The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 3: Medieval Japan

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THE GROWTH OF THE JITO AND SHOKAN 269

this locally powerful Oe family. Therefore, the temple subsequently

appointed Oe Kanshun to the post of

gesu

and Oe Toshisada to the post

oikumon, a local shoen official below the

gesu

in rank.

The new appointees, Kanshun and Toshisada, disregarded the

Todaiji's orders and continued to commit the illegal acts. In response,

the Todaiji appointed the son of the former

gesu

Kiyosada, Yasusada,

to the

gesu

post. Spared by this appointment, Kiyosada returned from

his exile in Izumo, and both father and son undertook seditious actions

against the Todaiji. Moreover, the residents of the shoen community,

united with the Oe family, took action against the Todaiji, demanding

a reduction in their tax and corv6e responsibilities and undermining

the Todaiji's authority.

In response to this crisis in shoen control, the Todaiji desperately

requested that the gokenin warriors of the area and the

shugo

deputy of

Iga Province put pressure on the Oe family. They too, however, only

conspired with the Oe. The Rokuhara tandai, finally recognizing the

seriousness of the situation, sided with the Todaiji. Members of the

Oe family were arrested and its two leaders banished, Kiyosada to

Bingo Province and Kakushun to Tango Province. Kiyosada and

Kakushun did not remain in exile, however, but returned to plague

the Todaiji by withholding some three thousand koku of nengu from

the temple.

The Oe family came to be called akuto, a term used by

shoen

propri-

etors in the Kamakura period to describe lawless groups who banded

together for such purposes as forcibly seizing tax rice and other wealth

from shoen proprietors.

Akuto were present on many shoen and in-

cluded among their members, shokan, shoen cultivators, and bushi

(warriors). The akuto were not successful in attaining complete control

over Kuroda-no-sho, however, owing to the vigor of the Todaiji's

response. Elsewhere, however, the akuto pursued a course of aggran-

dizement similar to the efforts of the jito to increase their personal

control over shoen.

The growth of

the

kokujin-ryoshu

The speed with which the jito and shokan usurped the authority of the

shoen

proprietor increased dramatically with the fall of the Kamakura

bakufu. Like the Kamakura bakufu, the Muromachi bakufu adopted a

14 Concerning the Kuroda akuto, see Ishimoda Sho, Zoho chuseiteki sekai no keisei (Tokyo:

Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1950), pp. 181-302; and Koizumi Yoshiaki, "Iga no kuni

Kuroda-no-sho no akuto," in Inagaki and Nagahara, eds., Chusei no shakai to keizai.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

270 THE DECLINE OF THE SHOEN SYSTEM

policy of suppressing these jito incursions. The Muromachi bakufu

lacked the power of its predecessor, however, and

was

unable

enforce

its judicial decisions. The acts by the jito and

shokan

committed in

defiance of the bakufu's judicial decisions were not limited to those

against the holdings of the nobles and religious establishments that

supported the Southern Court against the bakufu; they extended

also

the holdings of the Northern Court which was allied with the bakufu.

Because of the unsettled conditions of the period, those who held

rights to widely scattered

shoen

found it difficult to maintain their

rights and began to concentrate their power in

single location. In this

process, the holder of the jito

shiki

would choose a particular

shoen

and

attempt to make it into a contiguous holding. In addition, he also

sought

ukesho

contracts on public lands

(koryo)

and

shoen

with which

he had no prior connection, in order to build a local power base.

The

gokenin

family of Mori, for example, whose ancestral holding

was the M6ri-no-sh6 in Sagami Province, also held the jito shiki of

Sahashi-no-sho in Echigo Province, Kagata-no-sho in Kawachi, and

Yoshida-no-sho in Aki. At the beginning of the Nambokucho period,

the main line of the Mori family entrusted the control of Sahashi-no-

sho to a branch family and moved their household to Yoshida-no-sho

where they established a new home base. During the Muromachi

period, the Mori created a local power base by means of

ukesho

koryo

and

shoen

in the Takada district of Yoshida-no-sho, They also

became daikan.'

When jito such as the Mori turned their attention to the formation of

a regional power base, they were forced to abandon their rights to their

other scattered holdings. In the case of the Mori, they relinquished

their

shiki

held in Kagata-no-sho and Sahashi-no-sho. In another case,

a Musashi

gokenin

family by the name of Abo held numerous jito

shiki

in the provinces of Musashi, Shinano, Dewa, Bitchu, and Harima.

During the upheaval of the Nambokucho period, however, their jito

shiki

in Bitchu Province

was

wrestled away from them by locals.

The

shiki structure of the

shoen

began to disintegrate rapidly in the war

torn conditions of the fourteenth century; this involved not only the

upper-level shiki held by the nobility and the religious establishments

but also the scattered

jito

shiki.

The weakening of the

shiki

structure and the formation of contiguous

local power bases during the fourteenth century represented a new

15 Mori-ke monjo, in

Takada-gun shi

(Takada-gun shi hensan iinkai, 1972).

16 Abo Milsuyasu okibumi, 1340, in Abo monjo.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

THE GROWTH OF THE JITO AND SHOKAN 27I

trend in landholding - a national reorganization of the landholding

system. Changes in landholding patterns were paralleled by changes in

inheritance and military organization. In order to construct a system of

control over the residents of their newly formed power base, the jito

sought to make vassals of the upper-class cultivators. The military force

of the Kamakura-period warriors was strongly based on familial

relations - unrelated vassals were still quite rare. Under the

soryo

sys-

tem, the main family forced branch family members (ichizoku) to reside

in the villages under their control. In peacetime these branch families

managed and developed agricultural production, and in wartime, the

head of the main family

{soryo)

mobilized and led these collateral family

members into battle. Unrelated followers called shoju and genin were

often employed but were not part of the military nucleus.

After the

Nambokucho period, thejuo-level warriors discarded the

soryo

system

and developed a new system of military organization.

Warrior families also discarded the practice of divided inheritance

carried out under the

soryo

system, in order to prevent the opposition

from within the family that often accompanied the division of land-

holdings. An inheritance system under which a sole heir acquired all

the land was adopted by many jito families during the Nambokucho

period. Thus the branch family members no longer received a share of

the inheritance and were gradually reduced to a position of depen-

dence on the main family. At the same time, the soryo made vassals of

the powerful peasant leaders

(dogo)

and upper-class cultivators in their

territory, by requiring military service in exchange for a reduction in,

or exemption from, nengu payments.

The jito's transition to kokujin-ryoshu (local notables who became

local or regional overloads) was characterized by three trends: (i)

They no longer held scattered shiki but controlled contiguous holdings

in a single location; (2) they no longer practiced divided inheritance

but, rather, switched to the. practice of single inheritance in order to

avoid diluting their wealth by dividing their landholdings; and (3) they

militarized the upper-class cultivators in their area in order to

strengthen their military force. The local warriors (zaichi-rydshu) who

followed this path were called kokujin-ryoshu. The term kokujin ap-

pears in the documents of the period and refers to those warriors who

had deep roots in the provinces.

17 See Haga Norihiko, Soryosei (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1966).

18 Concerning the Kokujin-ryoshu, see Nagahara Keiji, Nikon kdkensei seiritsu katei no kenkyu

(Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), pp. 346-56; and Nagahara, Nikon chusei shakai kozo no

kenkyu, pp. 367-93.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

272 THE DECLINE OF THE SHdEN SYSTEM

In contrast with the

shoen

proprietors, the kokujin controlled the

shoen

through their own power. Even so, direct power alone proved

insufficient to control the

shoen

residents. The

kokujin

found it essential

to persuade the residents that their control was appropriate and that

they had a public right to power. Consequently, the kokujin did not

completely sever their relationship with the

shoen

proprietors, but con-

tinued to recognize their position and deliver

nengu

to them, although in

reduced amounts. The amount of arable land that had been publicly

surveyed and recorded

(koden)

which the

kokujin

based their calcu-

lation for

nengu

to be delivered to the central proprietor - however, was

far less than the amount of land from which the kokujin themselves

collected taxes. Moreover, because the

kokujin

assumed the actual con-

trol of the

shoen,

the

shoen

proprietor lost all substantive authority over

the

shoen

except for the right to collect the tax delivered by the

kokujin.

The shoen proprietor of the Mori family's Yoshida-no-sho was a

Kyoto shrine, Gikansha. The amount of

koden

on which the

nengu

was

computed at the beginning of the fifteenth century was generally no

more than forty

chobu.

The amount of land that the Mori controlled

and on which they levied such imposts as

rinjizei

(a temporary tax),

however, exceeded six hundred

chobu.

The growth of the kokujin took place within the framework of the

shoen

system. The kokujin usurped the right to administer the

shoen,

which included the promotion of

shitaji,

the collection of

nengu,

and

police authority

(kendan).

The

shoen

proprietor, recognizing his loss of

authority, appointed the

kokujin

as an overseer

(daikan)

and took deliv-

ery of a fixed amount of

nengu,

as determined by contract. Disputes

between

shoen

proprietors and kokujin at this time were seldom re-

ferred to the legal organs of the Muromachi bakufu. These disputes

were not over fragmented rights held by the various

ryoshu,

as we saw

in the Kamakura period; instead,

soryo

was a problem that concerned

the proprietor authority

itself.

In this regard, the growth of the

kokujin-

ryoshu

decisively changed control of the

shoen.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHUGO DOMAINAL SYSTEM

The

expansion

o/shugo

authority

At the same time that jito and

shokan

were developing into kokujin-

ryoshu,

the

shugo

was also changing. Under the Kamakura bakufu, the

19 Mdri-ke

monjo,

docs. 28, 29, 47.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHVGO 273

shugo's

authority was circumscribed by the daibon sankajo, empowered

only to punish the crimes of murder and rebellion and to muster the

imperial guard. In addition, the shugo held a power known as monjo

choshin

noyaku, which gave him the right to request land registers for

a province within the jurisdiction of the kokuga,

The registers proved

to be indispensable to the shugo in his mobilization of material and

manpower, because they listed the amount of public land still held by

the kokuga within the individual shoen, as well as the identities of the

jito and gesu.

The power of the shugo also increased during the Mongol invasions

of Japan (1274-81) when the bakufu was forced to mobilize non-

gokenin warriors and place them under the shugo's command.

Nor-

mally, the bakufu controlled the shugo's vassalization of the provincial

warriors through a policy of making them direct shogunal retainers.

But by the end of the Kamakura period, the shugo's own vassalization

of the provincial warriors had become common.

The Muromachi bakufu, formed in 1336 after the collapse of the

Kemmu restoration, followed its predecessor's policy of limiting the

shugo's authority to the daibon sankajo.

During the fighting in the

Nambokucho period, however, the bakufu had little choice but to

grant appropriate powers to the shugo so that they could strengthen

their military forces by enticing the locally powerful kokujin into their

vassal organization.

Based on a Muromachi bakufu law issued in 1346, the shugo were

granted two powers in addition to the daibon sankajo - karita rozeki

and shisetsu jungyo.

Karita rozeki gave the shugo the authority to

suppress provincial warriors who entered shoen unlawfully to harvest

rice.

Shisetsu jungyo gave the shugo authority to enforce the bakufu

judicial decisions in land disputes. Before the 1346 law, the shugo's

power was limited mainly to military and police oversight. These new

powers, which concerned the resolution of land disputes, increased

their political and economic authority.

The bakufu promulgated a hanzei law in 1352 that allowed the shugo

to collect from the shoen special tributes for military expenses. The

bakufu was divided at this time because of a dispute between the

shogun Takauji and his brother Tadayoshi, a division that extended

down into the warrior ranks. The bakufu declared that "half of the

honjo-ryo (lands of the court nobles) in the three provinces of Omi,

20 Azuma kagami 1187/9/13. See also Ishii Susumu, Nihon

chusei

kokkashi no

kenkyu

(Tokyo:

Iwanami shoten, 1970), pp. 179-94.

Kamakura bakufu tsuika ho, no. 463.

Muromachi

bakufu isuika ho, no. 2. 23 Ibid., no. 31.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

274 THE DECLINE OF THE SHOEN SYSTEM

Mino,

and Owari was designated as commissariat land for the support

of the military

{hydro ryosho)

and that one harvest from this year alone

may be given to their troops."

Honjo-ryo

referred to land to which a

jito had been appointed, to distinguish it from land belonging to tem-

ples and shrines

(jisha honjo ichienchi)

and land not under the jurisdic-

tion of ijito. This law allowed the

shugo

to appropriate one-half of the

annual tax from the

honjo-ryo,

but for one year only, and to give it to

their troops as commissariat rice in order to conduct war. This

hanzei

order was carried out in

total of eight provinces: Omi, Mino, Owari,

Ise,

Shima, Iga, Izumi, and Kawachi.

In 1368, hanzei authorization was extended to permit the partition-

ing of land on a regular basis through the entire country, in contrast

with the "from this year alone" status of the earlier hanzei order.

Because

shugo

and

kokujin

were absorbing

shoen

as their own landhold-

ings at this time, the fact that hanzei was limited to

honjo-ryo

and

excluded the lands of temples and shrines must be considered part of

the policy that the bakufu was then adopting to protect the

shoen.

The

national hanzei law concerned more than just the collection of rice to

meet military needs. Because it loosened restrictions on the partition-

ing of land from a single harvest a year to allow it on a more frequent

basis,

the

shoen

proprietors suffered a great setback ir; their hold over

the

shoen.

Under the hanzei law, the

shugo

partitioned the

shoen

and koryb

within their province and granted them to their

kokujin

vassals. Al-

though the provincial warriors were the direct beneficiaries of the

hanzei

law, it was the

shugo

who had the power to exercise it. This was

one means by which the

shugo

incorporated the

kokujin

into his vassal

organization. The hanzei law did not mean that the Muromachi

bakufu had abandoned its policy of supporting the

shoen

system. In-

stead, the bakufu pragmatically responded to the

shugo's

and

kokujin''s

demands for land and, in turn, compelled the

shoen

proprietors to

sacrifice their own interests.

Shugo

usurpation

the

kokuga

The shugo rapidly expanded their public authority during the

Nambokucho period, a trend underlined by the

shugo's

usurpation of

the kokuga's authority and position. Originally, the

kokuga

held the

24 Ibid., no. 56. 25 Ibid., no. 57. 26 Ibid., no. 97.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHUGO 275

most important position of local control in the centralized structure of

the ritsuryo state. Officials below the fourth rank were appointed as

provincial governors for a period of six (and later four) years. In the

eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, powerful indigenous families

(zaichi-ryoshu) made significant inroads into the kokuga structure by

thrusting themselves upon the kokuga as zaichi kanjin, local officials of

provincial kokuga. The provincial governors fought back by appoint-

ing their own trusted retainers as higher officials (mokudai) and poured

their strength into organizing their own military power through the

use of warriors that the governors themselves retained (yakata no

tsuwamono). Thus although the ritsuryo state changed greatly in the

eleventh and twelfth centuries, the kokuga remained the base of local

control for the state.

The kokuga office was not fundamentally changed even into the

Kamakura period. The shiki structure, common to both the

shoen

and

the koryo, was maintained by the power of the kokuga. The shugo's

power, still based on the daibon sankajo in the Kamakura period,

limited his ability to interfere directly in kokuga affairs. After the mid-

Kamakura period, however, the shugo's power increased relative to

that of the kokuga. Although their purpose and function differed, the

kokufu, which served as the kokuga's seat, and the shugo-sho, which

served as the shugo's seat, were often located in close proximity or even

adjacent to each other. Both positions were a link in the state's public

authority. Backed by his superior military power, the shugo gradually

began to infringe on the kokuga's sphere of control and to insinuate

himself with the officials of the kokuga.

From a 1257 document issued by the shugo of Osumi Province in

Kyushu, the shugo office was found to include such posts as the osuke

kensaisho (vice-governor), oryoshi (military/police functionaries), and

chosho

and shosho (administrative and secretarial assistants), in addi-

tion to the shugodai (shugo deputy) post. From as early as the Heian

period, these posts had been positions attached to the kokuga office,

indicating that in this case the kokuga's posts and functions had been

taken over by the

shugo.

From other such examples, it appears that the

shugo's usurpation of the kokuga office proceeded gradually after the

middle of the Kamakura period. Although the

shugo

made inroads into

the kokuga's authority, they were limited by the Kamakura bakufu's

deliberate policy of restraining them. In contrast, the Muromachi

27 Tanaka Kenji, "Kamakura bakufu no Osumi no kuni shihai ni tsuite no ichi kosatsu,"

Kyushu

shigaku,

nos. 65 and 67 (1977, 1979): 1-22 and 1-18.

276 THE DECLINE OF THE SH6EN SYSTEM

bakufu was unable to hold the reins on the stronger

shugo,

and the

balance of power shifted even further in the

shugo's

favor.

The

shugo's

ascendancy was evidenced by their acquisition of the

right to collect a temporary tax levied for such state purposes as the

rebuilding of the Ise Shrine's main building every twenty years and

the

tansen

(cash tax per

tan

of paddy field) levied to meet the expenses

of the emperor's coronation and abdication ceremonies. These ad

hoc

levies had formerly been collected by the

kokuga,

but they later came

under the

shugo's

purview.

The kokuga carried out arbitration and enforced the judicial deci-

sions handed down by the court regarding land disputes. The

kokuga

customarily chose a provincial representative

(kunizukai)

who was dis-

patched to the site of the dispute. When the bakufu assumed those

judicial functions previously held by the court, the authority of the

kokuga

in this area was transferred to the

shugo,

and the

shugo's

repre-

sentative

(shugozukai)

replaced the kunizukai as the local representa-

tive of justice.

Under pressure from the

shugo,

the kokuga office lost most of its

substantive power by the fifteenth century. Although it is impossible

to detail the

kokuga's

fall from power province by province, the loss of

power was certain. Even in Harima Province where the

kokuga

main-

tained power for a relatively long period of time, the shift in the

balance of power between

kokuga

and

shugo

was evident by the end of

the fourteenth century. The post of

ko-mokudai

(resident deputy of the

provincial governor), for example, previously assigned to the kokuga,

was taken over by the

shugo,

and the holder of the office, Ogawa,

became a vassal of the

shugo.

Even in the Kamakura period, this

trend was apparent in Harima Province where the power of the central

government was relatively secure. It is likely, therefore, that the situa-

tion in provinces where the central government's authority was weak

was even more advanced.

As the kokuga were losing their power in the provinces, the court

was losing its control over central Japan. The court's independence

had not been severely limited by the establishment of the Kamakura

bakufu and military government; it had retained its role as one pillar

of the state throughout the Kamakura period. In the Nambokucho

28 Concerning the expansion of the

shugo's

authority, see Sato Shin'ichi, "Shugo ryogokusei no

tenkai," in Toyoda Takeshi, ed., Shin Nihonshi laikei dai san kan, chusei shakai (Tokyo:

Asakura shoten, 1954), pp. 81-127.

29 Kishida Hiroshi, "Shugo Akamatsu-shi no Harima no kuni shihai no hatten to kokuga,"

Shigaku kenkyu, nos. 104 and 105 (1968).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHUGO 2J7

period, however, the court lost its base of control and was rendered

powerless in the provinces. This was evidenced by the court's reliance

on the

shugo

to collect the tansen. By the end of the fourteenth century,

the court's authority had been so reduced that even its police authority

over the environs of Kyoto was taken over by the bakufu's Board of

Retainers (samurai-dokoro).

Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu achieved a degree of political consoli-

dation at the end of the fourteenth century when he stepped down in

favor of his son Yoshimochi. Yoshimitsu then assumed the post oidaijo

daijin, symbolizing that he stood supreme over both the warriors and

the nobility. Furthermore, Yoshimitsu sent an envoy to Ming China,

opened formal diplomatic and trade relations, and signed himself

"King of Japan" in a letter to the Ming court.

The court lost its independence and authority as a separate state

entity. Its powerlessness was indicated by the fact that it was no longer

asked to resolve land disputes involving shoen. Regardless of the na-

ture of the dispute and the persons involved, the court had no recourse

but to rely on the bakufu for its resolution. The bakufu was caught

between the desire to preserve the

shoen

system and the need to placate

and reward its military supporters. On the one hand, many of its

policies encouraged the decline of the shoen system such as the issu-

ance of the hanzei authorizations that expanded the shugo's authority.

On the other hand, the bakufu tried to suppress the

shugo

and adopted

a protective policy toward the shoen as a means to legitimate its posi-

tion as the preeminent organ of state. Thus the shoen system deterio-

rated greatly under the Muromachi bakufu, but it was not completely

dismantled.

The growth of shugo domains

Yoshimitsu used the

shugo

to achieve his goal of political consolidation.

He granted them expanded authority and acknowledged their vas-

salization of the kokujin.

In the fifteenth century, the

shugo

developed into daimyo, powerful

regional lords possessing semiautonomous control of a domain

(ryogoku).

The process of domain building followed many paths. One

of the most noteworthy was the shugo's incorporation of "public land"

(Jkokugaryo)

into his own shugo holdings. Although the shorn system

was the primary form of landholding throughout Japan, it is estimated

that kokugaryo constituted approximately 40 to 50 percent of the total

arable land in some provinces. The entire country was not converted

278 THE DECLINE OF THE SHdEN SYSTEM

into shoen during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as might be

mistakenly believed. Although the shoen had its effects throughout

Japan, kokugaryo were maintained at the aforementioned ratio and

were reorganized into units called

go,

ho, or befu. Furthermore, nengu

and zokuji collected from kokugaryo provided income for the chigyo

kokushu - the nobility and powerful religious establishments ap-

pointed as the "governor" of

province for the sole purpose of receiv-

ing income from it. In other provinces, the

kokugaryo

provided income

for the central government. As the

shugo

absorbed the authority of the

kokuga office, however, the kokugaryo increasingly fell under the

shugo''s

control.

The transformation of the kokugaryo began in the Kamakura period

in the provinces of eastern Japan and Kyushu where the authority of

the Kamakura bakufu was strongest. But even in those provinces

where the authority of the Kyoto nobility was relatively strong, the

process quickly accelerated during the Nambokucho period. Amidst

the desultory fighting of the fourteenth century, the

shugo

took control

of the kokugaryo through the kokuga shiki, and it became part of their

own landholdings.

In the fifteenth century, many

shugo

also began to levy tansen, once a

temporary provincial unit tax, as discussed earlier. The shugo, how-

ever, did not levy tansen as a state tax in their substitute role as a

provincial official (kokushi); instead, the shugo levied tansen on the

basis of their own political authority. Moreover, although it was origi-

nally a temporary levy, it became a permanent tax symbolizing that

authority.

In order to strengthen their public authority throughout the entire

province, the shugo built up their personal military power, primarily

by organizing the province's local powers (kokujin-ryoshu) as their vas-

sals.

The above-mentioned hanzei was the most convenient means by

which to make vassals of the kokujin. The

shugo

also held the right to

grant to their kokujin vassals the land confiscated from an enemy

defeated in battle, as a means to retain or strengthen their loyalty.

Thus both hanzei and confiscated land provided a source of fief

(chigyo) by which the

shugo

enticed military service from the kokujin.

The relationship between the shugo and their kokujin vassals was a

Uesugi-ke

monjo, vol. I, no. 56.

31 Tanuma Mutsumi, "Muromachi bakufu, shugo, kokujin," in Iwanami koza, ed., Nihon

rekishi (chusei

Tokyo:

Iwanami shoten, 1976), pp. 33-40.

32 Kasamatsu Hiroshi, Nihon

chusei-ho shiron

(Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1979), pp.

203-38.