Jinya

What a jinya was

A jinya was the seat of a lord who had no castle, whether a minor daimyo or a Hatamoto, or of a shogunal Daikan. It served as office and residence together, and it showed rank through its buildings rather than through moats and walls.

Those of hatamoto are rare. The Takigawa Residence in Aichi Prefecture, built in 1814 and moved in 1869, is described as the relocated administrative house of the hatamoto Shitara family: single-storey, pantiled where it was once Kayabuki, centred on two adjoining Zashiki with a Nando behind and a kitchen and Doma with a large hearth to the east. The entry calls it a rare survival.

As that description shows, the plan differs little from a farmhouse of the upper class. Reception rooms, store room, earthen floor and kitchen are the same elements; the difference lies in the rank of the rooms and the frontage of the gate.

Daikan had them too. The Tomita Residence Mokunansha in Aichi Prefecture, built in 1827, is described as the house of a physician who served as daikan at the local administrative house until the end of the shogunate.

How they survived as houses

With the end of feudal government in the Meiji Restoration these houses lost their function. Some, like the Takigawa house, were moved and went on being lived in, and those are the ones that appear in the records.

The sites of demolished ones are sometimes protected as a Historic Site, but standing buildings are few. Where a building survives it is recorded as a house, registered or designated, so a record of the building and a record of the site are different things.

On site, look for the marks of government within a farmhouse frame. A Nagayamon, Musha-mado or Shikidai indicates that a house once served as an office.