- Other Names: 国大名 (kuni daimyô), 国持衆 (kunimochi shuu)
- Japanese: 国持 (kunimochi), 国持大名 (kunimochi daimyô)
Kunimochi, literally "province-holding", was the highest of five tiers of status for Edo period daimyô.[1] The eighteen to twenty daimyô who enjoyed this level of status were the tier just below those of the Gosanke, the three branch families of the shogun's own Tokugawa clan. While all daimyô enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy, with the shogunate generally not meddling in domain's internal affairs, the shogunate is said to have been particularly hesitant to interfere in the affairs of the powerful kunimochi daimyô.[2]
In concept, these were the daimyô who possessed either an entire province, or a contiguous domain of equivalent geographic size; these eighteen to twenty domains, combined, covered roughly 1/3 of the land area of the Japanese archipelago.[2] However, despite the literal meaning of the term kunimochi, extremely few Edo period daimyô actually controlled an entire province. Some kunimochi daimyô, furthermore, were granted the title honorarily, and in fact held domains considerably smaller and less wealthy than other kunimochi daimyô. These weaker daimyô were known as jun-kunimochi (準国持), or "quasi-kunimochi, and held a status just slightly below that of other kunimochi daimyô, but within the same tier of status ranking, above those without kunimochi or junkunimochi status.
The term was also employed in the Muromachi period, but in a different fashion. Shugo ("governors") of domains in Muromachi Japan were expected to use kunimochi individuals as their intermediaries when communicating with the Ashikaga shogunate. The kunimochi at this time were much fewer: the Hosokawa clan were the kunimochi for the Kantô region and Shikoku, the Yamana clan were kunimochi for Ise, Kai, and Suruga provinces, and the Hatakeyama clan were the kunimochi for Shinano, Echigo, Etchû, and Kaga provinces, while the Kyushu tandai served the role for the island of Kyushu.[3]
Kunimochi Daimyô
Junkunimochi Daimyô
References
- "Junkunimochi." Digital Daijisen デジタル大辞泉. Shogakukan, Inc.
- "Kunimochi daimyô." Digital Daijisen デジタル大辞泉. Shogakukan, Inc.
- "Kunimochi daimyô." Daijirin 大辞林. Sanseido, Inc.
- ↑ Beasley, William. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford University Press, 1972. pp23-24.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mark Ravina, Land and Lordship in Early Modern Japan, Stanford University Press (1999), 3.
- ↑ Brinkley, Frank and Dairoku Kikuchi. A history of the Japanese people from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji era. Encyclopedia Brittanica Co., 1915. p436.
- ↑ Roberts, Luke. Performing the Great Peace: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan. University of Hawaii Press, 2012. p114.