APPRECIATIONS OF THE MIYOSHI MEMORIAL

This celebrated document consisted of twelve articles and contained five thousand ideographs, so that nothing was wanting in the matter of voluminousness. The writer did not confine himself to enumerating abuses: he also suggested remedies. Thus he urged that no man, having become an equerry (toneri) of the six corps of guards, should be allowed to return to his province during his term of service; that the spurious priests should be all unfrocked and punished; that the office of kebiishi should be restricted to men having legal knowledge; that the upper classes should set an example of economy in costumes and observances; that the ranks of the Buddhist priesthood should be purged of open violators of the laws of their creed, and so forth. Historians have justly eulogized the courage of a memorialist who thus openly attacked wide-spread and powerful abuses. But they have also noted that the document shows some reservations. For generations the Fujiwara family had virtually usurped the governing power; had dethroned Emperors and chosen Empresses; had consulted their own will alone in the administrations of justice and in the appointment and removal of officials. Yet of these things Miyoshi Kiyotsura says nothing whatever. The sole hope of their redress lay in Michizane; but instead of supporting that ill-starred statesman, Miyoshi had contributed to his downfall. Could a reformer with such a record be regarded as altogether sincere?

ADMINISTRATION OF THE EMPEROR DAIGO

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. A celebrated incident of his career is that one winter's night he took off his wadded silk garment to evince sympathy with the poor who possessed no such protection against the cold. 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 by Miyoshi Kiyotsura. 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.

THE CLASSICAL AGE OF LITERATURE

The Engi era and the intervals of three or four decades before and after it may be regarded as the classical age of literature in Japan. Prose composition of a certain class was wholly in Chinese. All works of a historical, scientific, legal, or theological nature were in that language, and it cannot be said that they reached a very high level. Yet their authors had much honour. During the reigns of Uda and Daigo (888-930), Sugawara Michizane, Miyoshi Kiyotsura, Ki no Haseo, and Koze no Fumio, formed a quartet of famous masters of Chinese literature. From one point of view, Michizane's overthrow by Fujiwara Tokihira may be regarded as a collision between the Confucian doctrines which informed the polity of the Daika epoch and the power of aristocratic heredity. Kibi no Makibi and Sugawara no Michizane were the only two Japanese subjects that attained to be ministers of State solely in recognition of their learning, but several litterateurs reached high office, as chief chamberlain, councillor of State, minister of Education, and so forth. Miyoshi Kiyotsura ranks next to Michizane among the scholars of that age. He was profoundly versed in jurisprudence, mathematics (such as they were at the time), the Chinese classics, and history. But whereas Michizane bequeathed to posterity ten volumes of poems and two hundred volumes of a valuable historical work, no production of Kiyotsura's pen has survived except his celebrated memorial referred to above. He received the post of minister of the Household in 917 and died in the following year.

It must be understood that the work of these scholars appealed to only a very limited number of their countrymen. The ako incident (pp. 239-240) illustrates this; the rescript penned by Tachibana no Hiromi was not clearly comprehended outside a narrow circle of scholars. Official notices and enactments were intelligible by few men of the trading classes and by no women. But a different record is found in the realm of high literature. Here there is much wealth. The Nara epoch gave to Japan the famous Manyo-shu (Myriad Leaves), and the Engi era gave her the scarcely less celebrated Kokin-shu, an anthology of over eleven hundred poems, ancient and modern. As between the two books, the advantage is with the former, though not by any means in a marked degree, but in the abundance and excellence of its prose writings—pure Japanese writings apart from the Chinese works referred to above—"the Heian epoch leaves the Nara far behind. The language had now attained to its full development. With its rich system of terminations and particles it was a pliant instrument in the writer's hands, and the vocabulary was varied and copious to a degree which is astonishing when we remember that it was drawn almost exclusively from native sources. The few words of Chinese origin which it contains seem to have found their way in through the spoken language and are not taken straight from Chinese books, as at a later stage when Japanese authors loaded their periods with alien vocables."

This Heian literature "reflects the pleasure-loving and effeminate, but cultured and refined, character of the class of Japanese who produced it. It has no serious masculine qualities and may be described in one word as belles-lettres—poetry, fiction, diaries, and essays of a desultory kind. The lower classes of the people had no share in the literary activity of the time. Culture had not as yet penetrated beyond a very narrow circle. Both writers and readers belonged exclusively to the official caste. It is remarkable that a very large and important part of the best literature which Japan has produced was written by women. A good share of the Nara poetry is of feminine authorship, and, in the Heian period, women took a still more conspicuous part in maintaining the honour of the native literature. The two greatest works which have come down from Heian time are both by women.* This was no doubt partly due to the absorption of the masculine intellect in Chinese studies. But there was a still more effective cause. The position of women in ancient Japan was very different from what it afterwards became when Chinese ideals were in the ascendant. The Japanese of this early period did not share the feeling common to most Eastern countries that women should be kept in subjection and as far as possible in seclusion. Though the morality which the Heian literature reveals is anything but strait-laced, the language is uniformly refined and decent, in this respect resembling the best literature of China."**

*The Genji Monogatari by Murasaki Shikibu, and the Makura Soshi by Sei Shonagon.

**Japanese Literature, by W. G. Aston.

With the Heian epoch is connected the wide use of the phonetic script known as kana, which may be described as a syllabary of forty-seven symbols formed from abbreviated Chinese ideographs. There are two varieties of the kana—the kata-kana and the hiragana* The former is said to have been devised by Makibi, the latter by Kobo Daishi (Kukai), but doubts have been cast on the accuracy of that record, and nothing can be certainly affirmed except that both were known before the close of the ninth century, though they do not seem to have been largely used until the Heian epoch, and even then almost entirely by women.

*Katakana means "side kana" because its symbols are fragments (sides) of Chinese forms of whole ideographs.

ENGRAVING: MURASAKI SHIKIBU (COURT LADY AND POETESS)

"Much of the poetry of this time was the outcome of poetical tournaments at which themes were proposed to the competitors by judges who examined each phrase and word with the minutest critical care before pronouncing their verdict. As might be expected, the poetry produced in those circumstances is of a more or less artificial type, and is wanting in the spontaneous vigour of the earlier essays of the Japanese muse. Conceits, acrostics, and untranslatable word-plays hold much too prominent a place, but for perfection of form the poems of this time are unrivalled. It is no doubt to this quality that the great popularity of the Kokin-shu is due. Sei Shonagon, writing in the early years of the eleventh century, sums up a young lady's education as consisting of writing, music, and the twenty volumes of the Kokin-shu."*

*Japanese Literature, by W. G. Aston.

The first notable specimen of prose in Japanese style (wabun) was the preface to the Kokin-shu, written by Ki no Tsurayuki, who contended, and his own composition proved, that the introduction of Chinese words might well be dispensed with in writing Japanese. But what may be called the classical form of Japanese prose was fixed by the Taketori Monogatari,* an anonymous work which appeared at the beginning of the Engi era (901),** and was quickly followed by others. Still, the honour in which the ideograph was held never diminished. When Tsurayuki composed the Tosa Nikki (Tosa Diary), he gave it out as the work of a woman, so reluctant was he to identify himself with a book written in the kana syllabary; and the Emperor Saga, Kobo Daishi, and Tachibana Hayanari will be remembered forever in Japan as the "Three Calligraphists" (Sampitsu).

*The expression "monogatari" finds its nearest English equivalent in "narrative."

**An excellent translation of this has been made by Mr. F. V. Dickins in the "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society," Jan., 1887.

In short, an extraordinary love of literature and of all that pertained to it swayed the minds of Japan throughout the Nara and the Heian epochs. The ninth and tenth centuries produced such poets as Ariwara no Yukihira and his younger brother, Narihira; Otomo no Kuronushi, Ochikochi no Mitsune, Sojo Henjo, and the poetess Ono no Komachi; gave us three anthologies (Sandai-shu), the Kokin-shu, the Gosen-shu, and the Shui-shu, as well as five of the Six National Histories (Roku Kokushi), the Zoku Nihonki, the Nihon Koki, the Zoku Nihon Koki, the Montoku Jitsuroku, and the Sandai Jitsuroku; and saw a bureau of poetry (W aka-dokoro) established in Kyoto. Fine art also was cultivated, and it is significant that calligraphy and painting were coupled together in the current expression (shogwa) for products of pictorial art. Kudara no Kawanari and Koze no Kanaoka, the first Japanese painters to achieve great renown, flourished in the ninth and tenth centuries, as did also a famous architect, Hida no Takumi.

INTERVAL BETWEEN THE CAPITAL AND THE PROVINCES

Thus, in the capital, Kyoto, where the Fujiwara family constituted the power behind the Throne, refinements and luxury were constantly developed, and men as well as women amused themselves composing Chinese and Japanese poems, playing on musical instruments, dancing, and making picnics to view the blossoms of the four seasons. But in the provincial districts very different conditions existed. There, men, being virtually without any knowledge of the ideographic script, found the literature and the laws of the capital a sealed book to them, and as for paying periodical visits to Kyoto, what that involved may be gathered from the fact that the poet Tsurayuki's return to the capital from the province of Tosa, where he had served as acting governor, occupied one hundred days, as shown in his Tosa Nikki (Diary of a Journey from Tosa), and that thirteen days were needed to get from the mouth of the Yodo to the city. The pageant of metropolitan civilization and magnificence never presented itself to provincial eyes.

ORIGIN OF THE SHOEN

Much has already been said on the subject of land tenure; but as this problem is responsible for some cardinal phases of Japanese history, a brief resume will be useful here. There were four chief causes for the existence of shoen, or manors. The first was reclamation. In the year 723, it was decreed that persons who reclaimed land should acquire a de facto title of tenure for three generations, and, twenty years later, the tenure of title was made perpetual, limits of area being fixed, however—1250 acres for princes and nobles of the first rank, and thereafter by various gradations, to twenty-five acres for a commoner. But these limits were not enforced, and in the year 767 it became necessary to issue a decree prohibiting further reclamation, which was followed, seventeen years later, by a rescript forbidding provincial governors to exact forced labour for tilling their manors.

That this did not check the evil is proved by an official record, compiled in 797, from which it appears that princes and influential nobles possessed manors of great extent; that they appointed intendants to manage them; that these intendants themselves engaged in operations of reclamation; that they abused their power by despoiling the peasants, and that dishonest farmers made a practice of evading taxes and tribute by settling within the bounds of a manor. These abuses reached their acme during the reigns of Uda and Daigo (888-930), when people living in the vicinity of a manor were ruthlessly robbed and plundered by the intendant and his servants, and when it became habitual to elude the payment of taxes by making spurious assignments of lands to influential officials in the capital. In vain was the ownership of lands by powerful nobles interdicted, and in vain its purchase by provincial governors: the metropolis had no power to enforce its vetoes in the provinces, and the provincials ignored them. Thus the shoen grew in number and extent.

The second factor which contributed to the extension of manors was the bestowal of estates in perpetuity on persons of conspicuous ability, and afterwards on men who enjoyed Imperial favour. Land thus granted was called shiden and enjoyed immunity from taxation. Then there were tracts given in recognition of public merit. These koden were originally of limited tenure, but that condition soon ceased to be observed, and the koden fell into the same category with manors (shoen).

Finally we have the jiden, or temple lands. These, too, were at the outset granted for fixed terms, but when Buddhism became powerful the limitation ceased to be operative, and moreover, in defiance of the law, private persons presented tracts, large or small, to the temples where the mortuary tablets of their families were preserved, and the temples, oh their own account, acquired estates by purchase or by reclamation. The jiden, like the other three kinds of land enumerated above, were exempt from taxation. Owned by powerful nobles or influential families, the shoen were largely cultivated by forced labour, and as in many cases it paid the farmers better to rent such land; and thus escape all fiscal obligations, than to till their own fields, the latter were deserted pan passu with the development of the manor system, and thus the State revenues suffered dual reduction.

During the last quarter of the tenth century peremptory edicts were issued to check this state of affairs, but the power of the Court to exact obedience had then dwindled almost to cipher. History records that during the Ho-en era (1135-1140), the regent Fujiwara Tadamichi's manor of Shimazu comprised one-fourth of the province of Osumi. On these great manors, alike of nobles and of temples, armed forces soon began to be maintained for purposes nominally of police protection but ultimately of military aggression. This was especially the case on the shoen of the puissant families of Taira and Minamoto. Thus, Minamoto Yoshitomo came to own fifteen of the eastern provinces, and in the tumult of the Heiji era (1159-1160), he lost all these to Taira no Kiyomori, who, supplementing them with his own already large manors and with the shoen of many other nobles and temples, became owner of five hundred districts comprising about one-half of the empire. Subsequently, when the Minamoto crushed the Taira (1185), the whole of the latter's estates were distributed by the former among the nobles who had fought under the Minamoto standard.

In that age the holders of manors were variously called ryoshu, ryoke, shoya, or honjo, and the intendants were termed shocho, shoji, kengyo, betto, or yoryudo, a diversity of nomenclature that is often very perplexing. In many cases reclaimed lands went by the name of the person who had reclaimed them. Such manors were spoken of as myoden (name-land), and those owning large tracts were designated daimyo (great name), while smaller holders were termed shomyo. Yet another term for the intendants of these lands was nanushi-shoku.

It will be readily seen that in the presence of such a system the lands paying taxes to the Central Government became steadily less and less. Thus, in the reign of the Emperor Toba (1108-1123), the State domains administered by the provincial governors are recorded to have been only one per cent, of the area of the provinces. In these circumstances, the governors deemed it unnecessary to proceed themselves to their posts; they remained in Kyoto and despatched deputies to the provinces, a course which conspired to reduce the authority of the Crown.

For the sake of intelligent sequence of ideas, the above synopsis makes some departure from the chronological order of these pages. Returning to the early part of the tenth century, the historian may affirm that the salient features of the era were virtual abrogation of the Daiho laws imposing restrictions upon the area and period of land-ownership; rapid growth of tax-free manors and consequent impoverishment of the Court in Kyoto; the appearance of provincial magnates who yielded scant obedience to the Crown, and the organization of military classes which acknowledged the authority of their own leaders only.

REVOLT OF TAIRA NO MASAKADO

The above state of affairs soon bore practical fruit. In the year 930, the Emperor Daigo died and was succeeded by his son Shujaku, a child of eight, whose mother was a daughter of Fujiwara Mototsune. In accordance with the system now fully established, Fujiwara Tadahira became regent. History depicts this Tadahira as an effeminate dilettante, one of whose foibles was to have a cuckoo painted on his fan and to imitate the cry of the bird whenever he opened it. But as representative of the chief aristocratic family in an age when to be a Fujiwara was to possess a title superior to that conferred by ability in any form and however conspicuous, his right to administer the government in the capacity of regent obtained universal recognition.

It had become the custom at that time for the provincial magnates to send their sons to Kyoto, where they served in the corps of guards, became acquainted with refined life, and established relations of friendship with the Taira and the Minamoto, the former descended from the Emperor Kwammu, the latter from the Emperor Seiwa. Thus, at the time of Daigo's death, a scion of the Taira, by name Masakado, was serving under Tadahira in the capital. Believing himself endowed with high military capacity, Masakado aspired to be appointed kebiishi of his native province, Shimosa. But his archery, his horsemanship, and his fencing elicited no applause in Kyoto, whereas a relative, Sadabumi, attracted admiration by a licentious life.

Masakado finally retired to Shimosa in an angry mood. At first, however, the idea of revolt does not seem to have occurred to him. On the contrary, the evidence is against such a hypothesis. For his military career began with family feuds, and after he had killed one of his uncles on account of a dispute about the boundaries of a manor, and sacked the residence of another in consequence of a trouble about a woman, he did not hesitate to obey a summons to Kyoto to answer for his acts of violence. Such quarrels were indeed of not uncommon occurrence in the provinces, as is shown by the memorial of Miyoshi Kiyotsura, and the capital appears to have left them severely alone, so far as practical interference was concerned, though the pretence of jurisdiction might be preserved. Thus, Masakado was acquitted after the formality of investigation had been satisfied. Naturally this judgment did not prove a deterrent; on the contrary, it amounted to a mandate.

On his return to Kwanto, Masakado was soon found once more in the arena. The details of his campaign have little interest except as indicating that the provincial officials followed the example of Kyoto in suffering local disturbances to settle themselves, and that the abuses catalogued in the Miyoshi memorial were true to fact. A raid that Masakado made into Musashi province is memorable as the occasion of the first collision between the Taira and the Minamoto,* which great families were destined ultimately to convert all Japan into a battlefield. Finally, Masakado carried his raids so far that he allowed himself to be persuaded of the hopelessness of pardon. It was then that he resolved to revolt. Overrunning the whole eight provinces of the Kwanto, he appointed his own partisans to all posts of importance and set up a court after the Kyoto model. A letter written by him at this time to the regent Tadahira affords an interesting guide to the ethics of the era:

"The genealogy of my house shows that I am the fifth in descent from the Emperor Kwammu. Therefore, though I hold one-half of a province, that cannot be attributed to mere good fortune. In the history of ancient times there are occasions where a whole country was appropriated by force of arms. Nature has endowed me with military talent. None, I presume, excels me in that respect. You, however, had no praise to bestow on me. Rather was I frequently reprimanded when I served in the capital, so that my shame was unendurable, whereas your sympathy would have delighted me. While Masakado was still a youth he served Tadahira, the prime minister, for tens of years, and when Tadahira became regent, Masakado never entertained his present project. I have no words to express my regret. Though I have conspired to revolt, I will not forget my old master, and I hope that he will make allowances for the circumstances in which I am placed."

*The vice-governor of Musashi, Minamoto Tsunemoto, was at feud with the governor, Prince Okiyo, and Masakado espoused the latter's cause.

Had it rested with Kyoto to subdue this revolt, Masakado might have attained his goal. But chance and the curious spirit of the time fought for the Court. A trifling breach of etiquette on the part of Masakado—not pausing to bind up his hair before receiving a visitor—forfeited the co-operation of a great soldier, Fujiwara Hidesato, (afterwards known as Tawara Toda), and the latter, joining forces with Taira Sadamori, whose father Masakado had killed, attacked the rebels in a moment of elated carelessness, shattered them completely, and sent Masakado's head to the capital. The whole affair teaches that the Fujiwara aristocrats, ruling in Kyoto, had neither power nor inclination to meddle with provincial administration, and that the districts distant from the metropolis wore practically under the sway of military magnates in whose eyes might constituted right. This was especially notable in the case of the Kwanto, that is to say the eight provinces surrounding the present Tokyo Bay, extending north to the Nikko Mountains. Musashi, indeed, was so infested with law-breakers that, from the days of the Emperor Seiwa (859-876), it became customary to appoint one kebiishi in each of its districts, whereas elsewhere the establishment was one to each province. The kebiishi represented the really puissant arm of the law, the provincial governors, originally so powerful, having now degenerated into weaklings.

THE REVOLT OF FUJIWARA SUMITOMO

Another event, characteristic of the time, occurred in Nankai-do (the four provinces of the island of Shikoku) contemporaneously with the revolt of Masakado. During the Shohei era (931-937) the ravages of pirates became so frequent in those waters that Fujiwara no Sumitomo was specially despatched from Kyoto to restrain them. This he effected without difficulty. But instead of returning to the capital, he collected a number of armed men together with a squadron of vessels, and conducted a campaign of spoliation and outrage in the waters of the Inland Sea as well as the channels of Kii and Bungo. Masakado's death, in 939, relieved the Court from the pressure in the east, and an expedition was despatched against Sumitomo under the command of Ono no Yoshifuru, general of the guards.

Yoshifuru mustered only two hundred ships whereas Sumitomo had fifteen hundred. The issue might have been foretold had not the pirate chief's lieutenant gone over to the Imperial forces. Sumitomo, after an obstinate resistance and after one signal success, was finally routed and killed. Some historians* have contended that Masakado and Sumitomo, when they were together in Kyoto, conspired a simultaneous revolt in the east and the south; but such a conclusion is inconsistent with the established fact that Masakado's treason was not premeditated.

*Notably the authors of the Okagami and the Nihon Gwaishi.

That the two events synchronized is attributable wholly to the conditions of the time. We have seen what was the state of affairs in Kwanto, and that of Kyushu and Shikoku is clearly set forth in a memorial presented (946) by Ono Yoshifuru on his return from the Sumitomo campaign. In that document he says: "My information is that 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."

In a word, the aristocratic officialdom in Kyoto, headed by the Fujiwara, though holding all the high administrative posts, wielded no real power outside the capital, nor were they competent to preserve order even within its precincts, for the palace itself was not secure against incendiarism and depredation. When the heads of the Minamoto and the Taira families were appointed provincial governors in the Kwanto, they trained their servants in the use of arms, calling them iye-no-ko (house-boys) or rodo (retainers), and other local magnates purchased freedom from molestation by doing homage and obeying their behests. Taira Masakado, Minamoto Tsunemoto, Fujiwara Hidesato, and Taira Sadamori, who figure in the above narrative, were all alike provincial chiefs, possessing private estates and keeping armed retinues which they used for protection or for plunder. The Imperial Court, when confronted with any crisis, was constrained to borrow the aid of these magnates, and thus there came into existence the buke, or military houses, as distinguished from the kuge, or Court houses.

ENGRAVING: UMBRELLAS

ENGRAVING: KINKAKU-JI, AT KYOTO



CHAPTER XXI

THE CAPITAL AND THE PROVINCES

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COURT AND THE FUJIWARA

We now arrive at a period of Japanese history in which the relations of the Fujiwara family to the Throne are so complicated as greatly to perplex even the most careful reader. But as it is not possible to construct a genealogical table of a really helpful character, the facts will be set down here in their simplest form.

THE SIXTY-SECOND SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR MURAKAMI (A.D. 947-967)

Murakami, son of Daigo by the daughter of the regent, Fujiwara Mototsune, ascended the throne in succession to Shujaku, and Fujiwara Tadahira held the post of regent, as he had done in Shujaku's time, his three sons, Saneyori, Morosuke, and Morotada, giving their daughters; one, Morosuke's offspring, to be Empress, the other two to be consorts of the sovereign. Moreover, Morosuke's second daughter was married to the Emperor's younger brother, Prince Takaaki, who afterwards descended from princely rank to take the family name of Minamoto. Saneyori, Morosuke, and Takaaki took a prominent part in the administration of State affairs, and thus indirectly by female influence at Court, or by their own direct activity, the Fujiwara held a supreme place. Murakami has a high position among Japan's model sovereigns. He showed keen and intelligent interest in politics; he sought to employ able officials; he endeavoured to check luxury, and he solicited frank guidance from his elders. Thus later generations learned to indicate Engi (901-923), when Daigo reigned, and Tenryaku (947-957), when Murakami reigned, as essentially eras of benevolent administration. But whatever may have been the personal qualities of Murakami, however conspicuous his poetical ability and however sincere his solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, he failed signally to correct the effeminate tendency of Kyoto society or to protect the lives and property of his people. Bandits raided the capital, broke into the palace itself, set fire to it, and committed frequent depredations unrestrained. An age when the machinery for preserving law and order was practically paralyzed scarcely deserves the eulogies of posterity.

THE SUCCESSION

The lady with whom Murakami first consorted was a daughter of Fujiwara Motokata, who represented a comparatively obscure branch of the great family, and had attained the office of chief councillor of State (dainagori) only. She bore to his Majesty a son, Hirohira, and the boy's grandfather confidently looked to see him named Prince Imperial. But presently the daughter of Fujiwara Morosuke, minister of the Right, entered the palace, and although her Court rank was not at first superior to that of the dainagon's daughter, her child had barely reached its third month when, through Morosuke's irresistible influence, it was nominated heir to the throne. Motokata's disappointment proved so keen that his health became impaired and he finally died—of chagrin, the people said. In those days men believed in the power of disembodied spirits for evil or for good. The spirit of the ill-fated Sugawara Michizane was appeased by building shrines to his memory, and a similar resource exorcised the angry ghost of the rebel, Masakado; but no such prevention having been adopted in the case of Motokata, his spirit was supposed to have compassed the early deaths of his grandson's supplanter, Reizei, and of the latter's successors, Kwazan and Sanjo, whose three united reigns totalled only five years.

A more substantial calamity resulted, however, from the habit of ignoring the right of primogeniture in favour of arbitrary selection. Murakami, seeing that the Crown Prince (Reizei) had an exceedingly feeble physique, deemed it expedient to transfer the succession to his younger brother, Tamehira. But the latter, having married into the Minamoto family, had thus become ineligible for the throne in Fujiwara eyes. The Emperor hesitated, therefore, to give open expression to his views, and while he waited, he himself fell mortally ill. On his death-bed he issued the necessary instruction, but the Fujiwara deliberately ignored it, being determined that a consort of their own blood must be the leading lady in every Imperial household. Then the indignation of the other great families, the Minamoto and the Taira, blazed out. Mitsunaka, representing the former, and Shigenobu the latter, entered into a conspiracy to collect an army in the Kwanto and march against Kyoto with the sole object of compelling obedience to Murakami's dying behest. The plot was divulged by Minamoto Mitsunaka in the sequel of a quarrel with Taira no Shigenobu; the plotters were all exiled, and Takaaki, youngest son of the Emperor Daigo, though wholly ignorant of the conspiracy, was falsely accused to the Throne by Fujiwara Morotada, deprived of his post of minister of the Left, to which his accuser was nominated, and sent to that retreat for disgraced officials, the Dazai-fu. Another instance is here furnished of the readiness with which political rivals slandered one another in old Japan, and another instance, also, of the sway exercised over the sovereign by his Fujiwara ministers.

THE SIXTY-THIRD SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR REIZEI (A.D. 968-969)

THE SIXTY-FOURTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR ENYU (A.D. 970-984)

The reigns of Reizei and Enyu are remarkable for quarrels among the members of the Fujiwara family—quarrels which, to be followed intelligently, require frequent reference to the genealogical table (page 203). Fujiwara Morosuke had five sons, Koretada, Kanemichi, Kaneiye, Tamemitsu, and Kinsuye. Two of these, Koretada and Kaneiye, presented one each of their daughters to the Emperor Reizei, and Koretada's daughter gave birth to Prince Morosada, who afterwards reigned as Kwazan, while Kaneiye's daughter bore Okisada, subsequently the Emperor Sanjo. After one year's reign, Reizei, who suffered from brain disease, abdicated in favour of his younger brother, Enyu, then only in his eleventh year. Fujiwara Saneyori acted as regent, but, dying shortly afterwards, was succeeded in that office by his nephew, Koretada, who also had to resign on account of illness.

Between this latter's two brothers, Kanemichi and Kaneiye, keen competition for the regency now sprang up. Kanemichi's eldest daughter was the Empress of Enyu, but his Majesty favoured Kaneiye, who thus attained much higher rank than his elder brother. Kanemichi, however, had another source of influence. His sister was Murakami's Empress and mother of the reigning sovereign, Enyu. This Imperial lady, writing to his Majesty Enyu at Kanemichi's dictation, conjured the Emperor to be guided by primogeniture in appointing a regent, and Enyu, though he bitterly disliked Kanemichi, could not gainsay his mother. Thus Kanemichi became chancellor and acting regent. The struggle was not concluded, however. It ended in the palace itself, whither the two brothers repaired almost simultaneously, Kanemichi rising from his sick-bed for the purpose. In the presence of the boy Emperor, Kanemichi arbitrarily transferred his own office of kwampaku to Fujiwara Yoritada and degraded his brother, Kaneiye, to a comparatively insignificant post. The sovereign acquiesced; he had no choice. A few months later, this dictator died. It is related of him that his residence was more gorgeous than the palace and his manner of life more sumptuous than the sovereign's. The men of his time were wont to say, "A tiger's mouth is less fatal than the frown of the regent, Kanemichi."

THE SIXTY-FIFTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR KWAZAN (A.D. 985-986)

THE SIXTY-SIXTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR ICHIJO (A.D. 987-1011)

Eldest son of the Emperor Reizei, Kwazan ascended the throne in 985. His mother was a daughter of Fujiwara Koretada, and Yoritada, whose appointment as regent has just been described, continued to act in that capacity. Kaneiye's opportunity had now come. Kwazan having succeeded Enyu, nominated the latter's son to be Crown Prince, instead of conferring the position on his own brother, Prince Okisada (afterwards Sanjo). Now the Crown Prince was the son of Kaneiye's daughter, and that ambitious noble determined to compass the sovereign's abdication without delay. Kwazan, originally a fickle lover, had ultimately conceived an absorbing passion for the lady Tsuneko. He could not be induced to part with her even at the time of her pregnancy, and as there was no proper provision in the palace for such an event, Tsuneko died in labour. Kwazan, distraught with grief, was approached by Kaneiye's son, Michikane, who urged him to retire from the world and seek in Buddhism the perfect peace thus alone attainable. Michikane declared his own intention of entering the "path," and on a moonlight night the two men, leaving the palace, repaired to the temple Gwangyo-ji to take the tonsure. There, Michikane, pretending he wished to bid final farewell to his family, departed to return no more, and the Emperor understood that he had been deceived.

Retreat was now impossible, however. He abdicated in favour of Ichijo, a child of seven, and Kaneiye became regent and chancellor. He emulated the magnificence of his deceased brother and rival, Kanemichi, and his residence at Higashi-Sanjo in Kyoto was built after the model of the "hall of freshness" in the palace. He had five sons, the most remarkable of whom were Michitaka, Michikane, and Michinaga. It will be presently seen that in the hands of the last the power of the Fujiwara reached its zenith. On the death of Kaneiye the office of kwampaku fell to his eldest son, Michitaka, and, in 993, the latter being seriously ill, his son, Korechika, looked to be his successor. But the honour fell to Michitaka's brother, Michikane. Seven days after his nomination, Michikane died, and, as a matter of course, men said that he had been done to death by the incantations of his ambitious nephew. Again, however, the latter was disappointed. Kaneiye's third son, Michinaga, succeeded to the regency.

Almost immediately, the new regent seems to have determined that his daughter should be Empress. But the daughter of his elder brother, the late Michitaka, already held that position. This, however, constituted no sort of obstacle in the eyes of the omnipotent Michinaga. He induced—"required" would probably be a more accurate expression—the Empress to abandon the world, shave her head, and remove to a secluded palace, (the Kokideri); where-after he caused his own daughter to become the Imperial consort under the title of chugu,* her residence being fixed in the Fujitsubo, which was the recognized palace of the Empress.

*A lady on introduction to the palace received the title of jokwan. If the daughter of a minister of State, she was called nyogo. Chugu was a still higher title devised specially for Michinaga's purpose, and naturally it became a precedent.

It is not to be imagined that with such a despotic regent, the Emperor himself exercised any real authority. The annals show that Ichijo was of benevolent disposition; that he sympathized with his people; that he excelled in prose composition and possessed much skill in music. Further, during his reign of twenty-four years many able men graced the era. But neither their capacity nor his own found opportunity for exercise in the presence of Michinaga's proteges, and, while profoundly disliking the Fujiwara autocrat, Ichijo was constrained to suffer him.

THE SIXTY-SEVENTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR SANJO (A.D. 1012-1017)

THE SIXTY-EIGHTH SOVEREIGN, THE EMPEROR GO-ICHIJO (A.D. 1017-1036)

Prince Okisada, younger brother of the Emperor Kwazan, ascended the throne at the age of thirty-six, on the abdication of Ichijo, and is known in history as Sanjo. Before his accession he had married the daughter of Fujiwara Naritoki, to whom he was much attached, but with the crown he had to accept the second daughter of Michinaga as chugu, his former consort becoming Empress. His Majesty had to acquiesce in another arbitrary arrangement also. It has been shown above that Michinaga's eldest daughter had been given the title of chugu in the palace of Ichijo, to whom she bore two sons, Atsunari and Atsunaga. Neither of these had any right to be nominated Crown Prince in preference to Sanjo's offspring. Michinaga, however, caused Atsunari to be appointed Prince Imperial, ignoring Sanjo's son, since his mother belonged to an inferior branch of the Fujiwara. Further, it did not suit the regent's convenience that a ruler of mature age should occupy the throne. An eye disease from which Sanjo suffered became the pretext for pressing him to abdicate, and, in 1017, Atsunari, then in his ninth year, took the sceptre as Emperor Go-Ichijo, or Ichijo II. Michinaga continued to act as regent, holding, at the same time, the office of minister of the Left, but he subsequently handed over the regency to his son, Yorimichi, becoming himself chancellor.

Go-Ichijo was constrained to endure at Michinaga's hands the same despotic treatment as that previously meted out to Sanjo. The legitimate claim of his offspring to the throne was ignored in favour of his brother, Atsunaga, who received for consort the fourth daughter of Michinaga. Thus, this imperious noble had controlled the administration for thirty years; had given his daughters to three Emperors; had appointed his son to be regent in his place, and had the Crown Prince for grandson. Truly, as his historians say, he held the empire in the hollow of his hand. His estates far exceeded those of the Crown; the presents offered to him by all ranks reached an enormous total; he built for himself a splendid mansion (Jotomon) with forced labour requisitioned from the provinces, and for his wife a scarcely less magnificent residence (Kyogoku) was erected at the charges of the Emperor Go-Ichijo. At the approach of illness he took refuge in Buddhism, but even here the gorgeous ostentation of his life was not abated. He planned the building of a monastery which should prove a worthy retreat for his declining years, and it is on record that his order to the provincial governor was, "though you neglect your official duties, do not neglect to furnish materials and labour for the building of Hojo-ji." Even from the palace itself stones were taken for this monastery, and the sums lavished upon it were so enormous that they dwarfed Michinaga's previous extravagances. Michinaga retired there to die, and on his death-bed he received a visit from the Emperor, who ordered three months' Court mourning on his decease. There is a celebrated work entitled Eigwa Monogatari (Tales of Splendour), wherein is depicted the fortunes and the foibles of the Fujiwara family from the days (889) of the Emperor Uda to those (1092) of the Emperor Horikawa. Specially minute is the chronicle when it treats of the Mido kwampaku, as Michinaga was called after he set himself to build the monastery Hojo-ji.

Loyal Japanese historians shrink from describing this era, when the occupants of the throne were virtually puppets in the hands of the Fujiwara. There was, however, one redeeming feature: amid this luxury and refinement literature flourished vigorously, so that the era of Tenryaku (947-957) lives in the memory of the nation as vividly as that of Engi (901-923). Oye Tomotsuna, Sugawara Fumitoki, Minamoto Shitago—these were famous litterateurs, and Minamoto Hiromasa, grandson of the Emperor Uda, attained celebrity as a musical genius. Coming to the reigns of Kwazan, Enyu, and Ichijo (985-1011), we find the immortal group of female writers, Murasaki Shikibu, Izumi Shikibu, Sei Shonagon, and Akazome Emon; we find also in the Imperial family, Princes Kaneakira and Tomohira; we find three famous scribes, Fujiwara Yukinari, Fujiwara Sari, and Ono no Tofu, and, finally the "Four Nagon" (Shi-nagori), Fujiwara Yukinari, Fujiwara Kinto. Minamoto Narinobu, and Minamoto Toshikata.

It is observable that in this necessarily brief summary the name "Minamoto" occurs several times, as does that of "Fujiwara" also. But that the scions of either family confined themselves to the arts of peace, is not to be inferred. There were Fujiwara among the military magnates in the provinces, and we shall presently see the Minamoto taking the lead in the science of war. Already, indeed, the Fujiwara in the capital were beginning to recognize the power of the Minamoto. It has been related above that one of the rebel Masakado's earliest opponents was a Minamoto, vice-governor of Musashi. His son, Mitsunaka, a redoubtable warrior, assisted the Fujiwara in Kyoto, and Mitsunaka's sons, Yorimitsu and Yorinobu, contributed materially to the autocracy of the regent Michinaga. Yorimitsu was appointed by the regent to command the cavalry of the guard, and he is said to have brought that corps to a state of great efficiency.

There was, indeed, much need of a strong hand. One had only to emerge from the palace gates to find oneself among the haunts of bandits. The names of such robber chiefs as Hakamadare no Yasusuke, Kidomaru, Oeyama Shutendoji, and Ibaraki-doji have been handed down as the heroes in many a strange adventure and the perpetrators of many heinous crimes. Even the Fujiwara residences were not secure against the torches of these plunderers, and during the reign of Ichijo the palace itself was frequently fired by them. In Go-Ichijo's tune, an edict was issued forbidding men to carry bows and arrows in the streets, but had there been power to enforce such a veto, its enactment would not have been necessary. Its immediate sequel was that the bandits broke into Government offices and murdered officials there.

THE INVASION OF JAPAN BY THE TOI

In the spring of 1019, when Go-Ichijo occupied the throne, a large host of invaders suddenly poured into the island of Tsushima. There had not been any warning. Tsushima lies half-way between the south of Korea and the northeast of Kyushu, distant about sixty miles from either coast. Since the earliest times, its fine harbours had served as a military station for ships plying between Japan and Korea, but such intercourse had long been interrupted when this invasion took place.

The invaders were the Toi, originally called Sushen or Moho, under the former of which names they make their appearance in Japanese history in the middle of the sixth century. They inhabited that part of the Asiatic continent which lies opposite to the island of Ezo, but there is nothing to show what impulse they obeyed in making this sudden descent upon Japan. Their fleet comprised some fifty vessels only, each from forty to sixty feet long and propelled by thirty or forty oars, but of how many fighting men the whole force consisted, no record has been preserved. As to arms, they carried swords, bows, spears, and shields, and in their tactical formation spearmen occupied the front rank, then came swordsmen, and finally bowmen. Every man had a shield. Their arrows were short, measuring little over a foot, but their bows were powerful, and they seem to have fought with fierce courage.

At first they carried everything before them. The governor of Tsushima, being without any means of defence, fled to the Dazai-fu in Kyushu, and the inhabitants were left to the mercy of the invaders, who then pushed on to the island of Iki. There the governor, Fujiwara Masatada, made a desperate resistance, losing his own life in the battle. It is said that of all the inhabitants, one only, a Buddhist priest, escaped to tell the story.

Ten days after their first appearance off Tsushima, the Toi effected a landing in Chikuzen and marched towards Hakata, plundering, burning, massacring old folks and children, making prisoners of adults, and slaughtering cattle and horses for food. It happened, fortunately, that Takaiye, younger brother of Fujiwara Korechika, was in command at the Dazai-fu, whither he had repaired partly out of pique, partly to undergo treatment for eye disease at the hands of a Chinese doctor. 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. The whole affair had lasted sixteen days, and the Japanese losses were 382 killed and 1280 taken prisoners. Two hundred and eighty of the latter—60 men and 220 women—were subsequently returned. They were brought over from Koma six months later by a Koma envoy, Chong Cha-ryang, to whom the Court presented three hundred pieces of gold.

Kyoto's attitude towards this incident was most instructive. When the first tidings of the invasion reached the capital, the protection of heaven was at once invoked by services 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 majority 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—a policy already noted in connexion with the revolt of Masakado—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. 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.

A history of all these happenings would be intolerably long and tedious. Therefore only those that have a national bearing will be here set down. Prominent among such is the struggle between the Taira and the Minamoto in the Kwanto. The origin of these two families has already been recounted. Some historians have sought to differentiate the metropolitan section of the Minamoto from the provincial section—that is to say, the men of luxury and literature who frequented the capital, from the men of sword and bow who ruled in the provinces. Such differentiation is of little practical value. Similar lines of demarcation might be drawn in the case of the Taira and Fujiwara themselves. If there were great captains in each of these famous families, there were also great courtiers. To the former category belonged Taira Tadatsune. For generations his family had ruled in the province of Shimosa and had commanded the allegiance of all the bushi of the region. Tadatsune held at one time the post of vice-governor of the neighbouring province of Kazusa, where he acquired large manors (shoen). In the year 1028, he seized the chief town of the latter province, and pushing on into Awa, killed the governor and obtained complete control of the province.* The Court, on receiving news of these events, ordered Minamoto Yorinobu, governor of Kai, and several other provincial governors to attack the Taira chief.

*Murdoch, in his History of Japan, says that in three years Tadatsune's aggressions "reduced the Kwanto to a tangled wilderness. Thus, in the province of Shimosa, in 1027, there had been as much as 58,000 acres under cultivation; but in 1031 this had shrunk to forty-five acres."

Yorinobu did not wait for his associates. Setting out with his son, Yoriyoshi, in 1031, he moved at once against Tadatsune's castle, which stood on the seashore of Shimosa, protected by moats and palisades, and supposed to be unapproachable from the sea except by boats, of which Tadatsune had taken care that there should not be any supply available. But the Minamoto general learned that the shore sloped very slowly on the castle front, and marching his men boldly through the water, he delivered a crushing attack.

For this exploit, which won loud plaudits, he was appointed commandant of the local government office, a post held by his grandfather, Tsunemoto, whom we have seen as vice-governor of Musashi in the days of Masakado; by his father, Mitsunaka, one of the pillars of the Minamoto family, and by his elder brother, Yorimitsu, who commanded the cavalry of the guards in Kyoto. The same post was subsequently bestowed on Yorinobu's son, Yoriyoshi, and on the latter's son, Yoshiiye, known by posterity as "Hachiman Taro," Japan's most renowned archer, to whom the pre-eminence of the Minamoto family was mainly due. Tadatsune had another son, Tsunemasa, who was appointed vice-governor of Shimosa and who is generally spoken of as Chiba-no-suke. The chief importance of these events is that they laid the foundation of the Minamoto family's supremacy in the Kwanto, and thus permanently influenced the course of Japanese history.

THE CAMPAIGN OF ZEN-KUNEN

It is advisable at this stage to make closer acquaintance with the Japanese bushi (soldier), who has been cursorily alluded to more than once in these pages, and who, from the tenth century, acts a prominent role on the Japanese stage. History is silent as to the exact date when the term "bushi" came into use, but from a very early era its Japanese equivalent, "monono-fu," was applied to the guards of the sovereign's palace, and when great provincial magnates began, about the tenth century, to support a number of armed retainers, these gradually came to be distinguished as bushi. In modern times the ethics of the bushi have been analysed under the name "bushido" (the way of the warrior), but of course no such term or any such complete code existed in ancient days. The conduct most appropriate to a bushi was never embodied in a written code. It derived its sanctions from the practice of recognized models, and only by observing those models can we reach a clear conception of the thing itself.

ENGRAVING: HALL OF BYODOIN TEMPLE (1052), AT UJI

To that end, brief study may be given to the principal campaigns of the eleventh century, namely, the century immediately preceding the establishment of military feudalism. It must be premised, however, that although the bushi figured mainly on the provincial stage, he acted an important part in the capital also. There, the Throne and its Fujiwara entourage were constrained to enlist the co-operation of the military nobles for the purpose of controlling the lawless elements of the population. The Minamoto family were conspicuous in that respect. Minamoto Mitsunaka—called also Manchu—served at the Court of four consecutive sovereigns from Murakami downwards, was appointed governor of several provinces, and finally became commandant of the local Government office. Yorimitsu, his son, a still greater strategist, was a prominent figure at five Courts, from the days of Enyu, and his brothers, Yorichika and Yorinobu, rendered material assistance in securing the supremacy of the great Fujiwara chief, Michinaga. Indeed, the Minamoto were commonly spoken of as the "claws" of the Fujiwara. It was this Yorinobu who won such fame by escalading the castle of Taira Tadatsune and who established his family's footing in the Kwanto. His uncle, Yoshimitsu, had a large estate at Tada in Settsu, and this branch of the family was known as Tada Genji.*

Then there were:

The Yamato Genji descended from Yorichika

" Suruga " " " Mitsumasa

" Shinano " " " Mitsunaka

" Uda " of Omi, called also the Sasaki family

" Saga " of Settsu " " " Watanabe

" Hizen " of Hizen " " " Matsuura

The Taira family became famous from the time of Sadamori, who quelled the insurrection of Masakado. Of this clan, there were these branches:

The Daijo-uji of Hitachi, so called because for generations they held the office of daijo in Hitachi.

The Ise-Heishi of Ise, descended from Korehira, son of Sadamori.

" Shiro-uji of Mutsu, Dewa, Shinano, and Echigo, descended from Shigemori and Koremochi

" Nishina-uji " " " " " " " "

" Iwaki-uji " " " " " " " "

" Miura-no-suke of Musashi, Kazusa, and Shimosa, descendants of Taira no Yoshibumi

" Chiba-no-suke " " " " "

" Chichibu-uji " " " " "

Soma family, who succeeded to the domains of Masakado.

*"Gen" is the alternative pronunciation of "Minamoto" as "Hei" is of "Taira." The two great families who occupy such a large space in the pages of Japanese history are spoken of together as "Gen-Pei," and independently as "Genji" and "Heishi," or "Minamoto" and

The Fujiwara also had many provincial representatives, descended mainly from Hidesato, (called also Tawara Toda), who distinguished himself in the Masakado crisis. There were the Sano-uji of Shimotsuke, Mutsu, and Dewa; and there were the Kondo, the Muto, the Koyama, and the Yuki, all in different parts of the Kwanto. In fact, the empire outside the capital was practically divided between the Minamoto, the Taira, and the Fujiwara families, so that anything like a feud could scarcely fail to have wide ramifications.

The eleventh century may be said to have been the beginning of such tumults. Not long after the affair of Taira Tadatsune, there occurred the much larger campaign known as Zen-kunen no Sodo, or the "Prior Nine Years' Commotion." The scene of this struggle was the vast province of Mutsu in the extreme north of the main island. For several generations the Abe family had exercised sway there, and its representative in the middle of the eleventh century extended his rule over six districts and defied the authority of the provincial governors. The Court deputed Minamoto Yoriyoshi to restore order. The Abe magnate was killed by a stray arrow at an early stage of the campaign, but his son, Sadato, made a splendid resistance.

In December, 1057, Yoriyoshi, at the head of eighteen hundred men, led a desperate assault on the castle of Kawasaki, garrisoned by Sadato with four thousand picked soldiers. The attack was delivered during a heavy snow-storm, and in its sequel the Minamoto general found his force reduced to six men. Among these six, however, was his eldest son, Yoshiiye, one of the most skilful bowmen Japan ever produced. Yoshiiye's mother was a Taira. When she became enceinte her husband dreamed that the sacred sword of the war deity, Hachiman, had been given to him, and the boy came to be called Hachiman Taro. This name grew to be a terror to the enemy, and it was mainly through his prowess that his father and their scanty remnant of troops escaped over roads where the snow lay several feet deep.

On a subsequent occasion in the same campaign, Yoshiiye had Sadato at his mercy and, while fixing an arrow to shoot him, composed the first line of a couplet, "The surcoat's warp at last is torn." Sadato, without a moment's hesitation, capped the line, "The threads at last are frayed and worn,"* and Yoshiiye, charmed by such a display of ready wit, lowered his bow. Nine years were needed to finish the campaign, and, in its sequel, Yoriyoshi was appointed governor of Iyo, and Yoshiiye, governor of Mutsu, while Kiyowara Takenori, without whose timely aid Sadato could scarcely have been subdued, received the high post of chinju-fu shogun (commandant of the local Government office). Yoshiiye's magnanimity towards Sadato at the fortress of Koromo-gawa has always been held worthy of a true bushi.

*The point of this couplet is altogether lost in English. It turns upon the fact that the word tate used by Yoshiiye means either a fortress or the vertical threads in woven stuff, and that koromo was the name of the fortress where the encounter took place and had also the significance of "surcoat."

Sadato was ultimately killed, but his younger brother Muneto had the affection and full confidence of Yoshiiye. Muneto, however, remembered his brother's fate and cherished a desire to take vengeance on Yoshiiye, which mood also was recognized as becoming to a model bushi. One night, the two men went out together, and Muneto decided that the opportunity for vengeance had come. Drawing his sword, he looked into the ox-carriage containing Yoshiiye and found him sound asleep. The idea of behaving treacherously in the face of such trust was unendurable, and thereafter Muneto served Yoshiiye with faith and friendship. The confidence that the Minamoto hero reposed in the brother of his old enemy and the way it was requited—these, too, are claimed as traits of the bushi.

Yet another canon is furnished by Yoshiiye's career—the canon of humility. Oye no Masafusa was overheard remarking that Yoshiiye had some high qualities but was unfortunately ignorant of strategy. This being repeated to Yoshiiye, he showed no resentment but begged to become Masafusa's pupil. Yet he was already conqueror of the Abe and governor of Dewa.

THE GO-SANNEN CAMPAIGN

Thereafter the provinces of Mutsu and Dewa were again the scene of another fierce struggle which, since it began in the third year (1089) of the Kwanji era and ended in the fifth year (1091), was called the "After Three-years War." With regard to the nature of this commotion, no enumeration of names is necessary. It was a family quarrel between the scions of Kiyowara Takenori, a magnate of Mutsu who had rendered conclusive assistance to Yoshiiye in the Nine-years' War; and as a great landowner of Dewa, Kimiko Hidetake, took part, the whole north of Japan may be said to have been involved. It fell to Yoshiiye, as governor of Mutsu, to quell the disturbance, and very difficult the task proved, so difficult that the issue might have been different had not Fujiwara Kiyohira—who will be presently spoken of—espoused the Minamoto cause.

When news of the struggle reached Kyoto, Yoshiiye's younger brother, Yoshimitsu, who held the much coveted post of kebiishi, applied for permission to proceed at once to his brother's assistance. The Court refused his application, whereupon he resigned his office and, like a true bushi, hastened to the war. Yoshimitsu was a skilled performer upon a musical instrument called the sho. He had studied under a celebrated master, Toyohara Tokimoto, now no more, and, on setting out for the field of battle in the far north, he became apprehensive lest the secrets imparted to him by his teacher should die with him. He therefore invited Tokimoto's son, Tokiaki, to bear him company during the first part of his journey, and to him he conveyed all the knowledge he possessed. The spectacle of this renowned soldier giving instruction in the art of music to the son of his deceased teacher on moonlit nights as he travelled towards the battlefield, has always appealed strongly to Japanese conception of a perfect samurai, and has been the motive of many a picture.

This Go-sannen struggle furnished also another topic for frequent pictorial representation. When about to attack the fortress of Kanazawa, to which the approaches were very difficult, Yoshiiye observed a flock of geese rising in confusion, and rightly inferred an ambuscade of the enemy. His comment was, "Had not Oye Masafusa taught me strategy, many brave men had been killed to-night." Yet one more typical bushi may be mentioned in connexion with this war. Kamakura Gongoro, a youth of sixteen, always fought in the van of Yoshiiye's forces and did great execution. A general on the enemy's side succeeded in discharging a shaft which entered the boy's eye. Gongoro, breaking the arrow, rode straight at the archer and cut him down. A shrine in Kamakura was erected to the memory of this intrepid lad.

When Yoshiiye reported to the Throne the issue of this sanguinary struggle, Kyoto replied that the war had been a private feud and that no reward or distinctions would be conferred. Yoshiiye therefore devoted the greater part of his own manors to recompensing those that had followed his standard. He thus won universal respect throughout the Kwanto. Men competed to place their sons and younger brothers as kenin (retainers) in his service and the name of Hachiman-ko was on all lips. But Yoshiiye died (1108) in a comparatively low rank. It is easy to comprehend that in the Kwanto it became a common saying, "Better serve the Minamoto than the sovereign."

THE FUJIWARA OF THE NORTH

Fujiwara Kiyohira, who is mentioned above as having espoused the cause of the Minamoto in the Go-sannen, was descended from Hidesato, the conqueror of Masakado. After the Go-sannen outbreak he succeeded to the six districts of Mutsu which had been held by the insurgent chiefs. This vast domain descended to his son Motohira, and to the latter's son, Hidehira, whose name we shall presently find in large letters on a page of Japanese history.

The Mutsu branch of the Fujiwara wielded paramount sway in the north for several generations. Near Hiraizumi, in the province of Rikuchu, may still be seen four buildings forming the monastery Chuson-ji. In one of these edifices repose the remains of Kiyohira, Motohira, and Hidehira. The ceiling, floor and four walls of this Konjiki-do (golden hall) were originally covered with powdered gold, and its interior pillars are inlaid with mother-of-pearl on which are traced the outlines of twelve Arhats. In the days of Kiyohira the monastery consisted of forty buildings and was inhabited by three hundred priests.

ENGRAVING: A CONJUROR

ENGRAVING: SIDE VIEW OF THE "KOHO-AN" OF DAITOKU-JI, AT KYOTO



CHAPTER XXII

RECOVERY OF ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITY BY THE THRONE

The 69th Sovereign, the Emperor Go-Shujaku A.D. 1037-1045

70th " " Go-Reizei 1046-1068

71st " " Go-Sanjo 1069-1072

72nd " " Shirakawa 1073-1086

73rd " " Horikawa 1087-1107

74th " " Toba 1108-1123

75th " " Sutoku 1124-1141

76th " " Konoe 1142-1155

77th " " Go-Shirakawa 1156-1158

DECADENCE OF FUJIWARA AUTOCRACY

During two centuries the administrative power remained in the hands of the Fujiwara. They lost it by their own timidity rather than through the machinations of their enemies. When the Emperor Go-Shujaku was mortally ill, he appointed his eldest son, Go-Reizei, to be his successor, and signified his desire that the latter's half-brother, Takahito, should be nominated Crown Prince. Fujiwara Yorimichi was then regent (kwampaku). To him, also, the dying sovereign made known his wishes. Now Takahito had not been born of a Fujiwara mother. The regent, therefore, while complying at once in Go-Reizei's case, said that the matter of the Crown Prince might be deferred, his purpose being to wait until a Fujiwara lady should bear a son to Go-Reizei.

In thus acting, Yorimichi obeyed the policy from which his family had never swerved through many generations, and which had now become an unwritten law of the State. But his brother, Yoshinobu, read the signs of the times in a sinister light. He argued that the real power had passed to the military magnates, and that by attempting to stem the current the Fujiwara might be swept away altogether. He therefore repaired to the palace, and simulating ignorance of what had passed between the late sovereign and the kwampaku, inquired whether it was intended that Prince Takahito should enter a monastery. Go-Reizei replied emphatically in the negative and related the facts, whereupon Yoshinobu declared that the prince should be nominated forthwith. It was done, and thus for the first time in a long series of years a successor to the throne was proclaimed who had not the qualification of a Fujiwara mother.

There remained to the kwampaku only one way of expressing his dissent. During many years it had been customary that the Prince Imperial, on his nomination, should receive from the Fujiwara regent a famous sword called Tsubo-kiri (Jar-cutter). Yorimichi declined to make the presentation in the case of Prince Takahito on the ground that he was not of Fujiwara lineage. The prince—afterwards Go-Sanjo—had the courage to deride this omission. "Of what service is the sword to me?" he said. "I have no need of it."

Such an attitude was very significant of the changing times. During more than twenty years of probation as Crown Prince, this sovereign, Go-Sanjo, had ample opportunity of observing the arbitrary conduct of the Fujiwara, and when he held the sceptre he neglected no means of asserting the authority of the Crown, one conspicuous step being to take a daughter of Go-Ichijo into the palace as chugu, a position created for a Fujiwara and never previously occupied by any save a Fujiwara.

Altogether, Go-Sanjo stands an imposing figure in the annals of his country. Erudition he possessed in no small degree, and it was supplemented by diligence, high moral courage and a sincere love of justice. He also set to his people an example of frugality. It is related that, observing as he passed through the streets one day, an ox-carriage with gold mountings, he stopped his cortege and caused the gold to be stripped off. Side by side with this record may be placed his solicitude about the system of measures, which had fallen into disorder. With his own hands he fashioned a standard which was known to later generations as the senshi-masu of the Enkyu era (1069-1074). The question of tax-free manors (shoen) also received much attention. During the reign of Go-Shujaku, decrees were frequently issued forbidding the creation of these estates. The Fujiwara shoen were conspicuous. Michinaga possessed wide manors everywhere, and Yorimichi, his son, was not less insatiable. Neither Go-Shujaku nor Go-Reizei could check the abuse. But Go-Sanjo resorted to a really practical measure. He established a legislative office where all titles to shoen had to be examined and recorded, the Daiho system of State ownership being restored, so that all rights of private property required official sanction, the Court also becoming the judge in all disputes as to validity of tenure.

These orders came like a clap of thunder in a blue sky. Many great personages had acquired vast manorial tracts by processes that could not endure the scrutiny of the Kiroku-jo (registrar's office). Yorimichi, the kwampaku, was a conspicuous example. On receipt of the order to register, he could only reply that he had succeeded to his estates as they stood and that no documentary evidence was available. Nevertheless, he frankly added that, if his titles were found invalid, he was prepared to surrender his estates, since the position he occupied required him to be an administrator of law, not an obstacle to its administration. This was the same noble who had refused to present the sword, Tsubo-kiri, to Go-Sanjo when the latter was nominated Crown Prince. The Emperor might now have exacted heavy reparation. But his Majesty shrank from anything like spoliation. A special decree was issued exempting from proof of title all manors held by chancellors, regents, or their descendants.

SALE OF OFFICES AND RANKS

Another abuse with which Go-Sanjo sought to deal drastically was the sale of offices and ranks. This was an evil of old standing. Whenever special funds were required for temple building or palace construction, it had become customary to invite contributions from local magnates, who, in return, received, or were renewed in their tenure of, the post of provincial governor. Official ranks were similarly disposed of. At what time this practice had its origin the records do not show, but during the reign of Kwammu (782-805,) the bestowal of rank in return for a money payment was interdicted, and Miyoshi Kiyotsura, in his celebrated memorial to Daigo (898-930), urged that the important office of kebiishi should never be conferred in consideration of money. But in the days of Ichijo, the acquisition of tax-free manors increased rapidly and the treasury's income diminished correspondingly, so that it became inevitable, in times of State need, that recourse should be had to private contributions, the contributors being held to have shown "merit" entitling them to rank or office or both.

Go-Sanjo strictly interdicted all such transactions. But this action brought him into sharp collision with the then kwampaku, Fujiwara Norimichi. The latter built within the enclosure of Kofuku-ji at Nara an octagonal edifice containing two colossal images of Kwannon. On this nanen-do the regent spent a large sum, part of which was contributed by the governor of the province. Norimichi therefore applied to the Emperor for an extension of the governor's term of office. Go-Sanjo refused his assent. But Norimichi insisted. Finally the Emperor, growing indignant, declared that the kwampaku's sole title to respect being derived from his maternal relationship to the sovereign, he deserved no consideration at the hands of an Emperor whose mother was not a Fujiwara. It was a supreme moment in the fortunes of the Fujiwara. Norimichi angrily swept out of the presence, crying aloud: "The divine influence of Kasuga Daimyojin* ceases from to-day. Let every Fujiwara official follow me." Thereat all the Fujiwara courtiers flocked out of the palace, and the Emperor had no choice but to yield. Victory rested with the Fujiwara, but it was purchased at the loss of some prestige.

*Titulary deity of the Fujiwara-uji.

CAMERA SOVEREIGNTY

Their obviously selfish device of seating a minor on the throne and replacing him as soon as he reached years of discretion, had been gradually invested by the Fujiwara with an element of spurious altruism. They had suggested the principle that the tenure of sovereign power should not be exercised exclusively. Go-Sanjo held, however, that such a system not only impaired the Imperial authority but also was unnatural. No father, he argued, could be content to divest himself of all practical interest in the affairs of his family, and to condemn the occupant of the throne to sit with folded hands was to reduce him to the rank of a puppet. Therefore, even though a sovereign abdicated, he should continue to take an active part in the administration of State affairs. This was, in short, Go-Sanjo's plan for rendering the regent a superfluity. He proposed to substitute camera government (Insei) for control by a kwampaku. But fate willed that he should not carry his project into practice. He abdicated, owing to ill health, in 1073, and died the following year.

SHIRAKAWA

Go-Sanjo was succeeded by his eldest son, Shirakawa. He had taken for consort the daughter of Fujiwara Yorimichi. This lady, Kenko, had been adopted into the family of Fujiwara Morozane, and it is recorded that Yorimichi and Morozane shed tears of delight when they heard of her selection by the Crown Prince—so greatly had the influence of the Fujiwara declined. Shirakawa modelled himself on his father. He personally administered affairs of State, displaying assiduity and ability but not justice. Unlike his father he allowed himself to be swayed by favour and affection, arbitrarily ignored time-honoured rules, and was guilty of great extravagance in matters of religion. But he carried into full effect the camera (or cloistered) system of government, thereafter known as Insei. For, in 1086, after thirteen years' reign, he resigned the sceptre to an eight-year-old boy, Horikawa, his son by the chugu, Kenko. The untimely death of the latter, for whom he entertained a strong affection, was the proximate cause of Shirakawa's abdication, but there can be little doubt that he had always contemplated such a step. He took the tonsure and the religious title of Ho-o (pontiff), but in the Toba palace, his new residence, he organized an administrative machine on the exact lines of that of the Court.

ENGRAVING: KO-NO-MA (ROOM) NISHI (WEST) HONGWAN-JI TEMPLE, AT KYOTO (An example of "Shoinzukuri" building)

Thenceforth the functions of Imperialism were limited to matters of etiquette and ceremony, all important State business being transacted by the Ho-o and his camera entourage. If the decrees of the Court clashed with those of the cloister, as was occasionally inevitable, the former had to give way. Thus, it can scarcely be said that there was any division of authority. But neither was there any progress. The earnest efforts made by Go-Sanjo to check the abuse of sales of rank and office as well as the alienation of State lands into private manors, were rendered wholly abortive under the sway of Shirakawa. The cloistered Emperor was a slave of superstition. He caused no less than six temples* to be built of special grandeur, and to the principal of these (Hosho-ji) he made frequent visits in state, on which occasions gorgeous ceremonies were performed. He erected the Temple of the 33,333 Images of Kwannon (the Sanjusangen-do) in Kyoto; he made four progresses to the monastery at Koya and eight to that at Kumano; he commissioned artists to paint 5470 Buddhist pictures, sculptors to cast 127 statues each sixteen feet high; 3150 life-size, and 2930 of three feet or less, and he raised twenty-one large pagodas and 446,630 small ones.

*These were designated Roku-sho-ji, or "six excellent temples."

His respect for Buddhism was so extreme that he strictly interdicted the taking of life in any form, a veto which involved the destruction of eight thousand fishing nets and the loss of their means of sustenance to innumerable fishermen, as well as the release of all falcons kept for hawking. It has even been suggested that Shirakawa's piety amounted to a species of insanity, for, on one occasion, when rain prevented a contemplated progress to Hosho-ji, he sentenced the rain to imprisonment and caused a quantity to be confined in a vessel.* To the nation, however, all this meant something very much more than a mere freak. It meant that the treasury was depleted and that revenue had to be obtained by recourse to the abuses which Go-Sanjo had struggled so earnestly to check, the sale of offices and ranks, even in perpetuity, and the inclusion of great tracts of State land in private manors.

*This silliness was spoken of by the people as ame-kingoku (the incarceration of the rain).

TOBA

Horikawa died in 1107, after a reign of twenty years, and was succeeded by his son Toba, a child of five. Affairs of State continued to be directed by the cloistered sovereign, and he chose for his grandson's consort Taiken-mon-in, who bore to him a son, the future Emperor Sutoku. Toba abdicated, after a reign of fifteen years, on the very day of Sutoku's nomination as heir apparent, and, six years later, Shirakawa died (1128), having administered the empire from the cloister during a space of forty-three years.

As a device to wrest the governing power from the grasp of the Fujiwara, Go-Sanjo's plan was certainly successful, and had he lived to put it into operation himself, the results must have been different. But in the greatly inferior hands of Shirakawa this new division of Imperial authority and the segregation of its source undoubtedly conspired to prepare the path for military feudalism and for curtained Emperors.

Toba, with the title of Ho-o, took the tonsure and administered from the cloister after Shirakawa's death. One of his first acts after abdication was to take another consort, a daughter of Fujiwara Tadazane, whom he made Empress under the name of Kaya-no-in; but as she bore him no offspring, he placed in the Toba palace a second Fujiwara lady, Bifuku-mon-in, daughter of Nagazane. By her he had (1139) a son whom he caused to be adopted by the Empress, preparatory to placing him on the throne as Emperor Konoe, at the age of three. Thus, the cloistered sovereigns followed faithfully in the footsteps of the Fujiwara.

SOLDIER-PRIESTS

A phenomenon which became conspicuous during the reign of Shirakawa was recourse to violence by Buddhist priests. This abuse had its origin in the acquisition of large manors by temples and the consequent employment of soldiers to act as guards. Ultimately, great monasteries like Kofuku-ji, Onjo-ji, and Enryaku-ji came to possess thousands of these armed men, and consequently wielded temporal power. Shirakawa's absorbing belief in Buddhism created opportunities for the exercise of this influence. Keenly anxious that a son should be born of his union with Kenko, the daughter of Fujiwara Yorimichi, his Majesty bespoke the prayers of Raigo, lord-abbot of Onjo-ji. It happened that unsuccessful application had frequently been made by the Onjo-ji monks for an important religious privilege. Raigo informed the Emperor that, if this favour were promised, the prayer for a prince would certainly be heard. Shirakawa made the promise, and Kenko gave birth to Prince Atsubumi. But when the Emperor would have fulfilled his pledge, the priests of Enryaku-ji (Hiei-zan), jealous that a privilege which they alone possessed should be granted to priests of another monastery, repaired to the Court en masse to protest. Shirakuwu yielded to this representation and despatched Oye no Masafusa to placate Raigo. But the abbot refused to listen. He starved himself to death, passing day and night in devotion, and shortly after his demise the little prince, born in answer to his prayers, died of small-pox.

In an age when superstition prevailed widely the death of the child was, of course, attributed to the incantations of the abbot. From that time a fierce feud raged between Onjo-ji and Enryaku-ji. In the year 1081, the priest-soldiers of the latter set the torch to the former, and, flocking to Kyoto in thousands, threw the capital into disorder. Order was with difficulty restored through the exertions of the kebiishi and the two Minamoto magnates, Yoshiiye and Yoshitsuna, but it was deemed expedient to guard the palace and the person of the Emperor with bushi. Twelve years later (1093), thousands of cenobites, carrying the sacred tree of the Kasuga shrine, marched from Nara to Kyoto, clamouring for vengeance on the governor of Omi, whom they charged with arresting and killing the officials of the shrine. This became a precedent. Thereafter, whenever the priests had a grievance, they flocked to the palace carrying the sacred tree of some temple or shrine. The soldier cenobites of Enryaku-ji—yama-hoshi, as they were called—showed themselves notably turbulent. They inaugurated the device of replacing the sacred tree with the "divine car," against which none dare raise a hand or shoot an arrow. If their petition were rejected, they would abandon the car in the streets of the capital, thus placing the city under a curse.

A notable instance occurred, in 1095, when these yama-hoshi of Hiyoshi preferred a charge of blood-guiltiness against Minamoto Yoshitsuna, governor of Mino. They flocked to the palace in a truculent mob, but the bushi on duty, being under the command of a Minamoto, did not hesitate to use their bows. Thereupon the yama-hoshi discarded the divine car, hastened back to the temple, and assembling all the priests, held a solemn service invoking the wrath of heaven on the State. In an age of profound superstition such action threw the Court into consternation, and infinite pains were taken to persuade Shinto officials of an independent shrine to carry the divine car back to Hiei-zan.

Instances of such turbulence were not infrequent, and they account in part for the reckless prodigality shown by Shirakawa in building and furnishing temples. The cenobites did not confine themselves to demonstrations at the palace; they had their own quarrels also. Kofuku-ji's hand was against Kimbusen and Todai-ji, and not a few priests doffed the stole and cassock to engage in temporary brigandage. The great Taira leader, Tadamori, and his son, Kiyomori—one of the most prominent figures on the stage of medieval Japan—dealt strongly with the Shinto communities at Hiyoshi and Gion, and drove the Kofuku-ji priests out of the streets of Kyoto, the result being that this great military family became an object of execration at Kofuku-ji and Enryaku-ji alike. With difficulty the Court kept peace between them. It is related of Shirakawa Ho-o that the three things which he declared to defy his control were the waters of the Kamo River, the fall of the dice, and the yama-hoshi.

ENGRAVING: PLAYING BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK (From a painting)



CHAPTER XXIII

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE HEIAN EPOCH

GENERAL SUMMARY

THE period we are considering is a long one which owes its unity to the sole fact that the capitol was at Kyoto. It is, therefore, unsafe to generalize on its manners and customs. But we may say with a degree of accuracy that the epoch was marked by an increasing luxury and artificiality, due largely to the adoption of Chinese customs. The capital city was built on a Chinese pattern and the salient characteristics of the Court during the period named from the new capital are on the Chinese pattern too. The Chinese idea of a civil service in which worth was tested by examinations was carried to a pedantic extreme both in administration and in society. In these examinations the important paper was in Chinese prose composition, which was much as if Latin prose were the main subject to prove the fitness of a candidate for an English or American administrative post! And the tests of social standing and the means of gaining fame at Court were skill in verse-writing, in music and dancing, in calligraphy and other forms of drawing, and in taste in landscape gardening.

Ichijo was famed as a musician and a prose writer, and Saga as a calligraphist. The Ako incident (see p. 240) illustrates the lengths to which pedantry was carried in matters of administration. And the story of the ill-success at the capital of the young soldier Taira Masakado, contrasted with the popularity of his showily vicious kinsman Sadabumi (see p. 253), illustrate what Murdoch means when he says that the early emperors of the Heian epoch had an "unbalanced craze for Chinese fashions, for Chinese manners, and above all for Chinese literature." Remarkable though the power of the Japanese people always seems to have been to assimilate foreign culture in large doses and speedily, it is hardly to be expected that at this period, any more than at a later one when there came in a sudden flood of European civilization, the nation should not have suffered somewhat—that it should not have had the defects of its qualities.

LUXURY OF THE COURT

Of Nimmyo's luxury and architectural extravagance we have already spoken, and of the arraignment of prodigality in dress, banquets, and funerals in the famous report of Miyoshi Kiyotsura (see p. 246). Indeed, we might almost cite the madness of the Emperor Yozei as being a typical, though extreme, case of the hysteria of the young and affected court nobles. Two of the Fujiwara have been pilloried in native records for ostentation: one for carrying inside his clothes hot rice-dumplings to keep himself warm, and, more important, to fling them away one after another as they got cold; and the other for carrying a fan decorated with a painting of a cuckoo and for imitating the cuckoo's cry whenever he opened the fan.

CONVENTION AND MORALITY

If the men of the period were effeminate and emotional, the women seem to have sunk to a lower stage of morals than in any other era, and sexual morality and wifely fidelity to have been abnormally bad and lightly esteemed. The story of Ariwara Narihira, prince, poet, painter and Don Juan, and of Taka and her rise to power (see p. 238) has already been told; and it is to be noted that the Fujiwara working for the control of the Throne through Imperial consorts induced, even forced, the Emperors to set a bad example in such matters. But over all this vice there was a veneer of elaborate etiquette. Even in the field a breach of etiquette was a deadly insult: as we have seen (p. 254) Taira Masakado lost the aid of a great lieutenant in his revolt because he forgot to bind up his hair properly before he received a visitor. At Court, etiquette and ceremony became the only functions of the nominal monarch after the camera government of the cloistered ex-Emperors had begun. And aristocratic women, though they might be notoriously unfaithful, kept up a show of modesty, covering their faces in public, refusing to speak to a stranger, going abroad in closed carriages or heavily veiled with hoods, and talking to men with their faces hid by a fan, a screen, or a sliding door, these degrees of intimacy being nicely adjusted to the rank and station of the person addressed. Love-making and wooing were governed by strict and conventional etiquette, and an interchange of letters of a very literary and artificial type and of poems usually took the place of personal meetings. Indeed, literary skill and appreciation of Chinese poetry and art were the main things sought for in a wife.

ENGRAVING: ARIWARA NARIHARA (Poet and Painter)

AMUSEMENTS

The pastimes of Court society in these years differed not so much in kind as in degree from those of the Nara epoch. In amusement, as in all else, there was extravagance and elaboration. What has already been said of the passion for literature would lead us to expect to find in the period an extreme development of the couplet-tournament (uta awase) which had had a certain vogue in the Nara epoch and was now a furore at Court. The Emperor Koko and other Emperors in the first half of the Heian epoch gave splendid verse-making parties, when the palace was richly decorated, often with beautiful flowers. In this earlier part of the period the gentlemen and ladies of the Court were separated, sitting on opposite sides of the room in which the party was held. Later in the Heian epoch the composition of love letters was a favorite competitive amusement, and although canons of elegant phraseology were implicitly followed, the actual contents of these fictitious letters were frankly indecent.

Other literary pastimes were: "incense-comparing," a combination of poetical dilletantism and skill in recognizing the fragrance of different kinds of incense burned separately or in different combinations; supplying famous stanzas of which only a word or so was given; making riddles in verse; writing verse or drawing pictures on fans,—testing literary and artistic skill; and making up lists of related ideographs. The love of flowers was carried to extravagant lengths. The camera Court in particular organized magnificent picnics to see the cherry-trees of Hosho-ji and the snowy forest at Koya. There were spring festivals of sunrise at Sagano and autumn moonlight excursions to the Oi River. The taste of the time was typified in such vagaries as covering trees with artificial flowers in winter and in piling up snow so that some traces of snowy landscapes might still be seen in spring or summer. Such excess reminds the student of decadent Rome as portrayed by the great Latin satirists.

Other favorite amusements at Court were: gathering sweet-flag in summer and comparing the length of its roots, hawking, fan-lotteries, a kind of backgammon called sugoroku, and different forms of gambling. Football was played, a Chinese game in which the winner was he who kicked the ball highest and kept it longest from touching the ground.

Another rage was keeping animals as pets, especially cats and dogs, which received human names and official titles and, when they died, elaborate funerals. Kittens born at the palace at the close of the tenth century were treated with consideration comparable to that bestowed on Imperial infants. To the cat-mother the courtiers sent the ceremonial presents after childbirth, and one of the ladies-in-waiting was honoured by an appointment as guardian to the young kittens.

ENGRAVING: SKETCH OF "SHINDENZUKUBI" (Style of Dwelling House of Nobles in the Heian Epoch)

MUSIC AND DANCING

With the growth of luxury in the Heian epoch and the increase of extravagant entertainment and amusement, there was a remarkable development of music and the dance. Besides the six-stringed harp or wagon, much more complex harps or lutes of thirteen or twenty-five strings were used, and in general there was a great increase in the number and variety of instruments. Indeed, we may list as many as twenty kinds of musical instruments and three or four times as many varieties of dance in the Heian epoch. Most of the dances were foreign in their origin, some being Hindu, more Korean, and still more Chinese, according to the usual classification. But imported dances, adaptations of foreign dances, and the older native styles were all more or less pantomimic.

ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING

Except in the new capital city with its formal plan there were no great innovations in architecture. Parks around large houses and willows and cherry-trees planted along the streets of Kyoto relieved this stiffness of the great city. Landscape-gardening became an art. Gardens were laid out in front of the row of buildings that made up the home of each noble or Court official.

Convention was nearly as rigid here as it was in Court etiquette. In the centre of this formal garden was a miniature lake with bridges leading to an island; there was a waterfall feeding the lake, usually at its southern end; and at the eastern and western limits of the garden, respectively, a grotto for angling and a "hermitage of spring water"—a sort of picnic ground frequented on summer evenings. The great artist, Kanaoka, of the end of the ninth century worked at laying out these rockeries and tiny parks. A native school of architects, or more correctly carpenters, had arisen in the province of Hida. There was less temple building than in the Nara epoch and more attention was given to the construction of elegant palaces for court officials and nobles. But these were built of wood and were far from being massive or imposing. As in other periods of Japanese architecture, the exterior was sacrificed to the interior where there were choice woodworking and joinery in beautiful woods, and occasionally screen-or wall-painting as decoration. There was still little house-furnishing. Mats (tatami), fitted together so as to cover the floor evenly, were not used until the very close of the period; and then, too, sliding doors began to be used as partitions. The coverings of these doors, silk or paper, were the "walls" for Japanese mural paintings of the period. As the tatami came into more general use, the bedstead of the earlier period, which was itself a low dais covered with mats and with posts on which curtains and nets might be hung, went out of use, being replaced by silken quilts spread on the floor-mats. Cushions and arm-rests were the only other important pieces of furniture.

COSTUME

In the Heian epoch, Court costume was marked by the two characteristics that we have seen elsewhere in the period—extravagance and convention. Indeed, it may be said that Chinese dress and etiquette, introduced after the time of Kwammu were the main source of the luxury of the period. Costume was extreme, not alone in being rich and costly, but in amount of material used. Princely and military head-dresses were costly, jewelled, and enormously tall, and women wore their hair, if possible, so that it trailed below their elaborate skirts. Men's sleeves and trousers were cut absurdly large and full; and women's dress was not merely baggy but voluminous. At a palace fete in 1117 the extreme of elegance was reached by ladies each wearing a score or so of different coloured robes. In this period the use of costly and gorgeous brocades and silks with beautiful patterns and splendid embroideries began.