The imperial court in medieval Japanthe Muromachi era. Something about it mattered, at least Yoshimitsu thought it did, given his
actions; but pinpointing what that consisted of is not a simple matter.
Another issue raised by Imatani is the idea of ōken, “kingly authority” or “sovereignty.”
Although he does not address it in his English- language article, sovereignty is a basic part of his
book, as seen in the title, Muromachi no ōken. As Kondō Shigekazu points out, the term has received
considerable attention at a theoretical level, with scholars debating its significance and relevance,
the question of with whom it resided, and how and when it shifted—that is, from tennō to retired
emperor to shogun—or if in fact it did not shift but instead remained with the tennō in an abstract
sense.^11 Of course, most historians will argue that for much of classical and medieval Japan, sover-
eignty could not be reduced to the person of the emperor. Despite the decision in ancient times
to establish the tennō in the manner of the Chinese Son of Heaven, in practice few Japanese
emperors wielded power and authority that could be defined as sovereign—absolute and exclu-
sive. Although Imatani seems to suggest that if Yoshimitsu had succeeded in his quest to make
emperor and shogun one, the Ashikaga heads would have been endowed with “kingly authority”
of a new magnitude, one wonders how that would have been manifest. Would that authority, for
example, have redounded to their benefit in any practical fashion (such as giving Yoshimitsu and
his successors more power to deal with recalicitrant military governors)? Or would it have made
the regime impervious to the forces that emphatically undermined it just a few decades after
Yoshimitsu’s death? The answers seems obvious: certainly not.^12
The medieval court in imperial Japan
Japan’s new modern state, and the ideologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
that supported it, allowed little room for critical interpretations of emperor and court of any age,
including the medieval era. As the symbol, indeed the essence, of both the Japanese state and
people, the emperor was sacrosanct, something that was expected to be reflected in scholarship.
One approach some historians took was to discover “imperial loyalists” of earlier eras, individu-
als such as Tateri Munetsugu (1528–1622), who worked in the imperial warehouses during the
bleak years of the sengoku era.^13 That same strain of deep respect for the emperor extended even
to men like Oda Nobunaga, as argued in an article entitled “Nobunaga no kinnō” or “Nobunaga’s
Loyalty to the Throne,” published by Yoshikawa Teijirō in 1915.^14 This was clearly a different
Nobunaga from the one who would show up in postwar scholarship.
Another possibility for scholars inclined to follow the chauvinistic tendencies of the era was
to consider the positive historical influences of the emperors. If the Japanese character was unique,
what better place to find the source of that than in the unbroken line of emperors? Representa-
tive works included Tsuji Zennosuke’s Kōshitsu to Nihon seishin (The Imperial House and the
Japanese Soul), published in 1936.^15 Unlike the staid and frustratingly vague titles of serious
research put out by many presses in Japan today, Tsuji’s title leaves no doubt as to the sorts of
arguments he intended to make.
Despite the restricted political atmosphere, some scholars still made significant contributions
to scholarship on the medieval court. A good example is Okuno Takahiro’s Kōshitsu gokeizaishi no
kenkyū (“A Study of Imperial House Economics”), published in two volumes in 1942 and 1944.
A work of extensive research, Okuno’s study is particularly thorough for the late medieval era.
Noteworthy, too, is the fact that the only jingoistic references appear in the Introduction to the
second volume, suggesting perhaps that Okuno was pressured to make up for omissions in
Volume I. In any event, he provided typical platitudes—such as “The 3000-year radiance of our
nation’s history is centered upon the imperial line, the glory of our kokutai”—before moving
forward with his scholarly analysis.