Japan

• during the Heian period (790s-1185) japan had been dominated by the Fujiwara family
• during the heian era, the fujiwara family developed brilliant court which adopted chinese ways
• • new script for writing japanese was used for memoirs and poetry
• • japanese monks who had traveled to china adopted buddhism
• in the late 12th century civil war broke out between powerful families
• • For hundreds of years, Japan had been a feudal society without a centralized government. Landowning aristocrats, the daimyo, battled for control of land, while the majority of people worked as rice farmers
• • Japanese feudalism was similar to European feudalism. Both featured very little social mobility, and both systems were built upon hereditary hierarchies. In Japan, peasants, known as serfs, were born into lives of economic dependency, while samurai were born into their roles as protectors and daimyo were born into lives of privilege. In Europe, the three groups were serfs, knights, and nobles
• • What distinguishes Japanese feudalism from that of Europe was that the daimyo enjoyed much more power than the nobility in Europe did
• • The daimyo ruled over vast stretches of land and, in reality, were more powerful than either the emperor or the shogun. By contrast, Europe’s hierarchy placed the monarch above the nobility
• • Though there were periods when authority of the monarch waned and power was distributed among nobility, the main centralized power structure of European feudalism would not change until the Modern Industrial Era
• • Europe, the ideal knight held to the code of chivalry, with duty to countrymen, duty to God, and duty to women, the last expressed through courtly love and the virtues of gentleness and graciousness. In Japan, the code was known as bushido and stressed frugality, loyalty, the martial arts, and honor unto death
• • Japan differed from how China was governed
• • China was ruled by an emperor who oversaw a large civilian bureaucracy. For much of its history, China had a central government strong enough to promote trade and peace. In contrast, when the Heian court declined, a powerful land-owning family, the Minamoto clan, took charge
• • In 1192, the Minamoto installed a shogun, or military ruler, to reign. Though Japan still had an emperor, he had little power. For the following four centuries, Japan suffered from regional rivalries among aristocrats
• • Not until the 17th century would shoguns create a strong central government that could unify the country