Foot soldiers' tenement house

In early modern castle towns, the residential areas of samurai and townspeople were clearly divided, but among samurai, the residential areas were determined by rank, with high-ranking vassals living near the castle and low-ranking samurai such as foot soldiers living in the outskirts. Low-ranking samurai lived in tenement houses, and the ashigaru tenement houses of the Echigo Shibata Domain that still exist today are closed-off buildings with few windows and thatched roofs. Each house is three bays wide and three bays deep, with two six-tatami rooms and a wooden-floored room, and is thought to have housed one family. It was common for at least several such tenement houses to be lined up, with low-ranking samurai living together in groups, or groups, which were the organization of their ranks.

*Some of the terminology used to refer to "Ashigaru Tenements" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…　近世の城下町では，武士と町人以下の居住地区がはっきりと区分されていたが，武士の中でも上級家臣は城の近く，足軽などの下級武士は周辺部というように，身分により居住区が定められていた。下級の武士は長屋に住んでおり，現存する越後新発田（しばた）藩の足軽長屋は茅葺きの窓の少ない閉鎖的な建物で，1戸分は間口3間，奥行3間で，6畳2部屋に板の間という部屋構成をとり，ここに一家族が住んでいたと考えられる。このような長屋が少なくとも数棟並び，下級の武士たちがその身分編成組織である〈組〉単位で，まとまって住んでいるのが一般的な形態であった。…

※「足軽長屋」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報