under their posthumous names of Dengyo and Kobo Daishi, respectively. The former went to Changan in the train of the ambassador, Sugawara Kiyokimi, in 802, and the latter accompanied Fujiwara Kuzunomaro, two years later. Saicho was specially sent to China by his sovereign to study Buddhism, in order that, on his return, he might become lord-abbot of a monastery which his Majesty had caused to be built on . . . a hill on the northeast of the new palace in Kyoto. . . . Down to that time the Buddhist doctrine preached in Japan had been of a very dispiriting nature. It taught that salvation could not be reached except by efforts continued through three immeasurable periods of time. But Saicho acquired a new doctrine in China. From the monastery of Tientai (Japanese, Tendai) he carried back . . . a creed that salvation is at once attainable by a knowledge of the Buddha nature, and that such knowledge may be acquired by meditation and wisdom. That was the basic conception, but . . . it became ‘a system of Japanese eclecticism, fitting the disciplinary and meditative methods of the Chinese sage to the pre-existing foundations of earlier sects.' . . . The Tendai system became the parent of nearly all the great sects subsequently born in Japan. . . . The Buddhas of Contemplation, by whose aid the meditation of absolute truth is rendered possible, suggested the idea that they had frequently been incarnated for the welfare of mankind, and from that theory it was but a short step to the conviction that 'the ancient gods whom the Japanese worshipped are but manifestations of these same mystical beings, and that the Buddhist faith had come, not to destroy the native Shinto, but to embody it into a higher and more universal system. From that moment the triumph of Buddhism was secured.' It is thus seen that the visit of Saicho (Dengyo Daishi) to China at the beginning of the ninth century and the introduction of the Tendai creed into Japan constitute landmarks in Japanese history."-F. Brinkley, History of the Japanese people, pp. 227-228.

ALSO IN: A. K. Reischauer, Studies in Japanese Buddhism, pp. 89-102.

"It was in the reign of Kwammu that the posthumous names now used for all the emperors, from Jimmu down to Kwammu's predecessor, were selected by a famous scholar."-E. W. Clement, Short history of Japan, p. 32.-The Daiho legislators at the beginning of the eighth century enacted a code "(ryo) and a penal law (ritsu), supplemented these with a body of official rules (kyaku) and operative regulations (shiki). The necessity of revising these rules and regulations was appreciated by the Emperor Kwammu, but he did not live to witness the completion of the work.

.. Ten volumes of the rules and forty of the regulations were issued in 819. . . . Here, then, was a sufficiently precise and comprehensive body of administrative guides. But men competent to utilize them were not readily forthcoming. The provincial governors and even the metropolitan officials, chosen from among men whose qualifications were generally limited to literary ability or aristocratic influence, showed themselves incapable of dealing with the lawless conditions existing in their districts. This state of affairs had been noticeable ever since the reign of Shomu (724-749), but not until the time of Saga was a remedy devised. It took the form of organizing a body of men called kebishi, upon whom devolved the duty of pursuing and arresting lawbreakers. . . . In 830, a Kebishi-cho (Board of Kebiishi) was duly formed. . . . The bushi (military men) in the hereditary service of these high dignitaries . . .

[were] entrusted-under the name of touiho-shiwith the duty of enforcing the law against all violators. Ultimately the judicial functions hitherto discharged by the Efu (Guard Office), the Danjodai (Police Board) and the Gyobu-sho (Department of Justice) were all transferred to the Kebishi-cho, and the latter's orders ranked next to Imperial decrees. These kebishi and tsuiho-shi have historical importance. They represent the unequivocal beginning of the military class which was destined ultimately to impose its sway over the whole of Japan. Their institution was also a distinct step towards transferring the conduct of affairs, both military and civil, from the direct control of the sovereign to the hands of officialdom. The Emperor's power now began to cease to be initiative and to be limited to sanction or veto. The Kurando-dokoro was the precurser of the kwampaku; the Kebiishi-cho, of the so-tsuihoshi." -F. Brinkley, History of the Japanese people, pp. 231-232-"The people's chief occupation in those days was agriculture. . . . The Empresses Jito (690-696) and Gensho (715-725) took steps to encourage the cultivation of barley, Indian corn, wheat, sesamum, turnips, peaches, oranges, and chestnuts. Tea, buckwheat and beans were added to this list during the first half of the ninth century, and it is thus seen that Japan possessed at an early date all her staple bread-stuffs, except the sweet potato and the pear. The Empresses mentioned above and the Emperors of their era devised several measures to encourage agriculture, such as granting free tenure of waste land or bestowing rewards on its cultivators, making loans of money for works of irrigation, and munificently recognising the services of officials in provinces where farming flourished, or punishing them when it fell into neglect,-and adopted precautions against famine by requiring every farmer to store a certain quantity of millet annually. In all ages the Japanese Court showed itself keenly solicitous for the welfare of the people, and its solicitude was fully shared by its protégés, the Buddhist priests. If at one time an Emperor Tenchi (668-671) remitted all taxes for three years, until signs of returning prosperity were detected, or an imperial prince (Yoshimune, 803) invented the water-wheel, at another Buddhist prelates of the highest rank travelled about the country, and showed the people how to make roads, build bridges, construct reservoirs, and dredge rivers. Stud farms and cattle pastures were among the institutions of the era, so that, on the whole, agriculture must be said to have reached a tolerably high standard."-F. Brinkley, Japan, v. 1, p. 122124. Kwammu was followed by three of his sons Heijo, Saga and Junna, in succession, each of whom abdicated. During these three reigns the influence of the Fujiwara greadually increased, and when Junna abdicated in 833 in favor of Nimmyo, a son of Saga, the power of the emperor came to an end.

833-1050.-Creation of Kwampaku.-Attempt by Daigo to reduce power of Fujiwara.—Laxity of rule. Social conditions.-The immediate successors of Junna are little more than names. Uda, (887-897) is memorable, however, as having created the office of Kwampaku in favor of Motosuma Fujiwara, to whose influence he owed his crown. The Kwam paku, actually the regent for the emperor, carried on the administration, and was merely required to make a report of business transacted to the emperor. After his abdication, and the death of Motosuma, however, Uda in conjunction with his son and successor Daigo endeavored to replace the Tokihira Fujiwara by Sugawara Michi

zane, a famous litterateur, who had been Uda's teacher, and had gained great influence over him. In 900 Daigo and his father sought to appoint Michizane chancellor. The attempt failed. The Kwampaku Fujiwara proved to be too strong, and in the event Michizane fell into disgrace. Uda was refused admittance to the palace; when he went to remonstrate with his son, Michizane was stripped of everything; his family was scattered and it is said that in 903 he died in poverty, on the island of Kyushu to which he had been banished. When Tokihira Fujiwara died, Daigo refused to appoint a successor to him, and himself administered the state. "The Emperor Daigo, who ruled thirty-two years from 898 to 930-is brought very close to us by the statement of a contemporary historian that he was 'wise, intelligent, and kind-hearted,' and that he always wore a smiling face, his own explanation of the latter habit being that he found it much easier to converse with men familiarly than solemnly. . . . Partly because of his debonair manner and charitable impulses he is popularly remembered as 'the wise Emperor of the Engi era.' But close readers of the annals do not fully endorse that tribute. They note that Daigo's treatment of his father, Uda, on the celebrated occasion of the latter's visit to the palace to intercede for Michizane, was markedly unfilial; that his Majesty believed and acted upon slanders which touched the honour of his father no less than that of his well-proved servant, and that he made no resolute effort to correct the abuses of his time, even when they had been clearly pointed out. . . . The usurpations of the Fujiwara; the prostitution of Buddhism to evil ends; the growth of luxurious and dissipated habits, and the subordination of practical ability to pedantic scholarship these four malignant growths upon the national life found no healing treatment at Daigo's hands."-F. Brinkley, History of the Japanese people, p. 248.-With the exception of this attempt by Daigo to break their power, the Fujiwara continued their rule, in the name of the emperor, and monopolized nearly all the important offices of the government until about 1050. "The fact is that the Fujiwara were a natural outcome of the situation. The Tang systems, which Kamatari, the great founder of the family, had been chiefly instrumental in introducing, placed in the hands of the sovereign powers much too extensive to be safely entrusted to a monarch qualified only by heredity.

So long as men like Kotoku Tenchi, and Temmu occupied the throne, the Tang polity showed no flagrant defects. But when the exercise of almost unlimited authority fell into the hands of a religious fanatic like Shomu, or a licentious lady like Koken, it became necessary either that the principle of heredity should be set aside altogether, or that some method of limited selection should be employed. It was then that the Fujiwara became a species of electoral college, not possessing, indeed, any recognized mandate from the nation, yet acting in the nation's behalf to secure worthy occupants for the throne. . . . Contemporaneously with the rise of the Fujiwara to the highest places within reach of a subject, an important alteration took place in the status of Imperial princes. . . . According to the Daika legislation, not only sons of sovereigns but also their descendants to the fifth generation were classed as members of the Imperial family and inherited the title of 'Prince' (O). Ranks (hon-i) were granted to them and they often participated in the management of State affairs. But no salaries were given to them; they had to support themselves with the proceeds of sustenance fiefs. The Em

JAPAN, 833-1050

peror Kwammu was the first to break away from this time-honoured usage. He reduced two of his own sons, born of a non-Imperial lady, from the Kwobetsu class to the Shimbetsu, conferring on them the uji names of Nagaoka and Yoshimine, and he followed the same course with several of the Imperial grandsons, giving them the name of Taira. The principal uji thus created were Nagaoka, Yoshimine, Ariwara, Taira, and Minamoto."-F. Brinkley, History of the Japanese people, pp. 204205.-The administration of the Fujiwara outside of the capital, was extremely lax, or rather, they

had "neither power nor inclination to meddle with provincial administration, and . . . the districts distant from the metropolis were practically under the sway of military magnates in whose eyes might constituted right. . . . The ke biishi represented the really puissant arm of the law, the provincial governors, originally so powerful, having now degenerated into weaklings. . . . [Ono Yoshifuru, general of the guards, on his return (946) from an expedition against pirates, in the Inland sea, made report that in Kyushu and Shikoku] 'those who pursue irregular courses are not necessarily sons of provincial governors alone. Many others make lawless use of power and authority; form confederacies; engage daily in military exercises; collect and maintain men and horses under pretext of

hunting game; menace the district governors; plunder the common people; violate their wives and daughters, and steal their beasts of burden and employ them for their own purposes, thus interrupting agricultural operations. Yesterday, they were outcasts, with barely sufficient clothes to cover their nakedness; to-day, they ride on horseback and don rich raiment. Meanwhile the country falls into a state of decay, and the homesteads are desolate. My appeal is that with the exception of provincial governors' envoys, any who enter a province at the head of parties carrying bows and arrows, intimidate the inhabitants, and rob them of their property, shall be recognized as common bandits and thrown into prison on apprehension." "-Ibid., PP. 254-255-At this time "the Fujiwara, together with a few other nobles of different lineage, including scions of the imperial family, monopolised almost all the wealth and power in the country. They kept a great number of slaves in their households, and held vast tracts of private estates, too. As to the land, they developed and cultivated the fields by the hands of their slaves or leased them for rent. Besides, they turned into private properties those lands of which they were legally allowed only the usufruct. By the reform legislation, the usufruct of a public land was granted to one who did much service to the state, but the duration of the right was limited to his life or at most to that of his grandchildren. None was permitted to hold the public land as a hereditary possession without time limit. It was by the infringement of these regulations that arbitrary occupation was realised. Another means of the aggrandisement of the estates of the nobles was a fraudulent practice on the part of the common people. Those who were independent landowners or legal leaseholders of public lands were liable to taxation, as may be supposed, and as the taxes and imposts of that time were pretty heavy, those landholders thought it wiser to alienate the land formally by presenting it to some influential nobles or some Buddhist temples, which came to be privileged, or asserted the right to be exempted from the burden of taxation. In reality, of course, those people continued to hold the land as before, and were very glad to see their burden much alleviated, for the tribute which they were obliged to pay to the nominal landlord by the transaction must have been less than the regular taxes which they owed to the government. Moreover, by this presentation they could enter under the protection of those nobles or temples, which was useful for them in defying the law, should need arise. The number of independent landholders thus gradually diminisaed by the renunciation of the legal right and duty on the part of the holders, and consequently the amount of the levied tax grew less and less. . . . In order to fill up the deficit, the burden was transferred, doubled or trebled, to those who remained longer honest, so that it soon became quite unbearable for them also.... Military service, too, was another grievance for the common people. They had to serve in the western islands against continental invaders, or on the northern frontier against the Ainu. Not only did they thereby risk their lives, but sometimes they were obliged to procure their provisions at their own cost, for the government could not afford it. If those people would once renounce their right of independence and turn voluntary vagabonds, then they could at once elude the military duty and the tax."-K. Hara, Introduction to the history of Japan, pp. 141-143.-The continental invaders who attempted to make a footing on the islands, in the eleventh century, were the Toi, a people who lived on the mainland opposite to Ezo.

In 1019, when Go-Ichijo was on the throne, this people made a sudden descent on the island of Tsuchima, overran it, and then pushed on to the island of Iki. Here the governor made a stand but was defeated, and slain, and the invaders landed in Chikuzen. "It happened, fortunately, that Takaiye, younger brother of Fujiwara Korechika, was in command at the Dazai-fu. . . . He met the crisis with the utmost coolness, and made such skilful dispositions for defence that, after three days' fighting, in which the Japanese lost heavily, Hakata remained uncaptured. High winds and rough seas now held the invaders at bay, and in that interval the coast defences were repaired and garrisoned, and a fleet of thirty-eight boats having been assembled, the Japanese assumed the offensive, ultimately driving the Toi to put to sea. A final attempt was made to effect a landing at Matsuura in the neighbouring province of Hizen, but, after fierce fighting, the invaders had to withdraw altogether.... Kyoto's attitude towards this inciIdent was most instructive. When the first tidings of the invasion reached the capital, the protection of heaven was at once invoked by service at Ise and ten other shrines. But when, on receipt of news that the danger had been averted, the question of rewarding the victors came up for discussion, a ma'jority of the leading statesmen contended that, as the affair had been settled before the arrival of an Imperial mandate at the Dazai-fu, no official cognizance could be taken of it. This view was ultimately overruled since the peril had been national, but the rewards subsequently given were insignificant, and the event clearly illustrates the policy of the Central Government . . . namely, that any emergency dealt with prior to the receipt of an Imperial rescript must be regarded as private, whatever its nature, and therefore beyond the purview of the law. A more effective method of decentralization could not have been devised. It was inevitable that, under such a system, the provincial magnates should settle matters to their own liking without reference to Kyoto, and that, the better to enforce their will, they should equip themselves with armed retinues [a fact that contributed to the rise of feudalism]. In truth, it is not too much to say that, from the tenth century, Japan outside the capital became an arena of excursions and alarms, the preservation of peace being wholly dependent on the ambitions of local magnates."-F. Brinkley, History of the Japanese people, pp. 262-263.

1050-1159.-Fall of the Fujiwara.-Reign of Sanjo II.-Cloistered emperors.-While the later generations of the Fujiwara were sinking into a life of slothfulness and ease, they were also providing a means for their own downfall. "Had the conditions existing in the Heian epoch prevailed throughout the whole country, Japan would doubtless have paid the penalty never escaped by a demoralised nation. But in proportion as the Court, the principal officials, and the noblemen in the capital, abandoned themselves to pleasure and neglected the functions of government, the provincial families acquired strength. The members of these families differed essentially from the aristocrats of Kyoto. They had no sympathy with the enervating luxury of city life, and if they chanced to visit the capital, they could not fail to detect the effeminacy and incompetence of the Court nobles. These latter, on the other hand, sought to win the friendship of the rustic captains in order to gain their protection against the priests, who defied the authority of the central government, against the autochthons [Ainu, or Yemeshi], whom the provincial soldiers had been specially organised in the eighth century to resist, and against insurrections

which occasionally occurred among sections of the military men themselves. The nation was, in effect, divided into three factions, the Court nobles (Kuge), the military families (Buke), and the priests. The military men had at the outset no literary attainments: they knew nothing about the Chinese classics or the art of turning a couplet. Arms and armour were their sole study, and the only law they acknowledged was that of might. The central government, altogether powerless to control them, found itself steadily weakened not only by their frank indifference to its mandates, but also by the shrinkage of revenue that gradually took place as the estates of the local captains ceased to pay taxes to Kyoto. Had the Fujiwara family continued to produce men of genius and ambition, the capital would probably have struggled desperately against the growth of provincial autonomy. But the Fujiwara had fallen victims to their own greatness. By rendering their tenure of power independent of all qualifications to exercise it, they had ultimately ceased to possess any qualification whatever. The close of the Heian epoch found them as incapable of defending their usurped privileges as had been the patriarchal families upon whose ruins they originally climbed to supremacy. And, just as the decadence of the patriarchal families and the usurpation of the Fujiwara were divided by a temporary restoration of authority to the Throne, so the decadence of the Fujiwara and the usurpation of the military clans were separated by a similar rehabilitation of imperialism."-F. Brinkley, Japan, v. 2, pp. 1-3.-The date of the weakening of Fujiwara rule is frequently set at 1050; but it continued to function without apparent opposition for about twenty years longer. "With the accession of Sanjo II. in 1069, the Fujiwara autocracy received its first serious check. . . . The azed Kwampaku, who had misgoverned the State for half-a-century, now found it advisable to transfer his office to his younger brother, Norimichi. . . . Norimichi very soon made the discovery that the great office he held was nothing better than a dignified sinecure, for all the real work of directing the administration was undertaken by the new sovereign in person. Sanjo II., who had studied hard under Oye Tadafusa and other distinguished and able teachers, had acquired a statesmanlike grasp upon the pressing problems of the age; and when he ascended the throne at thirty-five he was ready with very drastic solutions of his own for some of them at least. He promptly established a new Council of his own-the Kirokusho, or Record Office-in which he presided personally, toiling from morning to night in the endeavour to restore efficiency to the administrative and judicial machinery. One of the earliest enactments of this new board was a decree for the confiscation of all manors erected since 1045; a little later it issued orders that the title-deeds of the Sho-en created before that date were to be produced; if there were no title-deeds, or if those produced were not in order, the estate was to be forfeited by the holder.... One of the chief evils lying at the root of the Sho-en menace was the extension of the Provincial Governors' tenure of office to a second, or even to a third or fourth term. In some cases governorships had become life-offices; in one or two instances they threatened to become hereditary. This was the reward for looking after the interests of the Kyoto Fujiwara in the provinces. Accordingly it was now enacted that no Governor should hold office for more than a single term. . . . Sanjo II.'s administration of four years (1068-1072) inflicted a blow on the prestige of the great clan from which it never recovered. Fujiwara Sessho

JAPAN, 1050-1159

and Kwampaku [both offices apparently had something of the nature of a regency] were frequently, indeed almost regularly, appointed; but during the following century these great offices were little more than honorary distinctions. Yet, after Sanjo II., the real power was not with the sovereign actually on the throne; it was the Ho-o, the Priest, or exEmperor who really directed affairs. . . . If Sanjo II. had continued to sway the fortunes of the Empire for thirty or forty, instead of for three or four years, it is possible to conceive that Japan would never have been ruled by Shoguns. But the accumulated evils of generations had become too deeply seated to be eradicated in such a brief reign as his proved to be. Unfortunately for the best interests of his subjects, Sanjo II. died at the early age of thirty-nine, in 1073. In the previous year, he had abdicated and placed his eldest son, a youth of nineteen, on the throne as Shirakawa Tenno, his intention being to govern through him. Shirakawa was titular Sovereign for no more than fourteen years (1072-1086); but he was the real ruler of the Empire down to his death forty-three years later on, in 1129. He was not the first Cloistered Emperor; but he was the first Cloistered Emperor who continued to direct the administration after receiving the tonsure.

"During the twenty years' reign of Shirakawa's son Horikawa (1087-1107), the sixteen years of his grandson Toba (1107-1123), and the first six years of his great-grandson, Sutoku (1124-1141), the titular Emperor wielded no authority. Then, on Shirakawa's death, his grandson, Toba Tenno, who had abdicated and become a Cloistered Emperor six years before, stepped into his position and really governed down to his decease in 1156, his two sons who meanwhile occupied the throne in succession being no more than figure-heads. Shirakawa II., another son of Toba's, succeeded to the throne in the year of his father's death (his elder brother, the ex-Emperor Sutoku, being still alive); and after a few months on the throne he also became a Cloistered Emperor who aspired to rule the State. But the day of Cloistered Emperors was past. Although Shirakawa II. continued to be a very prominent figure in Japanese history down to his decease in 1192, he was at no time the real ruler of the country, for from 1156 onwards Japan was governed not by the sceptre, but by the sword. In that year the great military family of the Taira became all-powerful; the years between 1181 and 1185 saw its overthrow and the swift rise of the rival house of Minamoto to supremacy. When a Japanese speaks of the rule of the Cloistered Emperors (Insei), he refers to Shirakawa I. and his grandson Toba. These really governed Japan from 1073 to 1156-a period of 83 years, during the first fourteen of which Shirakawa I. was not cloistered, but titular Sovereign. . . . Shirakawa I., the Cloistered Emperor, maintained a Court of his own, with officials and guards and all the state that surrounded the actual occupant of the throne. Moreover, and this was the most important point of all, he established in his retreat an administrative and judicial council of his own, at the head of which stood a Betto; and it was by this machinery, and not by the old Council of State with its subordinate eight boards, that the Empire was ROW actually controlled. The Dajokwan (Council of State) still issued its decrees. Where they did not clash with those emanating from the Chancery of the ex-Emperor they were valid; but in case of any conflict it was the ordinances sealed by the In Betto that carried supreme authority. Shirakawa thus contrived to seize and to retain the power that had been wielded by the Fujiwara for

generations; and so far succeeded in correcting one very grave abuse of long-standing. But the special remedy he provided for this evil gave rise to others infinitely worse. . . . With conflicting decrees and ordinances emanating from two rival chanceries ... the rise of two new parties, an Emperor's and an ex-Emperor's faction,-could only be a question of time. Had Shirakawa been a statesman of the calibre of his father, Sanjo II., the results of the Insei system might have very well proved much less disastrous than they ultimately did. But whatever he may have been, a statesman Shirakawa was emphatically not. Before this time the sale of offices had been not unknown; in fact it had occasionally assumed the proportions of a public scandal. But what had hitherto been an occasional practice now developed into a regular system. . . . [The provincial governors' offices] were allowed to become hereditary. Then the manor evil, which Sanjo II. had striven so hard to check, now became more pronounced than ever.

On Shirakawa's death in 1129, his grandson, the ex-Emperor Toba, stepped into his position, and Toba made it virtually impossible for any successor of his to create new Sho-en; for, before his demise, of the soil of the Empire not more than one per cent. remained under the jurisdiction of the Provincial Governors! Sovereign, ex-sovereigns, Empress, Imperial consorts, Crown Prince, Fujiwara and other courtiers alike drew the bulk, indeed, almost the whole of their revenues, from their manors, [a condition which] was virtually to remain till the Revolution, or Restoration, of 1868. It was mainly the rise and spread of the manorial system that brought about the fall of the centralised government established by the Reformers of 645. It is to this that the decay and long eclipse of the august line of the Sun-Goddess, so much deplored by Japanese historians, is to be chiefly attributed. Such being the case, it is neither the Fujiwaras, nor the Tairas, nor the Minamotos, nor the Hojos, nor the Ashikaga, nor the Tokugawas that must be saddled with the wite. The Sho-en system began to be a danger under the three learned Emperors, Saga, Junna, and Nimmyo (811-850); it effectually and finally paralysed the old centralised administration under Shirakawa I. and Toba I. None of these five sovereigns were fools; not one of them was a weakling, for without exception they all had wills of their own, and when determined to have their own way, they almost invariably succeeded in making opponents bend to their purposes.

But when a Japanese sovereign

aspires to rule as well as to reign, it is well for him to be equipped with all the wisdom and attributes of a statesman. Of the one hundred and seven scions of the Sun-Goddess who have occupied the throne of Japan since the days of Nintoku Tenno, four, and four only, have shown themselves to have been so provided. These are Tenchi, Kwammu, Sanjo II., and Mutsuhito, who is probably the greatest of the four."-J. Murdoch, History of Japan, v. 1, pp. 274-280.

1159-1199.

ALSO IN: H. Saito, History of Japan, pp. 72-73. Genpei, ΟΙ Taira-Minamoto period. Rule of Kiyomori.-Battle of Dan-noura.-Yoritome, first of the Shoguns.-Shogun capital at Kamakura.-Feudal system. "The name of this era is a compound of Gen, meaning Minamoto, and Hei, meaning Taira. The former of these clans was known by its white flags and the latter by its red flags; so that one is naturally reminded of the Wars of the Roses in England. . . . This period is a very short one, but its four decades include events of intense interest. And this brief era must be subdivided into two periods: one that

of Taira Supremacy (1159-1185), and the other that of Minamoto Supremacy (1185-1199). This is, moreover, the beginning of military domination and the conclusion of civil imperialism, which thereafter generally existed only in name until the Restoration of 1868. But the usurpations of the Taira, the Minamoto, and later of the Tokugawa differed from that of the Fujiwara, . . . in that these families based their power 'on the possession of armed strength which the throne had no competence to control'; governed 'in spite of the Emperor'; and 'transferred the center of political gravity to a point altogether outside the Court, the headquarters of a military feudalism.'”—E. W. Clement, Short history of Japan, p. 40.-"The military families of Minamoto (Gen) and Tairo (Hei), [both of whom were descended from the emperors] performing the duties of guards and of police, gradually acquired influence; were trusted by the Court on all occasions demanding an appeal to force, and spared no pains to develop the qualities that distinguished them-the qualities of the bushi. . . . The disposition of the Central Government was to leave the provincial nobles severely alone, treating their feuds and conflicts as wholly private affairs. Thus, these nobles being cast upon their own resources for the protection of their lives and properties, retained the services of bushi, arming them well and drilling them assiduously, to serve as guards in time of peace and as soldiers in war. One result of this demand for military material was that the helots of former days were relieved from the badge of slavery and became hereditary retainers of provincial nobles, nothing of their old bondage remaining except that their lives were at the mercy of their masters. . . . As the provincial families grew in numbers and influence they naturally extended their estates, so that the landed property of a great sept sometimes stretched over parts, or even the whole, of several provinces. In these circumstances it became convenient to distinguish branches of a sept by the names of their respective localities and thus, in addition to the sept name (uji or sei), there came into existence a territorial name (myoji or shi). For example, when the descendants of Minamoto no Yoshiiye acquired great properties at Nitta and Ashikaga in the provinces of Kotsuke and Shimotsuke, they took the territorial names of Nitta and Ashikaga, remaining always Minamoto; and when the descendants of Yoshimitsu, younger brother of Yoshiiye, acquired estates in the province of Kai, they began to call themselves Takeda. . . In its attitude towards these two families the Court showed shortsighted shrewdness. It pitted one against the other. If the Taira showed turbulence, the aid of the Minamoto was enlisted; and when a Minamoto rebelled, a Taira received a commission to deal with him. Thus, the Throne purchased peace for a time at the cost of sowing, between the two great military clans, seeds of discord destined to shake even the Crown. In the capital the bushi served as palace guards; in the provinces they were practically independent."F. Brinkley, History of the Japanese people, pp. 287-288.-The opportunity for an attempt to seize the reins of government came during the period of the cloistered emperors. "Shirakawa and his immediate successors who followed. . . [the] system of dual imperialism, if for a moment they enjoyed the sweets of administrative authority, must be said to have invited the vicissitudes that afterwards befell the Throne. In truth, to whatever trait of national character the fact may be ascribable, history seems to show that unlimited monarchy is an impossible polity in Japan. ...