A Quantitative Analysis of Village Reports (mura meisaichō) in the Tokugawa Period : On the Case of the Villages in the Region, Now Part of Toyonaka City, Osaka

Feudal lords of Tokugawa Japan ordered the villages under rule to submit the village report, called mura meisaich?, in which such basic information on the village as population, the number of households, cultivated acreage, assessed harvest yield, staple goods, etc., was to be included. Therefore, mura meisaich? has been more commonly used as one of the most basic source materials for Tokugawa village study. Nevertheless, the quantitative information from mura meisaich? has not been necessarily utilized to the full in conventional approaches. This paper is an experimental study on mura meisaich?. Using the quantitative information obtained from 56 copies of mura meisaich? in the villages of the region now part of the Toyonaka city, Osaka, the writer tries to analyze the economic situation of the villages