai women thus reveal the ascendancy of women during the unification era. Nonetheless, this same protocol, which had been adapted by the elite samurai class, ceased shortly after the third and last unifier, Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康 1543–1616), established a new capital in Edo; the standardized writing manner was reconfigured by the new Tokugawa shogu- nate after 1603. Thus, the epistolography and the rule of correspondence that Hideyoshi had established did not pass on to the next generation.

24 The most significant examples are the black seal letters sent by Kitanomandokoro Nei (北政所寧). The originals can be found in Osaka Castle Museum, Women in the Warring States, 21. Women’s Black-Seal Letters 327

Accordingly, epistolary culture came again to be separated by gender in early modern Japan. The highly gendered nature of women’s writings during most of medieval and early modern Japan parallels the gender stratification during the European Renaissance that Kelly observed. I have shown in this essay, however, that during a brief historical moment of repeated wars when both sexes were compelled to collaborate, notable changes in writing culture that largely effaced gender differences enabled men and women to exchange letters to communicate both private and official information. There are likely other examples that may encourage us to rethink our understanding of gender relations; like the black-seal letter, there may have been other ways that served to break down gender barriers inherent in previous practices.