Product Code Database
, (2025). 9781405881180, Pearson Longman. ISBN 9781405881180 were powerful Japanese , Daimyo. Britanica feudal who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominally to the emperor and the kuge (an aristocratic class). In the term, 大 means 'large', and myō stands for , meaning 'private land'. Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, entry for "daimyo"
From the shugo of the Muromachi period through the Sengoku period to the daimyo of the Edo period, the rank had a long and varied history. The backgrounds of daimyo also varied considerably; while some daimyo clans, notably the Mōri, Shimazu clan and Hosokawa clan, were cadet branches of the Imperial family or were descended from the kuge, other daimyo were promoted from the ranks of the samurai, notably during the Edo period.
Daimyo often hired samurai to guard their land, and paid them in land or food, as relatively few could afford to pay them in money. The daimyo era ended soon after the Meiji Restoration, with the adoption of the prefecture system in 1871.
Major shugo-daimyō came from the Shiba clan, Hatakeyama clan, and , as well as the tozama clans of Yamana clan, Ōuchi, Takeda clan and Akamatsu clan. The greatest ruled multiple provinces.
The Ashikaga shogunate required the shugo-daimyō to reside in Kyoto, so they appointed relatives or retainers, called shugodai, to represent them in their home provinces. Eventually, some of these in turn came to reside in Kyoto, appointing deputies in the provinces.
The Ōnin War was a major uprising in which shugo-daimyō fought each other. During this and other wars of the time, kuni ikki, or provincial uprisings, took place as locally powerful warriors sought independence from the shugo-daimyo. The deputies of the shugo-daimyō, living in the provinces, seized the opportunity to strengthen their position. At the end of the fifteenth century, those shugo-daimyō who succeeded remained in power. Those who had failed to exert control over their deputies fell from power and were replaced by a new class, the sengoku-daimyō, who arose from the ranks of the shugodai and jizamurai.
Additional sengoku-daimyō such as the Mōri, Tamura clan, and Ryūzōji arose from the jizamurai. The lower officials of the shogunate and rōnin (Late Hōjō, Saitō), provincial officials (Kitabatake), and kuge (Tosa Ichijō) also gave rise to sengoku-daimyo.
The shinpan were collaterals of Ieyasu, such as the Matsudaira clan, or descendants of Ieyasu other than in the main line of succession. Several shinpan, including the Tokugawa of Owari Province (Nagoya), Kii Province (Wakayama), and Mito, as well as the Matsudaira of Fukui Prefecture and Aizu, held large han.
A few fudai daimyō, such as the Ii clan of Hikone, held large han, but many were small. The shogunate placed many fudai at strategic locations to guard the trade routes and the approaches to Edo. Also, many fudai daimyo took positions in the Edo shogunate, some rising to the position of rōjū. The fact that fudai daimyo could hold government positions, while tozama in general could not, was a main difference between the two.
Tozama daimyō held mostly large fiefs far away from the capital, with e.g. the Kaga Domain han of Ishikawa Prefecture, headed by the Maeda clan, assessed at 1,000,000 koku. Other famous tozama clans included the Mori of Nagato Province, the Shimazu family of Satsuma Province, the Date clan of Sendai, the Uesugi clan of Yonezawa, and the Hachisuka clan of Awa. Initially, the Tokugawa regarded them as potentially rebellious, but for most of the Edo period, control policies such as sankin-kōtai, resulted in peaceful relations.
Daimyo were required to maintain residences in Edo as well as their fiefs, and to move periodically between Edo and their fiefs, typically spending alternate years in each place, in a practice called sankin-kōtai.
In the wake of the changes, many daimyo remained in control of their lands, being appointed as prefectural governors; however, they were soon relieved of this duty and called en masse to Tokyo, thereby cutting off any independent base of power from which to potentially rebel.
Despite this, members of former daimyo families remained prominent in government and society, and in some cases continue to remain prominent to the present day. For example, Morihiro Hosokawa, the former Prime Minister of Japan, is a descendant of the daimyo of Kumamoto.
|
|
