Hōjō family

Hōjō family
Family of hereditary regents to the shogunate of Japan who exercised actual power from 1199 to 1333.

Hōjō Tokimasa (1138–1215) joined the cause of Minamoto Yoritomo against Taira Kiyomori, then ruler of Japan. Together they prevailed, and Yoritomo became Japan's new ruler, taking the title of shogun. Tokimasa's daughter married Yoritomo, and when Yoritomo died in 1199 Tokimasa became regent to Yoritomo's heir, his own grandson. The position of shogunal regent became hereditary; this office oversaw the constables and tax collectors that the shogunate placed in each province. The system worked well through the first half of the 13th century; its decline came about after resources had been depleted defending Japan against two Mongol invasions and because of the personal failings of the last Hōjō regent. Hōjō rule ended when Ashikaga Takauji captured Kyōto in the name of the emperor Go-Daigo and the Ashikaga family assumed the title of shogun. See also Kamakura period.

* * *

▪ Japanese family
Introduction

      family of hereditary regents to the shogunate of Japan who exercised actual rule from 1199 to 1333. During that period, nine successive members of the family held the regency. The Hōjō took their name from their small estate in the Kanogawa Valley in Izu Province.

Rise to power.
       Hōjō Tokimasa (1138–1215), the first known member of the family, was charged by the Japanese ruler Taira Kiyomori with the co-wardenship of the exiled Minamoto Yoritomo in 1160. In 1180, however, when Yoritomo rallied the armed men of the Kantō, a region in Central Japan, against Taira rule, Tokimasa fought with him. Yoritomo acquired all power in Japan by 1189 and ruled as shogun (military commander); Tokimasa became the warden of Kyōto, while his daughter Masako married Yoritomo, with whom she had long had a liaison. At Yoritomo's death in 1199 Tokimasa became the guardian of the heir Yoriie and in effect regent, although Masako governed in the name of her son. The Hōjō family improved the simple but effective machinery of rule that Yoritomo had established. Yoritomo had received permission from the Emperor to place his own men as constables (shugo) and tax collectors (jitō) in each province. These appointees were responsible to the Samurai dokoro, or private military staff of the shogun, at Kamakura. The staff was headed by the shikken, or regent to the shogun. Thus, this office controlled the law, the peace, and the revenues of Japan, and the Hōjō family came to monopolize the office of shikken and to make it hereditary among them.

      By 1247, when members of the house and clan held, through appointment, dominion over half the provinces of Japan, Hōjō rule tended to become authoritarian, and the regency was run not from its titular office but from Hōjō headquarters as a family council. This assumption of power, beginning with Tokimasa, was not difficult because the armed class did not wish to relinquish the peace, profits, and stability the bakufu (military government) had brought it. They were reluctant to permit the heir Yoriie, a youth of uncertain temper and strong appetites, to become shogun. Yoriie attempted the murder of Tokimasa but was himself exiled and killed. When the remaining heir, Sanetomo, was murdered (1219), the last impediment to Hōjō domination was gone. The final accretion of Hōjō power came in 1221, when the emperor Go-Toba raised the Taira of western Japan against the Hōjō. The revolt (Jōkyū no ran) not only failed but in its failing the Hōjō were able to confiscate thousands of estates and place them in the hands of landless adherents and friends. Many landless warriors, created by the litigious system of family inheritance in Japan, had little love for the Hōjō but less for hunger and dispossession. Their number, as it rose and fell, was an indication of the stability of the bakufu, and until the late 13th century the Hōjō kept their numbers small. The first three Hōjō regencies—Yoshitoki, who succeeded Tokimasa in 1205, was murdered in 1224 and replaced by his son Yasutoki (1183–1242)—were the apex of capable feudal rule in Japan. Dependable cadastral records were created in 1222–23. In 1232 a brief and workable code ( Jōei Shikimoku) for the conduct and regulation of the armed class in a feudal society was promulgated. Slowly, between 1221 and 1232, the simple military system of Yoritomo was transformed by the Hōjō family into a capable private government.

Relationship with the court and the aristocracy.
      Essentially, this meant maintaining a cordial but careful relationship with the court and its complex system of reigning, retired, and cloistered emperors and with the great aristocracy of Kyōto, who wished an end to the bakufu system. A Hōjō commander and garrison were stationed in Kyōto, but the property, revenues, and ceremonials of the Imperial family and nobility were protected. The powerful Buddhist clergy were kept in hand by strict auditing of their accounts. The vassals of Hōjō were kept solvent, peaceful, and apart from the court. The peasant was protected in his freedom and tenure. The regency drew its income from the Hōjō estates, which comprised nearly the whole of the Kantō. The family adhered firmly to Yoritomo's dictum that the simple warrior life would best preserve this class from the pervasive decadence of the Kyōto aristocracy. Yasutoki died in 1242 and was succeeded by the Hōjō regents Tsunetoki (1224–46) in 1242, Tokiyori (1227–63) in 1246, and Tokimune (1215–84) in 1256. Tokimune's regency was the last stable and powerful epoch of the Hōjō. Tokimune refused the Mongol Kublai Khan's (Kublai Khan) demand (1271) that Japan pay tribute to him. The result was an unsuccessful Mongol–Chinese–Korean assault on Hakata Harbour in Kyushu. In 1281 a massive second joint assault on Kyushu was again beaten back; but the cost of preparing the defense, of the two months' battle around Hakata, and of maintaining a war footing until Kublai died in 1294 was deadly. For 20 years Hōjō resources had been under great strain in the defense of Japan; the resources of their vassals had been consumed in the war.

Decline of Hōjō power.
      When Sadatoki (1270–1311) became regent in 1284, he found himself so embroiled in a succession dispute between two powerful factions of the Imperial family—a struggle beginning to split all Japan—that he secluded himself in a temple, from where he continued to administer Japan during the last 10 years of his life. His successor, the ninth and last Hōjō regent, Takatoki (1303–33), passed his minority dissolutely and extravagantly. On attaining his majority (1316) he left the affairs of the regency in the hands of inept men at a time when only a severe and powerful man could have managed the difficult economic and political situation. In 1331, because of the continuing quarrel over the Imperial succession, Takatoki exiled the emperor Go-Daigo (Daigo, Go-). Escaping from exile, the Emperor found it easy to raise war against the Hōjō. Takatoki was betrayed by his own general, Ashikaga Takauji, who seized Kyōto from its Hōjō garrison. The bakufu's own domain of the Kantō rose in revolt under Nitta Yoshisada (the opposition to the Hōjō was, in part, a revolt of the family's own constables and stewards, who had become locally powerful). Nitta sacked Kamakura, and on July 4, 1333, the last Hōjō regent committed suicide. But the foundation the Hōjō had laid was enduring. Go-Daigo's attempt to restore a civil Imperial government lasted only three years. Ashikaga Takauji declared himself shogun in 1336, and from then until 1868 a form of bakufu—as created by Yoritomo and refined by the Hōjō—ruled Japan.

John A. Harrison

Additional Reading
George Sansom, A History of Japan to 1334, vol. 1 (1958), an excellent general history of the period; Shinoda Minoru, The Founding of the Kamakura Shogunate, 1180–1185 (1960), a prime source for the feudal period, based on the Azuma Kagami—explains the origin of military government; Frédéric Joüon des Longrais, Age de Kamakura: Sources (1150–1333), vol. 3 (1950), a detailed guide to feudal law, government, and documents; John Hall, “Japanese Feudal Laws: The Hojo Code of Judicature,” Tasj, 1st Series, vol. 34 (1906).

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Hōjō Masako — by Kikuchi Yōsai (菊池 容斎) In this Japanese name, the family name is Hōjō . Hōjō Masako (北条 政子 …   Wikipedia

  • Hōjō Tokimasa — nihongo|Hōjō Tokimasa|北條 時政|extra=1138 1215 was the first Hōjō shikken (regent) of the Kamakura bakufu and head of the Hōjō clan. He was shikken from the death of Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1199 until his abdication in 1205. Background: The Hōjō… …   Wikipedia

  • Hōjō Sōun — nihongo|Hōjō Sōun|北条 早雲|extra=1432 – September 8 1519 was the first head of the late Hōjō clan, one of the major powers in Japan s Sengoku period. Born Ise Moritoki, he was originally known as Ise Shinkurō, a samurai of Taira lineage from a… …   Wikipedia

  • Hōjō Yoshitoki — ▪ Japanese regent born 1163, Japan died July 1, 1224, Kamakura, Japan       warrior responsible for the consolidation of the power of the Kamakura shogunate, the military dictatorship that ruled Japan from the city of Kamakura in central Japan… …   Universalium

  • Hōjō Yasutoki — ▪ Japanese regent born 1183, Kamakura, Japan died July 14, 1242, Kamakura       regent whose administrative innovations in the shogunate, or military dictatorship, were responsible for institutionalizing that office as the major ruling body in… …   Universalium

  • Hōjō Tokimasa — ▪ Japanese warrior and regent born 1138, Izu Province, Japan died Feb. 6, 1215, Izu       Japanese warrior who aided Minamoto Yoritomo in establishing the Kamakura shogunate, the military government by which Yoritomo ruled the country from his… …   Universalium

  • Hōjō Tokiyuki (Scouting) — This article is on the Japanese Scouting figure. For the samurai, please see Hōjō Tokiyuki. nihongo|Hōjō Tokiyuki|北条 時敬| (March 23, 1858 April 27, 1929) was an educator and mathematician. His name as a child was nihongo|Kumejirō|粂次郎. He was the… …   Wikipedia

  • family — /fam euh lee, fam lee/, n., pl. families, adj. n. 1. parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not. 2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family. 3. the spouse and children …   Universalium

  • Hōjō Tokimune — ▪ Japanese regent born June 5, 1251, Kamakura, Japan died April 20, 1284, Kamakura       young regent to the shogun (military dictator of Japan), under whom the country fought off two Mongol invasions, the only serious foreign threats to the… …   Universalium

  • Family Compo — ファミリーコンポ (famirīkonpo) Type Seinen Genre Comédie Manga Auteur Tsukasa Hōjō Éditeur …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”