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 ...

in Japan, promulgated by third shikken Hōjō Yasutoki 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 of ...

. 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 overthrow ...

, an increasing number of land disputes between its vassals, 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 The Goseibai Shikimoku was largely repealed during the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 characte ...

, 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