Yoryūdo

Yoryūdo

The Yoryūdo (寄人 – Dependant People) is a role which can be applied both to scribes and laborers depending on the period.

In term of farmers and laborers it applies from the 10th to 13th Centuries for those who offered their services to estates that they did not belong to.

For scribes the terms is rather different. These scribes worked within the Imperial Ministeries from the Heian, through the Kamakura and into the Muromachi Periods.

During the Heian Period we know that they dealt with work in the Records Office (Kiroku Shōen Kenkeijo) dealing with estate management (Shōen), as well as in the Bureau of Poetry (waka-dokoro) on Poetic Anthologies.

By the Kamakura and Muromachi Periods they worked within the Board of Retainers (Samurai Dokoro), the Administrative Board (Mandokoro) and the Board of Inquiry (Monchūjo).¹

Bureau of Poetry – Waka-Dokoro

Several people are known to have been members of this bureau.

Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu was appointed in 951¹ with Priest Jakuren and Fujiwara no Masatsune appointed in 1201.²

Kujō Yoshitsune.²

Footnotes

1. Kodansha. (1993) ”Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia”. Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd.
2. MacMillan, P. (2018) ”One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each: A Treasury of Classical Japanese Verse”. St. Ives: Penguin Classics.

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