Parishioners - Ujikoshu

…Initially, ujiko meant a child of a certain family, but in the documents of the priests of Ise Shrine in the 13th and 14th centuries, it was mixed with ujito and was occasionally seen, and then in local documents of the Kinai villages and shrine documents, ujito was used to mean a group of people worshiping the ujigami, and ujiko was used to mean someone who received the protection of the ujigami. From the end of the Middle Ages to the early modern period, the meaning of ujiko changed further, and the words ujitoshu and ujitoto, which meant a privileged group of people worshiping the ujigami, disappeared, and ujikoshu and ujikochu, which meant a local group of people worshiping the ujigami, appeared. In the Edo period, the idea that the ujigami was the ujigami (guardian deity of the land) became common, and there was a tendency for ujiko to be called ubuko (children born to the deity). However, in order to control the people's departure from the villages, the shogunate tried to fix the ujiko status to the shrine of one's birth by invoking this principle of ubuko (Thoughts on the Tokugawa Prohibition). …

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

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…〈氏子〉は当初，某家の子女の意味であったが，13～14世紀の伊勢神宮の神職文書に氏人と混用されて散見するようになり，やがて畿内郷村の地方文書や神社文書には，氏人を氏神祭祀団の意味に，氏子を氏神の加護を受ける者の意味に用いている。中世末期から近世初期にかけて氏子の意味はさらに転化し，特権的な祭祀団を意味した〈氏人衆〉〈氏人等〉の語が消えて，郷村社会にふさわしい地域的祭祀団を示す〈氏子衆〉〈氏子中〉が登場した。江戸時代には氏神を産土（うぶすな）神とする考え方が一般化し，氏子が産子（うぶこ）と呼ばれる傾向も出るが，民衆の離村移住を統制するため幕府はこの産子の原理を援用して出生地の神社に氏子身分を固定しようとした(《徳川禁令考》)。…

※「氏子衆」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