Asia

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!Overview:

Japan Middle Ages November 20th

14th century ancient Japan middle ages

Political power fragmentsleads to warring
Trade networks expand
Women lose economic autonomy
Commoners gain power through militarization
People look for beauty and meaning in this troubled time

!Major Themes:

- What happens when centralized government breaks down?

- What is distinct about Zen notions of beauty?

!Japans Middle Ages:

- 13301600
- Conflict and military struggle at all levels of society
- Kyoto monarch GoDaigo tried to regain political control,
challenged Kamakura shogunate

- Ashiakaga Takauji (14th century) fought for Kamakura then for

GoDaigo, then for himselfestablished a line of Ashikaga shoguns.
!The Challenge of Leadership:

- How to maintain a balance of power between cent and periphery?

- Ashikaga rulers appointed military governors (shugo) to manage provinces
- Aristocratic claims to land undermined; estate system and role of estate stewards (jito) shifted to new
system.

- Three main powers: Ashikaga shoguns, Kyoto court and temple-shrine complexes

!Gender:

- Elite women lost economic autonomy through changes in inheritance patterns

- Kamakura practice of dividing property among sons and daughters replaced by primogeniture (inheritane
to firstborn son) narrows the individuals who can struggle over inheritance issues

- Women joined husbands house, became his property

- Women gained protection and security in role as wife, bonds created through marriage stronger as there is
less challenge to the husbands side of the family, whereas the economic autonomy provided some struggle
in the Kamakura period

!Estates Trading Villages:

- Agriculture continued to improve, population, increased, trade was stimulated

Paddy fields replace dry fields

- Estates developed into self-protecting communities as aristocratic were losing their claims to territories
(they traditionally protected those tied to the land), so the peasants formed self-protecting villages

- Villages met in committees, sometimes a shrine associations (often establishing the current place names)
- A cash economy developed using Chinese (Ming) coins

!Buddhism:
-

Middle ages characterized by strong Buddhist establishment (until late 16th century)
Temples controlled urban economy and maintained their own armies
Zen Buddhism continued to attract patronage of military leaders, shaped notions of beauty
Enduring power of Zen aesthetics Are they Zen aesthetics? Japanese aesthetics? Universal
human aesthetics? Current or historical?

!Tea Ceremony:

- Warriors and priests men only in middle ages

- At first, displayed aristocratic standards of taste through social interaction (i.e. rulers showed off their
Chinese stuff to guests)

Later rustic, simple, irregular, organic, personal aesthetics of of wabi and sabi
Preformed in refined rusticity (tea aesthetics), combination of nature and artifice
Flower Arrangment finding harmony in simplicity in the natural world
Wabi/Sabi connected with Korea (Korean potters helped to stimulate some of the values)

!Challenging BuddhismYoshida Shint:

Movement led by Yoshida Kanetomo (14351511)

- Opposed Zen Buddhism, called for separation of god-working from Buddhism
- Asserted the centrality of Japanese monarchs (imperial family)
- Many of Shints rituals invented in 15th c.
- Yoshida Shint shrine in Kyoto

!15th16th Century Struggles:

-

A century of civil war, 14671600: factional warring,s tarting with nin War of 14671477
Estates vanished completely as aristocratic claims to land broke down
Buddhist temples destroyed or stripped of power
Society increasing militarized

Incompetent government gave rise t alternative efforts to organize political power

Horizontal rather than vertical social structure, more egalitarian social structures
Some, such as the Lotus League (hokke ikki), took inspirational from Buddhist ideas of egalitarianism
Anti-hierarchy and anti-aristocrat, such as leagues were ruthlessly crushed by warriors aspiring to power

New leaders, daimyo (big names), grabbed local territories

Territories were run by daimyo as independent units
Militarization allowed new opportunities for social mobility
Oda Nobunaga crippled Buddhist power, crushed local leagues, set about centralizinguntil a general
stopped his rise

!Local Leagues (Ikki Movements):

!Commoner Warlords: