ABSTRACT
In late classical and medieval Japan—roughly the eleventh through sixteenth centuries—certain groups of people were marked off from the rest of society in a negative way. The nature of that differentiation has been the topic of much modern scholarly debate. Were such people completely ejected from the social structure or consigned to its margins, or did they simply occupy a different social system from the agrarian structure that dominated Japanese society? How do we characterize people who, on the one hand, were confined to certain occupations that others might consider degrading, but on the other hand monopolized the right to perform those occupations and through them might have prospered or obtained power? What factors were involved in creating outcast status, and how were these factors applied to individuals and groups? Is it possible to find a common thread connecting lepers, butchers, entertainers, and garden designers, all of whom at certain times were designated as outcasts? 1 And perhaps most importantly for historians, how did both the perceptions and the actual conditions of such persons and communities change over time?
