Goseibai shikimoku 御成敗式目

  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 59 Or.59.d.15
  • Dates of Creation
      [1624-1644]
  • Language of Material
      Japanese
  • Physical Description
      1 volume Condition: Good. Slight worming, repaired on corners. Fol. 16 supplied in manuscript, in a matching script. Impression: Atozuri, from worn blocks, causing thickened strokes in an otherwise elegant script. Seals of ownership: Two oblong red seals on fol. 1a: seal of Sir Ernest Satow, and Hirosaki ikan Shibue-shi zōshoki 弘前醫官澁江氏蔵書記 (seal of Shibue Chūsai). Manuscript notes: None in text, but a signature 深見氏 in an early-Edo hand appears on fol. 48a.

Scope and Content

Author/compiler: A corporate compilation, traditionally attributed to Hōjō Yasutoki 北條泰時, 1183-1242. Imprint: N.p., n.d. [c. Kan'ei period, 1624-44] . See notes on Edition below. This is actually a re-cut edition of c. Kan'ei period, 1624-44. Spurious kanki on fol. 48 reads: 慶長十二丁未暦九月日. Description: 1 kan, 1 satsu, rebound in western style. ff. 48. 27.8 x 19.8 cm. Fukurotoji. Blockprint. Printing frame 23.2 x 18 cm. No borders, no vertical rules, nor fishtail design on hanshin. Kanbun text in gyōsho script, with printed kundoku, okurigana and kaeriten. 5 lines to page, 12-14 characters to line. Vermilion (original ?) front cover only, within western style half-leather binding. No title slip. Handwritten gedai (late Edo period) reads: 慶長板 / 御成敗式目. Title from naidai. Hashiragaki: Shikimoku 式目 + folio no. Edition: Despite the kanki quoted above, this is almost certainly from one of the many editions (dated and undated) issued during the Kan'ei period. Close examination of the last leaf (fol. 48), bearing the kanki, reveals that this leaf is printed in a lighter ink and a different hanshiki 版式 from the rest of the text. This points to the conclusion that this copy was printed from blocks cut in the Kan'ei period, based on the Keichō 12 (1607) prototype common to all early-Edo editions, but that a new block was cut for the final folio bearing both the spurious Keichō date and the last two lines of the batsubun by Ozuki Koreharu 小槻伊治 from the earlier edition of Kyōroku 2 (1529). Printed kanki at end of this 1529 batsubun (on fol. 48a) reads: 享禄己丑秋八月日 / 從四位下行左大史兼筭博士小槻宿祢伊治ケンサンハカセヲツキスク子コレハル. Contents: An early law code, established by the Kamakura bakufu in Jōei 1 (1232). The first codification and cornerstone of buke-hō 武家法, which remained dominant from the 13th to 19th centuries. Based on court cases heard by the bakufu.

Access Information

Not Public Record(s)

Unrestricted

Acquisition Information

Acquired from Ernest M. Satow, 13 June 1885.

Other Finding Aids

Kenneth Gardner, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700 (London and Tenri, 1993). C. Japanese works 和書 11. Law, government, administration and economics 法制・政治・行政・経済 a. Law 法制

Bibliography

Goseibai shikimoku kenkyū 御成敗式目研究, pp. 479-93; Kokatsujiban no kenkyū 古活字版の研究, p. 96.