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. Before enacting the Goseibai Shikimoku, the Kamakura shogunate conducted trials without formal laws. After the Jōkyū War, 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 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 The Goseibai Shikimoku was largely repealed during the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