The Goseibai Shikimoku (御成敗式目) or the Formulary of Adjudications was the legal code of the

Kamakura shogunate The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459. The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no Y ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, promulgated by third

shikken The was a titular post held by a member of the Hōjō clan, officially a regent of the shogunate, from 1199 to 1333, during the Kamakura period, and so he was head of the ''bakufu'' (shogunate). It was part of the era referred to as . During rou ...

Hōjō Yasutoki Hōjō Yasutoki (; 1183 – July 14, 1242) was the third ''shikken'' (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate in Japan. He strengthened the political system of the Hōjō regency. Life He was the eldest son of second ''shikken'' Hōjō Yoshitoki. Acc ...

on 27 August 1232. It is also called Jōei Shikimoku (貞永式目) after the

era name A regnal year is a year of the reign of a sovereign, from the Latin ''regnum'' meaning kingdom, rule. Regnal years considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. For example, a monarch could have a first year of rule, a second year o ...

. Before enacting the Goseibai Shikimoku, the Kamakura shogunate conducted trials without formal laws. After the

Jōkyū War , also known as the Jōkyū Disturbance or the Jōkyū Rebellion, was fought in Japan between the forces of Retired Emperor Go-Toba and those of the Hōjō clan, regents of the Kamakura shogunate, whom the retired emperor was trying to overthr ...

, an increasing number of land disputes between its

vassals A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. W ...

, aristocrats and peasants made fair trials indispensable. Thereafter Hōjō Yasutoki compiled the outline with 51 article headings and 13 Hyojoshu (councilors) completed it. Supplementary articles to the Goseibai Shikimoku, called Tsuika (追加), were issued afterward. The

Muromachi shogunate The , also known as the , was the feudal military government of Japan during the Muromachi period from 1336 to 1573.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Muromachi-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 669. The Ashikaga shogunate was establis ...

also adopted the Goseibai Shikimoku as the basic law. The Goseibai Shikimoku was largely repealed during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, though parts of it stayed in used until 1868, but was widely used as a textbook for writing in temple schools.

References

{{Japan-law-stub Legal history of Japan