e second, though
the above eight sei were established, not every uji was necessarily
granted a title. Only the most important received that distinction,
and even these found themselves relegated to a comparatively low
place on the list. All the rest, however, were permitted to use their
old, but now depreciated kabane, and no change was made in the
traditional custom of entrusting the management of each uji's affairs
to its own Kami. But, in order to guard against the abuses of the
hereditary right, an uji no Kami ceased in certain cases to succeed
by birthright and became elective, the election requiring Imperial
endorsement.

The effect of these measures was almost revolutionary. They changed
the whole fabric of the Japanese polity. But in spite of all Temmu's
precautions to accomplish the centralization of power, success was
menaced by a factor which could scarcely have been controlled. The
arable lands in the home provinces at that time probably did not
exceed 130,000 acres, and the food stuffs produced cannot have
sufficed for more than a million persons. As for the forests, their
capacities were ill developed, and thus it fell out that the
sustenance fiefs granted to omi and muraji of the lower grades did
not exceed a few acres. Gradually, as families multiplied, the
conditions of life became too straightened in such circumstances, and
relief began to be sought in provincial appointments, which furnished
opportunities for getting possession of land. It was in this way that
local magnates had their origin and the seeds of genuine feudalism
were sown. Another direction in which success fell short of purpose
was in the matter of the hereditary guilds (be). The Daika reforms
had aimed at converting everyone in the empire into a veritable unit
of the nation, not a mere member of an uji or a tomobe. But it proved
impossible to carry out this system in the case of the tomobe (called
also kakibe), or labouring element of the uji, and the yakabe, or
domestic servants of a family. To these their old status had to be
left.

THE FORTY-FIRST SOVEREIGN, THE EMPRESS JITO (A.D. 690-697)

The Emperor Temmu died in 686, and the throne remained nominally
unoccupied until 690. A similar interregnum had separated the
accession of Tenchi from the death of his predecessor, the Empress
Saimei, and both events were due to a cognate cause. Tenchi did not
wish that his reforms should be directly associated with the Throne
until their s