L. Butler
Scholars argued from the premise that emperor and court were bound to continue and that
ultimate political supremacy lay with them. They thus ignored actual relationships and
based their claims on random guesses. Hence the illusion was born that the greatest test case
for warrior government lay fully with the decision either to reject or submit to the emper-
or’s authority.^23When the shift in scholarship on the late medieval court finally came, it was sudden and far-
reaching. There were hints of a change in the early 1980s, but it was at the end of the decade—
coinciding by chance with the death of Emperor Hirohito—that a flood of new work appeared.
And in almost every way it was different from scholarship that preceded it: first, the court was
made a viable topic of study, whether as a political institution, a social body, a center of art and
culture, or a power within the kenmon (elite) structure; moreover, scholarship was no longer
concerned just with a few key turning points, such as the transition to early modern rule, or upon
relations with the warriors; second, historians at last began to make use of the numerous and rich
courtier diaries of the period, as well as noble house documents and other sources; third, scholar-
ship was generally narrow and rigorous; broader arguments would follow, but there was clearly
a new concern for hard evidence.
A listing of a handful of the many articles produced by Japanese scholars during these years
(most during the 1990s) provides an idea of the wealth and diversity of new research (here I
provide just English translations of the titles; see the References section for the original Japanese):
Tomita Masahiro, “The Muromachi Shoguns and the Emperor”; Tomita Masahiro, “Edicts of
the Retired Emperor and Emperor in the Period following the Kakitsu Incident [1441]”; Yoshino
Fusae, “Palace Women in the Muromachi Era”; Yukawa Toshiharu, “The Konoe Family Estate
of Usaka, Echizen Province”; Okuno Takahiro, “Imperially Commissioned Temples and Priestly
Robes”; Itō Masako, “Courtiers in the Provinces during the Sengoku Era”; Ike Susumu, “A
Reconsideration of the Practice of Granting Court Ranks to Warriors”; Hashimoto Masanobu,
“Yamashina Tokitsugu’s Activities Around the Time of Nobunaga’s March on Kyoto”; Hashi-
moto Masanobu, “Chancellor Konoe Sakihisa’s Flight from Kyoto”; Tachibana Kyōko, “Con-
cerning the Recommendation that Nobunaga be Appointed to One of Three Offices [grand
chancellor, chancellor, or shogun]”; Tachibana Kyōko, “The Honnōji Incident and the Court.”
Each of these essays shed considerable light on the activities and influence of the court during
the late medieval and sengoku eras. For example, Okuno’s piece on “imperially commissioned
temples” (chokuganji) showed how court authority grew in the sixteenth century as temples
increasingly sought this designation from the emperor, with the rights and protections that came
with that (and for which they paid considerable sums). The studies by Hashimoto Masanobu
addressed narrower issues, including Yamashina Tokitsugu’s skillful negotiations with (if not
manipulation of ) Ashikaga Yoshiaki at the time of Oda Nobunaga’s 1568 march into Kyoto, and
Konoe Sakihisa’s extensive political and military activities, such as his part in the “anti- Nobunaga
league.” For her part, Tachibana Kyōko was able to show that it was highly likely that Nobunaga
was the one who recommended that the court offer him one of three high offices, and more con-
troversially, that the court may have had a role in the Honnōji Incident, which resulted in Nobu-
naga’s death.
This explosion of research revealed not just how fully earlier scholars had ignored the court
and the sources concerning it, but also how sharply and quickly scholars had begun to rethink the
assumptions of previous decades. The range of topics also made clear that the sources allowed
research from many angles. Court relations with warriors was one significant trend, but by no
means the dominant one. The court itself—as well as individuals, families, and groups within
it—was a viable and meaningful topic of study.