Party

A form of warrior group in the Middle Ages. Originally, a party meant a group or companions who did something together. For example, a group of horse-mounted thieves who ravaged the eastern provinces at the end of the 9th century was called a "Shuba no Tou (Party of Horses)." However, as warrior groups developed in the late Heian period, the term "party" came to refer to small and medium-sized clan-based warrior groups distributed in roughly the same area. The first mention of this term was in the 1113 (Eikyu 1) record of the Yokoyama Party in "Choshuuki" (the diary of Minamoto no Morotoki). Famous examples of party-like samurai groups include the so-called Musashi Seven Party, such as the Yokoyama, Nishi, Murayama, Noyo, Tan, Kodama, and Inomata in Musashi, as well as the Kii and Sei parties in Shimotsuke, the Yuasa and Sumida parties in Kii, and the Matsuura party in Hizen. These parties were mainly made up of clans descended from the same ancestors, but the head of the clan did not have a strong control, and each of the constituent families maintained a relatively equal relationship. There was also a tendency for the parties to move towards regional alliances by adding neighboring clans with common interests to the parties. The situation of the members of the Yuasa party in the mid-Kamakura period shows this. As a result, in cases like the Musashi clan and Matsuura clan, where the members of the clans spread across several counties and even expanded to neighboring provinces, unified action by the entire clan was rarely seen, and they were divided into small regional groups and acted separately. Thus, in the late Kamakura period and the Nanboku-cho period, many clans lost their substance as alliances, and instead, in the Nanboku-cho and Muromachi periods, local uprisings based on alliances arose.

[Makoto Ogawa]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中世における武士団の一形態。元来、党とは、ともに何事かを行う集団、仲間の意味で、たとえば9世紀末に東国を荒らし回った騎馬の盗賊団は「僦馬之党(しゅうばのとう)」とよばれたが、平安後期以来武士団が発達するにつれて、ほぼ一定の地域に分布する中小の同族的武士団を党というようになった。その初見は1113年（永久1）『長秋記(ちょうしゅうき)』（源師時(もろとき)の日記）にみえる横山党である。党的武士団としては、武蔵(むさし)の横山党、西(にし)党、村山党、野与(のいよ)党、丹(たん)党、児玉(こだま)党、猪俣(いのまた)党、あるいは私市(きさいち)党、綴(つづき)党などのいわゆる武蔵七党をはじめ、下野(しもつけ)の紀(き)・清(せい)両党、紀伊(きい)の湯浅(ゆあさ)党、隅田(すだ)党、肥前の松浦(まつら)党などが有名である。これらの党は、主として同じ祖先から出た諸氏からなるが、惣領(そうりょう)の統制力は確立せず、構成単位の各家々が比較的対等な関係を保っているのが特色であり、かつ利害を共通にする近隣の他氏をその党に加えて地域的連合に移行する傾向があった。鎌倉中期の湯浅党の構成員などの状況がそれを示している。したがって、武蔵の諸党や松浦党のように構成員の諸氏が数郡にまたがり、さらに隣国にまで発展したような場合、党全体の統一行動はほとんどみられなくなり、小地域ごとのグループに分かれて行動した。こうして鎌倉後期ないし南北朝期になると多くの党は連合体としての実質を失い、かわって南北朝・室町時代には盟約関係による国人一揆(いっき)がおこった。

［小川　信］

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