Heian-kyo ̄: from royal center to metropoleThe resulting militarization meant that Kiyomori could afford his own more sumptuous resid-
ence and storehouses in Rokuhara as well as in the west Eighth Ward, where Kiyomori’s pre-
cincts are said to have included up to fifty buildings in a zone 120 meters square.^58 After quarrels
with the monarch Go- Shirakawa and success in putting his own grandson on the throne as Go-
Shirakawa’s successor in 1180, Kiyomori was in position to propose moving the capital away
from Heian, to the port at Ōwada (Fukuhara), in today’s Kobe on the Inland Sea. The plan failed,
however, as did the attempt by Kiyomori and his heir to maintain court leadership, with the
result that Heian- kyō remained the capital throughout the medieval age and beyond.
Moving from uptown to downtown in the Left Capital, Nishiyama Ryōhei has used a wide
array of evidence from didactic tales (setsuwa), ritual handbooks, courtier journals, chronicles,
dictionaries, illustrated scrolls, and archaeological reports to reconstruct images of the lifeways of
commoner households in the Fifth Ward and below.^59 While the old wards of the earlier ritsuryō
capital had walled- in residents with guards at gates (bōmon) and strict controls, by later Heian
times neighborhoods in the lower capital had residents openly facing each other across main
streets. Indeed the mid- twelfth-century dictionary Iroha jiruisho identifies homes in these neigh-
borhoods as machiya, “shop- keepers’ houses.”^60 Our best images of these houses come from the
late twelfth- century Nenjūgyōji emaki (“Illustrated Scroll of Annual Court Events”) that was com-
missioned by the retired monarch Go- Shirakawa.^61 Nishiyama has concluded that by later Heian
times patriarchal house- heads came to exercise strong decision- making rights for their homes and
property—in other words, this era saw the emergence of patriarchal marriage and family struc-
tures in the capital—while such househeads also joined together to respond to fires, robbers, and
street fighting.^62 Those without homes were coming to be considered “non- human” (hinin; see
Chapter 19). They were organized in camps (shuku) along with orphans and the indigent sick.
Nishiyama’s research shows a darker side of the “glorious Heian- kyō” image so familiar to readers
of courtly narratives like The Tale of Genji.
Conclusion
Yamanaka Akira’s five- stage model of urban development in Japan’s royal centers provides the
context and trajectories that are the focus of current research on Heian- period Kyoto. We have
seen that the capital was established by Kanmu in 794. According to the ritsuryō codes, the palace
and royal officials were its primary residents; and their status, livelihoods, and provisioning were
all controlled by the royal government, which they themselves constituted. Provisioning needs
were met by tax stuffs and court- associated specialists.
Over time, however, the ritsuryō command economy proved unwieldy and inefficient, a cir-
culating economy quickened, and urban aristocrats and middling officials found ways to create
patronage relations with elites in the provinces to better meet their own needs. The court also
shifted more of the maintenance and policing of the capital to great aristocratic households. In
time those households recruited specialists who once had served the palace exclusively, further
weakening codal structures. And by the last half of the tenth century the palace itself became less
focal, since it was no longer the monarch’s permanent residence and administrative center. That
is why today when one seeks “the royal palace” in Kyoto, it is not the original palace of the ninth
and early tenth centuries—today’s royal palace is an old town palace, and the grand Suzaku
Avenue (now Senbon- dōri because it is so narrow) is hard to identify. And as urban aristocrats
came to depend more on livelihood from estates in the provinces, they organized patronage net-
works that stretched down to local managers and cultivators. Throughout, the court aristocracy
grew wealthier and more influential, and the capital became more open due to the diverse and
diffuse power relations.