Da: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan
The medieval age court. Much as the Fujiwara had done, Kiyomori and
The medieval age spans the 12th to 16th centuries
and includes the late Heian (794-1185), Kamakura
(1185-1336), and Muromachi (1336-1573) periods.
A time of considerable disintegration and warfare, it
also saw great economic, social, and cultural changes.
It began when the authority of the imperial court was
undermined as warriors came to power in the prov-
inces during the 10th and 11th centuries and ended
with the wars of unification at the end of the 16th
century.
THE END OF COURT DOMINATION
In the 11th century, provincial warriors became
embroiled in Kyoto politics and began to seek politi-
cal power. The court soughtto pre-emptthis by play-
ing off one warrior clan against another, especially
the powerful Taira and Minamoto. This policy
worked until the mid 12th century when the Taira
under their leader KiyQinori wiped out their major
rivals and established a virtual hegemony over the
A portrait of Minamoto no
Yoritomo (1147-99). It was
said to have originally been
placed in a Kyoto temple
opposite a portrait of his foe,
Taira no Kiyomori.
60
the Taira monopolized court offices and tried to rule
through the existing administrative framework.
In his efforts to dislodge them, ex-emperor Go-
Shirakawa looked to the surviving Minamoto who
were regrouping in eastern Japan under the young
general Yoritomo. Sweeping Minamoto victories
over the Taira in the late 12th century replaced one
military regime with another.
THE KAMAKURA BAKUFU
Yoritomo assumed the title of shogun and
established his base in Kamakura in eastern Japan.
The Bakufu, or warrior government, was primarily
concerned with the warrior order headed by
Yoritomo and his vassals, but in time it assumed
more power over landholding rights, tax payments,
and legal affairs affecting the whole of society. The
Hojo regents, who dominated the Bakufu after the
extinction of the Minamoto line of shoguns in the
early 13th century, established a branch office of
the Bakufu in Kyoto and intervened in the imperial
succession. They assumed authority, too, in foreign
affairs and it fell to Hojo Tokimune to organize the
defence of the country in the face of the Mongol inva-
sions of 1274 and 1281. Unreconciled to its declining
authority, the court made several attempts to recover
political power. In the Jokyii War of 1221, the forces
mustered by the court were easily crushed by the
Hojo, giving them the power to confiscate more
lands, to punish courtiers and members of the im-
perial family, and to regulate the order of the imper-
ial succession. In the 1320s resistance to the Bakufu
clustered around emperor Go-Daigo. With the sup-
port of the Ashikaga and several other powerful war-
rior families, Go-Daigo was able to overthrow the
Bakufu in 1333 and re-establish what he called direct
imperial rule. This lasted for only three years, for
the court-centered policies of Go-Daigo alienated his
erstwhile warrior supporters. In 1336 Go-Daigo was
forced to flee Kyoto, leaving Ashikaga Takauji to
take the title of shogun and organize a new regime,
the Muromachi Bakufu, under a puppet emperor.
For more than three decades the country was divided
in a desultory civil war between supporters of Go-
Daigo and his Southern Court and the Northern
Court supported by the Ashikaga.

Mongol invasions
Following the unsuccessful invasion
of 1274, the Mongols launched a
much larger invasion of Japan in
1281 consisting of two fleets with a
total of 4,400 ships and 140,000
men. They were successful in
establishing a beach-head but, as in
the accompanying illustration, were
constantly being attacked by
Japanese forces, and when a typhoon
destroyed many of the ships they
were forced to withdraw, losing half
their men in the process. Khubilai
Khan was planning a third attempt on
Japan wh.en he died in 1294. For fear
of another invasion the Bakufu had to
maintain a state of military
preparedness for several more years.
60,km
HISTORY · The medieval age
THE MUROMACHI BAKUFU
Thus, the Muromachi Bakufu got off to an uncertain
start. From the outset, the Ashikaga shoguns, who
had neither extensive landed nor military power of
their own, had to rely on the co-operation of their
leading vassals and provincial military governors,
the shugo. These shugo began to compete to enhance
their local power while weak shoguns retreated from
active political leadership into palace politics and
cultural pursuits. A dispute over the shogunal suc-
cession sparked the Onin War in 1467, a ten-year
conflict between two rival leagues of shugo that laid
waste to much of Kyoto and ushered in a century of
sporadic provincial warfare.
In the confused conditions of the late 15th and
early 16th centuries what counted was not an official
title or the backing of an increasingly powerless
shogunate but real power in terms of loyal vassals,
tightly-held lands, well-fortified castles, tactical
ability, and constant readiness for attack and defence.
In these circumstances many of the shugo were top-
pled by local warriors beneath them in a surge of
upheaval which produced an array of small, tightly-
knit domains. By the early 16th century there were
some 250 of these domains throughout Japan. With
the process of decentralization at an extreme, the
political pendulum began to swing back in the direc-
tion of reunification under Oda Nobunaga,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, who in
a great military victory at Sekigahara in 1600
destroyed his rivals and established a shogunate
which endured until the 19th century.
These currents of political change in the medieval
period left an important legacy. On the one hand the
idea of a warrior government detached from the
imperial court, headed by a shogun, had been firmly
established and prevailed until the 19th century.
Warrior rule was reinforced by legal codes and by the
notion of a shogun ruling under a reigning emperor.
On the other hand, though weakened and financially
hard-pressed, the imperial court survived. Once the
idea of shogunal authority as the military expression
of imperial rule was established, the need to elimin-
ate court and emperor was removed. Although the
imperial office was enfeebled and reduced to a ritual
and legitimizing role it was not stripped of sover-
eignty and its very weakness became something of a
source of strength or, at least, of durability.
HISTORY · The medieval age
The pavilion in the Ginkaku-
ji, or Temple of the Silver
Pavilion, constructed by the
shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa
in 1483. The original
intention was to cover the
pavilion in silver foil, like
the Ginkaku-ji on the other
side of Kyoto, which is
covered in gold foil, but
Yoshimasa died before this
could be done.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE
The samurai were not the only newly-emergent
group to make their presence felt in medieval society.
Merchants, artisans, and small farmers also became
more evident. In the 12th century the only local com-
merce was carried on by itinerant pedlars. There was
little use of coinage, and hardly any market activity.
Economic exchange was mostly in kind or in service,
and the most common economic activity was the pay-
ment of annual taxes in rice or other products. The
bulk of farmers' output was absorbed in subsistence
or tax payments. There was little surplus to sell in a
market or to a travelling merchant.
This rather static economic world began to change
during the 13th century. One long-term economic
and social transformation that was taking place was
the steady dismemberment of the shoen estates. The
control formerly exerted over shoen by nobles or
temples was undercut or denied, by local warrior
families who entrenched themselves and diverted
more and more of the tax yield away from the pro-
prietors. Nobles and temples were forced to make
compromise settlements or to partition their estates.
Warfare brought further dismemberment to shoen
as shugo, local warriors, and daimyo all sought to
exert their authority over lands in their locality held
by absentee proprietors. The loosening grip of nobles
and temples over shoen released more farmers' and
artisans' labour for market-directed production.
During these centuries there were improvements
in agricultural technology and farming practice.
Greater use was made of draught animals and double
cropping became more widespread. Markets within
shoen, at crossroads, and temple gates became more
widespread and more regular. Thrice-monthly
markets were held in many areas and permanent
shops began to appear. These markets in remote
areas were linked with the cities by pedlars and mer-
chants. Markets like the Horikawa lumber market in
Kyoto or the Yodo fish market drew produce from far
afield and became wholesale markets. Forwarding
merchants established themselves in port cities
around the inland sea, and specialized guilds of mer-
chants came into existence.
Commercial and market activity continued to
flourish during the Muromachi period. The location
of the Bakufu in Kyoto spurred a recovery of vitality
in the capital which became by the early 15th century
a national market. The more active of the Ashikaga
shoguns turned to foreign trade and the promotion,
and taxation, of domestic commerce to make up for
their lack of landed base. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu sent
official trading missions to China and in the shadow
of the official missions went pirates who were treated
as marauders by the ruling authorities in Korea,
China and Japan but who thought of themselves as
freebooters and traders.
CULTURAL LIFE
The medieval centuries witnessed far reaching
changes in religious and cultural life, changes that
were to lay the foundations of modern Japanese
spirituality and aesthetic sensibility. From the late
12th century there was a surge of revival within Bud-
dhism that was to carry hopes for salvation to the
mass of the population. This surge was set in motion
by the conviction of some young monks that all was
not well with Buddhism, that it catered exclusively to
the elite, that the rules of monastic life were not stric-
tly observed, and that the age was one of spiritual
decline. The reformers looked for new and easier
paths to salvation, which provoked a hostile reaction
from the older schools of Buddhism, but also stimu-
lated movements for reform within the older sects.
Although the court did not lose its cultural auth-
ority, the medieval age was the age of the warrior,
symbolized by fortified warrior residences and hill-
top castles. Scroll paintings like the Obusama Saburo
Scroll, contrasting the lives of a martially-minded
warrior and his aesthetically-inclined elder brother,
 or the Mongol Invasion Scrolls, depicting the
exploits of a Kyushu warrior against the Mongol
fleets, illustrated the details of warrior lifestyle and
dress. The making of swords, armour, helmets, and
horse trappings reached the highest technical and
.artistic levels. A developing warrior ethic of heroism,
loyalty, and willingness to die for one's lord was
fostered by warrior chieftains and lauded in war tales
like the Heike monogatari. At the same time, war-
riors were mastering those civilian arts essential for
government, for easier social intercourse with the
nobility, and for cultural enjoyment. Many warriors
were literate: some, including Minamoto Yoritomo,
wrote poetry that was considered sufficiently accom-
plished to be included in major anthologies. Many
other warriors participated in literary salons with
nobles and monks and patronized painters, drama-
tists, and craftsmen. Ashikaga shoguns like
Yoshimitsu, provincial warrior families like the
Hosokawa and the unifiers Nobunaga and Hideyoshi
were all lavish patrons and practitioners of the arts.
It was under this kind of warrior patronage that the
no theatre and the tea ceremony developed. Palaces,
castles, and provincial warrior residences were
decorated with screens and wall painting; by masters
of the Kano and Tosa schools of painting. Warriors
also became devotees and patrons of the new br\ln-
ches of Buddhism, especially Zen, and acquired from
monks some understanding of the secular as well
as the Buddhist culture of China. Buddhist monas-
teries were also major nodes in the medieval cultural
fabric. Monks, nobles and warriors mingled on equal
terms at literary salons.
No comment on the medieval age and its culture
would be complete without a reference to the grow-
ing cultural visibility of the common people. Mess-
ages of Buddhist salvation and retribution and tales
of military heroism were carried into the provinces
by travelling priests and minstrels. The no anq kyo-
gen theatres had their origins in popular rural and .
religious entertainments and continued to be per-
formed at village shrines throughout Japan. Tea like-
wise was enjoyed in villages as well as in the castles of
warriors or the tea houses of wealthy merchants. On
urban riverbanks, free from taxation, lived a restless
urban proletariat known as the kawaramono. It
included dropouts and outcastes who made a living
slaughtering animals and tanning hides, and also
poor artists, craftsmen, and popular performers. MC
Japan encounters
the West
The history of Japan's encounter with the West
began in 1543 with the shipwreck of three Port-
uguese sailors on the island of Tanegashima off the
coast of Kyushu. This event had two important
consequences: the introduction of firearms in the
form of the arquebus and the arrival of the Port-
uguese Jesuit Francis Xavier in 1549. The adoption of
firearms marked a turning point in Japanese warfare
and contributed to the emergence of new powers in
the land. The arrival of the missionaries began what
has been called Japan's 'Christian Century', during
which first the Jesuits and then the Franciscans and
Dominicans tried to make converts. This was to con-
tinue until the decree of 1614 expelling all mission-
aries, which was followed by a final edict of 1639
ending Portuguese trade with Japan and all Japanese
contacts with Catholic Europe. The importance of the
'Christian Century' in the long span of Japanese
history can be exaggerated, but it was through the
missionaries that 16th-century Europe gained its
first knowledge of Japan as they wrote home of the
life and customs of the Japanese and, as excited
observers and participants, of the struggles and rise
to power of the three main figures Oda Nobunaga,
Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
THE JESUIT MISSION
The arrival of the Portuguese traders and Jesuit mis-
sionaries coincided with the period in which the
power of the Ashikaga shoguns was at its nadir and
when anarchy had spread throughout the country.
This had caused the decay of long-established power-
bases and the break-up of large estates: warriors of
obscure origins rose to high rank usurping the power
of their lords. New names came to the fore while
those of ancient families disappeared. The emperor
was a shadowy figure, with no authority to draw
upon. The Jesuits in their early letters sought to
make sense of the situation by referring to provincial
leaders as 'kings', but this gave Europeans the mis-
taken impression that Japan was a confederation of
kingdoms.
HISTORY · Japan encounters the West
A Portuguese merchant in
Japan with attendant,
servant and dog. The exotic
dress and manners of the
Portuguese prompted a
genre of painting and a
number of eccentric fads,
like that whereby Japanese
began addressing each other
with Portuguese names.
Xavier was initially enthusiastic about the pros-
pects for missionary work. 'The people we have met
so far', he wrote, 'are the best who have yet been dis-
covered', and he considered the Japanese 'the delight
of my heart'. Subsequent events were to alter percep-
tions of Japan and to make the work much more
arduous as all the difficulties of the cultural relation-
ship between the missionaries and their would-be
converts became apparent. Nevertheless, among
them were some remarkable individuals, like Ales-
sandro Valignano, an Italian who was chief of the
Jesuit missions in the Far East. He entered upon a
new programme of missionary work, founded
schools and seminaries, set up the Jesuit press in
Japan, wrote many works on Japan and tried a policy
of adapting missionary work to its context that was
too new for its time and aroused the opposition of his
superiors. Of the many others, Luis Frois should be
mentioned for his History of Japan and Rodrigues
for his study of the Japanese language which was
published in Portuguese in 1608.
The Jesuits operated mainly in Kyushu, where
they established their headquarters in 1571 in the
port of Nagasaki, but they were also active in and
around the capital, Kyoto. In 1569 the shogun
Ashikaga Yoshiteru allowed Gaspar Vilela to preach
in Kyoto, Nara and the mercantile city of Sakai.
Nobunaga gave Frois permission to build a church
in the capital which was known as the Nanban-ji,
or 'Temple of the Southern Barbarians'. Nobunaga' s
opposition to Buddhism, which was for political
rather than religious reasons, and his affability
towards the newcomers from Europe led the Jesuits
to think of him as their great protector. Frois wrote in
1569 that, 'He is a man of good understanding and
clear judgment, despising the Camis (Shinto gods)
and Fotoques (Buddhas) and all the rest of that breed
of idols and the heathen superstitions'. And it was
under Nobunaga's patronage that the first official
debates took place between the Buddhist clergy and
the Jesuits. But come the rise to power of Hideyoshi,
the Jesuits fell on hard times and their hopes were
dashed. In 1587 Hideyoshi issued edicts restricting
the practice of Christianity and expelling the mis-
sionaries, although these were not strictly enforced.
The final blow for the Jesuits came in 1593 when
Spanish Franciscans arrived: the unification of the
thrones of Castile and Portugal had ended the divi-
sion of the world between Spain and Portugal and
hence the Jesuit monopoly in Japan.
Of the various activities of the Jesuits in Japan the
establishment of a printing press with movable type
was of particular importance. It was Valignano who
realized the need for texts printed locally for the use
of missionaries and their converts in spreading
Catholic teaching, and he arranged for the necessary
equipment to be brought from Europe. The Jesuit
Mission Press was initially set up in Macao and then
shifted to Kyushu in 1590; once the persecutions
started it was transferred to Manila and then back to
Macao. The press may have had a short life in Japan
but it was an active and remarkably innovative one:
the missionaries were the first to print Japanese with
metal rather than wooden type, the first to print a
work of secular Japanese literature, the first to print
the cursive script, and the first to make use of cop-
percuts for illustrations.
 HISTORY · Japan encounters the West

an expression of the secular aspirations of the Sect.

The Sect's principal antagonist was Nobunaga, 'the
great enemy of Buddhist law'.
The Japanese mission to Europe of 1582-90 Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) was a minor territorial
The first Japanese to reach Europe chieftain in the province of Owari who took the
was probably a follower of Xavier's opportunity of the moment to defeat the army of
who travelled to Rome and Lisbon in lmagawa Yoshimoto at Okehazama in 1560. By so
the 155os, but the first official.visitors doing he prevented lmagawa from reaching Kyoto
were four young boys aged 12 or 13 and gaining power, and started out on his own rise to
who were al I students at the Jesuit
national prominence. In fact all three of the heroes of
seminary in Japan and who
late 16th-century Japan took part in the battle, for
represented several daimyo families
of western Japan. The mission was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, soon to be dictator, fought
the idea of Alessandro Valignano, under Nobunaga while Tokugawa Ieyasu, the
who hoped that, by demonstrating founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, fought under
the Catholic potential in East Asia at a Imagawa.
time when Catholicism was on the During the 1560s Nobunaga enjoyed the support
defensive in Europe, it might secure of the emperor and of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the
the Jesuit monopoly .on missionary pretender to the shogunate following the assassina-
work in Japan ancJ prompt the pope to tion of the previous shogun, and after a string of vic-
offer financial support. The boys left tories he finally entered Kyoto in 1568. He installed
Nagasaki witha party of Jesuit
Yoshiaki as shogun in that year, but in 1573 removed
interpreters and other guides in 1582
him from office for insubordination and thus put an
and reached Lisbon in 1584 via
Macao, Goa and the Cape of Good end to the rule of the Ashikaga shoguns. In 1575 he
Hope. They were received by King booklets were published like the one became the first to employ firearms strategically in
Philip II of Spain and by Pope from Milan illustrated above. In spite warfare when his 3,000 musketeers ensured victory
Gregory XIII, who treated them as of the impact they had in Europe, by over Takeda Katsuyori at the battle of Nagashino.
ambassadors and was impressed the time of their return to Japan in His differences with the most powerful religious
enough to grant Valignano's requests, 1590 the mood had turned against sects were similarly resolved in a series of bloody
and they travelled extensively Christianity. Although Hideyoshi did encounters, starting in 1571 with a massacre of the
through the Italian states. In Venice, receive them in his castle, he had in soldier monks of the Tendai Sect on Mount Hiei and
they were given a spectacular 1587 already issued the Jesuits with 1 ending in 1580 with a prolonged assault on the
reception and Tintoretto was asked to an expulsion order and the
Ishiyama Hongan-ji, which was brought to its knees
paint them, and in many other towns, experiences of the four young nien
in spite of substantial support from Nobunaga's
even as far away as Prague, souvenir had no discernible impact in Japan.
PK enemies.
By 1576 Nobunaga had established his head-
quarters at Azuchi on the shores of Lake Biwa where
his castle stood as a symbol of his authority. He was
THE RISE OF ODA NOBUNAGA already in total control of central Japan and was plan-
ning to complete the reunification of Japan by taking
During the Sengoku period (1467-1568), a period of his armies further afield when in 1582 he was
political instability, various ecclesiastical organiza- attacked by one of his subordinates in Kyoto and
tions greatly increased their secular power by play- assassinated. What was new about Nobunaga was his
ing on the frustrations and rebellious sentiments of robust assumption of political power in spite of the
the peasants in many parts of Japan. One of the lead- claims of the imperial court and the shogunate. There
ing ecclesiastical powers was the Ishiyama Hongan- is no way of knowing what kind of political order he
ji, a temple of the True Pure Land Sect on Osaka Bay might have introduced but it is undeniable that he
which had been transformed into a fortress. Within had shaken the established order to its foundations
its extensive precincts a town grew up which became and prepared the way for a new structure of authority
a commercial and cultural centre in its own right and to emerge.
HISTORY · Japan encounters the West
;cuns and warfare
The introduction of firearms to Japan
· by some Portuguese sailors in 1543
•· occasioned an immediate response.
,.,, The daimy6 ofTanegashima, where
: they landed, acknowledged their
. effectiveness immediately and
· ordered his swordsmiths to make
'···replicas. Within two decades
Japanese gunsmiths had conquered
the technical problems and were
producing guns in quantity. Not only
·· did they manage to replicate the
.•. technology in a remarkably short
'•i space of time, but they also made
some improvements and refinements,
particularly to the spring and
•· trigger mechanisms. They also
· devised a cover for the firing
··mechanism which made it
possible to fire their muskets in
,·. the rain, or to do so at night
·without the fuse giving away the
,'. position of the musketeer. Gun
· : manuals were also produced, and
,.•. one, from the lnatomi School, is
"\illustrated below.
ii· Oda Nobunaga seems to have
'• been one of the first to realize the
•: potential of guns, and as early as 1 549
he bought 500 for his troops. Daimy6
had no choice but to begin equipping
their soldiers with muskets, and in
1567 Takeda Shingen, the daimy6.of
Kai, declared that guns would
66
thereafter be the most important
weapons of warfare. However, the
transformation of warfare by firearms
did not take place overnight. It took
time to prime a musket and light the
fuse, and, to prevent an enemy taking
advantage of this, muskets had to be
discharged in sequences ratherthan
simultaneously. The gun also
involved a shift in the pattern of
warfare from man-to-man combat to
the tactical use of a corps of
musketeers. Some musketeers were
slow to realize this and failed to
abandon the traditional courtesies
whereby combatants first introduced
themselves on the battlefield before
resorting to arms.
The turning point was the battle of
Nagashino on 29 June 1575, when
Oda Nobunaga led a force of 40,000
men in defence of the castle there.
The mounted samurai who led
assault against him were no match for
his force of muskete.ers, 3,000 strong,
waiting in a well-defended position,
and they were shot to pieces. Muskets
clearly determined the outcome of
the battle and the lesson was not lost
on the warring daimy6, who had not
only to equip their troops with guns
but also to improve the fortifications
of their castles to cope with muskets
and cannons. PK
HIDEYOSHI
The reunification of Japan begun by Nobunaga was
completed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-98).
Hideyoshi successfully presented himself as
Nobunaga' s avenger: he was a brilliant strategist and
made short work of his rivals. His road to mastery
over all Japan was paved both with victories on the
battlefield and with shrewd political alliances. His
domestic campaigns ended with that in eastern Japan
in 1590 which effectively brought the whole of the
country under his sway, but in 1592 his armies
invaded Korea in the first stage of a grandiose plan to
establish a pan-Asiatic kingdom centred on China.
The campaign met fierce resistance in Korea and was
eventually brought to an end by Hideyoshi' s death.
During his years of power Hideyoshi turned
against the Christian missionaries. In 1593 Spanish
Franciscans broke the Jesuit monopoly in Japan when
Pedro Bautista arrived with three colleagues as an
embassy from the Spanish governor of Manila and
received permission to stay and preach. This brought
the intense rivalry between the Jesuits and
Franciscans out into the open and aroused fears of
Japan becoming embroiled in European conflict or
even of meeting the same fate as Mexico and Peru
and becoming a colony of Spain or Portugal. The
 consequences were a heightened wave of persecution
in the short term and in the long term an end not only
to missionary activity but also to contacts with the
Catholic nations of Europe.
Hideyoshi was a commoner who rose to be undis-
puted leader of Japan: he was an enthusiastic amateur
of all the arts and revelled in surroundings of mag-
nificence and splendour. He also launched a land
survey covering the whole country to provide a
rational basis for land taxation and enforced a separa-
tion. of the classes by carrying out a sword hunt to
remove weapons from the farming population: by so
doing he laid some of the foundations for the stable
social order that developed under Tohgawa Ieyasu
and his successors. AB

Right The invasions of

Korea.

Bdow Hideyoshi's audience

chamber. This room was
ol"iginally part of his castle
tit Fushimi, south of Kyoto,
l111t it is now part of a
fl'mple. The raised portion
was for Hideyoshi and some
of the sliding doors on the
right would usually have
n111cealed armed men. N