Conclusion

The classical ideal had been under siege for centuries prior to the outbreak of the Onin War. The early privatization of wealth and political power, followed by the so-called rise of warriors, had chipped away at the foundation of imperial government and transformed Kyoto’s appearance and its venues of traditional statecraft. Nevertheless, throughout it all there had remained a sense among the capital elite that classical institutions mattered and that the capital city was a unique environment within which the trappings of imperial rule were perpetually renewed through the observation of certain rites, rituals, and rules. The Age of Warring States, however, changed everything in several key ways. First, persistent conflict and political chaos further eroded the real-world potency of capital institutions and the people who traditionally controlled them. Then, the devastation of the city itself robbed those people of the venues that had served to both underscore their status as public servants and reinforce the notion that the state remained relevant as a government and source of legitimacy. As the capital’s grid pattern dissolved, so too did some of its foundational prescriptions and taboos. In the end, war had finally and irrevocably erased all traces of the classical city, its forms, its functions, and its exclusivity. In this environment, the agency of commoners grew to the point where they began having a major impact on the urban landscape and its politics.

Under the circumstances, it is remarkable that the imperial institution did not disappear entirely and that Kyoto kept its status as the center of the country. Not only did the city remain relevant throughout the age, its eventual occupation by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi were prerequisites to each man’s rise to hegemonic pre-eminence. And as we shall see in the next chapter, the urban transformation wrought by these two men signaled not just renewal but the dawn of a fundamentally new political order.