t of lord high constable of the empire
(so-tsuihoshi), an office of immense importance, but differing
radically from that of sei-i tai-shogun in that, whereas the latter
had competence to adopt every measure he pleased without reference to
any superior authority, the former was required to consult the
Imperial Court before taking any step of a serious nature. The
Minamoto chief returned quietly to Kamakura, but he left many
powerful friends to promote his interests in Kyoto, and when
Go-Shirakawa died, in 1192, his grandson and successor, Go-Toba, a
boy of thirteen, had not occupied the throne more than three months
before the commission of sei-i tai-shogun was conveyed to Yoritomo by
special envoys. Thereafter it became the unwritten law of the empire
that the holder of this high post must be either the head of the
principal Minamoto family or an Imperial prince.

Never before had there been such encroachment upon the prerogatives
of the Crown. We have seen that, in the centuries antecedent to the
Daika (A.D. 645) reforms, the sovereign's contact with his subjects
had been solely through the medium of the o-omi or the o-muraji. By
these, the Imperial commands were transmitted and enforced, with such
modifications as circumstances might suggest, nor did the prerogative
of nominating the o-omi or the o-muraji belong practically to the
Throne. The Daika reforms, copying the Tang polity called into
existence a cabinet and a body of officials appointable or removable
by the sovereign at will, each entrusted with definite functions. But
almost before that centralized system had time to take root, the
Fujiwara grafted on it a modification which, in effect, substituted
their own family for the o-omi and the o-muraji of previous times.
And now, finally, came the Minamoto with their separate capital and
their sei-i tai-shogun, who exercised the military and administrative
powers of the empire with practically no reference to the Emperor.
Yoritomo himself was always willing and even careful to envelop his
own personality in a shadow of profound reverence towards the
occupant of the throne, but he was equally careful to preserve for
Kamakura the substance of power.

DEATH OF YORITOMO

Yoritomo lived only seven years after he had reached the summit of
his ambition. He received the commission of sei-i tai-shogun in the
spring of 1192, and, early in 1199, he was thrown from his horse and
killed, at the age of fifty-three. He had