Renjaku Shonin - Renjaku Shonin

Renjaku is a name for a merchant who travels around selling goods by tying them to a backpack called a renjaku. Many people used this device for peddling, so it was also considered another name for a peddler. Renjaku is sometimes written as rensho or renshaku. It was originally the name of a small bird, and it is said that the name was derived from the fact that the bird has one long feather hanging from each wing, which looks similar to the renjaku backpack. Renjaku appears in the dictionaries "Kagakushu" and "Setsuyoshu" from the mid-Muromachi period, and there is a kyogen piece "Renjaku," and renjaku merchants were extremely active in the late Middle Ages. Renjaku merchants traveled around various markets to do business, but when warring lords began to manage their castles and castle towns as their bases, they set up regular markets near the main gates of their castles, where many renjaku merchants gathered. This is why you can see names like Renjaku-cho and Renjaku-koji in old castle towns all over the country. In these Renjaku-cho, there was a leader who was officially recognized by the feudal lord to police the Renjaku merchants. These leaders were called merchant governors, merchant heads, merchant bosses, etc., and were local lords who lived in Renjaku-cho. They carried out the market festival at the start of the market, set up market allocations, collected tax from merchants entering and leaving the market, and handled police duties within the market. These Renjaku merchant towns, which were common during the construction of castle towns, gradually diminished in function as product distribution developed in the early modern period, retail commerce became common in cities, and shopping districts were formed, and many of them eventually disappeared. Even in cases where the place names remain, the actual substance of the town has disappeared.

[Masuo Murai]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

連雀とよばれる背負い運搬具に商品荷物をくくり付け、行商して歩く商人の称。行商にこの器具を利用する者が多かったので、行商人の別称とされることもあった。連雀は連著、連尺などと書かれることもある。元来は小鳥の名であり、左右の翼に1本ずつ長い羽が垂れている形と、背負い具の連雀が似た感じであるところから生じた名称であろうという。室町時代中期の辞書『下学(かがく)集』や『節用集』にもみえ、狂言の曲目に『連尺』があり、中世後期には連雀商人の活躍はきわめて盛んであった。連雀商人は、各地の市(いち)を巡回して商売したが、戦国大名がその拠点とする城と城下町を経営するようになると、城下の大手付近に定期市(いち)を設定し、ここに連雀商人が多く集まるようになった。各地の古い城下町地名に連雀町、連雀小路などがみられるのはこのためである。これらの連雀町には、領主から公認されて連雀商人を取り締まる頭(かしら)がいた。このような頭は商人司(つかさ)、商人頭、商人の親方などとよばれたが、彼らはその地の土豪で、連雀町に住み、市の開始にあたっては市祭りを執行し、市場割りを行い、市場に出入りする商人から役銭を徴収したり、市場内の警察的業務を処理した。城下町建設期に多くみられたこのような連雀商人の町は、近世に入って商品流通が発達し、都市では店舗商業が一般化し商店街が形成されるとしだいにその機能を縮小し、やがて消滅した所が多い。また地名が残った場合でも、その実態はなくなった。

［村井益男］

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