Medieval Japan

Japanese Middle Ages Japan started as a grouping of clans Chinese influence affected the Japanese way of government 500 C.E. Under Shotoku Taishi, the Japanese gained a centralized government with an Emperor at it’s head Also gained a new tax system

Location, Location, Location After Taishi, emperors traditionally were of Yamato descent, but were “influenced” by other clans. First of these “influential” clans was the Fujiwara First order of business was to establish a capital at Nara in 710AD

Got to pay your taxes! Once Taishi established the Yamato Emperor he also started a system of taxes that sounds like feudalism However, after the establishment of Nara problems occurred

Moving out! In 794 AD the capital was moved to Heian (modern day Kyoto) due to corruptive influence of nobles there. However, at this time the government was starting to become decentralized

“The Way of the Warrior” As the emperor lost more and more power local nobles started to use samurai These men were like knights in Medieval Europe but used swords and bows on horseback in place of lances Also like knights, samurai lived under a strict code called Bushido or “way of the warrior” Bushido code: honor, bravery, loyalty

Kamakura Shogunate By the end of the 1100s the emperor was only that in name. Local warlords had begun to carve out their own lands in a time of great civil war In 1192 Minamoto Yoritomo established the shogunate system after defeated most of his rivals See diagram on pg. 392 Emperor (high rank/little to no power) shogun (ruler)  Daimyo (large landowners)  Samurai  Peasants, merchants, artisans

Life in Early Japan Role of Women Religion Culture Were seen as almost equal to men Faced easy divorces Religion Shinto (nature) Zen (self-reliance, meditation) Zen Buddhism Culture Female authors Landscape art and architecture

Chaos in Japan The time before the Edo period was marked by weak shoguns and fighting within & b/w Mongols (mid-1200s – 1500s) This was all to change at the end of the 16th century

The Three Unifiers Oda Nobunaga Toyotomi Hediyoshi Tokugawa Ieyasu By 1550 Oda was the most powerful daimyo with control of Kyoto and the central plans of Japan Toyotomi Hediyoshi After a very bloody civil war, Toyotomi was able to take control and persuade most of the other daimyo to follow him But like Oda did not make himself shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu Like Toyotomi before him Tokugawa violently took power and moved the capital to Edo (present day Tokyo) Naming himself shogun Tokugawa effectively took control of Japan – created central gov’t Dynasty lasted until 1868

Nanban: European Encounters In 1543 AD the first Europeans, the Portuguese, landed in Japan Like in China, the Japanese accepted the Europeans at first, especially the Unifiers who used the firearms they brought with them

Nanban cont. With trade also came Jesuit missionaries, who were at first tolerated When they started to destroy Shinto shrines however, they severely damaged Japanese/European relations

Economic Changes in Edo Unlike with the han system, Japan stopped strictly following Confucian ideals The Tokugawa found that trade was important to the country Out of this came a new merchant class and a period of peasant revolts

Social Changes cont. Like in China women were very restricted in Edo Japan Though they were valued in the home as child bearers and homemakers, women have very little rights