節禄について : 「諸節禄法」の成立と意義

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There has been a lot of research lately on the fiscal affairs under the Ritsuryo 律令 system. With respect to institutions concerning the salaries given to government officials, only the allocation of various taxes levied on commoner households (fuko 封戸), the ranked status allotments (iroku 位禄) and the seasonal allotments (kiroku 季禄) have thus far been covered. Concerning sechiroku 節禄, or those items allotted on the occasion of seasonal court banquets (sechie 節会) there has been no serious study made until now. In the Okurashiki 大蔵式 of the Engishiki 延喜式 ordinances dealing with fiscal affairs, there is a section which codifies various sechiroku allotments. Both the type and quantity of items to be bestowed at banquets are clearly determined according to the court rank of government officials. Sechiroku can be seen here not only as some special allotment, but possibly as an institutionalized salary payment. The present paper takes up the issues of when sechiroku was established as a salary for the officials under the Engi ordinances and its overall significance, by examining the six court chronicles of Japan and ceremonial handbooks. While the origins of sechiroku are not completely clear, it seems that in the late seventh century the bestowal of gifts at court banquets began to take on a political meaning. We do observe the bestowal of items by the Tenno at banquets throughout the Nara 奈良 period. As seen in the Miscellaneous Statutes (Zoryo 雑令), however, these gifts are indeed unscheduled and subject to the personal whims of the Tenno himself. On these occasions the main items were garments, especially the Tenno's quilts believed to embody his magical powers. This suggests, therefore, the Tenno bestowed these gifts for the purpose of solidifying personal political relations with various high officials and thereby gaining control over the bureaucracy in a non-Ritsuryo, superstitious manner. In the Konin and Kanmu courts (770-806) we do see an increase in and greater regularization of sechiroku bestowals ; but they still were not completely institutionalized. Throughout the Heizei court regime (806-809) many sechie banquets were either postponed or cancelled due to fiscal difficulties ; on the other hand, we also observe a sudden increase in unscheduled banquets, an indispensable part of which was the bestowal of gifts by the Tenno. We can surmise that these gifts became important in an economic sense to government officials who were facing hard times due to fiscal curtailments. During the Saga court regime (809-823) sechiroku allotments were institutionalized in the Dairishiki 内裏式 ordinances concerning the court events, thus taking on the same economic significance as the gifts in banquets during the Heizei court regime. While iroku and kiroku allotments came to be no longer paid to the officials as salaries at the central level in the mid ninth century, sechiroku continued to be paid regularly in the form of a salary. Therefore, sechiroku became more important as an official salary than either iroku or kiroku allotments. The establishment of the code for sechiroku, first of all, did away with the bestowal of garments which dominated the banquet gifts during the Nara period. Only at the sechie held on new year's day did the bestowal of the quilts remain as a symbolic ceremony, thus indicating a virtual end to the need for the Tenno's magical bond with the bureaucracy. Secondly, from the fact that salaries were now paid only to the participants in the sechie banquets, we can see that a new order of the bureaucracy called jijiju 次侍従 came to be economically established. Though sechiroku payments were discontinued in the mid tenth century, they were revived during the Sekkan 摂関 period. While their economic importance waned during the Insei 院政 period, the sechiroku institution survived into the Nanbokucho 南北朝 and Muromachi 室町 periods.
財団法人史学会の論文
1989-06-20

節禄について : 「諸節禄法」の成立と意義

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