ch the Imperial Court was reduced
during the time of the Muromachi shoguns have been already described.
Both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi made some endeavours to
correct this evil state of affairs, and when Tokugawa Ieyasu came
into power he adopted still more liberal methods. In 1604, he
increased the revenue of the Court by 10,000 koku annually, and in
the course of the next few years he caused the palace to be rebuilt
on a scale of considerable grandeur. The same policy was pursued by
the second shogun, Hidetada, who assigned to the ex-Emperor an income
of 3000 koku and made various allowances to princes and other members
of the Imperial family. The recipients of these allowances totalled
140, and it is on record that, in the year 1706, the revenues of the
Imperial Court aggregated 29,000 koku; those of the ex-Emperor
15,000; those of the princes and Court nobles, 44,000; those of the
Monzeki* temples, 19,000; those of the Court ladies and Imperial
nuns, 7500, and those of the Court officials 2300, the whole making a
total of about 120,000 koku. The income of the retired shogun alone
equalled that amount, and it was enormously surpassed by the revenues
of many of the daimyo. It must be noted, however, that although the
rice provided for the above purposes was made a charge upon the Kinai
provinces as well as upon Tamba and Omi, neither to the Emperor nor
to the Imperial princes nor to the Court nobles were estates granted
directly. These incomes were collected and transmitted by officials
of the Bakufu, but not a tsubo of land was under the control of
either sovereign or prince.

*Temples governed by Imperial princes.

Military affairs, civil administration, financial management,
including the casting of coins, judicial and legislative affairs, the
superintendence of temples, and so forth, were all in the hands of
the Bakufu in Yedo or of provincial officials nominated by the
shogun. Nothing could have been more complete than the exclusion of
the Kyoto Court from the whole realm of practical government; nor
could any system have contrasted more flagrantly with the theory of
the Daika reforms, according to which every acre of land throughout
the length and breadth of the empire was the property of the
sovereign. It might have been expected that the Tokugawa shoguns
would at least have endeavoured to soften this administrative
effacement by pecuniary generosity; but so little of that quality did
they display