--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reform edict of Taika initiated political changes that were to revolutionize the theory and structure of government and the institutions by which political authority impinged upon the land and its workers. Within 50 years of the Taika Edict, the uji-be system had been abolished. The sovereign became a true emperor at the head of a bureaucracy of officials. A capital district had been established, and the country was divided into provinces. Cultivated land became by theory the property of the emperor, who divided it equitably among cultivators and apportioned its fruits to the aristocracy in keeping with their services to the state. Taxes were systematically collected.
Along with these changes, which were derived mainly from Chinese models, the Taika reforms ushered in a fundamental modification of the social structure in Japan. The former uji elite of Yamato, by virtue of their superior social status, court rank, and economic privilege, and in secure political control of the country through the newly established central bureaucracy, maintained an opulent and sophisticated way of life high above the level of the common people who labored in the fields or produced manufactures for the state. This was the beginning of Japan's age of aristocracy (kuge) that was to last into the 12th century.
Nara Period
Promulgation of the Taiho Code in 702 is generally considered
to mark the final perfection of the imperial administration and
its legal institutions. The completion of a permanent capital
city, Heijo, in 710 gave material form to the new government.
For its day Heijo, later to be called Nara, was a remarkable achievement.
Planned as a small reproduction of the great T'ang capital of
Ch'ang-an, it was built as a rectangle, roughly 22/3 by 3 miles
(4 by 5 km), laid out with broad avenues and provided with palaces,
government offices, temples, and residences. It was a clear symbol
of the new power and wealth of the state and the symmetry of the
administrative and legal conceptions contained in the Taiho Code.
Administrative Structure. In Nara the former priest chief of the Sun Line put on imperial garb, styling himself "son of heaven" (Tenshi) or "heavenly sovereign" (Tenno). Under him the heads of the former uji served as aristocratic officials in the central and provincial bureaucracy. The central government had two divisions: the office of deities (jingikan) and the grand council of state (daijokan). The first was charged with the emperor's Shinto rituals and the second with civil administration. The civil bureaucracy was headed by three ministers of state (daijin) under whom the affairs of state were divided among eight ministries (sho): central secretariat (nakatsukasa), ceremonies and personnel (shikibu), aristocratic affairs (jibu), popular affairs (land, census, taxation; mimbu), war (hyobu), justice (gyobu), imperial treasury (okura), and imperial household (kunai). Local government was organized by province (kuni), of which there were eventually 66. These were administered by governors (kokushi) sent out from the capital, who occupied seats of provincial administration (kokufu), newly built as miniature replicas of the national capital.
Roads were pushed into the provinces to connect the capital with the kokufu. Provinces were divided into districts and these in turn into villages. Population and land registers were compiled, and a method of dividing rice land into regular squares and strips, the jori system, was enforced rigorously throughout the countryside. This became the basis of land allotments given to cultivators on whom taxes were imposed in the form of grain (so), textile produce (yo or cho), corvee (zoyo), and military service (heishiyaku). The aristocracy as officials received the income and labor service from assigned lands.
Nara as Cultural and Religious Center. Nara became a cultural center standing high above the rest of the country. Its palaces and temples, several of which remain to this day, displayed a grand style that, against the background of the surrounding pine-covered hills, made it "a city of cinnabar and green." The emperors who ruled from Nara lived in true imperial grandeur. The imperial storehouse, known as Shosoin, in which the personal effects of Emperor Shomu are preserved, contains the most exotic products of foreign trade and state artisanship in brocaded silk, gold, bronze, lacquer, mother of pearl, and glass.
Nara produced the first histories of Japan, the Kojiki and Nihonshiki, the latter an official attempt of the Japanese ruling family to compile a history comparable to the imperial chronicles of China. An anthology of poetry, the Manyoshu, containing over 4,000 poems, reveals the concerns and sentiments of the Nara aristocracy as they attended the sovereign or made the hazardous journey to China.
Nara became the center of the Buddhist establishment, whose patronage by the imperial house and the nobility gave it a status in some respect stronger, and at least more affluent, than that enjoyed by the native Shinto cult. Yet Buddhism never disestablished Shinto or the system of family and local shrines. Buddhism played its role in Nara as a universal religion and as a support to imperial statecraft. Nara contained 48 temples and served as headquarters of six state-sponsored sects.
The religion was patronized for its power to benefit the patron and protect the state. Political and religious interests thus intermingled in the erection of the great temple of Todai-ji. This temple served both as the "family temple" of the imperial house and as the foremost in a national network of provincial protective temples (kokubunji). In 752, Emperor Shomu dedicated the Great Buddha (Daibutsu) of Todai-ji, a fine bronze statue of Buddha Vairocana, 53 feet (16 meters) high. In his worship of Vairocana, the power of cosmic unity, the Emperor was clearly symbolizing his own position as the unifying force within the state.
Patronage of Buddhism by the imperial family and members of the Nara aristocracy eventually led to excesses. Temples acquired large holdings of tax-free land. Vast public sums were lavished on buildings and religious works of art. The casting of the Great Buddha was a major burden, and activities connected with it opened the way for the involvement of the priesthood in the affairs of state. The Empress Koken, having fallen under the spell of the priest Dokyo, appointed him grand minister in 764. His dramatic play for the throne in 770 was thwarted only by the timely death of the Empress. Dokyo was banished, but it was clear to all that the Buddhist priesthood had become a threat to the state.
Heian Period
Kammu, who came to the throne in 781, gave renewed vigor to imperial
government. To avoid the influence of the Buddhist temples, a
new and larger capital was built at Heian and occupied in 794.
There the court patronized two new sects, Tendai and Shingon,
as a balance against the Nara priesthood. Efforts were made to
reform the bureaucracy and to check corruption in provincial administration.
The conscript army, having proved ineffective, was replaced by
a militia system and used with great effect against the Emishi
on the northern frontier.
But the trend toward patrimonialism in government was not checked for long. The noble families gradually entrenched themselves in hereditary positions of wealth and political power, leading to the ultimate eclipse of the throne by the Fujiwara family. The family was descended from Nakatomi-no-Kamatari. In 858, Fujiwara-no-Yoshifusa became regent (sessho) to Emperor Seiwa, then a minor, thereby taking a post traditionally reserved to members of the imperial house. In 887, Mototsune became regent (kampaku) to an adult emperor.
Thereafter, until 1068, heads of the Fujiwara family, by their monopoly of the posts of sessho and kampaku and the privilege of supplying imperial consorts, exerted a powerful hold over the emperors. The Fujiwara administrative office (mandokoro) became the actual center of court politics. The high point of Fujiwara influence came during the ascendancy of Michinaga (9661027), who dominated the Heian court for 30 years. For all their power, however, the Fujiwara never usurped the throne, thus setting the pattern for the control of government from behind a figurehead emperor that thereafter was to become general practice in Japan.
Development of the Shoen System. By the 10th century the nobility had largely abandoned the machinery of the central administration that had been spelled out in the Taiho Code. Court society had restructured itself so that the social and political hierarchies coincided, as in the days before the Taika reform, bringing about a return to government by noble families now joined by powerful Buddhist temples. The most important institutional development underlying this privatization of government was the growth of the proprietary domain, or shoen, sometimes called manor or estate in English. Shoen appeared following the gradual relaxation of the principle of public domain. As early as 743 the need for state income had induced Emperor Shomu to exempt newly reclaimed land from inclusion in the public domain. Temples and high-ranking court families had been given perpetual tenure of certain lands and exemptions from certain taxes as well. The technique of allocation and reallocation of rice lands was never easy to enforce and gradually fell into disuse. These circumstances contributed to the formation of large clusters of tax-free holdings under the legal protection of great court families and central temples. After the 10th century the process was hastened by the practice of commendation whereby local cultivators and small landholders commended their land for protection to those with influence at court.
Ultimately, a fairly consistent pattern of shoen organization and administration came into being, taking over many of the functions of the imperial local government. A main proprietor (ryoshu), which could be a court family or temple, provided the legal titles of immunity. A class of managers (shokan) administered the lands by collecting dues, settling disputes, and providing protection. The actual workers of the land were peasant owners (myoshu) in possession of certain rights of tenure. As the shoen spread, the sources of public revenue diminished. But since the proprietorships paid dues to the court aristocracy, the change was not considered serious. An effort in 1069 by the imperial family to regulate shoen failed, and thereafter most of the remaining public domain was converted into imperial shoen or treated as shoen attached to offices such as the provincial governorships.
Literature in Heian. The period of Fujiwara dominance, when the great court families subsisted on the ample flow of goods and services from their country proprietorships, brought to a high point the aristocratic life of the Heian nobility. A gradual diminution of Chinese influence accompanied the end of direct contact with China after 838. Nativistic elements appeared in the new styles of architecture and painting, and particularly in literature. Perfection of a syllabary (kana), by which the Japanese language could easily be written, led to a flourishing literature. Notable examples are the Kokinshu (an imperial anthology of poetry compiled in 905), Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji, written between about 1002 and 1019 by Murasaki Shikibu), and Makura no Soshi (The Pillow Book, written by Sei Shonagon around 1002). The last two of these works were by women. Men usually confined themselves to the world of Chinese scholarship and semiofficial writing.
Eiga monogatari (Tale of Glory, about 1092) tells in more masculine style of the colorful rise of Fujiwara-no-Michinaga and of his ostentatious life. The Kokinshu is notable for its perfection of the poetic form known as waka, a short poem in 31 syllables, which became the main vehicle for Japanese poetic expression until the development of the haiku in the 17th century.
John W. Hall,
Yale University
Bibliography
Cortazzi, Hugh, The Japanese Achievement: A Short History of
Japan and Its Culture (St. Martin's 1990).
Fukuda, Naomi, ed., Japanese History (Univ. of Mich. Center for
Japanese Studies 1986).
Ganley, Albert C., Japan: A Short History (Wayside Pub. 1989).
Hall, John W., Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times (Dell 1986).
Morton, W. Scott, Japan: Its History and Culture (McGraw 1984).
Ponsonby-Fane, Richard A., Imperial Cities: The Capitals of Japan
from the Oldest Times Until 1229 (Greenwood Press 1979).
Rohlich, Thomas H., A Tale of Eleventh-Century Japan (Princeton
Univ. Press 1983).
31. Medieval History
By the 12th century the Heian aristocracy had begun to lose its monopoly of political power. Concurrently, a new class of provincial military aristocrats began to come into prominence and with them new institutions of political authority and land control that historians have identified as feudal.
Rise of the Military Aristocracy
During the previous centuries an elite military class, known as
bushi or samurai, gradually made its appearance in the provinces
as the failure of central agencies of enforcement and protection
encouraged the private bearing of arms. The practice was given
a start when, after abandonment of the conscript system, members
of provincial families of the district governor or shoen manager
class were recruited for military service. Increasingly, the provincial
aristocracy converted itself into an elite warrior class whose
members were trained in the use of sword and bow and who went
into battle on horseback encased in armor. During the 10th and
11th centuries the bushi served within the existing system of
authority as provincial officials or shoen managers, providing
guard service at the capital or helping to suppress local disturbances.
As the provincial warriors were called upon to engage in extensive military or police operations, however, there was a tendency for them to form into groups or bands around prominent leaders. Since, in the provinces, prestige came with the combination of military capacity and official status, the men who emerged as provincial leaders were apt to come from 4th and 5th generation branches of court families that had moved into the provinces in search of careers as local officials. Thus the names Fujiwara, Taira, and Minamoto predominated.
By the middle of the 11th century bushi families were serving both as keepers of peace in the provinces and as participants in the factional disputes that began to divide the court aristocracy. Fujiwara power had been weakened by dissensions within the family and by loss of control over the imperial house.
Emperor Gosanjo, who ascended the throne in 1068, was unhampered by Fujiwara connections and was able to take a personal hand in government. His successor, Shirakawa, having retired in 1086, set up an administrative headquarters of his own from which he controlled the affairs of state in the reigns of emperors Horikawa, Toba, and Sutoku.
From this point the office of retired emperors (in-no-cho) competed with Fujiwara influence at court. Tensions so created, complicated by the interference of the great temples of Enryaku-ji (north of Kyoto) and of Kofuku-ji of Nara, led ultimately to factional violence in the capital. Court interests, relying more and more upon their provincial retainers to handle local affairs and to staff their private guards, were coming to the point where they were in danger of losing effective control of affairs to their subordinates.
The Hogen and Heiji Wars
In 1156, and again in 1159, disputes in Kyoto were fought out
by bands of bushi guards attached to competing court interests.
When fighting stopped in 1160, Tairano-Kiyomori, having defeated
his Minamoto rivals, found himself without serious opposition
in the capital. He proceeded to move in upon the court, seizing
positions of power and prestige for himself and his family. Using
the technique developed by the Fujiwara, Kiyomori first had himself
appointed grand minister. By 1180 he was able to set his grandson,
a child of six, upon the throne. His real power, however, rested
on his numerous band of military followers and the force that
he maintained at his headquarters in the Rokuhara quarter of Kyoto.
The Taira takeover was short-lived, but it was a foretaste of what was to come. The provincial military aristocracy now had the capacity to assert their independence of the court. Unfortunately for Kiyomori, his desire to live the life of the courtier caused him to neglect his sources of bushi support. By 1180 remnants of the defeated Minamoto leadership had begun to rise in opposition. In 1185 the Taira were driven from the capital and defeated in battle by Minamoto armies under the direction of Yoritomo.
Yoritomo, one of the few members of the Minamoto main line to be spared after the defeat in 1160, had been exiled as a child to the Kanto district in west central Honshu. In 1180, when Emperor Goshirakawa, distressed by the Taira excesses, sent out a plea for help to the provinces, Yoritomo was one of several Minamoto leaders to take to the field. Local families came to his side, and by 1182 he had gained control of the Kanto and acquired de facto leadership of the Minamoto cause. While Yoshinaka and Yoshitsune completed the occupation of Kyoto and pursued the Taira to their final defeat, Yoritomo remained in the Kanto, building a base for his ultimate rise as national leader. By now he had acquired possession of large numbers of shoen and had gained recognition from the court as protector of the eastern provinces. But above all he had carefully consolidated his band of followers, exacting oaths of loyalty from them and repaying them with new lands or guarantees of protection for their old. Thus he brought into being the band of housemen (gokenin) whose authority structure is cited as the beginning of feudal government in Japan.
Kamakura Period
Yoritomo established his headquarters at Kamakura and, having
received from the emperor a delegation of certain police and military
powers, organized a system of military administration that ultimately
extended throughout the country. Looked to by the court as a strong
man able to bring peace to the land after years of turmoil, Yoritomo
was given powers to appoint military land stewards (jito) in the
provinces to superintend the public and private proprietorships
and to collect a military surtax. He also received the right to
set up military governors (shugo, sometimes called constables
in English) in some provinces. By making such appointments from
among his housemen, he was able to spread members of his band
to the far corners of the land. When he acquired the title of
sei-i-taishogun (the court's highest military post), in 1192,
he could claim supremacy over all military forces in the country.
Yoritomo thereby created the prototype for the "military
administration" of the country through the office of shogun.
But he himself was unable to assure his own succession. His death
in 1198 left two unworthy sons. In 1203 the family of Hojo Masako,
Yoritomo's widow, succeeded in establishing a regency over a titular
shogun through the office of shikken (regent). The Kamakura shogunate
was thereafter dominated by members of the Hojo family.
Relations Between Kyoto and Kamakura. It should be remembered that the Kamakura shogunate was neither a usurpation nor an instrument of full national government. The shogun's stewards and military governors were placed beside the existing institutions of imperial government and shoen administration to bolster their police and military powers. Yet because jito held jurisdiction over all types of land, Kamakura authority extended to some extent to all parts of the country. The shogunate in fact became a rival center of authority over land administration, counterbalancing the civil authority that was concentrated in Kyoto.
Thus, once peace was restored to the realm, the court families sought ways to curtail the powers of the shogunate. In 1221, court nobles under the leadership of the retired Emperor Gotoba raised an army to attack Kamakura. Their effort was put down easily by superior Kamakura forces. As a consequence many thousands of shoen proprietorships were confiscated, and the shogunate placed a deputy (tandai) at Rokuhara in Kyoto with powers to determine succession to the throne and the selection of principal court ministers. The balance of power moved significantly in the direction of the shogunate.
In Kamakura, Yoritomo had set up simple but practical organs of administration, and these were continued by the Hojo. An office of samurai affairs (samurai-dokoro) handled rewards and assignments among the shogun's vassals. The office of administration (mandokoro) had charge of general administration and civil policy. The office of inquiry (monchujo) served as a court of justice and settled legal disputes. By 1232, administrative duties had become sufficiently complex to necessitate the issuance of a code, the Joei-shikimoku, for the guidance of Kamakura housemen when serving in official capacities. This is often cited as the first codification of customary "feudal law" in Japan.
Kamikaze. The Hojo regency lasted for over a hundred years and gave Japan a period of reasonable stability and vigorous administration. The balance between civil and military authority was at first carefully maintained, and land disputes were impartially adjudicated. Toward the middle of the period a dramatic test of bushi strength was brought about by the massive amphibious attempts of the Mongol leader Kublai Khan to subdue Japan. Invasion efforts in 1274 and 1281 were beaten off, the latter by the timely arrival of a storm that the Japanese called kamikaze (divine wind). Japan had accounted for one of the few defeats suffered by the Mongols in their conquest of Asia.
The Bushi World View. In the bushi the Japanese found a type of elite leadership whose values and style of life contrasted sharply with those of the Heian courtier and of the literatus type that was admired on the continent. Central to the bushi's existence was the lord-vassal relationship, an essentially feudal bond between military superior and inferior. An aristocrat by birth, the bushi was nonetheless of low rank and displayed his provincial origins. His preoccupations were the sword and the land. By contrast to the genteel accomplishments of the kuge, he emphasized such qualities as honor, loyalty, fearlessness, and frugality. He cherished his sword as the symbol of his soul, and he adopted as his emblem the cherry blossom, whose petals fall easily just as the warrior gives up his life for his lord without regret. The bushi revived the practice of suicide by disembowelment (seppuku) as a means of honorable death.
Religious Revival. The Kamakura age witnessed a strong religious revival marked by the spread of new Buddhist sects with new popular appeal. The idea of gaining salvation through faith had attracted many believers to the worship of Amida Buddha and the practice of nembutsu (invoking the Buddha) since the end of the 10th century, when the monk Genshin had circulated his Ojoyoshu (Essentials of Salvation).
In 1175, Honen (11331212) founded the Jodo (Pure Land) sect, which laid its entire basis on faith in Amida and the repetition of the nembutsu. Shinran (11731262) went still further. His Shin (True) sect condemned the building of temples and urged the clergy to marry so as to bridge the gap between themselves and the people. Nichiren (12221282), in a sect named after him, militantly advocated complete reliance on the Lotus Sutra.
These sects, with their appeal to the common layman, gained the support of the samurai class and spread widely throughout the country. Meanwhile, two branches of Zen Buddhism had gained recognition outside the hostile authority of the Tendai and Shingon establishment. Eisai in 1191 founded the Rinzai sect under Kamakura patronage. His pupil Dogen founded the Soto sect in 1227. Ultimately, five official Zen monasteries (known as the Gozan) were established both in Kyoto and Kamakura. As the branch of Buddhism preferred by the Hojo regents (many of whom became lay priests), the Zen monastic order became the center of the arts and letters in a world increasingly dominated by the values of the warrior aristocracy.
Ashikaga Period
The Hojo capacity to maintain political supremacy noticeably weakened
after the turn into the 14th century. Defense against the Mongol
invasions had been a severe strain and had led to tensions among
the Kamakura housemen. The jito were often in economic difficulties,
and their loyalty was no longer reliable.
Sensing that an opportunity had come to revive imperial rule, Emperor Godaigo (Daigo II) plotted against the Hojo. Kamakura generals sent against Godaigo changed their allegiances. Ashikaga Takauji captured Kyoto for the Emperor, and Nitta Yoshisada destroyed the Hojo at Kamakura. Between 1334 and 1336, Godaigo attempted to reinstitute imperial institutions. But his so-called Kemmu Restoration quickly alienated his military supporters. Takauji drove Godaigo out of Kyoto in 1336 and set a new emperor, Komyo, on the throne to legitimize his position. In 1338 he acquired the title of shogun and thereby originated the second period of shogunal rule in Japan.
Ashikaga Government. The Ashikaga shogunate differed in fundamental ways from that of Kamakura. By placing his headquarters in Kyoto (eventually in the Muromachi district of the cityhence the alternate designation of "Muromachi" for the period), Takauji brought about a fusion of the two branches of the aristocracy, civil and military. In Kyoto the Ashikaga shoguns and their chief vassals lived in emulation of the old Heian aristocracy, absorbing their lands and acquiring their manners, though never displacing them.
But a more fundamental change affected the structure of bushi society. Jito who had made up the bulk of the shogun's housemen were now overshadowed by the great shugo houses, whose members served as leading figures in the provinces. The one-time national organization of housemen had broken into localized subgroups. The Ashikaga power structure thus took on the form of an alliance of shugo houses (there were 26 in the 1390's) which among themselves divided up military powers in the provinces. The imperial house and Fujiwara retained a few of their shoen, but income from these now passed through the hands of the shugo who had absorbed the powers of both civil and military governors in the provinces.
Because of the independence of the shugo, the Ashikaga shogunate had difficulty in maintaining a stable hegemony. Its period of greatest strength came during the lifetime of the third shogun, Yoshimitsu (13581408), when the wars that had continued after the Kemmu Restoration had ended and the ambitions of the great shugo families had been momentarily curbed. The high point in Yoshimitsu's life came after his retirement in 1394. Building a residential estate on the outskirts of Kyoto that contained a spacious deer park and the famous Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji), he lavishly entertained the emperor as though his equal, adopted the highest court ranks, and displayed himself in Chinese robes received from the emperor of Ming China.
The Onin War. By the time of the eighth shogun, Yoshimasa (in office 14431473), the Ashikaga house had lost the ability to control its vassal shugo. When in 1467 the shugo divided into two factions and drew up their armies within the city of Kyoto, Yoshimasa was powerless to interfere. The resulting Onin War lasted until 1477. It devastated Kyoto, weakened the major shugo houses, and destroyed the remaining influence of the Ashikaga shogunate. Yet Yoshimasa lived quietly as a lay priest in his estate on the outskirts of Kyoto, starting in 1474 to build the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) that was to be his cultural monument.
Economic Development and Trade with China. The Ashikaga period, despite its political turbulence, was a time of overall national growth. Economic development was revealed in the appearance of numerous local centers of commerce and manufacture, many of them associated with powerful shugo houses.
Regional lords improved their territories by encouraging river control and land reclamation. Demand for special products, both for use in warfare and in daily life, led to an increase in commercial farming and to the formation of production centers and market towns. Economic surpluses were traded, and traders found it expedient to organize into guilds (za). These sought the protection of temple officials or noble families against transit tariffs and other local imports. Coins for the first time became economically functional, though they had to be imported from China.
By the end of the 14th century Japan was becoming a maritime power of some significance. Japanese freebooters, called wako by the Koreans and Chinese, roamed the China seas. Urged by Zen monasteries of the Kyoto area, the Ashikaga shoguns began direct trade with China in 1342. Later the Ming emperors pressured the Ashikaga into controlling the wako and organizing an official "tally trade" with China. In 1402, Yoshimitsu accepted investiture as "king of Japan"and permitted Japan to be symbolically enlisted as tributary of the Ming.
Trade with China expanded to the profit of the Ashikaga house, several of the shugo houses, and the merchants of Sakai and Hakata (present-day Osaka and Fukuoka). Japanese ships went out with copper, sulfur, and great quantities of highly tempered swords; they returned with Chinese art objects and copper coins.
The Arts. Increased contact with China provided an important, though not the only, stimulus to a remarkable cultural flowering. Fusion of the two main bodies of the aristocratic class had brought to Kyoto the new energies and resources of the provincial military houses.
The Zen monasteries of Kyoto flourished and began to occupy an increasingly prominent cultural role. The artistic monuments of this period are found first in public architecture: monastic buildings and spacious gardens combining rocks, water, and shrubbery into aesthetically pleasing and religiously meaningful assemblages. The 15th century saw the Chinese-style landscape painting reach its height in Japan under men such as Sesshu (14201506).
No emerged as a unique form of drama developed by Kanami (13331384) and Seami (13631443) through the amalgamation of existing traditions of dance, mime, and religious chants. The ancillary arts of domestic architecture, tea ceremony, pottery, and flower arrangement received their prime impetus at this time. This Ashikaga cultural flowering proved to be a major turning point in Japan's aesthetic history. Domestication, and to some extent popularization, of artistic and literary pastimes that had previously been restricted to court circles, gave rise to a repertory of art forms that were to survive into modern times as the basis of the "Japanese aesthetic tradition."
Sengoku and the Rise of the Daimyo
A shogunal succession dispute in 1467 led to the outbreak of the
devastating Onin War. The next hundred years are sometimes referred
to as sengoku (the country at war). Warfare was endemic and disruptive.
But below the surface important institutional changes were in
the making. The Onin War marked the end of an effective Ashikaga
hegemony and the beginning of a fully decentralized phase of Japanese
feudalism.
The next century brought to an end the remaining elements of the imperial system and saw the disappearance of the regional military governors who, up to this time, had still relied to some extent on support from the shogun and the imperial court. In their place was to emerge a new type of local authority, the independent feudal leaders known as daimyo. Within the daimyo domains the shoen was replaced by the fief. Japan was now completely feudal.
The process of change was not abrupt or drastically revolutionary. Shogun and emperor remained in Kyoto. In the countryside the families that had served as shugo under the Ashikaga were gradually superseded by new and militarily more potent leaders. The daimyo domains were smaller than the province-size territories over which the shugo had held jurisdiction, but they were more compactly organized, and over them the daimyo increasingly exerted absolute authority. Ideally, daimyo strove to make all land theirs and all bushi their enfeoffed vassals. In their territories they erected large castles, the largest at the center of their domains for themselves and lesser ones for vassal castellans.
The warfare of the Sengoku period was concerned mainly with the consolidation of the daimyo domains and the struggle among the daimyo for land and regional influence.
By the turn into the 16th century a number of the daimyo, by virtue of the size of their own territories and by extension of regional alliances, had become paramount local powers. In addition, several Buddhist communities had acquired control of province-size holdings that they defended by force of arms.
Among the daimyo, the Hojo stood out in the Kanto, the Imagawa dominated east central Japan, the Ouchi (later Mori) held power in western Honshu, and the Otomo and Shimazu dominated Kyushu. These were the "princes" and "kings" encountered by the first European travelers who visited Japan after 1543 and whose accounts of Japan show that in many ways, particularly in matters of government and social organization, Japan seemed equal in most respects to the 16th century Europe from which they had come.
Introduction of Christianity. The arrival of Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries to Japan has been looked upon by Western historians as the beginning of a major era in Japanese history, the so-called "Christian century." The presence of Europeans in Japan and the spread of Christianity did indeed add a significant coloration to the hundred years after 1543, but not in a deterministic fashion.
The story of the Catholic mission in Japan is a remarkable chapter in the history of Christian missions. Xavier, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus, reached Japan in 1549. After two years of proselytizing he left the foundations for a Japanese church and in addition perhaps a thousand converts. By 1582 there were an estimated 150,000 converts, the work of 75 Jesuit fathers. Several daimyo, having adopted the new religion, commanded the people of their domains to follow their lead.
But it was difficult to disentangle the attractions of trade from religion. Along with the missionaries came Portuguese and, later, Spanish trading ships. And the daimyo of Kyushu vied with one another to lure European trade to their ports. Trade in Chinese silks, spices, gold, silver, and exotic European products such as velvet and clocks flourished at Kagoshima, Hirado, and after 1571, at Nagasaki. The Jesuit fathers, given a regular share of the Portuguese cargoes, ingratiated themselves with daimyo by their gifts and capitalized on their influence over the foreign traders.
Perhaps the most profound impact resulting from this early phase of contact with the West came from the introduction of Western musket and cannon. Within a few years after these firearms were first seen in Japan, Japanese artisans were manufacturing their own in large supply. By the 1570's warfare among the daimyo was being influenced by firepower, and the process of military consolidation, already under way, was thereby being hastened. Once Japan was politically united, Western missionaries were expelled from Japan and Christianity interdicted.
John W. Hall,
Yale University
Bibliography
Collcutt, Marlin, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution
in Medieval Japan (Harvard Univ. Press 1980).
Elison, George, and Smith, Bardwell L., , eds., Warlords, Artists
and Commoners: Japan in the 16th Century (Univ. of Hawaii Press
1981).
Hall, John C., tr., Japanese Feudal Law (1906; reprint, Greenwood
Press 1979).
Hall, John W., Government and Local Power in Japan (1966; reprint,
Princeton Univ. Press 1981).
Hall, John W., and others, eds., Japan Before Tokugawa: Political
Consolidation in Economic Growth, 15001650 (Princeton Univ. Press
1981).
Mass, Jeffrey P., Lordship and Inheritance in Early Medieval Japan:
A Study of the Kamakura Soryo System (Stanford Univ. Press 1989).
Yamamura, Kozo, ed., The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 3 (Cambridge
1990).
32. Early Modern History
By the 1560's the beginnings of a movement toward unification became noticeable among the daimyo. Ultimately, one of the larger of the regional hegemons was to acquire legitimacy by control of the emperor, and then go on to put down his military rivals.
|
|
|
|
|