The temple and shrine corporations

Who rules

Name

not one person: the zasu of Enryakuji, the bettō of Kōfukuji, the daikanjin of Tōdaiji and the abbots and chief priests named in each record

Title

Corporations of monks and priests (kenmon jisha)

Family

The abbacies of Kōfukuji, Enryakuji, Ninnaji and Daigoji go to sons of the regent houses and of the imperial house

Confidence

medium

Each corporation has its own record below; this record explains the layer they form together.

Overlord

none in law; each answers to the court for its offices and to its patrons for its estates

What the realm holds

• Yamato, held in effect by Kōfukuji and Kasuga
• The west shore of Lake Biwa from Sakamoto to Ōtsu (Enryakuji)
• Kōyasan and its estates in Kii, Bingo (Ōta-no-shō) and elsewhere
• The Kumano shrines' lands and pilgrim stations in southern Kii
• Suō, whose revenues Tōdaiji draws for the Great Buddha Hall (Chōgen)
• Kyūshū estates of Usa, Aso, Munakata and Hakozaki

How it was acquired

Over three centuries by gift: emperors, regents and provincial governors gave estates to win prayers. The burning of Nara by the Taira in 1180 did not break the corporations.

Allies and rivals

Enryakuji against Onjōji is the oldest quarrel; Enryakuji against Kōfukuji the most dangerous; Kōfukuji against Tōnomine and others is chronic. Tōdaiji's rebuilding has bound Chōgen to both court and Kamakura. Kamakura has been the patron of Tōdaiji and of Eisai's Zen but has not touched the old corporations.

The realm that morning

Standing feuds: Enryakuji against Onjōji; Kōfukuji against Enryakuji; Kōfukuji against Tōnomine. No corporation has yet been broken by a warrior; the campaign board's 'thousands of monk soldiers' is a mood, not a count. Rebuilding: Tōdaiji's Great Buddha Hall was dedicated in 1195 with Yoritomo present, the South Great Gate is raised in 1199 and its guardian figures are carved in 1203 (later); Kōfukuji is still rebuilding after 1180.

Wealth

Estate rents in rice and cloth, salt and timber, tolls on the Lake Biwa and Inland Sea ports, pilgrim offerings (Kumano, Kōyasan, Ise), and loans.

Military

Warrior monks and estate men, called out for armed petitions and feuds; no corporation fields an army against a warrior government, and none has been tested by one since 1185. No numbers are given.

Threats

• Quarrels among the corporations themselves
• A Kamakura or a cloistered emperor who decides to appoint constables in Yamato or to seize estates (not before the 1200s)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. Shōji 2 (1200), month not knownEisai founds Jufukuji at Kamakura; Enryakuji's hostility to Zen remainsDepends on: Masako's patronage Stopped by: Enryakuji petitions to ban it

Later, on the likely course

1. Kennin 1 (1201)Shinran leaves Mount Hiei; Jien returns as Tendai headDepends on: Hiei politics Stopped by: n/a
2. 1203, and 1206Tōdaiji's South Great Gate guardian figures are carved (1203); Chōgen dies (1206)Depends on: The court's and Kamakura's support for Tōdaiji Stopped by: n/a

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Each corporation is documented by long runs of estate papers; the figures in the sources are not used here. The English Wikipedia pages are thin on 1200, so most detail is recollection of the standard studies, marked by confidence.

On the map: The colour temples is used only where one corporation is effective lord of a district or province (Yamato, the Biwa shore, Kōya, Suō, Kumano); the rest of their estates are scattered and are shown as points.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Hundred Times Refined Extracts: court annals (late thirteenth century, from court diaries). Short dated annals of the imperial court excerpted from courtiers' diaries, among them the Gyokuyo and the Meigetsuki. Read online
• Mirror of the East, Anonymous; compiled by officials of the Kamakura shogunate (compiled about 1300 from the shogunate's records, diaries and family documents). The Kamakura house's own chronicle, in daily entries. Read online
• Jottings of a Fool: an interpretative history of Japan, Jien (慈円) (about 1219 to 1220, revised to about 1223). A history by Kujo Kanezane's brother, head of the Tendai school and the leading churchman of the court, written to explain the fall of the Kujo and the rise of the warriors as the working of principle (dori). Read online
• Leaves of Jade: the diary of Kujo Kanezane, Kujo (Fujiwara) Kanezane (九條兼實) (1164 to 1200, as a daily diary). The diary of the former regent, Yoritomo's ally at court, who had been driven from power in the Kenkyu purge of 1196 and lived in retirement in 1200. Read online
• Record of the Bright Moon: the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家) (1180 to 1235, as a daily diary, with gaps). The diary of the poet and courtier, then thirty-eight and a middle-ranking official of the Kujo house. Read online
• Surviving Documents of the Kamakura Period, Various; collected by Takeuchi Rizo (竹内理三) (documents of 1185 to 1333, collected and printed 1971 to 1997). The collected charters, deeds, court orders, shogunal directives, temple records and land registers of the Kamakura age, printed in date order. Read online
• The Tale of the Heike, Anonymous; traditionally attributed to Shinano no Zenji Yukinaga, performed and reshaped by blind reciters (early thirteenth century in its first form; the standard Kakuichi text was fixed in 1371). The epic of the Genpei war, in the form the reciters gave it over the century after 1200. Read online