In this period, local lords and local clans considered it indispensable to acquire skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic for the management of their territories. A growing number of land deeds were written by peasants, which means that literacy was widespread even among the commoner class. The italian Jesuit, Alessandro Valignano ( 1539–1606 ) , wrote that:"The people are white (not dark-skinned) and cultured ; even the common folk and peasants are well brought up and are so remarkably polite that they give the impression that they were trained at court . In this respect they are superior to other Eastern peoples but also to Europeans as well . They are very capable and intelligent , and the children are quick to grasp our lessons and instructions . They learn to read and write our language far more quickly and easily than children in Europe . The lower classes in Japan are not so coarse and ignorant as those in Europe ; on the contrary , they are generally intelligent , well brought up and quick to learn"."Teikin Orai" (Home Education Text Book), "Joe-shikimoku" (legal code of the Kamakura shogunate), and "Jitsugokyo" (a text for primary education) were widely used in shrines and temples as textbooks for the education of children of the warrior class. It was in the Sengoku Period that the following books were published: "Setsuyoshu" (a Japanese-language dictionary in iroha order) written by Soji MANJUYA, and "Ishotaizen" (The Complete Book of Medicine), a medical book in Ming's language, translated by Asai no Sozui, who was a merchant in Sakai City and a physician.