斬捨て御免 kirisute gomen Kirisute Gomen
This is a philological study of the Japanese legal term 斬捨て御免 (kirisute gomen), the Edo-era samurai's license to cut down an insolent commoner without punishment. It traces the institution from its 1742 codification to its abolition in 1871, and the word's afterlife: its earliest known print, in Fukuzawa Yukichi's own past tense two years after the privilege ended, and its swift turn into a byword for arbitrary power.
Abstract
斬捨て御免, kirisute gomen, names an Edo-period samurai privilege: a samurai who cut down a commoner for insolence went unpunished, provided the circumstances were clear and witnessed. The shogunate codified it in the 1742 Kujikata Osadamegaki; the reference works agree it was restrained in practice rather than freely exercised, and it was abolished by 1871. The word's earliest known print is Fukuzawa Yukichi's, in 1873, already speaking of the privilege in the past tense; within three years it is a figure for arbitrary official power, a commoner's life likened to tofu or a daikon. The institution lasted through the Edo period; the word as a figure for tyranny has outlived it by over a century and a half.
Overview
The sense. Two senses divide at 1871: before it, an institution — a status privilege, codified, limited, witnessed and restrained, which the reference works are at pains to say was not a license to kill at will [1][2]. After it, a word: every print known begins after the abolition, and within five years the term is a figure for arbitrary power.
The words. Two verbs and a pardon. 切る or 斬る is to cut; 斬 is the character reserved for cutting a person down. 捨てる is to throw away, to leave, so 切捨 is cut and leave, to cut someone down and walk on; Hepburn's dictionary of 1872 already has the verb, to cut and throw away, to kill and leave [3]. 御免 is pardon, license, the honorific of 免, as in 天下御免, licensed by the realm; it is also the everyday excuse me. The whole is a noun, the license itself. Four spellings share it: the dictionaries write 切捨御免 or 斬捨御免 with no okurigana, and later books 切り捨て御免 or 斬捨て御免 with okurigana on the second verb; they are one word. The institution's other name is 無礼討, bureiuchi, killing for insolence.
The text in English. There is no English for a legal license to kill for insolence; the term is usually left untranslated.
The historical record
1742. The Kujikata Osadamegaki, the shogunate's criminal code. The reference works describe its clause on killing and wounding: a samurai, even a foot soldier, who cut down a commoner for outrageous abuse or other unpardonable conduct bore no criminal liability, provided the circumstances were clear and witnessed [1][2]. In practice, the custom arose of cutting without finishing the man; it was restrained, and not freely exercised [1]. It broke down at the Namamugi incident of 1862 [4], survived into the provisional code of 1868, was left out of the 新律綱領 of 1870, and its abolition was confirmed in 1871 [1][5].
1873. Fukuzawa Yukichi, 『學問ノスヽメ』, part two. The earliest print of the word known, already in the past tense: under the old shogunate the gap between samurai and commoner was extreme; the samurai threw their weight about and handled farmers and townsmen like criminals beneath their eyes, and there was a law called kirisute gomen, under which a commoner's life was not his own but a thing on loan [6].
1874. The same book, part six, on the dignity of national law. In old Japan, when farmers or townsmen were insolent to a man of samurai rank there was a law called kirisute gomen, and this was the government publicly licensing private justice [7] — Fukuzawa's example of taking the law into one's own hands, set beside the vendetta of the forty-seven rōnin.
1874 to 1875. 小川為治, 『開化問答』, a dialogue on civilization. The dictionary's own first citation for the word: and the samurai had a law called kirisute gomen or the like [1].
1876. 中島勝義, ed., 『俗夢驚談』, a political polemic. The word as a figure for tyranny, within five years of abolition: they thought of us the people as cattle and sheep, let us take no part in government, and at the worst set up special privileges like kirisute gomen, so that an official thought cutting one of us down was like cutting tofu or a daikon [8].
1879. 内田勇吉, 『民権一班浪津社談』, a people's-rights tract. The only Meiji witness known that quotes the law itself, from memory: worse still was what they called kirisute gomen … the Tokugawa law-book says that even a man of foot-soldier rank who, for outrageous abuse or other unpardonable conduct on the part of townsmen or farmers, could not avoid cutting them down, shall on inquiry, if there is no doubt of it, be held blameless [9]. The wording tracks the reference works' summary of the 1742 clause.
1881. 渡辺修次郎, 『民情如何』. The statute of kirisute gomen as it was once practiced makes us shudder even to recall … a commoner's life was as light as … a daikon, and this barbarous law [10]. The daikon figure of 1876 is now stock.
The dictionary today. 日本大百科全書: the samurai's privilege was symbolized by the sword … but unlimited cutting-down was never allowed; there was an inquiry after the fact … in that sense the word is the symbolic expression of the samurai's privilege; 旺文社日本史事典 calls it an unwritten rule that lasted into the first Meiji years [1].
The word in English
1872. J. C. Hepburn, 和英語林集成, second edition. No entry for the compound; the verb is there: to cut and throw away, to kill and leave [3].
Today. The term is usually left untranslated, and that is right: there is no English for a legal license to kill for insolence. The gloss a rendering owes a reader is the institution's limits as the reference works give them, since the phrase on its own says only cut down, pardoned.
A reading
A legal term for licensed killing, narrower and stranger than its popular reputation: the institution the historians describe was codified, limited, witnessed and restrained, not a license to kill at will. Its second life began the year the first ended, and has been the word's real meaning ever since: power that cuts and is excused. Four spellings share the word, and nothing turns on which one a given print uses.
Sources not seen
Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice, Jonathan Cape, 1964: reported to put the expression in the villain's mouth, Have you ever heard the Japanese expression kirisute gomen?, answered by Bond's Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn. It is not held here. It would settle the word's earliest appearance in English fiction and the wording of the exchange.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
- 「切捨御免」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・改訂新版世界大百科事典・日本大百科全書・山川日本史小辞典・旺文社日本史事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/切捨御免-1159878
- 「斬捨御免」, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/斬捨御免-53661
- J. C. Hepburn, 和英語林集成, 2nd ed., 1872, scan 140. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689/1/140
- 「生麦事件」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/生麦事件-108461
- 「切捨御免」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/切捨御免
- 福澤諭吉, 『學問ノスヽメ』, 二編, in the 1880 collected edition, pp. 24–25, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/808242/1/17
- 福澤諭吉, 『學問ノスヽメ』, 六編, in the 1880 collected edition, pp. 96–97, scan 53. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/808242/1/53
- 中島勝義, ed., 『俗夢驚談』, 1876, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/783427/1/8
- 内田勇吉, 『民権一班浪津社談』, 1879, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/783708/1/29
- 渡辺修次郎, 『民情如何』, 1881, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/798688/1/29