In Name Only: Imperial Sovereignty in Early Modern Japan Author(S): Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi Reviewed Work(S): Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol

The Society for Japanese Studies

In Name Only: Imperial Sovereignty in Early Modern Japan Author(s): Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter, 1991), pp. 25-57 Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/132906 . Accessed: 05/12/2011 09:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The Society for Japanese Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Japanese Studies.

http://www.jstor.org BOB TADASHI WAKABAYASHI

In Name Only: ImperialSovereignty in EarlyModern Japan

KokutaiMyth and Historical Consciousness In the following pages, I reexamine the issue of imperial sovereignty in the early modern (or Tokugawa)period of Japanesehistory. It is a conten- tious, emotionally charged issue closely linked to politics and historiogra- phy under Japan'smodern emperorstate. In April 1933, for example, the eminent Tokugawa specialist and Emeritus Professor Mikami Sanji wel- comed a new class of Japanesehistory majors to Tokyo Imperial Univer- sity. But he warnedthem that, concerningemperor-related topics, "You're going to study true history here; just don't teach it to your pupils after you become teachers."' The next month, Ministerof EducationHatoyama Ichir6 dismissed Kyoto ImperialUniversity law professorTakigawa Yuki- tora for harboringand disseminatinganti-emperor "dangerous thought."2 Mikami'scensorship of "true" history and the government'spersecution of Takigawain 1933 foreshadowedthe Minobe Incidentof 1935, which epito- mized prewarJapan's brutal suppression of political dissent, academicfree-

An earlier version of this article was presentedat the Midwest JapanSeminar and Asso- ciation for Asian Studies Midwest Conferenceon October28, 1989. My thanks go to Susan Long, who organizedthat panel, and to Mikiso Hane, Koji Taira, JacksonBailey, and Diana Wright-Fossfor helpful comments. I am gratefulto Suzuki Masayuki,Okamoto Koichi, Ma- ruyamaMakoto, KuriharaTamiko, and Lynne Kutsukake,who kindly secured source materi- als for me from Japan. Canada'sSocial Science and HumanitiesResearch Council provided financial supportfor this project. 1. Cited in Inoue Kiyoshi, "Tennosei no rekishi," as reprinted in Inoue, Tennosei (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai,1953), p. 3. 2. On the 1933 TakigawaIncident, see Ouchi Tsutomu, Nihon no rekishi24: Fashizumu e no michi (Tokyo: Chuo K6ronsha, 1967), pp. 360-67. The incident did little to harm Hatoyama'spostwar political career.Though initially purgedby SCAP in April 1946, he went on to serve as prime minister,heading three cabinets from December 1954 to December 1956. 25 Journalof JapaneseStudies, 17:1 ? 1991 Society for JapaneseStudies 26 Journal of Japanese Studies dom, and civil liberties in the name of "clarifyingour kokutai"along the road to fascism and war. Most of Japan'spostwar historical profession, having sufferedthrough these and even more unpleasantprewar and wartimeexperiences, has dedi- cated itself to refuting kokutai dogmas and myths propagated by the old emperor state. Some of the more prominentof these include belief in: a harmonious family state under direct imperial rule since 660 B.C., widespreadpopular reverence for the emperorthroughout Japan's history, and the superiorityof the Japaneserace due to its divine origins. Postwar Marxist historians in particularhave been at the forefront of this myth- debunking crusade, striving to prove that emperorsdid not actually rule and commoners did not truly revere them as deities during most of Japa- nese history. As HattoriShis6 explained in 1948, ancientand modernJapan suffered from imperial despotism; but "the emperorsystem lost real power in between those eras, when it existed 'in name only,' as underour new [1947] constitution."3In 1946, Inoue Kiyoshi arguedthat the imperial institution had always been totally divorced from the people's daily lives. He pro- vocatively asserted that early Meiji commonersdid not even know of the emperor'sexistence; they had to be introducedto him and informedof his divine lineage thus: "The emperor is descended from the Sun Goddess Amaterasuand has been master [nushi] of Japansince the world began."4 Leftist Japanese intellectuals today, from academic historians such as FujiwaraAkira to best-seller novelists such as MorimuraSeiichi, still sub- scribe to Inoue's thesis of commonerignorance about the emperor.5 This postwar Japanese abhorrence to and repudiation of kokutai dogmas and myths is by no means limited to Marxists. In fact, the non- Marxist legal historianIshii Ryosuke producedwhat became postwarhis- toriographicorthodoxy on the emperor system in his 1950 opus, Tenn6: Tenni t6chi no shitekikaimei (The emperor:a historicalclarification of imperial rule). Accordingto Ishii, Japan's"normal" political system and "true" tradi- tion of government was for emperors not to rule; they actually wielded power only from Nara to early Heian times and from 1868 to 1945. But those eras were anomalieswithin Japanesehistory as a whole because they

3. HattoriShis6, "Tenn6sei zettaishugino kakuritsu,"in NaramotoTatsuya, ed., Hat- tori Shis6 zenshi, Vol. 10 (Tokyo:Fukumura Shuppan, 1974), p. 125. 4. Quoted by Inoue in Tenn6sei, pp. 15-16. 5. See FujiwaraAkira, Yoshida Yutaka, Ito Satoru, and Kunugi Toshihiro, Tenno no Sh6wa-shi (Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha,1984), p. 15; MorimuraSeiichi, "Watakushino naka no Showa tenno," Sekai, March 1989, p. 99. Wakabayashi: Imperial Sovereignty 27

witnessed the full-scale importationof alien despotic political models from China and the West. Ishii argued that the emperor had not empowered TokugawaIeyasu to govern Japanby naming him shogun in 1603, for no one can delegate powers he does not have. Thus, grantingthe shogunaltitle did not constitute an "imperialinvestiture" of power, as standardexplana- tions held. Instead, Ieyasu empowered himself to rule by achieving military hegemony in the realm. Emperorsin the early modernperiod enjoyed but three prerogatives:to grant court ranks and office titles, select era names, and promulgatethe calendar.Yet even these functions meant nothing because they in fact were dictatedby Edo.6 The 1962 draft version of lenaga Saburo's controversialhigh-school text, Shin Nihon-shi, expandedon Ishii's thesis, statingthat "emperorslost their position as sovereigns [kunshu]"at the startof the Tokugawaperiod. But the Ministry of Educationcensored this passage in 1965, retortingthat "emperors did indeed remain sovereigns, though only formally. This is clear because shogun . . . were appointed by the emperor; and shogun, daimyo, and bakufubannermen were appointed to court office under the ritsuryo system." 7 But regardlessof the Ministry of Education'sstand in this controversy, the scholarly consensus among postwar academic historians in Japan and the West generally upholds Ishii.8 Though revisionism began to appear in the 1980s, most historians would agree that Tokugawa-eraemperors closely resemble postwaremperors: In both eras, they were (are) politically impotent "symbols" of the state, not actualruling sovereigns.9As Ishii put it, the emperor's"appointing" of shogun from 1603 to 1867 was an empty formality, just as the emperor's "appointing" of prime ministers or su-

6. Ishii Ry6suke, Tenno: Tenn6 tochi no shiteki kaimei (Tokyo: K6bundo, 1950), pp. 1-6 and 216-26. Note that in a 1982 reprintedition, Ishii altered his subtitle to read "Tennono seisei oyobi fushinsei no dento" (The emperor'sgenesis and traditionof non-rule). Ishii's views have not changed since 1950. For recent reiterations,see Ishii, Shimpen Edo jidai mampitsu ge (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1979), pp. 5-13 and 46-52; also Ishii Ryosuke and MurakamiTadashi, "Hoseishi karamita cho-bakukankeishi," in Rekishikoron, No. 107 (October 1984), pp. 126-46. 7. Emphasis added. See Ienaga Sabur6, "Ky6iku gy6sei ni shimesarerutennoseizo," in Gendai to shis6, No. 15 (March 1974), p. 74; Ochiai Nobutaka, "Rekishi ky6kasho ni okeru tenno no jojutsu," in Rekishi hyoron, No. 314 (June 1976), p. 72. 8. For Western scholarship, see, for example, Herschel Webb, The Japanese Imperial Institutionin the TokugawaPeriod (New York:Columbia University Press, 1968). 9. For criticism of the Ishii thesis stressing its insidious implicationsfor the present, see Miyaji Masato, "Sengo tennosei no tokushitsu," Rekishi hyoron, No. 364 (August 1980), p. 28; TakahashiHikohiro, "Shocho tennosei no rikai o megutte," in Rekishigakukenkyiu, No. 593 (May 1989); and AkasakaNorio, "Tennofushinsei to iu kyoz6," in Sekai, February 1990, pp. 223-31. 28 Journal of Japanese Studies preme court chief justices has been since 1947 underArticle Six of Japan's postwar constitution.10 Withoutdoubt, emperorsin early modernJapan were impotentand the imperial court in Kyoto survived due to bakufulargesse. The Tokugawa military regime in Edo exercised de facto sovereign power. The shogun, not the emperor, took responsibility for Japan'sdefense and foreign re- lations; the shogun, not the emperor, conferred lands to daimyo and confiscated these from them. Politically conscious Japanese in early to mid-Tokugawatimes believed that the emperorand court had proventheir administrativeincompetence by the time of EmperorGo-Daigo (r. 1318- 39). People assumed that only militarygovernments could rule effectively in Japanafter centuries of court corruptionand decline thathad culminated in the disastrousJokyt Warof 1221 and KemmuRestoration of 1333-36. Tokugawathinkers construed this fall of the imperialhouse leading to warriorand bakufusupremacy as "historicallyirreversible." " As the Chu Hsi ConfucianMuro Kyuso (1658-1734) noted, it rancontrary to reason in nature and human affairs to desire a never-endingimperial dynasty: "No dynasty that has risen to powerhas ever avoidedfalling from it, [justas] no man given life has ever escaped death." 2 The Sorai School thinkers,Dazai Shundai (1680-1747) and YamagataDaini (1725-67), called Japan'simperial house a "defunct dynasty" (shokoku).13 According to Kumazawa Banzan (1611-91), "controlof the realmwill neverrevert to imperialcourt nobles; for even if we warriorsrestored it to them, [their rule] would not last for long." 14Or, as YamagaSoko (1622-85) put it, "even myriadoxen could not returnthe imperialcourt to the power it enjoyed in antiquity."15 Emperor Go-Mizunoo (r. 1611-29) admittedthat much when he la-

10. Ishii, Tenno, p. 171. In either era, the emperorlacked (lacks) any power to reject the designated candidateor to substitutesomeone else for the post in question. 11. This subject is thoroughlytreated by Japanesehistorians. See, for example, Uete Michiari, Nihon kindai shis6 no keisei (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974), pp. 197-231; Ma- tsumoto Sannosuke, Kinsei Nihon no shisozo (Tokyo: Kembun Shuppan, 1984), pp. 3- 48; Ozawa Eiichi, Kinsei shigaku shisoshi kenkyu (Tokyo: YoshikawaK6bunkan, 1972), pp. 370-448. 12. Muro Kyuso, "Yusa Jir6zaemonni kotauruno sho," in Araki Kengo and Inoue Ta- dashi, eds., Nihon shis6 taikei 34: Kaibara Ekken, Muro Kyuso (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1970), p. 250. 13. Dazai Shundaias quoted by Yuasa Gentei (d. 1781) in Bunkaizakki. This document is found in HayakawaJunzabur6, ed., Nihon zuihitsu taisei (Tokyo: YoshikawaK6bunkan, 1927), Vol. 7, pp. 609 and 655; YamagataDaini in KawauraGenchi, ed., Ryashi shinron (Tokyo: IwanamiBunko, 1943), pp. 39, 68, and 81. 14. KumazawaBanzan, Shugi washo, in Goto Y6ichi and Tomoeda Ryutar6,eds., Ni- hon shiso taikei 30: KumazawaBanzan (Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1971), p. 150. 15. Takkyod6mon, in Hirose Yutaka, ed., Yamaga Soko zenshfi shiso hen (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1940), Vol. 12, p. 322. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 29

mented: "In antiquity, imperial edicts commandedobedience in all matters; now Our words have no effect. . . . That is appalling, but it can't be helped in this degenerate age."16 The Tokugawa bakufu was being real- istic, not punitive, when it decreed in 1615that the emperorand court con- fine themselves to cultural, ceremonial, and religious pursuits, for these were the only mattersthey were competentto handle. Despite all this persuasive evidence for the emperor'simpotence and political irrelevance, the perennialquestion in early modern Japanesepo- litical history remains unanswered:Why couldn'tthis superfluousemperor just be killed off and his anachronisticdynasty eradicated?In other words, how can historiansrationally explain why the imperialline remained "un- broken throughoutthe ages eternal"?17 At the risk of seeming to exhume abhorrentprewar kokutai myths, I believe part of the answer is that the emperor and his court alone were qualifiedto performcertain necessary functions in early modernJapan, especially for the shogun and daimyo, but also for other social strata. Many Japanese in that prescientific age perceived the emperorto be their coun- try's highest deity and ultimate source of divine legitimation. Court ties with Buddhisttemples and Shint6 shrines became stronger,not weaker, in the Tokugawaperiod. This sacred authority,which only the emperor and court could bestow, manifesteditself in ritsuryocourt ranks and titles and in imperial lineages-in "names" that conveyed incontestable prestige throughoutthe nation. Modern, and especially Western,historians such as myself tend to miss the significance of these factors. First, we often forget that, despite the vaunted rationalism attributedto some Tokugawathinkers such as Arai Hakuseki, many highly intelligent people in that period continued to believe in the ability of the emperorand court to invoke the power of gods, buddhas, and spirits. The Kyoto scholar Hori Keizan (1688-1757), who was Motoori Norinaga's first mentor, is a prime example. Hori declared that even the most powerful warriorsand would-be usurpersin Japanese history, such as Taira no Kiyomori and Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, could not help being deferentialtoward "the master[nushi] of Japan"in Kyoto. This was because they dreaded being branded "an enemy of the emperor"

16. "Shinkangoky6kun sho," in MiuraT6saku, ed., Rekidaishochoku zenshui (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1941), Vol. 4, pp. 198-99. 17. For recent critical bibliographicsurveys of secondary scholarshipon this issue, see MizubayashiTakeshi, "Kinsei tennosei kenkyuni tsuite no ichi kosatsu (jo)," in Rekishigaku kenkyi, No. 596 (August 1989), pp. 18-27; Mizubayashi, "Kinsei tennosei kenkyu ni tsuite no ichi kosatsu (ge)," in Rekishigakukenkyvi, No. 597 (September 1989), pp. 19-33; and Kubo Takako, "Kinsei cho-bakukankeishi no kadai," in Rekishihyoron, No. 475 (November 1989), pp. 26-41. 30 Journal of Japanese Studies

(choteki). Amaterasu's"mysterious and unfathomable"illustrious virtue ensuredthat a warrior'sdemise would be "as fast as a mudslide"if he were so branded. Hori cited the periodic Ise pilgrimages as anothermanifesta- tion of the "mysteriousand unfathomable"bond linking the imperialcourt and Japanesemasses. Here, too, was a warningto any militaryleader who might dare forget his subjectstatus and become an enemy of the emperor.'8 Second, and more to the point of this article, we Western historians often fail to appreciatethe prestige and significancethat imperiallygranted "names" have had for Japanesepeople. Thus, we customarilycite Japa- nese historical figures by their true surnamesand best-knowngiven names for reasons of clarity and easy identification.And we dismiss-as merely formal or honorific-the imperiallineages, assumed surnames, and court ranks or titles that those figuresactually went by. But those formal, honorific names conveyed an importantsense of identity and self-esteem to pre- and early modern Japanese. By ignoring or discountingthese names, we have overlooked a key reason-though not the sole reason-why Japan's emperorsystem has survived and prosperedinto moderntimes.

The Early ModernBases of KokutaiMyth It is undeniablethat significantsegments of commonersociety in early modern Japan knew about and felt affection for emperors. For example, townsfolk throughoutthe land were beginningto celebratethe Doll Festival (momo no sekku) at that time. Each spring, women and girls displayedin their homes dolls of the emperor, empress, and high nobles-all decked out in court dress and lined up on steps accordingto court rankand office. So even illiterate little commoner girls were startingto yearn for the elegant and enchantedworld of Kyoto's imperial court, the imperial family, and the high nobility.19And, we should note, they learned about court ranks and titles. Perhaps because of such childhood experiences, one Kyoto maiden mournedthe passing of EmperorGo-Y6zei in 1617 with the verse: [His Majesty,] beyondus abovethe clouds. In all placesunder Heaven, tearsof sadnessdrench our sleeves.20

18. Hori Keizan, Fujingen, in TakimotoSeiichi, ed., Nihon keizai s6sho (Tokyo:Nihon Keizai Sosho Kank6dai, 1915), Vol. 11, pp. 315-17. 19. WatanabeHiroshi, Seiji shiso-shi 2: Kinsei Nihon seiji shis6 (Tokyo: Nihon Hoso ShuppanKyokai, 1985), p. 84. 20. Nakamura Yukihiko and Nakano Mitsutoshi, eds., Kasshi yawa (Tokyo: Toy6 Bunko, 1977), Vol. 2, p. 45. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 31

Many early modern Japanese commoners, especially in or near the Kyoto region, held the emperorin religious awe as a "manifest divinity" (genzai no kami).21The emperor was deemed to possess magical power and sacerdotalauthority. When Sengoku or Tokugawadaimyo signed loy- alty oaths to an overlordin returnfor recognitionof their fiefs, they swore by "the great and lesser gods of all the 60-plus provinces in Japan," of whom the emperorwas highest-ranking.Their oaths were not always taken lightly, as can be seen from a 1582 entry in the Tamon'innikki. The author, a K6fukuji priest, tells of Oda Nobunaga beheading Takeda Katsuyori, notes an eruption of Mt. Asama, and relates that "recent typhoons, hail- storms, lightning fires, and upside-downrainstorms occurred because the emperorhad banished the [protective]deities of those states that opposed Nobunaga."22 The emperor and court had historically prayed to the national deities for the state'swelfare in times of pestilence or crisis, as in the thirteenthcentury when Japanfaced Mongol invaders. In Tokugawatimes, a reigningemperor's person was believed so sacred that no physician might examine it and no blade might touch it. Shaving, hair-cutting,and nail-clipping were taboos until after abdication;instead, handmaidensbit off the reigning emperor'shair, beard, and nails.23Impe- rial authorizationwas needed to deify TokugawaIeyasu as "Tosho dai- gongen." 24 Only the court could confer kaminame, status, and court rank; and once conferred, only the court could revoke these. In 1615, Edo petitioned the imperial court to strip Toyotomi Hideyoshi of his deity status and it razed his Hokoku Shrine in the Higashiyamadistrict of Kyoto.25But KanzawaTeikan (1710-95), a Constablein the bakufu'sKyoto Magistracy, criticized his superiorsof the previouscentury on the groundsthat: "A de-

21. See Hashimoto Tsunesuke, Kisso jigo, in Nihon zuihitsu taisei (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1927), Vol. 2, p. 822. Miyata Noboru, who quotes this verse, holds that the emperor therefore was a "living god" (ikigami) to "the general masses." See Miyata, Ikigami shink6 (Tokyo: HanawaShobo, 1970), p. 91. 22. Quoted in Mitobe Masao, Nihonshijo no tennd (Tokyo: FukumuraShuppan, 1967), pp. 183-84. 23. Hora Tomio, Tenn6ofushinseino kigen (Tokyo:Azekura Shobo, 1979), pp. 93-123. The original source for this, however, is somewhatquestionable. Hora bases his assertionon a work entitled Tankaiwritten by a samurainamed Tsumura Masataka sometime between 1775 and 1795. Tsumuraprefaced his work by saying that much of what he records "is hearsayand may be contraryto fact." Yet both Hora and FukayaKatsumi argue that these assertionsabout the reigning emperor are credible. See also Fukaya, "Kinsei no tenno to shogun," in Re- kishigaku Kenkyukai, Nihonshi Kenkyukai, ed., K6za Nihon rekishi 6: Kinsei 2 (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai,1985), p. 49. 24. Kitajima Masamoto, "Tokugawa Ieyasu no shinkakka ni tsuite," Kokushigaku, No. 94 (November 1974), pp. 1-13. 25. Ibid., pp. 8-9. 32 Journal of Japanese Studies ity's name is decreedby imperialedict. How can a warriorhouse, based on its own wants, destroy this deity's shrine, foundedby the emperor?"26 Matters related to the national divinities were a court monopoly, as these had been throughoutJapan's history and remain today.27Thus, Em- peror Ogimachi (r. 1560-86) could issue an imperialmessage asking that Western Christian missionaries be expelled from Kyoto in 1565, even though Miyoshi Nagayoshi and the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteruhad al- ready granted them permission to proselytize in the area.28In the early modern era, just as in earlier eras, members of the imperial family and court nobility filled high-rankingposts in Japan'sreligious orders. Though subject to certain bakufurestrictions, Kyoto continuedto issue court ranks to powerfultemples and Shinto shrines, and to grantprestigious court titles such as Chief Abbot (zasu or betto) or Saint (shonin) to the Buddhist clergy as well as similartitles to Shinto priests. And, just as in earliereras, the emperorand his courtprayed to Japan'smyriad gods andbuddhas for the shogun'shealth and longevity and for the realm'speace and prosperity.29 No doubt partly for such reasons, Tokugawa Hidetada and Iemitsu acknowledged "subject" (shin) status toward a "sovereign" (kimi) emperor.30The imperialpalace and its environs in Kyoto constituteda minia- ture ritsuryostate unto itself, where bakufuauthority did not fully penetrate. The sacrosanct Inner Palace remained intact, where "highest nobles" (kugyo)of RanksOne to Threeperformed state ceremonials and filled nominal governmentposts such as Ministersof State(daijin); Great, Middle, and Lesser Counsellor (dai-, chu-, sho-nagon); or Court Councillor (sangi). Kyoto as a whole enjoyed certain special immunities and privileges underTokugawa law due to its sacred status as "the imperialcity." When Saikaku'stireless rake, Yonosuke, drove his ox cart into Kyoto, he noted "with grateful reverence"that "you can get away with things not permis-

26. KanzawaTeikan, Okinagusa (Tokyo:Nihon RekishiShuppan, 1970), Vol. 1, p. 506. 27. MurakamiShigeyoshi holds that performanceof religious Shinto rituals, not status as a living god, has been the core of the emperorsystem throughouthistory; thus, the Occupa- tion made a fatal mistake in simply forcing the emperorto renouncehis divinity while retain- ing his palace rituals. Murakami,Tenno no saishi (Tokyo:Iwanami Shinsho, 1977), pp. 1-8 and 217-18. 28. Murai Sanae, "Kirishitan kinsei o meguru tenno to toitsu kenryoku," in Miki Seiichiro, ed., Sengoku daimyo ronshu 18: Toyotomiseiken no kenkyu(Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan;1984), pp. 395-414. 29. FukayaKatsumi, "Bakuhanseikokka to tenno," in KitajimaMasamoto, ed., Baku- hansei kokkaseiritsu katei no kenkyu(Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1977), p. 267. 30. Miyazawa Seiichi, "Bakuhansei-kino tenno no ideorogiitekikiban," in Kitajima, ed., Bakuhanseikokka seiritsu katei no kenkyui,p. 215, note 12; TsukamotoManabu, "Buke shohattono seikaku ni tsuite," in Nihon rekishi, No. 290 (July 1972), pp. 29-30. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 33

sible elsewhere because this is His Majesty'sdomain." 31 Or, as anotherof Saikaku'scharacters reckoned, Awataguchiwas partof Kyoto: "The imperial city is venerable, so no one can punish us even if we sit up straightand sing throughour noses [when daimyos pass by]." 32Due to the presence of the emperor and court in Kyoto, commoners could ride vehicles, which was normally forbiddento their status; and they could be insolent rather than cringe in the dirt before their feudal betters. Way-clearersand ver- tically held spears were forbiddento daimyo retinuesin the imperialcapital region, and some daimyo found these and otherrestrictions so irksomethat they bypassed the Kyoto area wheneverpossible.33 The emperor and court retained significant prestige in early modern Japanese society; and they enhanced the social standing of daimyo and shogunal houses by grantingcourt ranks, office titles, and noble pedigrees incorporatedin personal names or adoptedas imperiallineage names. For example, the Chushingurahero Oishi Yoshio was an Elder (karo) in Ako domain. As such, he could not very well go by just his given name. So he adoptedthe office title "Kuranosuke,"literally "Assistantin the Bureauof Imperial Palace Warehouses," which was supposed to come with Junior Sixth Rank Upper Level. Muro Kyuso explained this peculiar Japanese namingpractice as follows in his accountof the Chuishinguraincident, Ak6 gi jin roku: According to Japanesecustom, . . persons who hold imperial office are addressedby their office titles. But even those who do not hold office might still assume a title name; some [like Oishi] adopt the ideographs of an office title. Or, others call themselves accordingto the orderof their birth in relation to siblings.34 As Muro here indicates, even people who did not actually hold imperial office in Japan'sritsuryo government wanted to be addressedas if they did.

Imperial Honors and Pre-TokugawaWarriors To understand why title names were coveted for their prestige in Tokugawatimes, we must recall that the warriorhouses' climb to socio-

31. Ihara Saikaku, Koshoku ichidai otoko, in TeruokaYasutaka and Higashi Akimasa, eds., Nihon koten bungakuzenshti 38: Ihara Saikakushi I (Tokyo:Sh6gakkan, 1971), p. 288. 32. Saikakuoridome, in Noma K6shin, ed., Nihon kotenbungaku taikei 48: Saikakushu ge (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1960), p. 366. My translationdiffers substantiallyfrom Peter Nosco's in Some Final Wordsof Advice (Tokyo:Tuttle, 1980), p. 110. 33. See the head notes providedby Teruokaand Higashi in Nihon koten bungakuzenshi 38 for Ichidai otoko, and by Noma in Nihon koten bungakutaikei 48 for Oridome. 34. Muro Kyus6, Ak6 gijin roku, in Ishii Shir6, ed., Nihon shisd taikei 27: Kinsei buke shis6 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1974), p. 316. 34 Journal of Japanese Studies political preeminencein Japanwas historicallytied to the imperial court. Medieval war tales graphicallydepict how this court-warriorrelationship emerged. Let us look at a key episode from the Hogen monogatari. In 1156, the forces of Tairano Kiyomori, who supportEmperor Goshirakawa, are attacking Retired Emperor Sutoku's ShirakawaPalace, defended by Minamotono Tametomo: "Who'sdefending this gate?Name yourselves! We are men of Ise-Ito Kagetsunafrom Furuichi, and It6 Go andIti Roku.We areunderlings of [Kiyomori,]the Provincial Governor of Aki."On hearingthis, Tametomo replied,"Even your Lord Kiyomori is an unworthyopponent. The Heike are descendedfrom Emperor Kashiwabara [Kammu], but thatwas long, long ago.35Everyone knows we Genjiare only ninegenerations removed from EmperorSeiwa. I am 'Pacifierof the West,' Hachir6Tametomo, eighthson of Tameyoshi,who is 'PoliceLieutenant on the SixthAvenue.' He is a grandsonof LordHachiman [Yoshiie], seven generations removed fromImperial Prince Rokuson [Tsunemoto, the first Minamoto]. If youare called[a triflingname like] 'Kagetsuna,'be gone!"36 This calling out of one's name before battle was not what it seems to us moderns: either a quaintritual formality,or a "formulaictechnique of composition" used by chanters to enchance their tale-telling.37Instead, naming one's name had practicalsignificance as a means of statusverifica- tion-somewhat like the exchangingof name cardsby businessmentoday. For these early medieval warriors, the only indices of status were noble birth or imperial ranks and titles denoting office-holding in the ritsuryo government.The lineage names, or kabane, of Fujiwara,Tachibana, Mina- moto, Taira, and, later, Toyotomi, were bestowed by the emperor and court. Tametomohere boasts Minamoto,or Genji, superiorityto the Taira, or Heike, based on thickerblue blood. Tametomowas but nine generations removed from EmperorSeiwa; Kiyomori was eleven removed from Em- peror Kammu, as everyone knew. So if Kiyomorihimself was unfit to en- gage Tametomo, a mere underling (roto) like Kagetsuna was even less worthy. Naming his name also gave Tametomoa chance to paradeall the imperial office titles that the Genji boasted. He took for himself "Pacifierof the West" (chinzei) because of his exploits in Kyushu, though this had not

35. William R. Wilson translatesthe italicizedphrase as "overthe yearsthey have degen- erated." See Wilson, tr., Hogen monogatari(Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1971), p. 36. 36. Nagazumi Yasuakiand ShimadaIsao, eds., Nihon koten bungakutaikei 31: Hogen monogatari, Heiji monogatari(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1961), p. 361. I follow the Kokatsuji ratherthan the Kotohira version of the Hogen monogataritext. 37. For this view, see KennethDean Butler, "The Heike monogatariand the Japanese WarriorEthic," in HarvardJournal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (1969), p. 103. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 35 been authorizedby the court. Tameyoshi, his father, had received the title hogan, or "Police Lieutenant,"for his years of service to the court on the Sixth Avenue in Kyoto. By contrast, Kagetsunacould, as an Iti, claim descent from the I-se no Fuji-wara.38But Ito and his brotherslack court rank and title; they can name only personalnames or numbernames like "Five" (Go) and "Six" (Roku). So the best Ito could do was to announcehimself as the follower of someone who did hold a high imperial title-the "Pro- vincial Governor of Aki." That is why Tametomo snorts, "If you are called [a trifling name like] 'Kagetsuna,'be gone!" One named one's name also to make sure that the opponent was about equal in status. When an underlingchallenged a high noble to battle, he had to apologize, "Though I am a nobody, . . . ."39 For if a nobleman were to fight a lowly nameless opponent, victory broughtlittle glory and defeat broughtgreat shame. Thus in the Heike monogatari, Tairano Nori- tsune is admonished, "Don't slaughterso many base foes; you'll only add to your sins." That persuadedhim to go after the enemy general. Con- versely, Minamotono Yoshinakais urgedto flee for his life, not fight to the death, because: "It would be a ghastly disgrace if you are cut off by the foe and slain by some base underling."40 At lower levels of early medieval society as well, the only avenue of social mobility was to acquirea "name" from the court. A provincialwar- rior or other local notable would typically travel "up to" Kyoto and serve as a gate-keeper or watchguardat the imperial palace, or (as in Tame- yoshi's case) as a police constable in some part of the capital city, or as a menial in some nobleman's household. In return, that "person who served" (samurai) received from the imperialcourt a low-rankingtitle that he proudly retained for life and "named" as part of his name-such as "Middle Palace Guard" (bei), "Outer Palace Guard" (emon), or "As- sistant" (suke). To high-ranking Kyoto nobility, of course, a base title name like "Rokubei" would evoke contempt. Yet even this lowly imperial title lent the menial an auraof nobility after he had completed his stint of service at the capital and returned"down to" the provinces. His title name enabled him to contractan advantageousmarriage, form alliances with local mag- nates, occupy privileged shrine or temple posts, and raise his social prestige in other ways. Medieval documentsshow that the heads of local shrine guilds (miyaza) assumed imperial title names such as "U-majiro," "Sec-

38. Toyoda Takeshi, Myoji no rekishi (Tokyo:Chiiko Shinsho, 1971), p. 39. 39. Mono sono mono niwa aranedomo. See Nagazumi and Shimada, eds., Hogen monogatari, Heiji monogatari, p. 363. 40. TakagiIchinosuke et al., eds., Nihon koten bungakutaikei 33: Heike monogatarige (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1960), pp. 340 and 180. 36 Journal of Japanese Studies ond in Chargeof the Right Division, Palace Bureauof Horses," or "Gon- suke," "ProvisionalAssistant." Some people combined these title names with imperial lineage names, as in "Gen-nai," a contractionof "Genji no U-doneri," or "Household Servantof the Minamoto."41 In later eras, this practice of adopting imperial title names would be diffused even further throughsociety, admittedlywith some diminutionin socio-political value. But a certain prestige factor remained. Originally,court rank and office were distinguished,and a strictrank-to- office concordancewas followed underthe ritsuryosystem. For example, Minamoto no Tameyoshi'stitle of "Police Lieutenant"in the Kebiishicho was distinct from, but pegged to, Senior Sixth Rank.42Initial appointments and all promotionsor demotions of officials were supposedto conform so that, for example, a GrandMinister of State (Dajodaijin) would also hold Senior First Rank. "Highest" nobles were the kugy6, who held Ranks One throughThree. "High" nobles held RanksFour and Five. "Lesser" nobles held Ranks Six to Ten. And each noble simultaneouslyheld an office cor- responding to his rank. The key cut-off points, then, were Ranks Three and Five. An imperial audience in the Courtiers' Hall of the Inner Palace, the honor known as shoden, was a privilege reservedfor the highest and high nobility, collectively called "the HeavenlyExalted" (tenjobito). Minamoto no Yoshie (1039-1106), later reveredas the tutelarydeity of all warriors, was the first memberof his class to win this privilege. But first he had to achieve the meritoriousexploit of quelling revolts on Japan'snortheastern frontier. Naturally,the high and highest nobles bitterly opposed allowing an imperialaudience to anyoneof such mean status, and they hatchedplots to thwartthis encroachmenton their position at court.43But warriorsand commoners in the following centurieswould considerthis privilege of imperial audience at the InnerPalace one of the greatestpossible honors that bestowed immense social prestige. This craving for the prestige derived from court rank and office and from a real or pseudo blood link with the imperial house intensifiedover time among warriors,as these honorsgradually became accessible to those in the lower strataof society. Up throughthe Kamakuraera, the court no-

41. Sonobe Toshiki, "Chusei sonrakuni okeru miyaza toyaku to mibun," in Nihonshi kenkyu,No. 325 (September1989), pp. 47-82. "U-doneri" is a contractionof "uchi-doneri," hence, the "nai." 42. Wada Hidematsu (Tokoro Isao, ed.), Shintei kanshokuy6kai (Tokyo: Kodansha Bunko, 1983), pp. 150-53. First publishedin 1902 and since revised, this work remainsthe best general introductionto Japanesecourt ranksand titles. 43. For oppositionto Minamotono Yoshiie'simperial audience in 1078, see the Chuyuki diary entry by Nakamikadono Munetadaquoted in TakeuchiRizo, Nihon no rekishi6: Bushi no t6oj (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1965), pp. 211-12. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 37

bility bound warriorsto low rank. But not only that, Kamakura-erawarriors themselves remainedwithin their humble limits for fear of divine re- tribution. Given the pervasive fear of gods and buddhascharacterizing the early medieval era, warriorsthought it prudentto heed the Heike monogatari's admonitionthat "the gods permitno irreverentambitions" (hirei). Many of them truly believed that the Tairaclan fell because Kiyomori ig- nored Shigemori's plea to "observe the reverentdecorum [reigi] that pre- cludes disobeying an imperial edict." As the Priest Saiko charged, Kiyo- mori had "oversteppedhis family's bounds by advancing to [Rank One and] the post of GrandMinister of State."44 Relatively few Kamakura-erawarriors took court rank and office title, and both bakufu and court authorizationwere needed for them to do so. Their ranks were low, mainly Rank Six or below, and their offices were limited to military, not civil, posts. The Hojo regents, for instance, con- tented themselves with Junior Fourth Rank. Even the first shogun Mina- moto no Yoritomo accepted nothing higher than Junior Third Rank and the military post "Major Captain in the Right Division, Imperial Palace Guard" (udaisho). But nevertheless, KitabatakeChikafusa (1293-1354) arguedthat the Minamotofell by 1219, afterbut three generations,because of Yoritomo's impudent craving for a high court rank forbidden to his status.45 By Muromachiand Sengoku times, however, the warriorclass had lost many of its earlier inhibitions, so rank- and title-inflationbecame more acute. It is in this sense, then, that the age was characterizedby "the lowly overcoming the exalted," or gekokuj6.Upstart warriors directly petitioned the court for high rank and for prestigious civil offices, not just military posts which were their due. Thus, M6ri Motonari(1497-1571) in 1560 acquired the title "Master of the Imperial Palace Kitchen," or Daizen no daibu.46And until the Meiji Restoration, Choshu's daimyo would be ad- dressed as "Daizen-dono." Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, after becoming Chief

44. For hirei, see Takagi et al. eds., Nihon koten bungakutaikei 32: Heike monogatari j6 (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1959), p. 122, in the context of Fujiwarano Narichika'scoveting of high rank;and also p. 172, in the context of Kiyomori'sdisrespect for exemperorGoshira- kawa. For reigi in Shigemori'sadmonition, see ibid., p. 172. This indicates that in medieval Japan,the Chinese concept of li meantspecifically observing one's inferiorstatus. For Saiko's indictmentof Kiyomori, see ibid., p. 155; and also, HiroshiKitagawa and Bruce T. Tsuchida, tr., The Tale of the Heike (Tokyo: Universityof Tokyo Press, 1975), Vol. 1, p. 92. 45. Jinn6 shotoki completed in 1339. Iwasa Tadashiet al., eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei 87: Jinn6 shotoki, Masukagami(Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1965), pp. 177-79; H. Paul Varley, tr., A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 249 and 253. 46. Arai Hakuseki, Dokushi yoron, in MatsumuraAkira et al., eds., Nihon shiso taikei 35: Arai Hakuseki (Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1975), p. 414; Joyce Ackroyd, tr., Lessonsfrom History (St. Lucia: Universityof QueenslandPress, 1982), p. 281. 38 Journal of Japanese Studies

(ch6ja) of the Genji, deprived the Nakanoin and Kuga court families of their titles, "Chief Abbot [betto] of the Junnaand ShogakuMonasteries." Yoshimitsuclimbed to the pinnacle of success-Grand Minister of State with Senior First Rank. But he, after all, was still an authenticMinamoto descendant of Emperor Seiwa. By contrast, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Toku- gawa Ieyasu, and their ilk bought or forged genealogies to establish the imperial lineages needed for high rank and office. Exemplifying gekokujo at its sublime worst, Ieyasu engaged in dextrous genealogical acrobatics to claim descent from both the Fujiwaraand Minamoto as circumstances required.47 Some daimyo, such as Oda Nobunaga (1534-82), did return their higher-levelranks or titles to the court;yet this should be seen as a genuine act of deference ratherthan an attemptto createtheir own legitimacy apart from the imperial court.48Many of Hideyoshi's daimyo vassals attained Ranks Two and Three and correspondingGreat and Middle Counsellor status; they included Tokugawa, Maeda, Ukita, Mori, Uesugi, Date, and Shimazu. By 1588, as many as 23 daimyo had gained JuniorFourth Rank Lower Level with Imperial Court Chamberlain(jiju) status. In that year, they were presented before Emperor Go-Y6zei at Hideyoshi's Jurakutei Castle, where he extractedoaths of fealty from them in exchange for this honor of an imperial audience.49

Imperial Honors and TokugawaDaimyo Tokugawa Ieyasu, then, was but one of many equally high-ranking daimyo in 1600; and after his victory at Sekigaharahe naturallywanted to elevate his house above his daimyo rivals. But he could not take away the high court ranksand titles alreadygranted to them. This issue was resolved to a large extent in 1614-15, when Ieyasu crushedthe Toyotomi-ledforces at Osaka. That eliminated many of his high-rankingrivals and also gave him an excuse for confiscating, reducing, or relocatingfiefs held by those

47. WatanabeYosuke, "Tokugawa-shino seishi ni tsuite," in Shigakuzasshi, Vol. 30, No. 11 (November 1919), pp. 17-34. 48. Cf. Herman Ooms, TokugawaIdeology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 28-29 and 168-69. This warrior act of returningrank or title goes back to Minamotono Tameyoshiand should not be seen as a rejectionof imperialhonor itself. These daimyo did not returnall of their ranksor titles; they retainedlower-level ones deemed more suited to warriorhouses. 49. Kida Sadakichi, "Daimyo," in Nihon Rekishi Chiri Gakkai, ed., Edo jidai shiron (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentaa reprint, 1976), pp. 556-64. Those without the ImperialCourt Chamberlaintitle received that of Minor Captain(shdsh6), which was of equivalent status. See MiyazawaSeiichi, "Bakuhansei-tekibuke kan'i no seiritsu," in Shikan, No. 100 (March 1979), p. 49. Wakabayashi: Imperial Sovereignty 39

rivals who remained. But he, Hidetada, and Iemitsu also overhauledthe existing ritsury6 system of imperial honors in a manner advantageousto the Tokugawafamily. First, they cut off other daimyo from Kyoto by creating a bakufumo- nopoly on the right to petition for prestigiouscourt ranks and titles, which all daimyo continued to covet. Second, these three shogun elevated Toku- gawa statusrelative to other daimyo in the land by grantinghigh rankto the newly created Tokugawa shimpan. The traditionalritsuryo rank and title system was not a crusty relic that the shogun had to tolerate and work around. Instead, they shrewdlyexploited it to consolidate their power over the realm.50 In 1606, Edo first orderedthat warriorscould gain court rank and title only by bakufupetition. Later, in 1611and 1615, the bakufudecreed that warriorsbe deleted from imperialcourt rosters:"Offices and ranksfor warriors are to be apart from [similar] court offices for nobles." This meant that warriorsand courtierscould hold ranksof the same number(e.g., junior third lower level) and titles of the same name (e.g., Middle Coun- sellor). But they did so underdifferent jurisdictions: Edo and Kyoto.5' This decree did not create a totally separateset of merit rankssolely for warriors, as Ogyu Sorai and Arai Hakuseki would later propose.52But it did end the right of other daimyo to petition for rankand title directly;and because it assumed that Edo could meddle in court affairs or punish court nobles at will, nothingmore seemed necessary.Thereafter, the court would

50. These paragraphson Tokugawa-eradaimyo house-rankingsderive from: Matsudaira Hideharu, "Daimy6 kakaku-sei ni tsuite no mondaiten," in Tokugawarinseishi kenkyvsho kenkyukiy6 (1973), pp. 237-54; Kida, "Daimy6;" FukayaKatsumi, "Ry6shu kenryokuto buke 'kan'i,'" in Fukayaand Kat6 Eiichi, eds., Koza Nihon kinseishi 1: Bakuhanseikokka no seiritsu (Tokyo: Yuikaku, 1981); Fukaya, "Kinsei no sh6gun to tenno," in RekishigakuNi- honshi Kenkyukai, ed., K6za Nihon rekishi 6: Kinsei 2, pp. 45-77; Fukaya, "Bakuhansei kokka to tenno," pp. 260-73; Miyazawa, "Bakuhansei-kino tenn6 no ideorogiitekikiban," pp. 190-219; Miyazawa, "Bakuhansei-tekibuke kan'i no seiritsu;" Asao Naohiro, "Baku- hansei to tenn6," in Hara Hidesabur6et al., eds., TaikeiNihon kokkashi3: Kinsei (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1975), pp. 189-222; Kodama K6ta, Nihon no rekishi 18: Daimyo (Tokyo: Sh6gakkan, 1975), pp. 186-224; Niimi Kichiji, "Bushi no mibun to shoku- sei," in Shinji Yoshimoto, ed., Edo jidai bushi no seikatsu (Tokyo: Yuzankaku, 1966), pp. 7-52; and Mizubayashi Takeshi, "Bakuhan taisei ni okeru k6gi to ch6tei," in Asao Naohiro et al., eds., Nihon no shakaishi 3: Ken'i to shihai (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1983), pp. 120-58. 51. Fukaya, "Ry6shu kenryokuto buke 'kan'i,'"'pp. 276-311. 52. Kate Wildman Nakai, Shogunal Politics (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 175-76 and 179-82; Ooms, TokugawaIdeology, p. 169. For the original sources, see Arai Hakuseki, "Buke kan'i sh6zoku ko," in Ichijima Kenkichi, ed., Arai Hakuseki zenshu (Tokyo:n.p., 1907), Vol. 6, pp. 472-73; Ogyu Sorai, "Seidan," in YoshikawaK6jir6 et al., eds., Nihon shis6 taikei 36: Ogyti Sorai (Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1973), pp. 347-50. 40 Journal of Japanese Studies find it virtually impossible to refuse a bakufupetition either to grantor revoke imperial rank and title. Until 1865, as we shall see, the most that Kyoto could do in protest against a bakufupetition was to stall; or, in an extreme case, the emperor could threatento abdicate. But neither tactic was a very effective means of assertingimperial political will. This calculatedshuffling of daimyo house-rankingsto maximize Toku- gawa prestige was largely completedby the end of Ietsuna'sshogunal reign in 1680. Historiansdo not agree in all particularsabout who held which ranks, mainly because changes occurredin the system over time. But such qualificationsaside, daimyo house-rankingsbecame indexed to court rank and title roughly as follows. Only Tokugawashogun could rise to Ranks Two and One, but Rank One was normallygranted posthumously.53 The shogun were strongly conscious of themselves as heads of the nation's supreme warrior house, and they wished to differentiatethemselves from Tairano Kiyomori and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had gone on to become courtiers. So they de- ferred to the court by declining to claim Rank One with GrandMinister of State status while alive. Instead, they claimed lesser court titles-deemed appropriateto warrior houses-that their putative Minamoto forebears, Minamoto no Yoritomo and Ashikaga Yoshimitsu,had held. Thus, each shogunal heir received the titles "Chief Abbot of the Junnaand Shogaku Monasteries" and "MajorCaptain in the Right Division, ImperialPalace Guard," which went with Ministerof the Right status. These were just as importantas the title "shogun," which traditionallywent to the head of Japan'swarrior houses (buke no t6ryo). It is in this context, then, that we must analyze disputes among historiansabout whether or not the emperor's grantingof the shogunal title constitutedan "investiture"of power to To- kugawa rulers. The newly createdTokugawa shimpan of Kii, Owari, Mito, and (in the eighteenth century) Hitotsubashi, Tayasu, and Shimizu were permitted promotion to Ranks Two and Three. As such, the Tokugawamain and branch families displaced powerful tozama rivals such as Maeda, Shi- mazu, Mori, and Date, who had enjoyed Ranks Two and Three under Hideyoshi. These powerfulcastle-holding tozama were permittedto attain Rank Four at most underthe new order, though Maeda was allowed occa- sional promotionto JuniorThird Rank. Key bakufu officials-such as the tairo and roju, Keepers of Osaka Castle, Kyoto Deputies, or Masters of Court Ceremonial-held Junior FourthRank Lower Level and the titles ImperialCourt Chamberlain (jiju)

53. Only one Tokugawashogun received Rank One while alive: lenari (r. 1787-1837). Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 41 or Minor Captainin the ImperialPalace Guard(sh6sho). This meant that those fudai daimyo or direct Tokugawavassals who conducted high-level bakufu administrationenjoyed a lower court rank and title than powerful tozamarivals, such as Date, Maeda, Shimazu, and Mori. Finally, the great majorityof daimyo, those with small domains lacking castles or with low fief yields, held Rank Five. Ranks and titles constantly reminded each daimyo of his proper place in the socio-political hierarchy,for he had to use these imperialhonorifics whenever he introducedhimself to and spoke with or about others, or wheneverhe signed or addresseddocuments. Thus, the eight Tokugawamain and collateralhouses, plus Maeda, mo- nopolized warrior kugy6 status as "highest" nobility. The death of their daimyo was denoted by the honorific term kokyo; lesser-rankingdaimyo had to settle for sokkyo.54Thus the main cut-off point in warriornobility under the Tokugawasystem was Lower FourthRank with ImperialCourt Chamberlain(jiju) status;anyone below, even a daimyo, did not count for much. A daimyo of Rank Four or above traveled "up to" Kyoto to receive his titles directly from the court. A daimyo of Rank Five or below had to receive these throughthe bakufu'sMaster of Court Ceremonial(koke). By its very nature,the post of ImperialCourt Chamberlain assumed the privilege of imperialaudience in the InnerPalace; that is why it had always been a high civil post not open to warriorsin ancient and medieval times. But as Kaiho Seiryo (1755-1817) noted in 1806, high bakufuofficials such as roju, and especially the Kyoto Deputy, asserted that they requiredthis prestigiousrank and title because theirduties entailedimperial audiences.55 So bakufuofficials saw themselves as carryingon certain key elements of the old ritsuryi bureaucraticorder.56 Finally, advancingfrom Rank Five to Four meant that a daimyo left the Hall of Willows audience room in Edo Castle for the more esteemed GreatChamber. This daimyo house-rankingsystem became fixed by about 1680, with Hitotsubashi,Shimizu, and Tayasuadded in the next century.Each daimyo

54. Ritsury6 laws, adopted from the Book of Rites, prescribeddifferent honorific char- acters to write "death"based on the deceased noble's court rank:For emperors,h6; for Ranks Three and up, k6; for Ranks Four and Five, sotsu; and for Rank Six down through commoners, shi. These remainedin effect during Tokugawatimes. See Inoue Mitsusadaet al., eds., Nihon shis6 taikei 3: Ritsury6(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1976), p. 438. The use of h6 to signify the emperor'sdeath remainspart of ImperialHousehold Law today, and the decision to obey it in January1989 caused considerablefuror among the media. See Sekai, No. 525 (March 1989), p. 346. 55. Kaiho Seiry6, "Tijin," in TakimotoSeiichi, ed., Nihon keizai taiten (Tokyo: Meiji Bunken, 1969), p. 631. 56. Miyazawa Seiichi in particularstresses this continuity between the ritsury6 and bakuhanstatus systems. See his "Bakuhansei-tekibuke kan'i no seiritsu," pp. 43-57. 42 Journal of Japanese Studies would begin at the rankprescribed for his house. A normalone-notch promotion usually took place when he reachedhis majority;another, perhaps, after he died. Meanwhile, his heir was startingthe process anew at the rank originally prescribed for that house. Any non-regularpromotions apart from the above requiredspecial justification,and these too were limited to one generation. For example, the bakufuin 1710 and 1713 petitioned the imperial court to promote Satsuma'sShimazu Yoshitakato Senior Fourth Rank as a rewardfor his meritoriousexploit in bringingRyukyu emissaries to attend shogunal accession ceremonies at Edo Castle.57 Though only temporary,such extraordinarypromotions were objects of intense rivalry among powerful daimyo, as between Date and Shimazu over Senior FourthRank. Daimyo cravedpromotion because statusdistinc- tions among them-their types of dress, houses, and carriages;their audience room in Edo Castle; theirprocession accoutrements;their spoken and written forms of address; even their handwritingand envelope-folding styles-all varied with court rankand title. Nambu Shigenobu is a case in point. Althoughthe Nambuhouse originally held Rank Four, it suffereddemotion to RankFive as punishmentfor lacking an heir. But at TokugawaIetsuna's 1682 memorialservice, a sud- den shower threatened to douse Shogun Tsunayoshi-until Shigenobu leapt to the rescue with an umbrella.Tsunayoshi rewarded this meritorious exploit by petitioningto restoreRank Four; and Nambushed tears of grati- tude, swearing "to serve faithfullyto repaythis greatblessing." He sent an envoy to Kyoto to receive his rankfrom the court and duly presented3,000 ry6 in "thankyou" monies. Nambu'sfief yield remainedat 80,000 koku. But he gladly acceptedthe militarycorvee requirementfor a 100,000 koku daimyo-a 25 per cent increase entailed by his new rank. This promotion was a matterof great pride to the Nambu housemen as well, for they construed it as public recognitionthat they were conductingvirtuous government in their domain.58 Whenevera regularor extraordinarypromotion took place, the daimyo in question provided "thankyou" monies to the roju in Edo and to court nobles in Kyoto. The amountswere more or less agreed on, as with Japa- nese gift-giving on special occasions today. But the roju, after all, had to be persuadedto petition on a certain daimyo's behalf, so they were quite open to bribery,as in the case of SanadaYukihiro. In 1783, Sanadareport- edly had to pay the roju five to six times more money than Matsudaira Sadanobu paid for the same court rank.59The imperial family and court

57. Kida, "Daimyo," p. 562; Kodama, Daimy6, pp. 212-13. 58. Fukaya, "Kinsei no shogun to tenno," pp. 61-62. 59. Kodama, Daimyd, p. 189; MatsudairaSadanobu, Uge no hitokoto, Shugyoroku (Tokyo: IwanamiBunko, 1942), pp. 56-57. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 43 nobles in Kyoto, too, profitedhandsomely from such thanksgivingat promotion time, and much of their income in the early modern era no doubt came from such concealed sources. Unlike the daimyo, they bore no out- lays for alternateattendance or corvee duty, so they may have been less grounddown by poverty than we usually assume.60 Imperialcourt ranksand titles were of prime importancebecause these indicated gradations of intra- and inter-class status recognized throughout Japan. Of course, court rank and title were not the only measures of daimyo status in the early modern period. Indeed, there were numerous similar indices of prestige. Imperialrank and title were linked with these other status indicators, such as domain size, castle-holding, fief yield, use of the Tokugawa'sold "Matsudaira"surname, the right to shogunal audiences, and blood ties to the shogunalhouse. Thus, Maeda not only boasted the highest court rank among non-Tokugawacastle-holding daimyo, he also had the nation'slargest single-domainfief yield of just over 1.2 million koku and enjoyed close marriageties to the shogunal house. But as MatsudairaHideharu and (much earlier) Kida Sadakichi have stressed, court rank and title took precedenceover other status indicators. That explains why Kira Yoshinakacould treat Asano Naganori with utter contempt in the Ako (or Chushingura)Incident. Asano, a 53,000-koku castle-holdingdaimyo, held JuniorFifth Rank LowerLevel. Kira held neither a castle nor a domain and was not a daimyo, but he boasted Junior Fourth Rank and the court title of Minor Captain in the Imperial Palace Guard plus the bakufu post of Master of Court Ceremonial. So Kira's higher court rank and title permittedhim to bully subordinateswith im- punity, especially when his expertise in court ritual was needed.61 The shogunal family grantedits old Matsudairasurname (and pseudo- Minamoto lineage) to certain powerful tozama in addition to Tokugawa blood relatives and vassals, and these families combined it with imperial office titles in their names. For example, the former vassals of Hideyoshi, Shimazu Tadatsune and Date Masamune, had previously gone by the names "Hashiba [i.e., Toyotomi] Shosho" and "Hashiba Echizen." But after destroying the Toyotomi, leyasu grantedthe Matsudairasurname to these two tozama and decreed that they use it, not their real surnames, in public.62Thus, the Bakumatsufigures whom we modern historianscite as

60. Ueno Hideharu, "Tokugawajidai no buke kan'i," in Rekishi k(ron, No. 107 (Oc- tober 1984), pp. 106-12; Ueno, "Kinsei t6sh6 no horyo ni tsuite," Nihon rekishi, No. 464 (February1987), pp. 79-83. 61. Matsudaira, "Daimyo kakaku-sei ni tsuite no mondai-ten," p. 237; Kida, "Dai- myo," p. 562. 62. FukuzawaYukichi noted that the Hosokawa were reportedlyexceptional in having declined to use the Matsudairasurname. See Bummeironno gairyaku in Fukuzawa Yukichi 44 Journal of Japanese Studies

ShimazuNariakira and Date Yoshikuniactually were addressedat thattime as "MatsudairaSatsuma no kami" and "MatsudairaMutsu no kami," literally, "Provincial Governors of Satsuma and Mutsu," usually without their given names.63This held for their vassals too: a Date retainer an- nounced himself as "XX, Houseman of Provincial Governorof Mutsu, Matsudaira"(but a daimyo's title usually did not correspondto his domain's geographic location). Choshu's M6ri Takachikawas called "Ma- tsudaira Daizen no daibu," or "Master of the Imperial Palace Kitchen, Matsudaira" from 1837, when he received Junior Fourth Rank Lower Level. But after the 1864 ForbiddenGate Incident, Edo punished Taka- chika by rescindinghis Matsudairasurname and makingthe imperialcourt take away his rank, though he did remain Master of the ImperialPalace Kitchen.64 However, the court turnedanti-bakufu in 1865. Supportedby Choshu and sensing an upsurgein samurailoyalism, it punishedthe r6ju Abe Ma- sato and MatsumaeTakahiro, who had opened Hyogo to Westernersde- spite imperial protests. EmperorK6mei stripped Abe and Matsumae of their court ranks and provincial-governortitles of Bungo no kami and Izu no kami; and he orderedEdo to consign them to retirementin their home domains. Bakufu officials in Osaka were appalled, saying: "for the imperial court to dismiss Edo officials directly is unprecedented;clearly, this is oppression toward the bakufu."65 And they were right. K6mei's order flouted Tokugawa decrees, enforced since 1611, stipulating that warrior ranks and titles were beyond Kyoto'sjurisdiction. Here was a powerful new sanction the court could apply in asserting its political will and authority.What the emperor and court had always grantedinvoluntarily, they now presumedto revoke as they saw fit. From that point on, warriorcourt ranksand titles became more thanjust nominal zenshfi (Tokyo: Kei6 Gijuku, 1959), p. 167; David A. Dilworth and G. Cameron Hurst, tr., An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1973), p. 155. But MaruyamaMasao submits the plausible explanationthat the Hosokawa declined more out of modesty, rather than from a spirit of independence and self-respect, as Fukuzawa suggests. See Maruyama,Bummeiron no gairyaku o yomu (ge) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1986), p. 162. 63. On this switch from Hashibato Matsudaira,see documentsin Nihon Rekishigakkai, ed., EnshCikomonjo sen: Kinsei hen (Tokyo:Yoshikawa K6bunkan, 1971), pp. 154 and 158. 64. TanabeTa'ichi, Bakumatsugaikodan II (Tokyo: T6y6 Bunko, 1966), p. 223, end- note by the editor, SakataSeiichi. Takachikahad also been grantedone kanji from the shogun's name Ieyoshi, and so had been called Yoshichika.The bakufutook away this honor as well, and Mori thereforewent back to being Mori Daizen no Daibu Taka-chika. 65. Shibusawa Eiichi, Tokugawa Yoshinobuko den III (Tokyo: T6y6 Bunko, 1967), pp. 183-86; see also ConradTotman, The Collapse of the TokugawaBakufu (Honolulu: Uni- versity of Hawaii Press, 1980), pp. 158-61. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 45 and formalistic. Edo had knuckledunder to imperialwill, and a precedent was set for TokugawaYoshinobu to returnhis shogunal and other titles to the court in 1867.

Imperial Honors and TokugawaCommoners Not only the daimyo and samuraibut classes below them as well elevated their social prestige by gaining court rank and title and by claiming fictive blood ties with the imperialhouse, especially from the Genrokuera (1688-1703) onward.66 In 1708, the puppeteer Kobayashi Shinsuke declared:

A man named Jirobei was the first joruri chanter to acquire an imperial provincial-governmenttitle [zuryo], that of Senior Clerk in the Kawachi Provincial Government. ... So puppet play chanters are not of the despised classes. Proof for this is that they are summoned to the imperial court and are awardedimperial provincialgovernorships.67 Tokugawaentertainers retained the stigmaof baseness attachedto their medieval shokuninforebears, who, unlike other non-nobles and non-warriors of that age, had neither engaged in agriculturenor lived in fixed settle- ments.68To overcome lingering social discrimination, they acquired or claimed to have acquired ritsury6 titles from the imperial court. One of those most commonly claimed was "Secretary (j6) in the Provincial Gov- ernment of XX," and it was often combined with "-dayu," a title collectively designating holders of the first to fifth court ranks. Joruri chanters, Kabuki actors, "courtesans" in the gay quarters, sumo wrestlers, and other entertainers incorporated these honorific titles in their names to become, for example, Takemoto Harima no j6 Gi-dayu. Virtually all shokunin came to reside in towns during the Tokugawa period, so we should perhaps think of these specialist professionals as "craftmasters." They included joruri chanters, blind usurers, puppe- teers, tub- and barrel-makers, metal-smiths, mirror-casters, hunters, wood- carvers, carpenters, hairdressers, confectioners, tea-whisk makers, physi-

66. Mase Kumiko, "Kinsei no minshuito tenno," in Fujii Shun Sensei Kiju Kinenkai, ed., Okayamano rekishi to bunka (Okayama:Fukutake Shoten, 1983), pp. 229-66; Takano Toshihiko, "Bakuhantaisei ni okeru kashokuto ken'i," in Asao Naohiro et al., eds., Nihon no shakaishi 3: Ken'i to shihai (Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1983), pp. 234-76; YamaguchiKa- zuo, "Shokuninzury6 no kinseitekitenkai," Nihon rekishi, No. 505 (June 1990), pp. 57-74. 67. Quoted by Mase in "Kinsei no minshfuto tenn6," p. 230. For a detailed study of how joruri players received court rank and office titles, see YasudaTokiko, "Kinsei zuryo kl," in Kojoruriseihonshu (Tokyo: KadokawaShoten, 1967), Vol. 6, pp. 591-650. 68. On the medieval origins of shokunin, see Amino Yoshihiko, Nihon chtsei no min- shizo (Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho, 1980), pp. 105-45, and Nihon chfuseino hi-nogyomin to tenno (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1984), pp. 540-55. 46 Journal of Japanese Studies cians, yin-yang diviners, sumo wrestlers, and dozens of others. Some of these shokuninsuffered discriminationas belonging to "despised," if not "outcaste," classes. Like the daimyo, many shokuninlinked their genealogies to royal personages in antiquity.Katsura-me, or itinerantfemale merchants cum prostitutes, for example, traced their lineage back to the mythical Empress Jingu, who supposedly conquered Korea in the third century.Hunters forged genealogies to claim descent from Fujiwarano Ka- matari(614-69), or EmperorKobun (r. 671-72), or the non-existent"Em- peror Korei."69 The affirmationof such lower-classsocial climbing by lay- ing false claim to imperial lineages reached extremes in Getsujindo, a Genroku novelist who had one of his protagonistsdeclare: "When all is said and done, we all have identical pedigrees; for, if you go back far enough, who is not descended from Amaterasu?"70 Not all classes of early moderntownsmen made such regal claims. As noted earlier,there were multiplestructures of prestigein TokugawaJapan. Townsmen organized in kabu nakama and other bakufu-sponsoredtrade associations were more likely to seek privilege and protectionunder the new bakuhanorder ratherthan the hollow ritsuryoorder, especially early in the period. Some of these merchantsmay have denigratedas anach- ronistic the prestige that came with imperialpedigrees or court ranks, and may have defined wealth as the best legitimizer of status. They might de- clare: "Money determines a merchant'spedigree. Even if a townsman boasts Fujiwaralineage, and genealogical recordstrace him to Kamatari, he rates lower than a monkey-trainerif he is poor."71 These are the merchants often cited as TokugawaJapan's "incipient bourgeoisie." But their pride and spirit of independenceas self-mademen were short-lived.By the 1720s and 1730s, these townsmen seem to have resigned themselves to their inferior lot in life beneaththe daimyo and samuraiunder the existing order.72 Instead, it was the older shokuninfamilies-those who claimed to have been established in their professions since medieval times-who tended to exploit imperial symbols in orderto enhance their social standing. And

69. Mase, "Kinsei no minshu to tenno," p. 255. 70. Getsujindo, Shison daikokubashira,in Kokusho Kankokai, ed., Tokugawabungei ruiju (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai, 1970), Vol. 2, p. 514; quoted in MiyazawaSeiichi, "Gen- roku bunkano seishin kozo," in MatsumotoShiro and YamadaTadao, eds., Koza Nihon kinseishi 4: Genroku-Kyohoki no seiji to shakai (Tokyo:Yuikaku, 1980), pp. 242-43. 71. Nihon eitaigura. Noma Koshin, ed., Nihon koten bungakutaikei 48: Saikakusht ge (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1960), pp. 185-86. 72. See Miyazawa, "Genrokubunka no seishin kozo," p. 244. He holds that after this eighteenth-centurystatus order became rigid by the 1720s and 1730s, the main rationale Tokugawa townsmen used to claim social equality was Getsujindo's, cited above: that all Japanesewere descended from Amaterasu. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 47

shokunin who belonged to the so-called despised classes were among the most enthusiastic supportersof the old ritsuryo system of honors. Just as Hideyoshi and Ieyasu had done earlier, the heads of these groups established institutionallinks with court families and fictive blood ties with the imperial house or high Kyoto nobility. They set up nationwideguilds centered on imperiallineages and on court ranksand titles, and their organiza- tions closely resembled the daimyo status hierarchy.These groups further argued that imperial symbols of legitimization guaranteedthem monopo- lies in their trades and other legal privileges and immunities.73 For example, in addition to the entertainersand Katsura-me noted above, blind usurers were another class who suffered discrimination in early modern Japan. So the head of the blind usurers'guild forged genealogical records showing descent from "Prince Amayo, the blind son of Emperor Koko" (r. 884-87). According to these records, Koko granted Amayo the tax tribute from three Kyushu provinces which was to be dis- tributed among the blind in the capital region. That practice supposedly ended some centuries later. But in returnfor this lost tribute, blind men in Japan claimed to have gained the privilege of receiving six court ranks: kengy6, betto, k6oto,zat6, ichina, and han. Each of these ranks was divided into several levels, for a total of 73 grades in all. The blind men argued that their guild's commercial ventures enjoyed imperial sanction because the interestaccruing from monies they lent went to pay for court ranks granted by the Great Counsellor Kuga family in Kyoto. Due to the august majesty that their ranks and divine lineage ac- corded, these usurersfelt free to threatenor publicly humiliatea daimyo or samuraiwho failed to repay his loan. Not content with that, they tried to exploit this imperialawe so as to exempt themselves from prosecutionafter violating bakufuor domain laws againstracketeering, gambling, and other forms of wrongdoing.74Their impudenceprompted the sardonic and pas- sionately pro-bakufuBuy6 Inshi (literally "the Recluse of South Musashi") to decry: "Imperialcourt rank is a device for making all people insolent, not just clerics and blind men; it is a poison that ruins men and plunders society." 75 In the early seventeenth century, Edo cut daimyo off from Kyoto in orderto preventthem from obtainingranks and titles directly from the im-

73. Mase, "Kinsei no minshfito tenn6," pp. 229-66; Miyaji Masato, Tennoseino sei- jishi-teki kenkyt (Tokyo: AzekuraShobo, 1981), pp. 17-66; and Takano, "Bakuhantaisei ni okeru kashoku to ken'i," pp. 234-76. 74. TakayanagiKaneyoshi, Edo jidai gokenin no seikatsu (Tokyo: Yuizankaku,1966), pp. 92-97; Ishii Ry6suke, Shimpen Edo jidai mampitsu ge (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1979), pp. 214-23. 75. Buy6 Inshi, Seji kembun roku, in HaradaTomohiko et al., eds., Nihon shomin seikatsu shiry6 shusei (Tokyo: San'ichi Shobo, 1979), Vol. 8, p. 692. 48 Journal of Japanese Studies perial court; and in the eighteenthcentury, Edo tried to cut townsmen off from Kyoto for similarreasons. Beginning in 1707, the bakufuordered that title names grantedto townsmen be limited to one generationand forbade the transferof these imperialhonors to otherpersons. In 1767, Edo issued a nationwide edict that requiredpublic registrationof title names and urged all domains to issue similar edicts; and two years later, 521 names were listed for the city of Edo. In 1770, the bakufurequired that commoners obtain official consent before applying for court titles. By the nineteenth century, however, the situationwas clearly out of hand. In additionto le- gitimate title names actually grantedby the court, so many of these were falsely assumed that furtherattempts to control or restrictthe practicewere abandonedas futile.76 Emperorsappear in 33 of Chikamatsu'shistorical plays, which literary and cultural historians label "tenno dramas."77Each play in the genre opens with praise for virtuous imperial reigns of bygone eras. In one, Y6meitenno shokuninkagami (1705), the recently deceased "Thirty-first EmperorBidatsu" (r. 572-85) is lauded for his "august benevolence" in having granted imperial provincial-officetitles (zuryo) to craftmastersin variousprofessions. Out of reverentgratitude, the shokuninback his chosen heir in the ensuing succession struggle. Armedwith the tools of theircrafts and led by "Kumahei the tub-maker,"they do battle against the wicked Prince Yamabikoin supportof the good PrinceToyohi-kazan, who accedes as EmperorY6mei due to their valorousexploits.78 Chikamatsu'sstory is fictional and full of anachronisms,such as plac- ing Genroku-erashokunin in a sixth-centurysetting and having them stage an uchikowashi-styleuprising. But this play and his other popular tenno dramas raise the possibility.that certain segments of eighteenth-century Japanese townsfolk, especially in the Kyoto-Osakaregion, yearned after the imperial virtue supposedlydispensed in antiquity,and that these commoners might imagine themselves forming illegal militia-like political bands to fight for a loyalist cause.

Imperial Honors: The Modern Transformation Thus, in early modernJapan, the emperorand court retainedsovereign authorityin certain key respects. The emperor'spurportedly divine status permittedhim and his court to awardnationally recognized honors in the

76. Mase, "Kinsei no minshu to tenno," pp. 245-48. 77. For one example translatedin English, see Susan Matisoff, TheLegend of Semimaru (New York:Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 204-72. For a recent study of the genre, see MoriyamaShigeo, Chikamatsuno tenno geki (Tokyo:San'ichi Shobo, 1981);for an older study, Kitani Hogin, Chikamatsuno tennr geki (Tokyo:Tanseido Shuppan, 1947). 78. Shuzui Kenji and Okubo Tadakuni,eds., Nihon koten bungakutakei 50: Chikama- tsu joruri shu ge (Tokyo:Iwanami Shoten, 1959), pp. 58-120. Wakabayashi: Imperial Sovereignty 49 form of imperial ranks, office titles, and pseudo-lineagesthat were incorporated in personal "names." Certainly by Bakumatsutimes, use of the Matsudairasurname was seen as having createdfictive blue-blood ties between the imperialand court families, shogunalhouse, bakufubannermen, and certainfudai and tozama daimyo. This was because the Matsudaira- Tokugawaclaimed direct descent from EmperorSeiwa and, by extension, the Sun Goddess Amaterasuwho had founded the imperialline. The shogunal house reinforcedits blue-blood link in every generation from Iemitsu onward by procuringwives and consorts from the imperial family or high-rankingKyoto nobility.79The Tokugawa shimpan and tozama daimyo followed this example. As W. G. Beasley notes, Mito (Toku- gawa) Nariaki counted among his in-laws the Nijo and Takatsukasacourt families, the Hitotsubashi Collateral House, and the Tottori, Okayama, Uwajima, and Sendai daimyo. Such daimyo-courtiermarriage and adop- tion ties cut across tozama and shogunal house lines and helped create a feeling of imperialkinship among membersof Japan'supper classes.80 That strengthenedBakumatsu proto-nationalism and laid socio-political bases for fostering the kokutai myth of a divinely descended, extended-family state in modern Japan.8' The bases for this family state were not limited to the ruling classes, though. Before the Dawn, based on the life of Shimazaki T6son's father, shows that this same feeling of racial kinship-centered on real or fictive imperial blood ties-also extended to the gono class in Japan'scountry- side. When YamagamiShichirozaemon of Sagami, a total stranger,chanced to visit the Aoyama (Shimazaki) residence in Shinano, he noted that the two households boasted identical family crests and knew immediatelythat they shared a common ancestor. Their genealogical records showed that the Yamagamiand Aoyamaboth were descendedfrom the Miuraof Sagami, who, in turn, stemmed from Taira no Yoshishige, four generations removed from EmperorKammu.82 It is also worth noting that, as late as the mid-nineteenthcentury, personal names suffixedby the court-title"-dayu,"

79. But this stratagemdid not work as well as the Tokugawahad hoped. Only one off- spring from such a match between the shogunal and court families survived to become shogun-Ieharu (r. 1760-86). See Moriya Takehisa, "Edo to Kyoto no kon'in," Rekishi koron, No. 107 (October 1984), pp. 113-16. 80. W. G. Beasley, Select Documentson JapaneseForeign Policy, 1853-1868 (London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1955), p. 11. 81. This web of Bakumatsudaimyo adoptionsand inter-marriagesproduced something similar to the Europeannobility as late as 1914. Cousins Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas, after all, were grandsonsof Queen Victoria and spoke English when they met. 82. See Nihon no bungaku 7: Shimazaki T6son (II) (Tokyo: Chuo Koronsha, 1967), pp. 62-64 and 87-92; William E. Naff, tr., Before the Dawn (Honolulu:University of Ha- waii Press, 1987), pp. 64-67 and 87-91. See also Nihon rekishi daijiten (Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1972), Vol. 9, p. 3. 50 Journal of Japanese Studies such as Kudayfi,were held by "only two people in the eleven post stations of Kiso," and that this rarehonor sparked" dayi-conceit" (dayujiman) in those who claimed it.83 Japanesepeasants, especially those living in remoterural areas far from Kyoto, may not have known much aboutthe emperoras a person or about his divine lineage at the time of the Restoration-as Inoue Kiyoshi has argued. But peasants did know about the imperial ranks and titles that the emperorand court bestowed. As Inoue himself asserts, Satsumaand Cho- shu forces pacifying the Tohoku region in 1869 had to introducethe emperor to his subjects and inform them of his pedigree in these terms: "The emperoris descendedfrom the Sun Goddess Amaterasuand has been master [nushi] of Japansince the world began." But, to explain this notion of "master" or "sovereign," the Sat-Cho forces had to link that distant emperor with something that a Tohokupeasant was alreadyfamiliar with. So they continued:"Kami in all provinceshave shrineswith rankssuch as Se- nior First Rank;these ranks are all grantedby the emperor."84 Courtranks and titles, plus imperiallineages, servedas indices of exalt- edness recognized throughoutthe nation, both within and between classes. As Saikakuput it, "becominga success in life" (shusse) entailed "extraor- dinary service to one's lord to acquirecourt rank."85 Honorific, imperially granted "names" assumed great significance under the Tokugawasystem of rigid and all-pervadingstatus distinctionsin life. For daimyo and warriors, earninga name was one of the few ways left to enhancepeer prestige because battlefieldexploits were impossible in an era of peace. For certain groups of commoners, a name guaranteeda monopoly on one's craft and legal immunitiesfrom bakufuor domain law. And for some of the outcaste or "despised" classes, a name helped one to overcome discriminatoryso- cial stigmas. Being famous (yumei) meant to "have a name" granted, if only formally, by the emperorand court. By and large, the Edo bakufuexploited to its own advantagethe emperor's function of dispensing national honors through such names. But after 1868, Japan'ssystem of court ranksand office titles was overhauledto benefit the nation'snew rulers, just as it had been in the seventeenthcen- tury. In fact, the Meiji state expanded this system of imperially granted honors and made it more rational. The new regime abolished the separate

83. See Nihon no bungaku7: ShimazakiT6son (I), p. 150, for the original. Naff, who transcribesthe name as "Kyudayu," interpolatesthat this pride is because "-dayu" was an "elegant ending." See Before the Dawn, pp. 146-47. 84. "Ou jimmin kokuyu," in Yoshino Sakuz6, ed., Meiji bunkazenshu 22: Zasshi hen (Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1929), p. 491. Inoue quotes this passage, but tries to make the opposite argument:that the imperial institutionwas totally unknownto commoners in early Meiji times. See Inoue, Tenn6sei, pp. 62 and 229. 85. Noma, ed., Nihon eitaigura, p. 116. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 51

category of noble ranks and titles for warriorsthat the bakufuhad decreed in 1611;all ranks and titles for Japanesesubjects again came under direct imperial court control. Court ranks were not only retained, they were awardedposthumously to persons who had achieved meritoriousexploits leading to the Restora- tion-as chronicled in Z6i shokenden.In 1884, the old ritsuryotitles such as Echizen no kami or Harimano j6 were "modernized," or replaced by the Europeanpeerage titles of prince, marquis,count, viscount, and baron. Also, a system of military and civil decorations(kunsh6) was introduced that enabled the emperorto honorloyal or meritorioussubjects. Many Res- toration leaders of low samuraibirth gloried in their early Meiji government posts, such as Court Councillor(sangi), or in their newly won court ranks, such as Senior Fourth, that only the most powerful tozama daimyo had been privileged to hold a few years before.86 The new system of imperialhonors was institutedat the local level too, for early Meiji provincial governors received Junior Fourth Rank.87This equaled the rank that importantbakufu officials had enjoyed, and it sur- passed that which most daimyo had held. A five-tieredsystem of Western- style peerage titles came into being in 1884, as noted above. Who received which title was largely determinedby former fief yields and house rank- ings; but this new form of imperialhonors also enabled semi-peasantslike It6 Hirobumito presentthemselves as "PrinceIto." Membersof the hered- itary peerage were appointedby the emperor, not elected by the people, and the House of Peers went on to become a "rampartof the Imperial House."88 Because court rank and office title denoted high government status, they in effect continued to be prerequisitesfor conducting diplo- macy on behalf of the Japanesestate. In 1711, Arai Hakusekihad to gain Junior Fifth Rank in order to meet publicly with Koreanenvoys; in 1870, Mori Arinori had to recover JuniorFifth Rank in order to become Charge d'Affairs in Japan'sWashington Legation.89 In the eighteenth century, would-be bakufu reformers such as Arai Hakuseki, Ogyu Sorai, and Dazai Shundaihad argued that the Tokugawa shogun should make himself "King of Japan"in name as well as fact. As they presciently realized, the ritsuryo system of imperial court ranks and

86. Kodama, Daimyo, pp. 367-69. 87. Michio Umegaki, After the Restoration (New York: New York University Press, 1988), p. 133. 88. See Suzuki Masayuki, Kindai tenn6sei no shihai chitsujo (Tokyo: Azekura Shob6, 1986), pp. 12-50. 89. Nakai, ShogunalPolitics, p. 43; Ivan ParkerHall, Mori Arinori (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1973), p. 151. Mori had been strippedof his rankand office in 1869 as punishmentfor having petitionedfor legislation to take away the daimyo and samurairight to bear two swords. 52 Journal of Japanese Studies office titles, though purely nominal, implied that sovereigntyin Japanlay with Kyoto, and so might someday inspire loyalist opposition to the Edo regime. (But Arai Hakuseki himself had accepted these imperial honors.) As the TokugawaCollateral, Kii Yoshimichi(1689-1713), reportedly declared: All warriorsin the realmtoday honor the shogunalfamily as theirsover- eign [shukun],but in truththat is notright. Rank and office title come from the imperialcourt. To be called"Minamoto no Ason, MiddleCounsellor withJunior Third Rank," means that one is a subject[shin] of the court. That is why Mito Mitsukunisaid, "The emperoris my sovereign;the shogunis my commander."Should a war breakout-like the H6gen, Heiji, Jokyu,or Genko[pitting court against bakufu]-and shouldthe courtcall for troops,we oughtto join.90 Later, in 1759, YamagataDaini would note: "Rankand stipendcome from different sources. .. . [Kyoto] bestows honors but is poor, [Edo] dispenses wealth but enjoys no prestige. And because people cannot gain both, authority is divided. Which side should we adhere to? One must be sovereign, and the other, subject."9' The early eighteenth century sentiments voiced by TokugawaCollaterals Mito Mitsukuniand Kii Yoshimichispread to tozama daimyo such as MatsuuraSeizan (1760-1841) later in the century. By the Kansei era (1789-1800), Matsuuratoo assertedthat he was a subject of the imperial court and would side with it, not the bakufu,if the two should become enemies.92 This potentialfor divided loyalties and for oppositionto the bakufuin- creased greatly with the appearanceof scholarsof Native Learningsuch as Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), HirataAtsutane (1776-1843), and their followers in the late eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies. Of course, neither thinkerargued that warriorrule should or could be overthrownin orderto restoreimperial government. To the contrary,both affirmedTokugawa rule as being in accord with the will of the gods. They, no less than Tokugawa Confucianthinkers, assumedthat imperialcourt decline leading to bakufu rule was historically irreversible.But their ideas increasedpopular reverence for the emperorand court in other ways.

90. Quoted in: Tsuji Zennosuke, Nihon bunkashi5: Edo jidai (j6) (Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1960), pp. 251-52; Miyazawa Seiichi, "Bakumatsu ni okeru tenno o meguru shisoteki doko," in Rekishigakukenkyu, November 1975 special issue, p. 141; and TaharaTsuguo, "Kinsei chuki no seiji shiso to kokka ishiki," in Iwanami k6za Nihon rekishi 11: Kinsei 3 (Tokyo: IwanamiShoten, 1976), p. 318. But it should be noted that this is a second-handac- count written 52 years after Yoshimichi'sdeath. 91. Yamagata,Ryuishi shinron, p. 21. 92. Fujita Satoru, "Kansei-ki no chotei to bakufu," in Rekishigakukenkyu, October 1989 special issue, p. 104. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 53

Hirata Atsutane, for example, asserted that "we are all the emperor's children;but to have received an imperiallineage name such as Minamoto or Taira means that you are a direct vassal."93Between such pedigreed daimyo and their housemen, "lord-vassalrelations may also be createdpri- vately; but there is only one deity sovereign in our imperialland-the emperor."94Hirata emphasized the importanceof honoring his teachers, so he called them by court title and ancient lineage name: Kada no Sukune Azumamaro,Kamo no AgatanushiMabuchi, and Tairano Asomi Motoori no Norinaga.95Both Norinagaand Atsutanesigned their works using these titles. And Atsutanetook these honorificsfarther, by claiming that all Japa- nese had imperial lineage names, though they might not know what these were: EveryJapanese has a lineagename originally bestowed by an emperor- such as Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara,or Tachibana .... If you don't know whatit is, you can findout by lookingit up throughyour surname, such as "Hirata."This is a branchof learningknown as "genealogytracing." Its practitionersneed only knowyour surname; then they canjust aboutal- waysidentify which god or emperoryou aredescended from.96 The Japanese government propagated, and ruthlessly enforced belief in, this kokutaimyth of Japanas an extended-familystate headed by a divine emperoruntil October 1945. Only then, two months after surrender- ing-and only after a change of cabinets ordered by MacArthur-did Japan'sgovernment see fit to repeal the last of the Peace Preservationand Police Laws.97Until then, all Japanese subjects were enjoined to believe that, if they went back far enough, they could trace their roots to some noble house whose lineage name, such as Fujiwaraor Minamoto, had been bestowed by an emperor as proof of direct vassalage. And each noble house, of course, in turn stemmed from some divinity, such as Amenoko- yane no mikoto in the case of the courtier Fujiwara, or some imperial prince, such as Rokuson Tsunemoto in the case of the warriorMinamoto. In any case, according to this kokutaimyth, all Japanesewere descended from Amaterasuherself or from some deity who had loyally served her. The pervasiveness and tenacity of such myths is attested to by a well-known postwarCommunist Party Dietmember, Takakura Teru (1891- 1986), who suffered imprisonmentfour times before and during World

93. Taido wakumon,in HirataAtsutane Zenshu Kank6kai, ed., ShinshuHirata Atsutane zenshu (Tokyo: Meicho Shuppan, 1976), Vol. 8, p. 81. 94. Hirata, Taid6 wakumon,p. 92. 95. Kod6 taii, in Hirata Atsutane Zenshu Kank6kai, ed., Shinshu Hirata Atsutane zenshu, Vol. 8, p. 21. 96. Hirata, Kodo taii, p. 55. 97. MatsuoHiroshi, Chian ijih6 to tokkokeisatsu (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1979), pp. 214-17. 54 Journal of Japanese Studies

War II. In the August 1946 issue of Chuo koron, he published an article entitled (in translation)"The Problemof the EmperorSystem and Imperial House." In it, Takakurafelt compelled to disabuse fellow countrymenof theirbelief in Japanas a family state by exposing the absurdityof thatmyth: Thegenealogies we haveat homeall showus to descendfrom an Emperor Kammu,a Fujiwarano Kamatari, a Hachiman Tar6 [Minamoto no Yoshiie], or some such personagein antiquity.It is alwaysthe nameof someone illustrious;no genealogytraces us to a lowly namelike "Rokubeiof so- and-so."98

The mass acceptance of these twentieth-centurykokutai myths by prewar Japanesecannot be attributedmainly to militarypolice torture,or even to highly efficient propagationby governmentorgans and compulsoryeduca- tion.99The emperorsystem and values supportingit did not arise out of thin air after 1868; many of its fictions were widely believed in pre- and early modern times.

Conclusion In this article, I have arguedthat we Westernhistorians of Japanhave tended to overlook one key reason-but it is not the only reason-why the imperial institution has survived and prosperedinto modern times. That reason lies in Japaneseperceptions of honor and self-esteem as revealedin their assumed names and titles. As can be seen in Britainand in Common- wealth nations such as Canada, monarchic or aristocraticsocieties have historically placed great value in royal pedigrees or in noble ranks and titles. But Japanperhaps stands out (is "unique"?)for two reasons. First, imperiallybestowed indicatorsof statushave remainedstrong for longer in Japan, while others, such as power or wealth, have counted for relatively less in and of themselves. Second, modern Japanese, at least until 1945, tended to emphasize their supposed racial purity and kinship with the imperial house. By contrast, the British royal family, for example, never needed to hide its Germanancestry. As psychologistKishida Yuji statedin the New YorkTimes in 1987, Japan'snational identity derives from "the illusion that all Japaneseare connectedby blood," and from "the fact [sic] that all Japanesebelieve they are relatedby blood to the emperor." 00 A name, when freely adopted, helps establisha person'sidentity in that it shows how he or she wants to be addressedby others. As a rule, people

98. TakakuraTeru, "Tennoseinarabi ni koshitsuno mondai," reprintedin Chuo koron, March 1989, p. 98. 99. Carol Gluck, Japan's ModernMyths (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1985). 100. April 12, 1987. Quoted in Edward Behr, Hirohito: Behind the Myth (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989), p. 466. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 55 incorporatetitles in their names, or substitutetitles for their names, to bol- ster their prestige and commandrespect from society."( For Japanesein the early modern era, divine lineages and imperial ranks and titles performed this function of prestige enhancementmost effectively. In 1875, Fukuzawa Yukichi argued that the Japanesepeople had never acquireda spirit of independence and self-worth based on individual achievement, apart from the prestige that derived from noble credentials. Although the mightiest warlordsin Japanesehistory-including the Tokugawashogun-achieved power throughtheir own effort and ability, they could not justify their rule on those grounds. Instead, as Fukuzawa observed, they remained con- vinced that "the best way to enhance the honor of their houses" was "to receive rank and title from the imperial court" and "use these to control people below them." 102 In contemporaryJapan there are lingeringremnants of this pre- or early modern (Fukuzawatermed it "feudal") ethos of "names," whereby self- esteem and social prestige derive from the holding of government-or com- pany-titlesthat convey hierarchicdistinctions of status. Then, too, the postwar emperor's non-sovereign status as "symbol" of the Japanese state and people invites comparisonto the imperial institutionof early modern times-as Hattori Shiso, Ishii Ryosuke, and others have argued. Court ranks, imperialtitles, and the peerage are now gone; and very few Japanese think of the emperoras a living god.'03But Article Seven of Japan'spostwar constitution empowers him to grant national honors that are still greatly coveted.'04 For the most part, these honors take the form of decorationsof merit (kunsho) that date from early Meiji times and which helped foster popular support for the prewarimperial regime."'5I would suggest that two imperial functions-granting nationalhonors and performingcourt rituals such as the daijosai-have formed the core of the emperorsystem throughout Japan'shistory, and that we have tended to overlook the importanceof the first function in particular.One hypothesisas to why no one ever destroyed

101. That is why Western academics want undergraduatesto address them as "Pro- fessor" or "Doctor" Smith, not "Joe," and why Japaneseexecutives insist that subordinates call them "buch6" or "shacho," not "Tanaka-san." 102. Bummeironno gairyaku, in FukuzawaYukichi zenshti, Vol. 4, p. 164;Dilworth and Hurst, tr., An Outline of a Theoryof Civilization, p. 154. 103. The composer, MayuzumiToshiro, is one who does. About the emperor'srenuncia- tion of divinity in 1946, Mayuzumisays: "Nowherein His Majesty'sstatement do we find the expression 'I am a humanbeing.' That is somethinglisteners have arbitrarilyimputed. To me, His Majesty . . . is a kami." See Bungei shunju, March 1989 special issue, p. 508. 104. See my "Eiten juyo no d6tokutekiigi," in Shisd, No. 797, (November 1990). 105. Fukui Jun, "Nihon ni okeru jokun seido no keisei ni tsuite," in Rekishi hyoron, No. 466 (February1989), pp. 43-55. 56 Journal of Japanese Studies the imperial institutionmight be that it has providedsomething highly de- sired in status-consciousJapanese society: prestige, and, in moderntimes, money. Even Toyama Shigeki, a Marxist historianvehemently critical of the emperor system, has to admit that his prewar educational expenses were paid in part from the governmentstipend that accompaniedhis father's Order of the Golden Kite.l06Today, imperial decorationscarry no monetaryreward. But an audience with the emperorat the imperialpalace is still cherished by many Japanese as one's "greatest honor" and "an honor for my family." 07 Moreover, as Ishii notes, Article Six of the postwar constitutionem- powers the emperorto "appoint"prime ministersand supremecourt chief justices. In November 1952, Prime MinisterYoshida Shigeru avowed himself a "subject" (shin) of Emperor Showa, who, by logical extension, could only be sovereign(kimi). By this reasoning,which remindsus of Kii Yoshimichiand Mito Mitsukuni,all cabinet ministersare shin in that their official title is daijin, and so they should considerthemselves imperialsub- jects. That may have simply been Yoshida'spersonal opinion. But this statementfrom Japan'shead of state in 1952 contradictsthe postwarconsti- tution's most important democratic stipulation:that sovereignty resides with the people, not the emperor. Whenever postwar prime ministers worshipedat YasukuniShrine before 1976, they held thattheir acts did not constitutegovernment support of State Shinto--and so did not violate the constitution-because their visits were non-official and they signed the shrine ledger as private individuals. But as of May 1979, DirectorGeneral Sanada Hideo of the CabinetLegis- lation Bureau droppedthis fine legal distinctionbetween official and non- official, public and private. Since then, worship at Yasukunihas been legally interpretedas constitutionaleven when prime ministers sign as "naikaku sori daijin, XX." According to Sanada, who echoes Muro Kyuso, "the use of office titles [in names] is a general practice of life in Japanesesociety. Anyone who holds governmentoffice goes by his office title, even when acting as a privateindividual." 10 Given imperial Japan'soverwhelming defeat and unconditional sur- renderin 1945, most of us now presumethat the emperor'sfall from power is "historicallyirreversible." The postwarimperial institution seems impo-

106. Toyama, "Watakushino rekishi kenkyu to tennosei," in Gendai to shiso, No. 15 (March 1974), p. 118. 107. Statementby Ito Midori, 20-year-old world figure-skatingchampion and national idol, in The Globe and Mail (Toronto),March 6, 1990. 108. Quoted in Miyaji, Tennoseino seijishitekikenkyu, p. 214. Miyaji himself falls into this culturaltrap by citing Sanadaas "SanadaHoseikyoku chokan," not by his given name, Hideo. Wakabayashi:Imperial Sovereignty 57 tent and "defunct" comparedwith the absolutepower it could claim under the Meiji constitution.In these respects, too, parallelsmay be drawnto the deplorablecondition lamentedby EmperorGo-Mizunoo in the early seventeenth century. But can anyone categorically state that an imperial come- back-in some form or other-is totally impossible? May we assume that "even myriad oxen could not return the imperial court to the power" it once enjoyed? Perhapsit is still too early to tell just how purely symbolic, formalistic, and nominal the postwaremperor's authority really is. He and his family certainly have seen worse days. YORK UNIVERSITY