renced the Throne and supported the
institutions of the State; a noteworthy feature in the context of the
fact that, except during brief intervals, the wielder of the sceptre
in Japan never possessed competence to enforce his mandates but was
always dependent in that respect on the voluntary co-operation of
influential subjects.

In the Sengoku period the fortunes of the Imperial Court fell to
their lowest ebb. The Crown lands lay in the provinces of Noto, Kaga,
Echizen, Tamba, Mino, and so forth, and when the wave of warfare
spread over the country, these estates passed into the hands of
military magnates who absorbed the taxes into their own treasuries,
and the collectors sent by the Court could not obtain more than a
small percentage of the proper amount. The exchequer of the Muromachi
Bakufu suffered from a similar cause, and was further depleted by
extravagance, so that no aid could be obtained from that source. Even
worse was the case with the provincial manors of the Court nobles,
who were ultimately driven to leave the capital and establish direct
connexion with their properties. Thus, the Ichijo family went to
Tosa; the Ane-no-koji to Hida, and when Ouchi Yoshioki retired to
Suwo on resigning his office (kwanryo), many Court magnates who had
benefitted by his generosity in Kyoto followed him southward.

So impoverished was the Imperial exchequer that, in the year 1500,
when the Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado died, the corpse lay for forty days
in a darkened room of the palace, funds to conduct the funeral rites
not being available. Money was finally provided by Sasaki Takayori,
and in recognition of his munificence he was authorized to use the
Imperial crest (chrysanthemum and Paulownia); was granted the right
of entree to the palace, and received an autographic volume from the
pen of the Emperor Go-Kogon. If there was no money to bury
Go-Tsuchimikado, neither were any funds available to perform the
coronation of his successor, Go-Kashiwabara. Muromachi made a futile
attempt to levy contributions from the daimyo, and the kwanryo,
Hosokawa Masamoto, is recorded to have brusquely said, in effect,
that the country could be administered without crowning any
sovereign. Twenty years passed before the ceremony could be
performed, and means were ultimately (1520) furnished by the Buddhist
priest Koken--son of the celebrated Rennyo Shonin, prelate of the
Shin sect--who, out of the abundant gifts of his disciples, placed at