ABSTRACT
Recent researchers have pointed to the strong effects of an increasingly dynamic circulating economy on early Heian-kyō during the ninth and tenth centuries—engaging both elites and lower rankers, it weakened the ritsuryo command economy based on taxes in kind. Research on governance and labor organization in early Heian-kyō by Kitamura Masaki and Kushiki Yoshinori has shown too how new challenges altered both court administration and social organization. Toda Yoshimi and Hotate Michihisa have characterized tenth- and eleventh-century Heian-kyō as a "court-centered city". A good sense of this twelfth-century Heian-kyō, which archaeologist Yamada Kunikazu has dubbed "a galactic capital" because of its satellite suburbs, is afforded by the sizable model created for exhibit in 1994, on the occasion of the 1200th anniversary of the royal capital. Yamanaka Akira's five-stage model of urban development in Japan's royal centers provides the context and trajectories that are the focus of current research on Heian-period Kyoto.
