Japan ’ s Middle Ages

1. Japan’s Middle Ages • November 20, 2012

2. Review • What new peoples penetrated more deeply into Southeast Asia after 1200 or so? • What happened to Champa? • What sort of religious change do we see on the Southeast Asian mainland after 1100? • What sort of religious change do we see on the Southeast Asian mainland after 1100?

3. SE ASIA: The Vernacular • Both in maritime (sea-trading) and mainland Southeast Asia, vernacular scripts began to replace Sanskrit around 1,000-1,100 years ago. Most of those writing systems were imitations of the writing systems of South Asia, though Vietnam used Chinese characters instead. • We also see the beginning of the use of Arabic script among the Malays.

4. Southeast Asian society • Despite South Asian influence, no strong caste system. • In Islamic Southeast Asia, there was no purdah (seclusion of women) or even veiling of woman. • Women had more economic and social status among Malays than they did in the rest of Southeast Asia, but even mainland Southeast Asian women enjoyed greater autonomy and status (greater property rights and sexual freedom, for example) than did women in China. This is true even of Vietnam.

5. Agriculture and Trade • Pre-modern societies are primarily either agricultural or commercial oriented. All societies had both components, but some, such as maritime Southeast Asia, put more emphasis on trade than other societies did. • In maritime Southeast Asia (Java, Sumatra, Malaya), trade played a larger role in government revenues than it did anywhere else in Asia. Mainland Southeast Asia was primarily agricultural, though it placed more emphasis on trade than did East Asia or South Asia. • Despite the agricultural foundations of their societies, the states of South Asia and East Asia also had merchants engaged in both internal and foreign trade. However, since the rulers gained most of their revenue from agriculture, their societies should be regarded as primarily agricultural.

6. Japan after the Kamakura Shogunate • Three important sets of actors on this historical state: • warriors • the court (including civil aristocrats) • religious organizations • Emperor Go-Daigo and the attempt to restore the emperor to actual power. • The rise of the Ashikaga shogunate (based in Muromachi) • followed by civil war from 1467 (Warring States period)

7. Foreign trade partners • Ming China---Japan enrolls as a tributary partner • Korea --trade across the straits • the Ryūkyūs---the connection with Southeast Asia • Supported by more commerce within Japan, fuelled by greater agricultural productivity and by a growing use of coins.

8. Social change • unigeniture replaces inheritance by all sons and daughters • The rise to power of the daimyo (local feudal lords) • growth in the merchant and artisan classes • some social mobility within the military • women now live with their husband rather than their natal families. There is a greater distinction between the primary wife and secondary wives.

9. Buddhist secular power • temples take advantage of the decline in centralized political authority to use their land holdings and their large number of monks to act autonomously. • Zen becomes the most powerful form of Buddhism. • Some Buddhist groups (ikki) were strong enough to rise up against some daimyo and hold their own for a while.

10. Early Samurai Culture • The tea ceremony emerges • The distinctive style of Japanese landscape architecture emerges • And Japan develops its own form of opera: • New aesthetic vocabulary: yūgen (non-verbal beauty); • wabi (refined rusticity), and sabi (pleasantly old and worn, evoking melancholy)

11. Intra-Asian Trade networks • Silk Road overland and maritime trade in the early period. • The Mongol empire opened up more trans-Eurasian trade routes • Three actors in 15th-century trade: • Muslim merchants ---linked SE Asia with India • Overseas Chinese --linked SE Asia with China • Ryūkyūans --linked SE Asia with Japan, Korea, and China • After 1500, the Portuguese entered the Asian trading networks.

12. Okinawa (Ryūkyūs) • The Kingdom of the Ryūkyūs --from the late 14th century. • The inhabitants were not Japanese. • More influenced by China than Japan was.(36 immigrant families from Ming China were particularly influential) • Had tributary relations with China and Korea, traded with southern Japan and southeast Asia. • They were maritime traders who had little of their own to offer, so they survived on trading the goods others produced. • Probably had a population of around 200,000 • Later, they introduced the shamisen, karate, and the sweet potato to Japan.