Ujigawa: How to Police the Police?

In 1221, the Retired Emperor Go-Toba ordered the execution of Hōjō Yoshitoki, the de facto leader of the Kamakura shogunate. In so doing, he set off what became known as the Jōkyū Disturbance. Within weeks, Kamakura forces defeated Go-Toba’s army of purported imperial loyalists, capping their victory at Ujigawa. And yet, even after the shogunal forces occupied Kyoto and removed any martial threat to their ascendancy, they opted against a total military takeover. Instead, the shogunate pursued polices of institutionalization, and systematized Kamakura authority into a countrywide administration for the first time. Key to these efforts were the shogunate’s first written laws (known as tsuika-hō). The shogunate appointed new police officials (shinpo jitō) across the country, but through legislation, put firm limits on its men on the heels of their military triumph, revealing the immediate priorities of the shogunate’s leaders, as well as more involved and complex relationships between Kamakura and the imperial court, aristocracy, and religious institutions. This paper argues that Kamakura leaders sought foremost to preserve the political, social, and economic structures that the shogunate’s emergence had once threatened. It also illustrates the significant lasting legacies that evolved out of what was first a practical necessity. While these laws served these immediate administrative needs, they ultimately led to the development of an efficient, functional judicial system, which became not only the defining feature of Kamakura administration, but also transcended the life of the shogunate and set the standard for over 600 years of warrior jurisprudence.