Court and Bakufu in Japan


Book Description

The Kamakura period, 1180-1333, is known as the era of Japan's first warrior government. As the essays in this book show, however, the period was notable for the coexistence of two centers of authority, the Bakufu military government at Kamakura and the civilian court in Kyoto, with the newer warrior government gradually gaining ascendancy.




The Bakufu in Japanese History


Book Description

This volume analyzes the recurring form of warrior government known as the Bakufu (or shogunate) that ruled Japan for nearly 700 years. All the essays in this collection clarify aspects of Japanese political tradition that have been neglected by Western writers, and point out alternatives to already stated views.




The Kamakura Bakufu


Book Description

"The essential guide for anyone undertaking the study of medieval Japan."—From the Foreword by Takeuchi Rizo. This pioneering guide to the content and use of documents in the study of medieval Japan has two parts. Part I consists of translations, arranged by topic with annotation and running commentary, of 177 edicts and land records from the time of Japan's Kamakura shogunate (1180-1333). The documents illustrate the patterns of authority, bureaucracy, and justice that emerged under Japan's first warrior government, with emphasis on the appointment of local officials and the curbing of local ambitions. The translations are offered for the historical record and as a demonstration of how medieval sources can be used by historians. Part II is an annotated and geographically classified Bibliography of nearly 600 books and articles in Japanese that present the texts of official documents (komonjo) issued from earliest times to 1600. No comparable bibliography exists even in Japanese. The work includes explanatory introductions, a glossary of terms and phrases used in the documents, alphabetical and chronological indexes of the documents and sources, and photographs of representative original documents, with comments on format and style.




Yoritomo and the Founding of the First Bakufu


Book Description

This book is a much expanded and wholly rewritten treatment of the subject of the author's first book, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan, published in 1974. In this new version, the "warrior" and "medieval" character of Japan's first shogunate is significantly de-emphasized, thus requiring not only a new title, but also a new book. The author's new view of the final decades of twelfth-century Japan is one of a less revolutionary set of experiences and a smaller achievement overall than previously thought. The pivotal figure, Minamoto Yoritomo, retains his dominant role in establishing the "dual polity" of Court and Bakufu, but his successes are now explained in terms of more limited objectives. A new regime was fit into an environment that was still basically healthy and vibrant, leading not to the substitution of one government for another, but rather to the emergence of a new authority that would have to interact with the old. The book aims to present a dual perspective on the period by juxtaposing what we know against our best possible estimate of what Yoritomo himself knew. It is deeply concerned with the multiple balancing acts introduced by this ever nimble experimenter in governing, who was forever seeking to determine, and then to promote, what would work while curtailing or eliminating what would not. The author seeks to recreate step-by-step the movement from one historical juncture to another, whether this means adapting already available information, building anew, or working with combinations of materials. Throughout, the book addresses new topics and offers many new interpretations on subjects as wide-ranging as the 1189 military campaign in the north and the phenomenon of delegated authority.




State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan


Book Description

This book seeks to describe how Japan manipulated existing diplomatic channels to ensure national security. Rather, far from aiming at seclusion, Japan's diplomacy in the seventeenth century was orchestrated to achieve certain objectives, both outside the country and inside it. The aim was to build Japan into an autonomous center of its own. Since the country was "closed," elaborate and expensive foreign embassies were obliged to make the journey to Edo. Countries which were perceived as potential threats, such as Portugal and Spain, were excluded from this process. Only those such as the Chinese and the Dutch, with whom trade was recognized as desirable, were allowed a supervised presence in Japan itself. Closing the gates to Japan was not the object. Rather, carefully judging just when they should be open and shut was the aim.




The Origins of Japan’s Medieval World


Book Description

This pioneering collection of 15 essays argues that Japan's medieval age began in the 14th century rather than the 12th, and marks the beginning of a fundamentally new debate about how Japan's lengthy classical period finally ended.







Authorizing the Shogunate


Book Description

The Genpei War of 1180-1185 signaled a crucial shift in Japanese history because it gave birth to the shogunate, or government run by warriors. How was the emergence of this new polity following a contentious civil war explained in literary texts? This book argues that political authority is made visible in the variant texts of the Heike monogatari corpus through rituals that map the ideal social-cosmic order, overwriting untidy historical realities. Artifacts of material culture likewise provide the social and political codes to authenticate warrior power and manage its violence. Through its focus on ritual and material practices, this book offers a new perspective on how texts from fourteenth century Japan harnessed symbolic understandings of authority to evoke order and contain rupture. Equally significant is its analysis of the Genpei jōsuiki a Heike monogatari variant that played a critical role in the retrospection of medieval Japan through the early modern period.







Medieval Japan


Book Description

A collection of essays tackles a neglected field of Japan's history.