Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 2002 29/3-4 Court Rank for Village Shrines The Yoshida House’s Interactions with Local Shrines during the Mid-Tokugawa Period

Hiromi M a e d a This paper seeks to understand the ways in which the Yoshida house entered the religious lives of common villagers. The Yoshida house usurped the imperial court’s prerogative to grant ranks and titles by devising affordable rank and title certificates for rural tutelary shrines. During the eighteenth century, approximately 2,000 shrines received such certificates. The certificates became especially popular from the early 1690s due to bakufu policies that attempted to define official religious institutions. Ordinary local shrines, most of which were excluded from official recogni tion, obtained the Yoshida’s certificate in an effort to enhance their legal standings. Another factor in the Yoshida’s success was that the certificates provided remedies for various problems faced by rural leaders. Most notably, the certificate removed local taboos, such as breeding certain colors of horses and planting certain kinds of vegetables. Lastly, the certificates were issued in exchange for a pledge by shrine functionaries—most of whom were Buddhist and Shugen priests—to remove Buddhist items from shrines and to present offerings to kami different from those offered to bud-dhas. The certificates enabled the Yoshida house to spread its “One-and-Only ” (Yuiitsu) Shinto doctrine among shrines controlled by Buddhist and Shugen priests. The certificates sewed as a channel for the Yoshida house to influence the identities and practices of local shrines, and thereby expanded the Yoshidaauthority over local shrines. Keywords—Yoshida house—court rank — so gen decree (so gen senji) — local shrines ネ I am especially indebted to Enomoto Naoki, who kindly shared with me the documents that he collected over the years. I would like to thank Hashimoto Masanobu, Hele