Hatamoto

A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as . However, in the Edo period, were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the were the lower vassals. There was no precise difference between the two in terms of income level, but a had the right to an audience with the , whereas did not.Ogawa, p. 43. The word literally means "origin/base of the flag", with the sense of 'around the flag', it is described in Japanese as 'those who guard the flag' (on the battlefield) and is often translated into English as "bannerman". Another term for the Edo-era was , sometimes rendered as "direct shogunal ", which serves to illustrate the difference between them and the preceding generation of who served various lords.

History

The term originated in the Sengoku period. The term was used for the direct retainers of a lord; as the name suggests, the men who were grouped "around of the flag". Many lords had ; however, when the Tokugawa clan achieved ascendancy in 1600, its system was institutionalized, and it is that system which is chiefly referred to now when using the term.

In the eyes of the Tokugawa shogunate, were retainers who had served the family from its days in Mikawa onward.Ogawa, p. 35. However, the ranks of the also included people from outside the hereditary ranks of the Tokugawa house. Retainer families of defeated formerly grand families like the Takeda, Hōjō, or Imagawa were included, as were cadet branches of lord families. Also included were heirs to lords whose domains were confiscated, for example Asano Daigaku, the brother of Asano Naganori, local power figures in remote parts of the country who never became ; and the families of Kamakura and Muromachi periods (Governors): some of these include the Akamatsu, Besshō (branch of the Akamatsu), Hōjō, Hatakeyama, Kanamori (branch of the Toki), Imagawa, Mogami (branch of the Ashikaga), Nagai, Oda, Ōtomo, Takeda, Toki, Takenaka (branch of the Toki), Takigawa, Tsutsui, and Yamana families. The act of becoming a was known as .

Many fought in the Boshin War of 1868, on both sides of the conflict.

The remained retainers of the main Tokugawa clan after the fall of the shogunate in 1868, and followed the Tokugawa to their new domain of Shizuoka. The lost their status along with all other samurai in Japan following the abolition of the domains in 1871.

Ranks and roles

The division between and , especially amongst of lower rank, was not rigid, and the title of had more to do with rank rather than income rating. In the context of an army, it could be compared to the position of an officer. Throughout the Edo period, held the distinction that if they possessed high enough rank, they had the right to personal audience with the (these were known as ). All can be divided into two categories, the , who took their incomes straight from Tokugawa granaries, and the , who held land scattered throughout Japan. Another level of status distinction amongst the was the class of , men who were heads of families and held provincial fiefs, and had alternate attendance () duties like the . However, as were men of very high income in terms of the spectrum of stipends, not all had the duty of alternate attendance. The dividing line between the upper and the '—the domain lords who were also vassals of the Tokugawa house—was 10,000 .

At the beginning of the 18th century, about 5,000 samurai held the rank of ; over two thirds of these had an income of less than 400 koku and only about 100 earned 5,000 koku or more. A with 500 koku had seven permanent non-samurai servants, two swordsmen, a lancer, and an archer on standby.

Infrequently, some were granted an increase in income and thus promoted to the rank of . One example of such a promotion is the case of the Hayashi family of Kaibuchi (later known as Jōzai han), who began as but who became and went on to play a prominent role in the Boshin War, despite their domain's relatively small size of 10,000 .

The term for a with income of about 8,000 or greater was ("greater ").

The who lived in Edo resided in their own private districts and oversaw their own police work and security. Men from ranks could serve in a variety of roles in the Tokugawa administration, including service in the police force as inspectors, city magistrates, magistrates or tax collectors of direct Tokugawa house land, members of the council, and many other positions.Bolitho, p. 118.

The expression was in popular use to denote their numbers, but a 1722 study put their numbers at about 5,000. Adding the brought the number up to about 17,000.

Famous

Famous include Jidayu Koizumi, Nakahama Manjirō, Ōoka Tadasuke, Tōyama Kagemoto, Katsu Kaishū, Enomoto Takeaki, Hijikata Toshizō, Nagai Naoyuki, and the two Westerners William Adams and Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn.

and the martial arts

patronized the development of the martial arts in the Edo period; many of them were involved in the running of in the Edo area and elsewhere. Two who were directly involved in the development of the martial arts were Yagyū Munenori and Yamaoka Tesshū. Munenori's family became hereditary sword instructors to the .

In popular culture

appeared as figures in popular culture even before the Edo era ended. Recent depictions of include in the TV series , the manga , and Osamu Tezuka's manga . The real-time strategy video game series ''Age of Empires'' features in its '' Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties'' expansion, again in Age of Empires IV as Samurai Bannermen, in both games they are especially powerful variants of the samurai.

In the novel ''Shōgun'' (subject of a 1980 television series, and a 2024 remake), the protagonist Pilot John Blackthorne, loosely based on William Adams, eventually rises in the service of Lord Toranaga to become samurai and hatamoto.

Notes

References

* Bolitho, Harold. (1974). ''Treasures Among Men: The Fudai Daimyo in Tokugawa Japan''. New Haven: Yale University Press.
OCLC 185685588
* Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). ''Japan Encyclopedia''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
OCLC 48943301
* Ogawa, Kyōichi (2003). . Tokyo: Kōdansha. ()
* Ooms, Herman (1975). ''Charismatic Bureaucrat: a Political Biography of Matsudaira Sadanobu, 1758–1829''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ()
* Sasama, Yoshihiko (1995). . Tokyo: Kashiwa-shobō.

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