日本中世前期的灾害及其应对

Japan's Disasters in Early Middle Ages and Its Responses to the Disasters

日本中世前期,以水灾为代表的各种灾害频繁发生,总体上具有季节性、地域性及群发性特点。由于该时期的灾害意识仍建立在宗教认识基础之上,因此"国家"层面的灾害应对措施以德政与祈祷为主。同时,随着庄园私有土地制度的普及,地方社会还出现了由土地收益者主导、农民自主应对的灾害应对模式。这种中央与地方相结合的多层次灾害应对体系一方面填补了国家传统救灾措施的缺失,另一方面也为地方自治社会的形成奠定了基础。但以庄园土地的支配权、收益权为灾害应对的先决条件,由利益引导的灾害应对模式显然无法有效保障灾后救助及时有效地进行。

In the early Middle Ages, floods, the most frequent among the various disasters, frequently occurred in Japan. The floods and other disasters always occurred consecutively in a certain season and region. Since people＇s awareness of disasters in this period was still based on their religious belief, the state-level responses to disasters were limited to the promotion of virtue in the administration of the governors and the governors＇ praying to divine power. In the meantime, with the development of private land system, local society began to develop a disaster response system that was characterized by peasants＇ initiatives and the leading role of land beneficiaries. The combination of the central and local multi- level disaster response systems on the one hand compensated the lack of nation- wide relief measures,and, on the other, paved the way for the formation of local self-governing society. However, this disaster relief system,which took the rights to use and benefit from land as its precondition, was definitely not effective enough to respond to disasters.