8 Key excerpts on "Ashikaga Shogunate"

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  War In The Early Modern World, 1450-1815

  • Jeremy Black, Jeremy Black(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter Three

  Warfare in Japan 1467–1600

  Paul Varley

  Japan in the mid-fifteenth century was a country on the verge of disintegration. Its emperor, whose court was located in Kyoto, had not exercised real authority for centuries, but was a “sacred legitimizer” of the rule of others. From the late twelfth century, when the first warrior – samurai – government was established at Kamakura in the Kantō or eastern provinces (a government known in English as “shogunate”, because its head was the shogun or “generalissimo”), the effective rulers of the land were warrior chiefs. The Kamakura Shogunate spanned the years 1185–1333, and was replaced, after a brief hiatus, by the Ashikaga Shogunate, 1336–1573, which was situated in Kyoto in proximity to the emperor and his court and headed by shoguns of the Ashikaga family.

  The Ashikaga Shogunate came into existence in 1336 at the commencement of a sanguinary conflict, known as the War Between the Courts, that was not settled until 1392. Even after this war the Shogunate was able to exercise only limited control of the country. Its leader, the shogun, presided as hegemon over semi-independent warrior chiefs invested by him as constables (shugo) of the various provinces (66 in all) into which Japan was divided. But distant areas of the country, especially the island of Kyushu in the west and the northern reaches of the main island of Honshu, were largely beyond effective Shogunate administration, and in the early fifteenth century the vital Kantō region, heartland of the warrior class, also slipped from Shogunate control and lapsed into disunion. During the Ōnin War, 1467–77, the Ashikaga Shogunate was reduced to near-impotence, and Japan itself was plunged into the age of Sengoku or “The Country at War”, 1467–1568.1

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  A History of Asia

  • Rhoads Murphey, Kristin Stapleton(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Under strict Tokugawa control, Japan enjoyed over two centuries of order, prosperity, and economic growth. But control rested on a revived system of feudal ties, and as the economy matured, the population grew, and a new merchant class became more prominent, pressures for change increased. Foreign demands for trade concessions finally broke down Japan’s self-imposed isolation in 1853; this revealed Japan’s weakness and at the same time fed domestic discontent with the Tokugawa rulers. The shogunate was ended in 1868 by what is called the Meiji Restoration; although it did ostensibly restore the emperor, it is more accurately seen as a relatively bloodless revolution that brought to power a new group of radical reformers who set Japan on a course of rapid modernization.

  THE TOKUGAWA UNIFICATION

  Under the Ashikaga Shogunate, regional feudal lords and their armies competed with each other for dominance as summarized in Chapter 9 . Ashikaga rule from Kyoto became increasingly ineffective in the sixteenth century Although the shogunate was never in control of more than central Japan, areas beyond the immediate vicinity of Kyoto became more and more independent under their own daimyō (feudal lords), each with an army of samurai and based in impressive fortified castles. Fighting between them became chronic, and with the final collapse of the Ashikaga in 1573, Japan dissolved into civil war.

  Japan was still a small, poor country on the edge of the major Asian stage, divided between warring clans. The settled area was the size of a Chinese province, and the total population numbered only about 15 million. The court and urban culture of Kyoto with their extreme refinement were luxurious, and technologically Ashikaga Japan had made

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  The Middle Ages

  Dictionary of World Biography, Volume 2

  • Frank N. Magill(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  ASHIKAGA TAKAUJI

  Born: 1305; Japan

  Died: 1358; Kyoto, Japan

  Areas of Achievement: Government and military affairs

  Contribution: Through dogged military prowess and ruthless political decisiveness, Takauji prevented Japan from swinging back to an outdated Chinese-style imperial government and placed power fully in the hands of rising new military clans. The Ashikaga Shogunate which he founded hastened innovations in politics, culture, and economics that launched Japan’s High Middle Ages.

  Early Life

  Ashikaga Takauji was born in 1305, the son of Ashikaga Sadauji of the Seiwa Genji branch of the Minamoto clan, which had founded the first shogunate, or military government, at Kamakura in 1185. His mother was of the Hojo family, which had dominated the latter years of the Kamakura shogunate. The only portrait reputed to be of Takauji shows him mounted in a heroic pose, brandishing his curved sword in full armor. He is bullnecked with a black mustache and goatee. It is typical of the battle portraits of the day. In fact, Takauji was thoroughly typical of a time in which, paradoxically, family loyalties and spartan courage were revered but betrayal and intrigue played a major part in politics.

  The Kamakura shogunate under which Takauji was reared exemplified the Japanese genius for maintaining the fiction of an emperor while allowing administration by the military powers. The charade of an emperor “appointing” a shogun to oversee the details of politics served to protect the imperial court, rendering the emperor a mere figurehead. Courtiers and warriors alike drew their incomes from agricultural estates called shoen, which were overseen by stewards appointed by the shogun. Provincial military governors, like the Ashikaga, were also appointed by and owed their loyalties to the Kamakura shogunate.

  Stable as the system had been for more than a century, unrest was growing by the beginning of the fourteenth century. Dwindling returns from the shoen

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  Voices of Early Modern Japan

  Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life During the Age of the Shoguns

  • Constantine N. Vaporis, Constantine Vaporis(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  sei-i-tai shogun (barbarian-quelling general), or shogun, by the emperor, but in reality the shogun wielded all political power. The appointment as shogun conferred upon Ieyasu the legitimacy for his de facto power. However, one last major source of opposition remained, centered around Toyotomi Hideyori. The Tokugawa faced Hideyori and his allies in two campaigns at Osaka, in 1614 and 1615, effectively wiping them out. Hideyori himself perished in the flames as the castle burned. Thereafter the Tokugawa remained hegemons of Japan without resort to battle until the end of their reign, in 1868.

  The shogunate under Ieyasu, his son Hidetada (1578–1632), and his grandson Iemitsu (1604–51) established an impressive range of powers over the other daimyo during the first half of the seventeenth century that far exceeded those of the two previous shogunates established, during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the Ashikaga or Muromachi period (1333–1568). The Tokugawa shogunate took control over the largest private domain, nearly one-quarter of the agricultural lands—and among the richest lands in the realm, concentrated largely in the rich Kantō plain, in the east, and the Kinai plain, centrally located in the Kyoto-Osaka region. The early shoguns redesigned much of the political map of Japan to their strategic advantage by confiscating the lands of their defeated enemies, distributing that land to win allegiances, and reassigning or transferring daimyo to different domains, in part to isolate those whose loyalties were suspect. The Tokugawa assumed control of the key cities of Edo, Osaka, and Kyoto, where the shogunate constructed, with the forced assistance of many of the domains, imposing castle complexes; it further compelled the other daimyo to tear down all auxiliary castles, leaving but one castle per domain. It took control of the major gold and silver mines in the country, assumed authority over the minting of currency, and created and controlled a national highway system. The Tokugawa house assembled the largest army, which included 80,000 retainers and subretainers provided by its allied daimyo and relatives. It compelled the daimyo to travel every other year to Edo on the sankin kōtai

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  Ideals of the East

  The Spirit of Japanese Art

  • Kakuzo Okakura, Sister Nivedita(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Dover Publications

    (Publisher)

  Ashikaga Period 1400–1600 A.D. THE Ashikaga period is named from that branch of the Minamoto family who succeeded to the Shogunate. It sounds, natural outcome as it is of Kamakura hero-worship, the true note of modern art, Romanticism in its literary sense. The conquest of Matter by the Spirit has been always the purpose of the striving of world-forces, and each stage of culture is marked, alike in East and West, by an intensifying of the attitude of triumph. The three terms by which European scholars love to distinguish the past development of art, though lacking perhaps in precision, have nevertheless an inevitable truth, since the fundamental law of life and progress underlies not only the history of art as a whole, but also the appearance and growth of individual artists and their schools. The East has had its own form of that period called Symbolic, or better still, perhaps, Formalistic, when matter, or the law of material form, dominates the spiritual in art. The Egyptian and Assyrian sought by immense stones to express grandeur, as the Indian worker by his innumerable repetitions to utter forth infinity in his creations. Similarly, the Chinese mind of the Shu and Hâng dynasties pursued sublime effects in their long walls, and in the intricately subtle lines which they produced in bronze. The first period of Japanese art, from its birth to the beginning of the Nara era, however imbued with the purest ideal of the first Northern development of Buddhism, still falls into this group, by making form and formalistic beauty the foundation of artistic excellence. Next comes the so-called Classic period when beauty is sought as the union of spirit and matter. To this impulse, Greek Pantheistic philosophy in all its phases devotes itself, and the works of the Parthenon, with the immortal stones of Phidias and Praxiteles, are its purest expression

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  The Code of Civilization

  • Vyacheslav Nikonov, Huw Davies(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Glagoslav Publications B.V. (N)

    (Publisher)

  The Shogunates

  The deification of the Emperor, combined with military-feudal regime, predetermined the existence, for many centuries, of a system of governance known as the shogunate: dictatorships of the strongest clan in terms of military, political and economic power. Its head bore the title shogun (“warlord”, “military commander”; the full name of the title is “great warlord and vanquisher of the barbarians”) and had practically absolute power in the country. The shoguns, isolating the emperors from matters of governance of the country and leaving them the right “to communicate with the gods”, never tried to overthrow the ruling dynasty or to proclaim a new one, as happened several times in China. The Shogun dynasties existed in parallel to that of the Emperor.1 In Japan’s history, there are three periods of rule by the shoguns: the Minamoto shogunate, during which the capital was Kamakura (1192-1333), the Asikaga shogunate, the center of which was in Muromati (1338-1598), and the Tokugawa shogunate, in the Edo period (1603-1867). The age of the shoguns is often compared to the Middle Ages in the West. “The eternal battle of elites between the kuge, the nobility from the imperial court, and the bushi, the warriors, is one of the original features of Japanese civilization. Having taken shape in the 12th century, this stand-off continued right up until the Meiji era,” writes the French Japanologist Michel Vié.2

  In Japan, by contrast with China, a strong military tradition developed. Why? In China, soldiers were never seen as a separate class, and the military was not seen as a prestigious profession. A true warrior ought to achieve victories without having to fight. Military achievements could not be compared to successes in the field of state governance or in literature. In Japan, by contrast, military glory was seen as being above all else.

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  Turning Points in Japanese History

  • Bert Edstrom(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2

  1247 as a Turning Point for the Kamakura Shogunate

  Kondo Shigekazu

  I n 1247, Shogunal Regent Hō jō Tokiyori destroyed Miura Yasumura, who at the time was one of the most powerful vassals in Kamakura. Although this was a major event in its day, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can see the events of 1247 to have had much greater implications than anyone at the time could have foreseen. This paper explores both the political and the social significance of this incident.

  The Government of the Shogunate

  First, I would like to discuss the political importance of the Miura affair. Although this incident occurred entirely inside of the shogunate, it was closely related to the movement of the imperial court in Kyoto. So I will begin by detailing the governmental structure of both the shogunate and the imperial court and by explaining their relationship at the time.

  The Kamakura shogunate ruled from 1180 to 1333, but it was not the only government of Japan at the time, for the imperial court ruled in Kyoto. The latter had held power since the seventh century, though the nature of its authority had changed in quality. The shogunate was a relative newcomer, established in the twelfth century in eastern Japan. Formally, the shogunate relied on the imperial court for legitimation. In reality, however, the Kamakura shogunate was stronger than the court, and when war broke out between these two centres in 1221, Kamakura’s decisive victory over Kyoto confirmed the shogunate’s power (Mass 1979).

  From its founding in the twelfth century, the shogunate was composed of vassals who swore loyalty to the shogun. But in 1203, a new position called shikken was set up alongside the shogun. In this year, the second shogun, Minamoto Yoriie, lost the confidence of Kamakura vassals and was obliged to resign. The third shogun, Minamoto Sanetomo, Yoriie’s younger brother, was placed under the guardianship of Hō jō Tokimasa, his grandfather on his mother’s side. It was common for a grandfather to act as guardian for his grandchild at the time. Tokimasa’s position came to be called shikken

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  Japanese Tea Culture

  Art, History and Practice

  • Morgan Pitelka, Morgan Pitelka(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  34 His collection of famous tea objects, particularly those that had once been in the Ashikaga collection, provided one source for this association.

  When Nobunaga occupied Kyoto in 9/1568, Matsunaga Hisahide submitted to Nobunaga and presented him with a famed eggplant-shaped tea caddy. This Chinese object was purported to have been owned by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (13581408), and subsequently purchased from the Shoguns collection by Shuk for the price of ninety-nine kan .35 The name of this piece, Tsukumo was written with the characters for ninety-nine (

  kyū jū kyū

  ), while the reading was taken from a poem in the famous Tales of Ise.36 The Asakura warrior family later purchased the caddy for 500 kan . Next the Kosode merchant family bought it for 1,000 kan. It then entered Matsunagas collection and finally Nobunagas.37 In a similar example, the Sakai merchant and tea practitioner Imai Sky (15201593) visited Nobunaga in the capital and presented him with two famous tea utensils: a tea leaf storage jar named Matsushima , which had once been in the Ashikaga collection; and an eggplant tea caddy ostensibly once owned by Takeno J.38 This pattern of presenting famous objects to Nobunaga would be repeated many times in the following years, as Nobunaga applied his considerable skill in the manipulation of symbols of power to the field of tea culture.

  Although Nobunaga seems to have had little interest in tea before entering Kyoto, he quickly realized the potential uses of the art. In 1569 he declared that he would begin collecting Chinese utensils and famous objects, as he had no lack of precious metals or rice. This is known as his “famous-utensil hunt” (meibutsu-gari ).39 In Kyoto he confiscated several famous objects from merchants, warriors, and temples, including a tea caddy named Hatsuhana (literally first flowers, which refers to plum blossoms), formerly in the Ashikaga collection.40 In 1570 he extended the hunt to Sakai, where he obtained four other famed pieces.41 In addition, Nobunaga continued to add to his collection by confiscating utensils from defeated enemies as well as obtaining unsolicited gifts from individuals who sought his favor.42

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