A Quiet Authority — From the Warring States to the Edo Era

Up to now we have watched a twofold structure take shape, in which power flowed toward the warrior houses while authority remained with the court. At the far end of that divide, the court entered what was perhaps its quietest and most trying age. War spread across the whole land, and the income from the estates that had once sustained the court is said to have thinned away. Yet it was precisely in this period — when the court seemed to have lost its strength — that the figure of the emperor came clearly into view as something preserved by a power other than ‘political force.’ In this installment we trace, as calmly as we can, the road that led from the hardship of the Warring States to the stability of the Edo era.

A Dwindling Flame — Hardship in the Warring States

Taking the Ōnin War as one dividing line, Japan entered a long age of warfare. As warriors across the land vied for power, the life of the court, centered on the capital, is said to have gradually thinned away. Much of the court’s income had rested upon estates scattered across the provinces, but amid the wars those channels of income are said to have been cut off, or seized by warriors, and the finances of the palace grew ever harder.

One example often cited to convey that hardship is the matter of the enthronement ceremony. Though it was a vital rite to announce, at home and abroad, that a new emperor had succeeded to the throne, there were times, it is said, when even gathering the means to perform it was no easy thing. Of emperors such as Go-Kashiwabara and Go-Nara, examples are handed down of years passing before the enthronement rite could be carried out. A ceremony is no mere splendid spectacle. It was a visible sign, shown to society, that the emperor truly existed. That even the oil to light such a sign ran short — so it was later said — and by this measure the court of this age was, quietly yet deeply, having its very existence put to the test.

Even so, the figure of the emperor itself never vanished. Why did it not vanish? As if to offer one answer to that question, as the Warring States age drew toward its close, warlords who had gained real power turned their eyes once more toward the court.

Warlords and the Court — The Age of Oda and Toyotomi

In the closing stages of the Warring States, Oda Nobunaga, who advanced toward the unification of the realm, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who succeeded him, deepened their ties with the court. How to assess the relationship between these men and the court is still debated among scholars: some emphasize a spirit of cooperation, others a relationship laden with tension. Here let us look mainly at the outline of what is firmly handed down.

In the time of Emperor Ōgimachi, it is said that, through the support of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, repairs to the palace and the restoration of court rites went forward. To the long-thinned life of the court, a light was kindled once again. And Hideyoshi is said to have been appointed by the court to the highest office, that of Kampaku. The fact that one who had won the realm by force of arms still required the court’s offices and ranks to display his standing to the world speaks well of how authority worked in this age. The one who held actual power, and the one who lent that power legitimacy, were separate — and it was the court that bore the latter role.

What appears here is one form of a mutually sustaining relationship, in which the warrior houses supported the court and the court granted the warrior houses authority. It was not an even balance of power, yet it shows that the figure of the emperor continued to hold meaning for society on a plane distinct from actual power. In time the realm passed into the hands of the Tokugawa, and this relationship came to take a more ordered, institutional form.

The Emperor Within the System — The Laws for the Imperial and Court Officials

Having closed the age of war and built a long peace, the Edo shogunate also set down an explicit framework for its relationship with the court. This was the Laws for the Imperial and Court Officials, said to have been established in the first year of Genna (1615). Drafted at the behest of Tokugawa Ieyasu and composed of articles in classical Chinese style, this code is said to have set down, one by one, the matters the emperor and the nobility were to observe.

Among its contents, as handed down, are such things as: that the emperor was to cultivate learning and other virtues; that standards based on the customary precedents of each house were laid out for the promotion of the nobility’s offices and ranks; and that posts such as the Kampaku and the Buke-tensō (liaison to the warrior government) were placed at the heart of court administration. What draws attention is the point that even the emperor is said to have been included among the subjects of such a code. By this, the shogunate is held to have placed the court within a framework of its own making.

How to receive this code is a matter on which views differ by standpoint. On one side is the view that it constrained the court’s freedom and confined its activities within set bounds; on the other, the view that it stabilized as an institution the court’s position, shaken by war, and served to support its continuance. In either case, throughout the Edo period the emperor and the court were placed apart from the standpoint of holding real political power.

From the hardship of the Warring States to the stability of Edo: over these two and more centuries, the emperor remained quietly at the palace in Kyoto, not as one who moved politics, but as one who embodied a long lineage. It was an unflashy yet certain stretch of years of continuity. In time, in the nineteenth century, amid pressure from without and turmoil within, Japan would be greatly shaken. At that moment, people would seek to call back this authority, long absent from the front of the stage, to the center of a new nation-building. In the next installment we move into the story of the dawn of the modern age, in which, with the proclamation of the Restoration of Imperial Rule, the emperor is lifted to the center of the nation.