Edo castle

• Built: 1457, Ôta Dôkan
• Burnt:1657 (tenshu)
• Reconstructed: Showa period (yagura, Ôtemmon)
• Location:Musashi province
• Type:Flatland-Mountain
• Other Names: 千代田城 (Chiyoda-jou), 皇居 (koukyo)
• Japanese:江戸城(Edo-jou)

Edo castle was the center of government for the Tokugawa shogunate, and chief shogunal residence, during the Edo period. Since the Meiji period, it has served as the Imperial Palace.

History

First established by Ôta Dôkan in 1457, the castle was a secondary center of power within the Kantô, under Odawara castle, through much of the Sengoku period. Following the fall of Odawara in 1590, Tokugawa Ieyasu established Edo as his new center.

The castle then became the center of shogunal residence & rule, from 1603 onwards. It suffered severe damage from fire on a number of occasions, perhaps most grievously in the 1657 Great Meireki Fire, when the tenshu (main keep) was destroyed; the tenshu was never rebuilt.

Layout

The ôhiroma (great audience hall) was among the spaces closest to the entrance to the castle, and thus furthest from the center of the complex. It was used for audiences with foreign emissaries or powerful tozama daimyô, and for other highly formal ceremonies. By contrast, the shiroshoin ("white study / writing room"), closer to the castle's interior, was used for audiences with fudai daimyô and the shogun's relatives, while the kuroshoin ("black study / writing room"), closer still to the interior, was used for meetings with the shogun's most trusted retainers and highest-ranking officials.

The ôhiroma contained three platforms of different heights, called dan, allowing the shogun to sit not only at a distance from his formal visitors, but also physically above them. Wrapping around an inner garden, and thus forming a U-shape with the three dan, were three antechambers, known respectively as the ni-, san-, and yon-no-ma. The shiroshoin was arranged similarly, though on a smaller scale, with two dan, two audience rooms, and two antechambers.

Beyond these various audience halls lay the shogun's personal quarters, along with the Ôoku.

Links

• npo-edojo.org Rebuilding Edo castle association
• Photos

References

• Nihon no Meijo Kojo Jiten
• Anne Walthall, "Hiding the shoguns: Secrecy and the nature of political authority in Tokugawa Japan," in Bernard Scheid and Mark Teeuwen (eds.) The Culture of Secrecy in Japanese Religion, Routledge (2006), 334-336.