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Japan Ashikaga Bakufu
The ensuing period of Ashikaga rule (1336-1573) was
called
Muromachi for the district in which its headquarters were
in Kyoto
after 1378. What distinguished the Ashikaga bakufu
from that
of Kamakura was that, whereas Kamakura had existed in
equilibrium
with the Kyoto court, Ashikaga took over the remnants of
the
imperial government. Nevertheless, the Ashikaga
bakufu was
not as strong as the Kamakura had been and was greatly
preoccupied
by the civil war. Not until the rule of Ashikaga
Yoshimitsu (as
third shogun, 1368-94, and chancellor, 1394-1408) did a
semblance
of order emerge.
Yoshimitsu allowed the constables, who had had limited
powers
during the Kamakura period, to become strong regional
rulers, later
called daimyo (from dai, meaning great, and
myoden, meanng named lands). In time, a balance of
power
evolved between the shogun and the daimyo; the
three most
prominent daimyo families rotated as deputies to
the shogun
at Kyoto. Yoshimitsu was finally successful in reunifying
the
Northern Court and the Southern Court in 1392, but,
despite his
promise of greater balance between the imperial lines, the
Northern
Court maintained control over the throne thereafter. The
line of
shoguns gradually weakened after Yoshimitsu and
increasingly lost
power to the daimyo and other regional strongmen.
The
shogun's decisions about imperial succession became
meaningless,
and the daimyo backed their own candidates. In
time, the
Ashikaga family had its own succession problems, resulting
finally
in the Onin War (1467-77), which left Kyoto devastated
and
effectively ended the national authority of the
bakufu. The
power vacuum that ensued launched a century of anarchy
(see Provincial Wars and Foreign Contacts
, this ch.).
Data as of January 1994
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