From classical to medieval?(858–1086), but also that it was a period of challenges and adjustments, resulting in a state- wide
process of privatization that culminated in the insei period. Inasmuch as all roads did lead to
Kyoto and that challenges of the capital elites were doomed to fail during that period, it might
seem appropriate to think of it as one characterized by control by the royal court.
By the same token, the kenmon theory is a helpful way of conceptualizing the plurality of
rulership during the late Heian and Kamakura periods. Its strength lies perhaps more than any-
thing in the inclusion of religious institutions as political entities and in providing an explanation
for their secular power. At the same time, Kuroda related the political system he saw to an ideo-
logical context of both Buddhism and Shinto, something that other concepts, including the ōchō
kokka theory, failed to do. Yet, it should be acknowledged that both theories discussed in this
chapter have their limitations. They cannot by themselves explain all aspects of their respective
periods, and so one can easily find areas that need further exploration.
Were such theories able to explain everything—as grand theories like feudalism and oriental
despotism tend to set out to do—they would, however, be too broad to have any substantive
meaning. The most meaningful historical theories are those that can both be tested and provide a
framework from which we can begin to grasp a society’s general structures. From that per-
spective, the ōchō kokka and kenmon theories have been and continue to be highly valuable.
Notes
1 The Kusuko Incident is named after Fujiwara no Kusuko (?–810), who was the consort of Heizei. After
his abdication, Heizei returned to Nara, but once he recovered, perhaps unexpectedly, Kusuko and her
brother Nakanari (774–810) spurred Heizei to oppose his brother and re- ascend the throne. As part of
this coup, the capital was to be transferred back to Nara. The rebellion failed, resulting in the execution
of Nakanari and in Kusuko committing suicide, while Heizei was forced to live the remainder of his life
as a monk rather than as a retired sovereign.
2 William H. McCullough, “The Heian Court, 794–1070,” 59–60.
3 Sekkan is a combination of the first characters in the two terms sesshō and kanpaku, while the suffix –ke
means “house” or “lineage.” Sekkanke thus refers to the Regent’s Line of the Fujiwara, which came to
monopolize the two regent titles.
4 The successional struggles over the throne in England around the turn of the thirteenth century exem-
plify some of these challenges. Even within those uncertain circumstances, however, succession was
conferred from older to younger son.
5 For more on Dōkyō in English, see Joan Piggott, “Tōdaiji and the Nara Imperium,” 72–79; and Ross
Bender, “The Hachiman Cult and the Dōkyō Incident,” 125–163.
6 See for example, William McCullough, “Japanese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period,” 103–167
or Peter Nickerson, “The Meaning of Matrilocality: Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid- Heian,”
429–468.
7 For an in- depth treatment of Michinaga’s political accomplishments in English, see G. Cameron Hurst
III, “Kugyō and Zuryō: Center and Periphery in the Era of Fujiwara no Michinaga.”
8 John Whitney Hall, one of the pioneering Japanese historians in North America, avoided the Marxist
framework in his descriptions, but seemed to consider the privatization process a step backward, as a
“return to familial authority” (Government and Local Power, chapter 4, “The Shōen System and the Return
to Familial Authority”). See also Jeffrey P. Mass, Antiquity and Anachronism in Japanese History, 13–15.
9 Some Japanese scholars, such as Ihara Kesao, have argued that there were indeed no substantial differ-
ences at all in political procedures or even rulership during any of the various leaderships of the Heian
age. See his Nihon chūsei no kokusei to kasei.
10 Ishimoda Shō, “Kodai no tenkan ki toshite no jūsei ki.” I have benefitted from Sasaki Muneo’s Nihon
ōchō kokka ron, 3–8, for much of the survey of ōchō kokka scholarship.
11 Sakamoto Shōzō, Nihon ōchō kokka taisei ron, 3–7, 7–11; Ishimoda, Kodai makki, 26–39. In English, see
Hurst, “Kugyō and Zuryō,” 83–84.
12 The jin no sadame literally means “Council of the Guards,” named after the location where it was held
within the imperial palace.