Heian

  General Description   The Heian period (794-1185 CE) began when the Emperor Kammu (r. 781-806 CE) moved the capital from Nara to Heian (Kyoto) in 794 CE. The imperial court maintained centralized control over the main islands of Japan and was the centre of a vast, highly bureaucratic administration system. ^{[1] [2]} The period’s peak can be considered to run from 794 to 930 CE, a phase of prosperity and cultural and artistic florescence. ^[3] However, the imperial court’s isolation from the realities of government, elaborate internal power dynamics and court intrigues eventually weakened the central government and contributed to the rise of the provincial warrior class. ^[4] The period ends with the establishment of the Kamakura Shogunate.
Population and political organization
Beginning in the proceeding Nara period, the imperial court had based its bureaucratic system on that of the ’statutory’ (ritsuryō) regime of the Chinese T’ang court. The Nara style of administration continued to be implemented by the Heian emperors until the 850s CE. While the government still maintained ’the conception and rhetoric of Confucian government’, its functions were carried out by other means, with increased competition for offices, and, due to the dominance of the Fujiwara family, an increasingly narrow focus on factional concerns. ^{[5] [6]} Although knowledge of Chinese culture had been considered the mark of a cultured individual for much of the Heian period, by its end a distinctly Japanese cultural identity had started to emerge. ^[7]
Over the course of the Heian period, the imperial family and nobility became increasingly divorced from the realities of government, preoccupying themselves with ’dilettantish pastimes’ and matters of protocol above matters of state. While this led to a florescence of the arts and the refinement of etiquette, it also indirectly allowed the provincial warrior class to increase their power because the day-to-day tasks of governance in the provinces were left to them. ^[8] Another factor in the rise and consolidation of power by the warrior class at the expense of the nobility was the changing patterns of land ownership. By the late 10th century CE, with the end of public land allotment, private land ownership had proliferated, much of which was exempt from taxation, significantly affecting the revenue of the government. The nobles’ presence at court meant that vast private land holdings were controlled by estate managers on behalf of absentee landlords - further weakening the centralized government and contributing to the emergence of feudalism in Japan. ^{[9] [10]} The personal power of the emperors also waned throughout the period, with the rising prominence of imperial regents, consolidating the power of the Fujiwara family, and the early abdication of emperors in attempts to form a ’cloister government’ to counter the Fujiwara regents’ control of young puppet rulers. ^[4]
The institution of a standing army of professional warriors contributed to the rise of a class of militarized landed gentry in the provinces. This in turn laid the foundation for the rise of the shogunate, the military government which would dominate Japan until the 1800s, leaving the emperor as little more than a figurehead. ^[11]
The polity population ranged from roughly four million in 800 CE to five or six million by 1100 CE. ^{[12] [13]} Kyoto became the largest settlement, with an estimated population of 200,000 from 800 to 925 CE; 175,000 in the 11th century; and 150,000 by 1150 CE. ^[14]

[1]: (Deal 2005, 89) William E. Deal. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[2]: (Mason 2011, 67) Richard H. P. Mason. 2011. A History of Japan. Revised ed. New York: Tuttle Publishing.

[3]: (Shively and McCullough 2008, 1-2) Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[4]: (Henshall 2012, 29-30) Kenneth Henshall. 2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[5]: (Shively and McCullough 2008, 342-43) Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[6]: (Mason 2011, 64) Richard H. P. Mason. 2011. A History of Japan. Revised ed. New York: Tuttle Publishing.

[7]: (Henshall 2012, 30) Kenneth Henshall. 2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[8]: (Henshall 2012, 28-29) Kenneth Henshall. 2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[9]: (Mason 2011, 76) Richard H. P. Mason. 2011. A History of Japan. Revised ed. New York: Tuttle Publishing.

[10]: (Henshall 2012, 29) Kenneth Henshall. 2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. 3rd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[11]: (Lorge 2011, 47) P. A. Lorge. 2008. The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[12]: (Farris 2006, 9) William Wayne Farris. 2006. Japan’s Medieval Population: Famine, Fertility, and Warfare in a Transformative Age. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

[13]: (McEvedy and Jones 1978, 181) Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones. 1978. Atlas of World Population History. London: Penguin Books.

[14]: (Chandler 1987) Tertius Chandler. 1987. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.