The Za

The character za meant a place to sit under a roof — a seat. It came to mean a privileged seat in a market, and then the association of tradespeople who occupied that seat. The medieval za paid dues to a honjo — a noble house, a temple or a shrine — and received in return the security of status and an exclusive right to trade. The oil za of Oyamazaki had the Iwashimizu Hachiman shrine as its honjo, its members holding the status of shrine servants of Rikyu Hachiman, and by the Muromachi period it controlled the sale of perilla oil from northern Kyushu to Mino. What guaranteed commercial privilege was not the state but the temples and shrines: in medieval Japan, monopoly came down from the side of the gods.