Overview

In 1615 Tokugawa Hidetada, the second shogun of Japan’s Tokugawa bakufu, or military government, promulgated the Laws Governing Military Households, or Buke Shohatto, a set of instructions or rules for members of Japan’s large military class. The laws were meant to maintain peace and regulate all aspects of the behavior of warriors, extending from the lords of domains to the lesser samurai who served them. Although they are correctly interpreted as a set of laws, only a few of the stipulations laid out in the thirteen articles of this document were meant to be enforced in the sense that a law governing the crime of murder or burglary would be. Instead, most of the laws were broadly prohibitive or hortatory in nature; they were meant to give general guidelines for behavior rather than proscribe specific acts.

The significance of the Laws Governing Military Households lay in the new standards set forth for military rule in Japan’s early-modern era, also known as the Tokugawa Period (1600-1868). The laws in the document essentially had four aims. First, they signified the determination of the Tokugawa government to enforce the peace, to ensure that Japan not return again to the warfare and decentralized rule that had characterized it in the preceding century. Second, they set forth the importance of Confucian social and political ideals at the same time that they stressed the need to maintain distinctions of rank and status; in this manner, the document was conservative in nature. Third, in an indirect but powerful way, they contributed to the rapid urbanization of Japan that took place in the seventeenth century. And, finally, they played a role in the eventual demise of the samurai, or warrior, class as a whole. Few of these effects were immediately realized, and few of them would have occurred without other policies or practices enacted either by the bakufu or the great lords (daimyo), but the Laws Governing Military Households was at the same time the basis for all of them.

Context

Between 1467 and 1477 war between two factions of the largely defunct Ashikaga bakufu took place within the boundaries of Kyoto, the capital (and only major city) in Japan at the time. Besides decimating much of the capital, the war ushered in the so-called Warring States Period, a century-long period of upheaval in which Japan was ruled piecemeal by feudal lords, approximately two hundred in number. Given Japan’s relatively small size (an area equivalent to the state of Montana, though the northernmost island of Japan, Hokkaido, was largely uninhabited at the time and outside of Japanese control), these two hundred domains were small in area. The lords of these domains were spoken of as daimyo, meaning “great name,” and they established their authority by means of military prowess.

The Warring States Period was a transitional time in Japanese history, dividing the medieval and early-modern worlds, and it was unique in several distinguishing ways. Accordingly, the establishment of Tokugawa rule in the seventeenth century, and the accompanying practices, policies, and laws—such as Laws Governing Military Households—can be understood only in the context of developments during this critical era. Four developments were particularly significant

First, prior to the Warring States Period, Japan was ruled by an aristocratic elite that included Kyoto courtiers (among them, the hereditary emperor), powerful temples and clerics of the Buddhist and Shinto faiths, and the upper echelon of the warrior class. Although the balance of power between these three blocs changed over the centuries, its members had long been the dominant players in the world of politics and economics. That changed after 1467. With full-scale warfare throughout the land, traditional distinctions of hereditary status and rank lost much of their importance. Instead, military might came to define both political power and social influence as never before, and, of course, it was the warriors alone who wielded the sword. Never before had an individual’s genealogy or hereditary status meant so little in Japan. People of the time recognized this shift and coined a new word, gekokujo, meaning “the low overthrowing the high,” reflecting the radical changes they were seeing. Whereas in the past, warriors of influence were men with distinguished pedigrees, linked back to elite families, now many of the greatest warriors were upstarts, individuals whose immediate ancestors may have been farmers or minor warriors serving greater lords.

Second, prior to the Warring States Period, much of the land in the country was held in the form of private estates by courtier families and temples. Many warriors held extensive fiefs, too, but the proportion of land under their control increased dramatically in the century after the civil war began in 1467, as they confiscated estates and incorporated them within their domains. In short, by 1568 most of the land and its economic capacity was in warrior hands.

Third, despite the growth of warrior power, the position of the great lords (daimyo) was by no means secure. They were, of course, often at war with neighboring daimyo; were at pains to maintain the loyalty of their vassals, who were not against seeking a new lord if it was to their advantage; and were challenged, and in some cases threatened, by the rise of leagues of commoners, who likewise sought expanded influence in this period of upheaval. More than a few daimyo lost their heads at the hands of one of their own men (or sons), others were overthrown or defeated, and some daimyo families survived much of the century of warfare only to be destroyed near its end. Instability and insecurity were watchwords of the period.

Fourth, despite the upheaval of the century, it was also a time of economic and population growth and technological progress. This was possible because war was not going on everywhere all the time. Many regions went decades with little or no fighting, and much of the fighting that did occur, at least until late in the period, was small in scale and limited in destruction. This allowed some daimyo to extend and build their economic and political bases. In the process, local economies grew, and new technologies led to increased prosperity. In this manner the Warring States Period provided a solid foundation for the remarkable growth in these areas that would take place in the seventeenth century.

In 1568 Oda Nobunaga, having established a sizable domain in central Japan, marched his army into Kyoto, making it known that he intended to once again bring Japan under single rule. He is known as the first of the “three unifiers.” By the time of his death in 1582, Nobunaga controlled more than two-thirds of the country, but he was stopped short by one of his own vassals, who attacked him while he was staying the night at a Kyoto temple. His successor, the second unifier, was Toyotomi Hideyoshi, another of Nobunaga’s vassals. Hideyoshi was able to grasp power and eventually unify all Japan under a system that has been defined as “federal,” in that he held a major portion of power but allowed daimyo to maintain their domains as long as they pledged loyalty to him. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the third unifier, continued this approach after grasping power in 1600. The result was that the early-modern system of government consisted of a shogun at its head (though nominally under the authority of the hereditary emperor in Kyoto), with approximately two hundred daimyo beneath him, each of whom controlled his own domain, which varied in size depending on his status and the goodwill of the shogun. It was a rather odd system, structured largely upon military ideals and organization, with the shogun serving as “the greatest among equals.”

The more immediate context of the promulgation of Laws Governing Military Households was Tokugawa Ieyasu’s assertion of unchallenged control after defeating the armies of Toyotomi Hideyori in the summer of 1615. Hideyori, the heir of the second unifier, Hideyoshi, was just five years of age when his father died in 1598. In the battles for supremacy that ended in Tokugawa Ieyasu’s victory in 1600, the great warriors sidestepped Hideyori and the question of his legitimacy as Hideyoshi’s political heir. He was allowed to continue to reside in his castle in Osaka, and it was there that he eventually reached adulthood. But by 1614 he had become a potential threat, and Ieyasu decided that he must be destroyed. With that accomplished by mid-year of 1615, the Tokugawa bakufu was finally in a position to promulgate laws governing the behavior of the military houses.

Time Line

About the Author

Although they were issued by the Tokugawa government when Hidetada was shogun, the Laws Governing Military Households was a product of Ieyasu’s efforts. This is not surprising, since Ieyasu, even though he was formally retired, continued to rule the country and shape and define the new political system. Ieyasu did not actually draft the laws. Instead, drafting was the work of Ishin Suden (1569-1633), a Zen monk and close adviser to Ieyasu. Suden spent several decades of his early life in the Kyoto temple Nanzenji but from 1608 formed ties with Ieyasu and was used in various capacities by the shogun in the years that followed. Like many others within the Buddhist priesthood, Suden was highly educated and thus was in a position to assist Ieyasu in preparing laws. It would be wrong, however, to speak of Suden as the author, because ultimately these were Ieyasu’s laws, put into written form by Suden after much discussion with and instruction from Ieyasu.

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Laws Governing Military Households was promulgated by being formally read to a gathering of Japan’s daimyo at Fushimi Castle, outside Kyoto, on July 7, 1615. The document consists of thirteen articles. Each begins with a statement of exhortation or prohibition. There then follows a brief explanatory section, often drawing upon classical sources (both Chinese and Japanese) or traditional principles to support the argument. This was to be expected. In the year previous to the laws’ issuance, Suden and numerous associates among the Buddhist priesthood and Kyoto nobility had been busily engaged in copying and studying such classical sources from the country’s libraries, all at Ieyasu’s behest. Close analysis also reveals that precedents for most of the articles can be found in previous law codes; many, in fact, originated with the daimyo “house codes” (laws governing the behavior of a daimyo’s retainers or vassals) of the Warring States Period, evidence that the Tokugawa were confronted with many of the same issues as their daimyo predecessors, particularly when it came to the control and management of vassals.

In brief, the laws’ thirteen articles stipulated the following: (1) Warriors were to study both literary and military arts; (2) excessive drinking and partying were forbidden; (3) criminals were not to be sheltered in any domain; (4) warrior lords had to expel from their domains any warriors charged with treason or murder; (5) outsiders to the domains were not to be allowed to fraternize or reside therein; (6) castles could be repaired, if reported, but new construction was forbidden; (7) warrior factions of any type were forbidden; (8) marriages could not be arranged without bakufu approval; (9) daimyo had to follow regulations when calling on the shogun; (10) one’s dress had to accord with one’s status; (11) only those of appropriate rank were allowed to ride in palanquins; (12) samurai of the various domains had to be frugal; and (13) lords of domains should select men of talent as their officials.

Articles 1 and 13 address the question of wise rule and how to accomplish it. Article 1 is justifiably considered the most important article of the laws. The approach to rulership that it lays out can be interpreted both as a standard that the Tokugawa expected the daimyo to uphold and as a declaration of the intentions of the central holders of power, the Tokugawa shoguns themselves. The declaration of the need not just for literary arts but for military arts as well provides a clear signal that the Tokugawa expected that the existing governmental system of 1615, structured largely upon a military organization with which all daimyo were familiar, would continue. In other words, the Tokugawa foresaw neither themselves nor the daimyo abandoning their weapons or martial attitude and training. The system was to remain military at heart. In this sense, the Tokugawa affirmed the position of the warrior class. And although this affirmation might not have seemed significant at the time, it became so during the next two centuries, as Japan enjoyed a period of remarkable peace, free of war, from the late 1630s until the 1850s. During these years the samurai and their institutions became rusty and antiquated and in many ways irrelevant to the early modern society that developed. Nonetheless, their position was confirmed and bolstered by the sort of ideals expressed in article 1 of the laws.

At the same time that it confirms the military arts, article 1 also stresses the literary arts as crucial to good rulership. Another way to put this, commonly used at the time, was that one came to power by the sword but then ruled (if he was wise) with the brush (that is to say, the pen). As defined by Confucian philosophy, wise rulers were cultivated and educated, characteristics that allowed them to draw on past examples to meet the challenges of the present, understand the needs of the people, and show compassion to their subjects. In article 1, the Tokugawa assert that they intend to be rulers of this type. It was an assertion they needed to make because, in contrast to the Kyoto courtiers, Japan’s warriors were often seen as boorish and uncultivated. It was a stigma that was not easily overcome, particularly as the court, with emperor and courtiers, continued to exist (supported, in fact, by the bakufu), a symbol of the height of cultivation.

Articles 2 and 12 are concerned with the proper behavior of individuals. Although exhortations to avoid drinking and gambling or to live frugally might seem petty or overly intrusive into the private affairs of individuals, they were not viewed as such at the time. According to Confucian teachings, moral behavior is at the heart of good government, and Ieyasu was determined that his rule, and that of the daimyo beneath him, follow that model.

Articles 3 through 8 hark back to the Warring States Period and the dangers of that time. In light of the stable, peaceful, and prosperous society that was well in place by the middle of the seventeenth century, the stipulations in these articles can appear quaint or archaic to historians. But it is important to keep in mind that warriors in 1615 had lived lives in which warfare was the norm, intrigue and treason against one’s lord were common occurrences, and peace was as fleeting as the clouds of autumn. Accordingly, the Tokugawa issued these grave warnings and severe decrees to counteract such tendencies. By all measures, the results were positive and impressive.

Article 3 provides a powerful philosophical background to the specific stipulations that follow in later articles. The assertions that “law is the foundation of social order” and “reason may be violated in the name of law, but law may not be violated in the name of reason” reveal the overriding concern for peace and stability. In essence, the author of the statement acknowledges that law is not perfect, that at times reason might suggest that the law could be ignored or sidestepped. Yet that is unacceptable. Imperfect though it may be, law, if followed, would ensure stability in society.

Articles 6 and 8 are the two laws in this section that had the most practical significance. Article 6, with its restrictions on new castle construction by daimyo, is best understood in conjunction with another law, known as the One Domain, One Castle Decree, issued under the name of the shogun’s three top advisers less than a month before the issuance of Laws Governing Military Households. That edict explicitly decreed that within each domain all castles except that in which the daimyo resided were to be destroyed. The purpose was clear: to limit the military capabilities of daimyo, ensuring that they did not establish fortified states capable of challenging the Tokugawa bakufu. The need for this limitation was a reflection of developments in the Warring States Period, during which time castles became fortlike structures, used as much for fortifications for troops on the offensive as for defensive bulwarks.

The intent of article 8, with its regulation of marriages among daimyo, is clear, given the common practice in earlier centuries and in many places around the world of forging political and military alliances through the means of matrimony. No alliances could be made without the consent of the bakufu.

Articles 9-11 deal with questions of status. Simply put, they require all warriors, from daimyo to foot soldiers, to act in accordance with their position in society. The specific examples given—concerning the number of attendants a daimyo might employ when calling on the shogun, the quality and luxuriousness of one’s dress, and the privilege of riding in a palanquin (in short, being carried by menials rather than riding a horse or moving under one’s own power)—were surely not meant to be exclusive. The quality of food one ate and the entertainment one engaged in were also governed by one’s status, as was the privilege of taking additional wives. Moreover, similar, but more restrictive laws of this nature regulated the manners of merchants and others of means, extending to the size and style of their residences. It was believed in Japan at the time, and backed by Confucian ideology, that in a well-ordered society people knew their place and acted accordingly. To fail to do so would invite commotion and disharmony. Moreover, as these three articles suggest, distinctions in status existed within classes as much as between classes. In other words, although class could be an important marker in distinguishing groups and individuals, in many cases the divisions between individuals of different statuses within a class were sharper than those between individuals of different classes. Low-level samurai, for instance, were much closer in status to commoners, such as merchants, than they were to their own daimyo or to the shogun, neither of whom they could have ever had the opportunity of meeting.

Audience

As named in the title of the Laws Governing Military Households, the main audience for this set of regulations was the military households. Just what the term military households (buke in Japanese) meant, however, particularly when considered in light of the laws themselves, is open to question. They were initially read to the great lords, the daimyo, in Fushimi Castle. A daimyo was defined as a lord whose domain produced rice in the amount of 10,000 koku or more (a koku equaling approximately five bushels), and, as noted earlier, the daimyo numbered about two hundred during the Tokugawa era, with rice yields of the greatest lords reaching over 1 million koku. Evidence of how many of those two hundred daimyo attended the gathering at Fushimi Castle in 1615 when the laws were read is unavailable, but it is highly unlikely that all were there. For one thing, that many daimyo, with their attendants, would have overwhelmed the castle. In light of the Tokugawa rulers’ emphasis upon status distinctions, it seems fair to assume that few of the minor daimyo (perhaps those with domains producing under 75,000-100,000 koku) were invited. So the immediate audience of the laws were important daimyo, the sorts of people who could have constituted a serious threat to the bakufu. In addition to having heard them read, they also received written copies of the laws either at that time or shortly thereafter, as did daimyo who were not in attendance.

Examination of the document itself reveals a much more diverse view of the audience. Although some of the articles were directed specifically at the great lords, others were clearly applicable to warriors of all levels. Viewed accordingly, the buke, or “military households,” truly meant all warriors, regardless of status. Those articles specific to the daimyo are article 5, the ban on outsiders to the domain (in that daimyo were responsible for enforcing this ban); article 6, the stipulations concerning the repair and construction of castles; article 8, the prohibition on marriage without bakufu approval (the bakufu was uninterested and unconcerned about marriages formed by those beneath daimyo status); article 9, the regulations governing visits to the shogun (here the subject is specifically given as “the daimyo,” leaving no question as to the audience); and article 13, the exhortation to select men of talent to serve in government (in this case, the term “lords of domains” is used, which was analogous to “daimyo”). All the remaining articles are as appropriate to minor samurai scraping by on stipends of 50 koku annually as to the grandest daimyo. Of course, some of these articles, like articles 10 or 11, with their restrictions on dress or riding in palanquins, would serve to remind minor samurai of their low status and keep them firmly low. But many of the others would serve to tie warriors together as a class, counteracting the articles that stress differentiations in status. Thus, any warrior could read article 1 and work to cultivate the literary and military arts, thereby making him a better and more useful servant of the state.

Impact

Many of the articles in Laws Governing Military Households are moralistic and hortatory in nature. Did warriors take it to heart to follow both literary and military arts, as stipulated in article 1? Did they avoid heavy drinking and wild parties, as laid out in article 2? And were they frugal in their daily lives, as decreed in article 12? In short, did members of the warrior class follow Confucian political and social ideals, as interpreted by Tokugawa Ieyasu and his associates, as seen in these articles? There are no simple answers to these questions, but there is good evidence that Confucian ideology, thus defined, played a prominent role in shaping the lives and ideals of the warrior class in Tokugawa Japan. As early as 1651, for example, a warrior named Yui Shosetsu planned and undertook a rebellion against the bakufu because its contemporary leaders failed, he claimed, to follow the high ideals laid out by Ieyasu. Of course, the Laws Governing Military Households was just one among many forums in which Confucian ideals were expressed at the time; nonetheless, the document was part of a larger and influential discourse.

In a more practical sense, the 1615 Laws Governing Military Households (along with those for emperor and courtiers and for religious institutions) laid the foundation for Tokugawa rule. With their regulation of inter-daimyo relations, castle building, and marriage, the laws severely limited the potential of any lords to challenge the bakufu. And none did, for more than 250 years. Viewed in this manner, the laws summarized in the document were stunningly successful.

The Laws Governing Military Households also provided an important model for later laws. In fact, each of the succeeding fourteen Tokugawa shoguns (excepting two whose rule was very brief) reissued the Laws Governing Military Households, with fewer or more changes depending upon the needs of the time. During the first half of the period, this was done in Edo Castle with daimyo in attendance; later that was seen as unnecessary. Nonetheless, the Laws Governing Military Households remained a standard for the age, a set of rules and instructions by which warriors of all ranks were to gauge their actions.

Some of the effects of the Laws Governing Military Households were surely unexpected, at least to Tokugawa Ieyasu and his associates who drafted them. Article 6 is striking in this regard. By restricting new castle construction—and limiting castles to one per domain, as decreed in the earlier law of 1615—the bakufu set in motion developments that would dramatically change the makeup of Japanese society. Each limited to one castle within his domain, daimyo began to build large and sumptuous edifices, hardly the sort of fortified structures from which they could carry out military offensives. At the same time, daimyo worked to ensure that their own vassals did not become a threat, by removing them from lands in the countryside to the castle towns, in exchange for stipends. The result was rapid urbanization as castle towns became cities virtually overnight, replete with new commercial goods, new forms of culture, and large warrior and merchant classes. This was an unintended, yet unmistakable result of a seemingly straightforward law. The largest castle town, by the way, was the shogun’s headquarters at Edo (present-day Tokyo), which by 1700 was home to over one million inhabitants.

Another unexpected effect, which by no means can be attributed solely to the laws, was the eventual demise of the warrior class. Despite the warrior ideals of “military arts” seen in article 1, the overall thrust of the Laws Governing Military Households (coupled with the more general policies and practices of the Tokugawa bakufu) was to make the warrior class anachronistic. Law and order and absolute loyalty to one’s lord were the ideals of the new age, and there was no room for those who thought or acted otherwise. Everything that had made the Warring States Period one of continual upheaval was now outlawed: treasonous plans, murder, lawlessness, questionable associations, excessive numbers of castles, “innovations,” factions, and marriage alliances. Most of all, hierarchy and status differentiations were to be maintained. By no means could gekokujo (“the low overthrowing the high”) be tolerated. The result was a warrior class that became increasingly unnecessary and obsolete. The very success of the Tokugawa bakufu, and in a sense the Laws Governing Military Households, meant the inevitable end of Japan’s warring class.

Further Reading

Questions for Further Study