were medieval territory stewards in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, especially in the

Kamakura , officially , is a city of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. It is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 people per km2 over the tota ...

and

Muromachi The , also known as the , is a division of History of Japan, Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Ashikaga shogunate, Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially establ ...

shogunates. Appointed by the

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

, ''jitō'' managed manors, including national holdings governed by the '' kokushi'' or provincial governor. There were also deputy jitōs called ''jitōdai''.

History

The term ''jitō'' (literally meaning "land head") began to be used in the late

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

as an adjectival word. For example, a jitō person (地頭人) meant an influential local. Later, the term was sometimes used for persons who managed each local manor. Modern historians cannot clarify the character of the early ''jitō'' appointed by

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, ruling from 1192 until 1199, also the first ruling shogun in the history of Japan.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako ...

, as the conditions of these precursors are not well known. ''Jitō'' were officially established when Minamoto no Yoritomo was appointed to oversee their ennoblement by the Imperial court following his successful usurpation of power. Yoritomo appointed many ''jitō'' nationwide, mainly in the

Kantō region The is a geography, geographical region of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. In a common definition, the region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures of Japan, prefectures: Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Gunma Prefe ...

. During the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

, the ''jitō'' were chosen amongst the ranks of ''

gokenin A was initially a vassal of the shogunate of the Kamakura and the Muromachi periods.Iwanami Kōjien, "Gokenin" In exchange for protection and the right to become '' jitō'' (manor's lord), a ''gokenin'' had in times of peace the duty to protect ...

'' (the shogun's vassals) who handled military affairs. ''Jitō'' handled the taxation and administration of the manor to which they were appointed, and directly administered the lands and the farmers of the manor. After the Jōkyū War in 1221, the shogunate appointed many ''jitō'' in Western Japan to the land that the people of the losing side and imperial court had possessed. At that time, many prominent ''

'', including the Mori clan and the Ōtomo clan, moved from the east to the west. The role of ''jitō'' was officially abolished in the late of 16th century by

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

, one of the "three great unifiers of Japan". The elimination of the ''jitō'' caste removed Imperial recognition and support from dozens of small warlords and weakened the intense rivalries that had fueled centuries of civil conflict, thus enabling the more easily controlled and reliable '' daimyo'' to consolidate ownership of the land. This, in turn, laid the foundations for the last major feudal era of Japan, the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

References

Government of feudal Japan Medieval occupations {{Job-stub