of the Court ladies, the lowest was fifty koku and the highest
three hundred.

The occasion was utilized by Hideyoshi for an important ceremony,
which amounted to a public recognition of his own supremacy. A
written oath was signed and sealed by six great barons, of whom the
first four represented the Toyotomi (Hideyoshi's) family and the last
two were Ieyasu and Nobukatsu. The signatories of this oath solemnly
bound themselves to respect eternally the estates and possessions of
the members of the Imperial house, of the Court nobles, and of the
Imperial princes, and further to obey faithfully all commands issued
by the regent. This obligation was guaranteed by invoking the curse
of all the guardian deities of the empire on the head of anyone
violating the engagement. A similar solemn pledge in writing was
signed by twenty-two of the great military barons.

THE KITANO FETE

The esoterics of the tea ceremonial and the vogue it obtained in the
days of the shogun Yoshimasa, have already been described. But note
must be taken here of the extraordinary zeal displayed by Hideyoshi
in this matter. Some claim that his motive was mainly political;
others that he was influenced by purely esthetic sentiments, and
others, again, that both feelings were responsible in an equal
degree. There is no material for an exact analysis. He doubtless
appreciated the point of view of the historian who wrote that
"between flogging a war-steed along the way to death and discussing
esthetic canons over a cup of tea in a little chamber nine feet
square, there was a radical difference." But it must also have
appealed keenly to his fancy that he, a veritable upstart, by birth a
plebeian and by habit a soldier, should ultimately set the lead in
artistic fashions to the greatest aristocrats in the empire in a cult
essentially pacific.

However these things may have been, the fact remains that on the 1st
of November, 1587, there was organized by his orders on the Pine
Plain (Matsubara) of Kitano a cha-no-yu fete of unprecedented
magnitude. The date of the fete was placarded in Kyoto, Nara, Osaka,
Sakai, and other towns of importance more than a month in advance;
all lovers of the tea cult were invited, whether plebeian or
patrician, whether rich or poor; frugality was enjoined, and the
proclamations promised that the choicest among the objects of art
collected by Hideyoshi during many decades should be exhibited. It is
recorded that over 360 perso