This article explores chanoyu, a highly formalized socio-cultural practice centred on the consumption of powdered green tea (matcha) in the Shogunate (military headquarters) and domain administrations during early modern Japan, especially during the Tokugawa period (1603–1868).Footnote 1 It examines the significance of the institutionalization of tea professionals and chanoyu-related events backed by political authority (namely the Tokugawa Shogunate), and argues that institutionally patronized tea professionals were the primary channel through which knowledge of (and interest in) chanoyu was disseminated to vassals, town commoners, and wealthy peasants.
This article employs various sources, including official documents, diaries, biographies, and oral histories, and examines why chanoyu was developed during the Tokugawa period as a cultural practice that was embedded in the everyday lives of not only the political elite at the shogunal and domanial levels, but also of middle-class retainers. It first outlines the relationship between the Tokugawa authority and chanoyu, and then elaborates on how this practice was disseminated at all levels of military society. The article as a whole thus argues for the significance of the Tokugawa authority in the development of chanoyu, as well as the role of chanoyu in affirming and confirming the continuity of the Tokugawa regime.
The act of drinking matcha was originally introduced from Song-dynasty China as a part of the practices of Buddhist monasteries. It developed into a secular and highly formalized cultural practice during the era of the Ashikaga shoguns (1336–1573).Footnote 2 During the reigns of Oda Nobunaga (1534–82) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–98) in the late sixteenth century, taking part in tea gatherings was a political act; the practice of tea, as well as the exchange of the material components of chanoyu, were rituals that had political significance when performed by the warrior elites.Footnote 3 Tea gatherings allowed high-ranking warriors and merchant elites to develop a bond beyond their social classes, which may have facilitated their political and commercial gain outside the tearooms. It also allowed merchant tea masters to attain an important position in government affairs.Footnote 4 Hideyoshi especially favoured the practice, and thus chanoyu became an essential skill for those warrior elites who had the desire and opportunity to get close to Hideyoshi. Tea utensils also played an important role in the elaborate ceremonial events for the warrior elites: tea utensils such as tea caddies (chaire) and tea bowls (chawan), many of them imports from China and beyond, functioned as compelling symbols of power; the possession of famous pieces embodied the seizure of political power.Footnote 5
While the study of chanoyu in the pre-Tokugawa period underlines the political significance of the practice, the research on chanoyu in the Tokugawa period focuses more on the socio-cultural aspect, the artistic developments, and the emergence of tea organizations. The works that study the socio-cultural element of the practice suggest the importance of chanoyu as a medium for the military elite and privileged commoners to develop social networks within and outside their own ranks.Footnote 6 Research that examines individual tea masters analyses the development of their styles and aesthetics.Footnote 7 Studies that explore the emergence of tea institutions, such as the house head (iemoto) system, highlight the dissemination of chanoyu amongst commoners in Tokugawa Japan.Footnote 8 This article complements earlier scholarship that highlights the importance of the house head system in developing the practice of chanoyu in early modern Japan. It focuses on the politico-economic aspect of the practice, emphasizing institutionalized tea professionals and the authority of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The institutional characteristics of tea professionals and the role played by the Shogunate's political authority are critical in understanding the development of the socio-economic networks that gave a material foundation to chanoyu practice in early modern Japan. Understanding the politico-economic elements of chanoyu in the Tokugawa period is crucial for deeper understanding of the history of the practice, as well as the society and culture of early modern Japan.
This is not to underestimate the importance of the house head system and the house heads' authority in the formation and development of the art of chanoyu – a rule-guided tea drinking custom with strictly codified ritual and aesthetic tastes. The house head system was a form of hierarchical organization adopted in many houses that taught amateur practitioners various artistic and literary practices. The house head system was a form of hierarchical organization adopted in many houses that taught amateur practitioners various artistic and literary practices. House heads monopolized authority in transmitting the knowledge and skill of this practice, as well as associated artistic values (which still echoes in Japanese aesthetics), by standardizing the practice and issuing certificates of skills mastery and authenticity of artistic and cultural productions.Footnote 9 In the eighteenth century, the influence of the house head extended beyond the local circle of practitioners and affected a widely dispersed population of tea practitioners.Footnote 10 With the rise of the house head system, the continuation of the chanoyu practice was affirmed, while the world of tea drinking transformed into a rigidly structured orthodoxy.Footnote 11
The Tokugawa period, however, saw the emergence of cultural and material exchange between, as the work of Constantine Vaporis demonstrates, Edo, other urban areas, and domanial castle towns through the ‘Alternate Attendance’ (sankin kōtai) system.Footnote 12 In addition, as Paul Demura-Devore points out, shoguns' and domain lords' involvement in chanoyu has demonstrated an aspect of accepted cultural behaviours to vassals and people.Footnote 13 Institutional patronage by political authority must have generated the supplier–consumer networks of chanoyu-related commodities and material objects such as tea and tea ware. The importance of organizational patronage by political authority, and the institutional characteristics of tea professionals in affecting a widely dispersed population of tea practitioners, as well as the development of various economic networks in the Tokugawa period, cannot be underestimated.
I
When Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa Shogunate, the shogun eliminated any threat from his rivals by direct military action and established diplomatic conciliation through chanoyu. Once the threat was gone, the shoguns, as Yabe Sei'ichirô has pointed out, no longer needed to invite individual domain lords to their tearooms to pacify them.Footnote 14 The Tokugawa shoguns organized fewer official tea gatherings, and there were no more extravagant sukiya-style formal visits (sukiya onari) after the reign of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu (1623–51).Footnote 15 Tea gatherings became less significant at Edo Castle and the act of tea drinking seems to have been ritualized.Footnote 16 At the shogun's residence, tea drinking was limited to the shogun and his family; the chief priests of Tokugawa's family temples, Nikkō Tōshōgū and Zōjōji; the three collateral houses of the Tokugawa clan; and domain lords whose ranks were higher than tamari-no-ma-zume.Footnote 17 Domain lords making formal visits to Edo Castle were also permitted to drink powdered green tea at the residence.Footnote 18 A bowl of tea was served in a sukiya-style room that the Shogunate had built for this purpose at Edo Castle. In other words, a bowl of tea was only offered during formal occasions.
During the early Tokugawa period in general, a number of rituals and annual events were formalized as official customs in the shogunal calendar.Footnote 19 Ôtomo Kazuo argues that the Tokugawa Shogunate synthesized the ‘house customs’ (ie no kishiki), which were distinctive to the Tokugawa clan and their vassals, with the ‘traditional customs’ (dentô no kishiki), which were based on information gathered through inquiries made to Confucian scholars, Buddhist priests, and the Imperial Court.Footnote 20 The new ceremonial customs, which were a mixture of family rituals, court customs, and religious practices, were developed to become the official rituals that were suitable for representing Tokugawa authority. According to Ôtomo, it was essential for the Tokugawa regime to incorporate the ‘house customs’ and the ‘traditional customs’ in order to show that the rule by the Tokugawa – a new unifier of the archipelago – was legitimate and maintained a certain continuity with the preceding regime.Footnote 21
Not only did the act of tea drinking become a symbolic part of routine business at Edo Castle, but chanoyu-related ceremonial events were also incorporated into the Shogunate's annual calendar. According to Tokugawa reitenroku (a record of Tokugawa ceremonies and rituals), such annual events included the Uji tea-picking envoy (Uji saichashi) in the spring, the offering of tea jars to the Imperial Court (chatsubo shinken) in the summer, and the ritual of tea jar opening (kuchikiri) in the autumn.Footnote 22 Not only did the act of tea drinking become a normal part of routine business, the ceremonial customs related to chanoyu were also incorporated into the Shogunate's administration.
II
The use of chanoyu-related rituals and material culture in reinforcing Tokugawa authority was evident in the way in which tea and tea objects were moved between Edo and Kyoto along the Tôkaidô highway. This helped to demonstrate Tokugawa authority. The transportation of these objects, together with the elaborate ritual of the Shogunate's acquisition of its annual stock of tea, was called the ‘Travelling of the Shogun's Tea Jar’ (ochatsubo otoori/dôchû). The official title for the tea delivery procession was the Uji tea-picking envoy (Uji saicha-shi).Footnote 23 The word for ‘tea jar’ (chatsubo) is sometimes used interchangeably with the Uji tea-picking envoy. For example, in Bakuchô nejûgyôji utaawase (the tanka poem competition on the theme of annual shogunal ceremonies and events, 1842), a collection of one hundred tanka poems that were read on themes related to the Shogunate's annual events, ‘tea jar’ signified the Uji tea-picking envoy.Footnote 24 The fact that the term related to the tea delivery procession was included in the list of the themes for the tanka poem competition suggests the importance of the envoy as one of the Shogunate's seasonal events.
It is not entirely clear when the shoguns began to send large numbers of tea jars to Uji to acquire their annual stocks of tea.Footnote 25 The earliest record from Tokugawa Jikki – a collection of official records of the Tokugawa Shogunate compiled in the early nineteenth century – suggests that it was in the early spring of the eighteenth year of Keichô (1613), when the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, sent his vassal, Kusakabe Muneyoshi, to Uji.Footnote 26 The amount of tea the Shogunate brought from Uji was relatively small, as only three tea jars were sent to Uji. It was a non-official event carried out for the acquisition of an annual stock of tea for the shogun's private use in Edo Castle at the beginning of the Tokugawa period.Footnote 27
The potential of this transaction for political theatre was so clear that the Shogunate institutionalized the ‘Travelling of the Shogun's Tea Jar’. The tea delivery procession seems to have become an official annual event in the shogunal calendar soon after the death of Hidetada.Footnote 28 Since that time, around the third month of each year, one of the Uji tea-picking envoys announced his leave to the shogun during the audience, organized the procession, and departed for Uji. After filling the shogun's tea jars with new tea leaves in Uji, the tea-picking envoys returned to Edo, where the leaves were ground and made into powdered green tea in the autumn for consumption at Edo Castle.Footnote 29
The shogun's tea jars were carried in palanquins and escorted by one Tea Specialist (sukiya gashira) and two subordinate Tea Monks (chabōzu) guarded by a group of warriors, all wearing and bearing the shogunal crest. Until 1723, ten of the shogun's tea jars were brought to Uji from Edo, escorted by one Tea Specialist and two Tea Monks; they were guarded by one chief foot soldier (kachigashira) and eight foot soldiers from his unit.Footnote 30 Throughout the journey, the foot soldiers cleared the way and hailed announcing and heralding, respectively, the arrival of the shogun's tea jars, the Tea Specialist, and Tea Monks. At each official post station along the highways, the station officials welcomed the party at the entrance to the post station, provided them with a banquet and a place to sleep, waited in case any service was required of them, and then sent the party off at the borders of their settlement. The lords of the domains along the road were required to inform the Shogunate each time the party reached and departed from their domains.Footnote 31 All of the procedures had to be followed in proper order.Footnote 32 Once the tea jars arrived at Uji, the tea suppliers (Uji chashi)Footnote 33 would fill the jars with new tea leaves under the supervision of the Tea Specialist. A couple of jars out of some hundred were sent on to the emperor as a gift.Footnote 34 The remainder was then kept in storage houses until the autumn. The jars were kept on top of Mount Atago (west of Kyoto) until 1654.Footnote 35 From 1655 to 1737, the storage site changed to Yamura Castle in Kôshû.Footnote 36 From 1738 on, they were sent directly back to Edo Castle. After 1738, the procession sent a few jars as a gift to the Kunōsan Tōshōgū in Suruga Domain, where the first shogun was enshrined. The gifting of tea jars to Kunôsan Tôshôgû became an important ritual during the procession.Footnote 37
Tea jars filled with green tea were a prestigious gift. The ritual of offering tea jars from the shogun to the Imperial Court (chatsubo shinken) had been practised since Hideyoshi's reign. The Shogunate continued the gifting of the tea jar to the Imperial Court until the final fall of the Shogunate in 1868.Footnote 38 Tea jars were sent not only to the Imperial Court but also to the Tokugawa house's family temples. A certain number of tea jars were offered annually to the family temple, including Nikkô Tôshôgû, to be used for memorial services and other religious ceremonies.Footnote 39 In addition, by the mid-eighteenth century, sending tea jars to the Kunōsan Tōshōgū in Suruga Domain, where the first shogun was venerated, was also an important ritual when the shogun's tea jars travelled from Uji to Edo. The continuing gifting of tea jars throughout the regime's time in power highlights the importance of powdered green tea in maintaining the relationship between the Shogunate and other authorities.
The tea jar procession was considered to be of a higher rank than the processions organized by the three branch houses of the Tokugawa clan (gosanke) and courtiers, equivalent to imperial and shogunal envoys, respectively.Footnote 40 The effect was reinforced by the fact that the Shogunate's own party was copied by the three branch families of the Tokugawa clan (the Kii, Owari, and Mito houses), all of which also arranged annual processions.Footnote 41 Anyone, including domain lords, who heard the cry or encountered the tea jars, had to vacate the road and kneel before the tea jars and their attendants, just as they would have had to do for the shogun himself.Footnote 42 Unsurprisingly, some lords tried to avoid the procession by staying in a temple, claiming a religious excuse for their absence as the jars made their way through the countryside.Footnote 43
With or without the treasured tea jars, the success of the ritual in demonstrating the power and authority of the Tokugawa was so evident that the Shogunate continued the sending of the Uji tea-picking envoy.Footnote 44 Still, the extraordinary cost of the procession became the subject of economic reform in the early eighteenth century. The tea delivery procession was simplified in 1723 (the eighth year of Kyôho), during the reign of the eighth shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, as part of the Kyôho Reform. On the twenty-third day, fourth month, and eighth year of Kyôho, Yoshimune issued an ordinance.Footnote 45 First, he radically decreased the number of tea jars sent from Edo to Uji: after the reform, only three tea jars were to be sent to Uji. Second, Yoshimune cut the cost of the attendants. A unit of foot soldiers (kachigashira and his subordinates) no longer escorted the procession; instead, a couple of retainers from units from military posts (ôbanshi) assigned to Osaka Castle accompanied the empty shogun's tea jars to Osaka. For the return journey, ôbanshi re-assigned to Edo Castle escorted the procession. Finally, the way in which the envoy was treated at each relay station was drastically simplified.Footnote 46 The station officials were no longer required to welcome the party at the entrance to their stations, wait to serve them, and send them off at the borders of their settlements. The station officials also no longer had to provide banquets for the Tea Specialist and Tea Monks.Footnote 47
The tea delivery procession has been characterized as a symbol of repressive shogunal officials.Footnote 48 Along the highways, the attendants of the tea delivery procession were infamous for their ruthlessness.Footnote 49 They abused their official authority by overusing the labourers and horses, failed to pay for accommodations, and beat up villagers at will. The records of complaints date back to 1652. For example, a record in 1664 showed that the Kôfu relay station had to provide 1,110 villagers and 115 horses to serve the envoy.Footnote 50 In 1681, the number of villagers and horses mobilized for the service increased to 1,140 and 161, respectively.Footnote 51 After the Kyôho Reform of 1723, although the tea delivery procession was permitted to use 68 villagers and 21 horses to serve the envoy at each relay station, the envoy actually exploited 400 villagers and 55 horses.Footnote 52 The Shogunate's warning about the behaviour of the members of the procession seems to have improved the situation to some extent, as the Uji tea-picking envoy ordered the village heads to provide only ten villagers and four horses for their service after 1793.Footnote 53
Despite the cut in shogunal finances, the burden imposed on the Uji tea suppliers (including tea growers and manufacturers) remained nearly the same, and although Yoshimune decreased the number of empty tea jars sent from Edo to Uji, the amount of tea purchased for consumption at Edo Castle did not change. It was the responsibility of the Uji tea supplier to prepare Shigaraki-made tea jars for the Shogunate's use.Footnote 54 In other words, the demand for ordinary tea jars increased. The official tea jar production system in Shigaraki developed and expanded in order to be able to match supply with demand.Footnote 55 In addition, although the number of warriors guarding the procession had decreased, the village head still had to provide a huge amount of resources to welcome the shogun's tea jars.
During the Tokugawa period, rituals and ceremonies, including the processions by domain lords for the aforementioned Alternate Attendance (sankin kōtai), were important in displaying and maintaining Tokugawa authority (goikô).Footnote 56 Watanabe Hiroshi suggests that although the Tokugawa Shogunate in theory did not have a background that could legitimize its rule, a number of annual rituals and ceremonies staged both within and outside Edo Castle enabled the Shogunate to affirm its political authority as well as the continuation of the house.Footnote 57 Through these rituals and ceremonies, according to Watanabe, the political order and the formal proprietary rankings found in the political order's socialization were made visible to those who participated in and witnessed these rituals. The ritualized spectacles, such as the domain lords' processions, functioned, as Watanabe has suggested, to convince the domain lords, their vassals, and the general populace who witnessed them of the legitimacy of the Tokugawa Shogunate.Footnote 58 As such, maintaining the image of absolute power – goikô – through a number of splendid ceremonies, rituals, and annual events was vital to state affairs. The annual tea delivery procession, comparable to these stately events, may also have helped the Tokugawa Shogunate to affirm its position after the stabilization of the regime.
As mentioned earlier, a Tea Specialist and Tea Monks escorted the annual tea jar procession. Their distinctive attire suggested their positions as officers in charge of the hegemon's chanoyu-related matters.Footnote 59 Many people outside the Tokugawa administration, including tea growers and villagers, participated in this annual event. The effect of this annual procession was evident – not least in the disruption it caused to the attendants who were required to dance in the procession as it made its way from Edo to Uji and back again. Asking farmers to provide manual labour during the early summer, the busiest time of the year, likely irritated and reminded them of the hegemon in Edo.Footnote 60 Even those who were not required to provide labour or services were required to acknowledge the importance of the jars. The procession was successful in demonstrating the power and authority of the Tokugawa.
III
Since the tea drinking ritual was developed into a form of art, tea gatherings and tea-related ornaments had always been supervised and administered by those who had masterly knowledge of chanoyu. During the consolidation period of the Tokugawa rule, the Shogunate appointed daimyo tea masters as tea instructors to supervise all tea-related matters in Edo Castle. Furuta Oribe (1544–1615), the lord of Nishigaoka Domain in Yamashiro Province and a disciple of Sen no Rikyū, was the tea instructor of Tokugawa Hidetada (1579–1632), the second shogun. Kobori Enshū (1579–1647), the lord of Matsuyama Domain in Bichū Province, later transferred to Komuro Domain in ōmi Province, studied with Oribe, and taught chanoyu to Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604–51), the third shogun. Katagiri Sekishû (1605–73), the lord of Koizumi Domain in Yamato Province and a disciple of Kuwayama Sadaharu (?–1632) – who in turn had studied with Sen Dōan (1546–1607), a son of Rikyū – was appointed the tea instructor for Tokugawa Ietsuna (1641–80), the fourth shogun, in 1665.Footnote 61 These tea instructors for the shoguns were all domanial lords, which is indicative of the significance of chanoyu for guaranteeing the stability of the emerging political system.
After the fourth shogun, with the stabilization of the Tokugawa rule now well established, the title ‘Tea instructor’ disappeared from the Shogunate's official positions.Footnote 62 After the death of Sekishû, non-elite warriors were assigned to take care of tea-related issues instead of appointing daimyo tea masters, as discussed below. Tanihata Akio suggests that with the establishment of the rigid rank system (which placed the shogun at the top of the hierarchy), the Shogunate no longer needed or wanted anyone who could ‘supervise’ the shogun, as he should be the absolute authority.Footnote 63
The Tokugawa Shogunate continued Hideyoshi's fascination with chanoyu as an emblem of its legitimacy. Domain lords making a formal visit to Edo Castle were received with powdered green tea, therefore it was still essential for them to be familiar with the art of chanoyu so that they would not be ignorant of the correct protocol. Domain lords could not reject the shogun's invitation, as tea gatherings had a ceremonial aspect that confirmed the obedience of domain lords to the Shogunate. The same was true for domain lords and their vassals.Footnote 64 Yet, it is also evident from the developments discussed below that the shogun and domain lords did not need to be fully competent in demonstrating their skill and taste in chanoyu.
First, the separation of the title of ‘head family’ (sōke) and the position of ‘head tea instructor’ – the actual vehicle of knowledge and skill transmission, which became one of the significant features of chanoyu for shoguns and domain lords – shows that the shogun and domain lords did not need to be fully competent in demonstrating their skill and taste in chanoyu.Footnote 65 For example, Katagiri Sadamasa (Sekishū), the lord of Koizumi Domain and the originator of the Sekishū tea tradition, is said to have standardized the practice of chanoyu at Edo Castle by submitting Sekishū-ryū sanbyaku kajō (The three hundred secrets of the Sekishū School) to the shogun.Footnote 66 Sekishû's way of practising tea became the conventional tea practice for the Shogunate from that point on. After Sekishū's death in 1673, the Katagiri family held the title of sōke, because Sekishū was the originator of the tradition, but the head of the Fujibayashi family (which was in vassalage to the Katagiri family) provided the actual instruction in chanoyu, and the secrets of the school were handed down through the Fujibayashi family.Footnote 67 Another good example is the Sōko School of chanoyu, founded by Ueda Shigeyasu (Sōko, 1563–1650), the senior retainer and a tea instructor for Asano Nagaakira (1586–1632), the lord first of Kii Domain (1613–19) followed by Hiroshima Domain (1619–32). The descendants of Sōko held the title of the head of the Sōko School, whereas Sōko's disciples carried out the actual teaching of the practice.
Second, the Shogunate institutionalized masters of tea as part of its administration. That is to say, the Shogunate established a managerial title, ‘Tea Specialist’ (sukiya gashira, sadô gashira, or chadô gashira), which replaced the tea instructors.Footnote 68 Tea Specialists came into being in the administrative organization of the Shogunate to designate the person in charge of conducting tea services, decorating tearooms, and maintaining the tea-related objects possessed by the shoguns and the Shogunate.Footnote 69 Tea Specialists were assisted by several Head Tea Monks (sukiya kumigashira, sadô kumigashira, or chadô kumigashira) and many subordinate Tea Monks (sukiya bōzu, chabōzu, sadô, or chadô), who prepared the hot water, made the tea, and served it to domain lords involved in state affairs, all under the supervision of the Tea Specialists.Footnote 70
Tea Specialists and Tea Monks ranked as warriors. They were retainers who served shoguns and domain lords and received a stipend ranging from 100 to 200 koku or hyō, depending on their domain. For example, the Tea Specialists for the Tokugawa Shogunate received 150 hyō.Footnote 71 Gengensai of the Urasenke tea tradition, a Tea Specialist for the Matsuyama Domain at the end of the Tokugawa era, received 200 koku.Footnote 72 This indicates that Tea Specialists were hatamoto and Tea Monks were gokenin: in other words, Tea Specialists were placed in the middle of the samurai rank, whereas Tea Monks held a lower position. They would not have been wealthy if they had had to live on their stipends (although this was not the case). Tea Specialists and Tea Monks also had opportunities for self-enrichment, given the nature of their duties, which required that they wait outside the room of the inspectors general (ōmetsuke) and police officials in the tokei-no-ma day and night in case a tea service was required.
Being a Tea Specialist or a Tea Monk therefore afforded access to the inner workings of the shogunal administration and household. Because their presence was required throughout the castle, they had direct contact with the highest-ranking shogunal officials and could hear about government affairs discussed in the women's quarters (oku), discussions amongst senior and junior councillors, and high-ranking officials exchanging classified information.Footnote 73 Through the execution of their duties, they therefore not only observed highly confidential matters, but also had the opportunity to become close to such officials and were privy to secret information. It is easy to see that the role of the Tea Specialists became increasingly important when political situations became sensitive. Domain lords and their retainers also counted on Tea Specialists and Tea Monks to work as intermediaries. They used subordinate Tea Monks to assist in negotiations between domain lords and shogunal officials. Especially in cases such as the succession of the head of a family, campaigns for a raise in the official rank of one's family, legal cases, punishments, disputes, and other situations that were difficult and/or sensitive, Tea Specialists (as well as the subordinate Tea Monks) were ideally placed to play an important role.Footnote 74
Thus, aside from the stipend they received for their official duties, many Tea Specialists and subordinate Tea Monks appear to have received extra benefits because of their position. Bakumatsu hyakuwa, an anthology of recollections by non-elite people who lived during the end of the Edo period, also comments on the power of Tea Specialists during the period. According to Bakumatsu hyakuwa, Tea Specialists took bribes from many domain lords; they also received gifts such as fancy silk cloth, upon which domanial crests were dyed. They wore formal crested kimonos made from black chirimen cloth in winter and black ro cloth in summer, both highly luxurious fabrics.Footnote 75 The Tea Specialists who wore a kimono with a domain lord's crest were also announcing that they were under the patronage of the lord. In other words, they were not simply wearing an expensive kimono; the way they were dressed signified the power of the military aristocracy. Tea Specialists also received gold from domain lords as a seasonal gift. ‘Because of these bribes and gifts’, as the interviewee of Bakumatsu hyakuwa commented, ‘some of them lived a luxurious life’.Footnote 76 This comment is rather cynical and may reflect a somewhat antagonistic attitude, as it was recorded during the Meiji period (1868–1912), when the social structure and political system of the previous regime had a more or less negative connotation. Nonetheless, the quote suggests how Tea Specialists could earn a considerable income (which they consumed conspicuously) and affect a domineering attitude, which was not always welcomed by their contemporaries.
Despite how others perceived them, the place of the Tea Specialists and Tea Monks is understandable. Chanoyu had become a professional practice, carried out by official retainers, and was thoroughly embedded in the everyday life of the shogunal administration. Given the nature of their duties, this also afforded tea professionals access to important confidential information – and therefore wealth and influence. Even though the Shogunate prohibited Tea Specialists and Tea Monks from telling others about anything that they heard while performing their duties, in practice they clearly profited from their position.Footnote 77
IV
Chanoyu was not only a prerogative of the Tokugawa in Edo. Replicating the shogun's relationships with chanoyu and tea masters, elite domain lords – the lords with large domains and high-level positions in the Shogunate – also retained tea masters to deal with chanoyu-related matters.Footnote 78 The following section outlines the relationships between chanoyu and the fourth lord of the Hirado Domain, Matsura Shigenobu, a well-known tea master who founded his own tea school, and the last lord, Matsura Akira, who seems to have had minimal interest in chanoyu before the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate. This section thus aims to show how the place of chanoyu amongst the political elite was replicated at the domanial level, and to point out the important role that chanoyu played in the development of various regional industries.
Hirado Domain was an approximately 60,000-koku domain in the west of Hizen Province in Kyūshū. Located in the north-western corner of Kyûshû Island, Hirado was one of the closest provinces to the mainland. Since the twelfth century, the Matsura clan had accumulated wealth through its trading relationships with various south-east Asian port cities.Footnote 79 When the Europeans arrived in Japan in the sixteenth century to establish trading links, they all operated to some extent through Hirado. The trading relationships with the Europeans, and the introduction of firearms through them, made Hirado wealthy and powerful.Footnote 80 During the turbulent period of the late sixteenth century, the Matsura clan joined Hideyoshi's forces in his campaign against the domain lords in the south of Kyushu. After the death of Hideyoshi, the Matsura clan entered into an alliance with Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1601, which confirmed the place of the Matsura clan in the Tokugawa Shogunate.Footnote 81
Ever since the Europeans first arrived in Hirado, the trading relationships with them were vital for the affluence of the Matsura clan. The Dutch (in 1609) and the English (in 1613) opened the trading posts in Hirado. However, during the reign of Matsura Shigenobu (1622–1703), the fourth lord of Hirado Domain, the Dutch were forced to move their trading post to Dejima in 1640 because of the Tokugawa Shogunate's political control over foreign trade, restricting the business only to the port of Nagasaki.Footnote 82 The removal of the Dutch trading post inflicted a significant economic crisis on the Matsura clan, as they were no longer able to benefit from the foreign trade.Footnote 83 In order to recover from this financial loss, Shigenobu endorsed the cultivation of new fields, and developed the fishing (especially whaling) and ceramic industries.Footnote 84
Porcelain production at the Mikawachi kiln in particular had flourished since the mid-seventeenth century; tea utensils were one of their main products. According to Tatehira Susumu, the archaeological evidence shows that their clientele included the Shogunate and the Imperial household.Footnote 85 The Mikawachi kiln produced porcelains as a part of the domanial economy under the supervision of the domanial administration. The institutional sponsorship (and control) over ceramic and porcelain production and distribution was not unique to Hirado Domain. Although the practice was not nationwide, over thirty domains sponsored some kind of ceramic production (more than half of which produced tea wares) between the late seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries.Footnote 86 The patronage among domanial lords, as Morgan Pitelka has suggested, varied widely according to the interest and resources of individual rulers.Footnote 87 Hirado Domain was clearly one of the domains that showed interest in and initiated the development of porcelain production. Tatehira associates the development of the Mikawachi kiln with Shigenobu's enthusiasm for chanoyu. He suggests that the porcelain production at the Mikawachi kiln not only produced the material components of chanoyu, but also provided stability to the domain's finances; in turn, the economic stability backed by the porcelain production supported the proliferation of the chanoyu practice in Hirado Domain.Footnote 88
Shigenobu was known to be a prominent tea master of the time, as well as a celebrated poet.Footnote 89 Shigenobu’s devotion to literary and artistic practices may have been one of the outcomes of Ieyasu's political control over warrior households. Chanoyu was thought to be one of the civil arts (bun) that military houses were encouraged to pursue when Ieyasu issued the Buke shohatto (Laws of Military Households) in 1615.Footnote 90 Whatever the motivation was, Shigenobu's enthusiasm (or need) for tea led him to learn chanoyu from Katagiri Sadamasa (Sekishū), the tea instructor for the fourth shogun. In 1685, Shigenobu established his own tea school, which taught Chinshin-style chanoyu, a variant of the Sekishū tea tradition that was named after him.Footnote 91
One significant feature of the chanoyu of domain lords, as mentioned in the previous section, was the separation of the title of head family and the position as head tea instructor. The same feature could be found in the succession of knowledge and skill for Chinshin's tea tradition.Footnote 92 The head of the Matsura clan was nominally the head (ryūso) of the Chinshin School, but from the beginning the traditions of the school were kept and its secrets guarded by the Toyota family, one of the four Tea Specialists for Hirado Domain. For several generations, Lord Matsura was the head of the Chinshin style in name only, and relied on Tea Specialists for the practice and maintenance of tea (as was the case in Edo and elsewhere). The Tea Specialists handled all of the practical issues relating to chanoyu and passed on their knowledge and skills.Footnote 93 This situation remained the same throughout the Edo period: Tea Specialists took care of tea events for the domains as their equivalents did for the shogun at Edo Castle.
The last lord of Hirado Domain, Matsura Akira (1840–1908), never had to make powdered green tea for himself before 1868, although there were many occasions when he drank such tea. His biography tells us that when he was young, he did not have any extra energy to spend on learning how to make tea, because as the heir of the lord of Hirado, he was expected to study literature and the martial arts. After becoming the lord, he became too preoccupied with his duties in running the domain and the political affairs of Edo Castle.Footnote 94 Until Matsura Akira was dismissed from all official duties in 1871, he did not seem interested in (nor did he have the time available to practise) chanoyu.
It is likely that with a few exceptions – such as Ii Naosuke (1815–60) of Hikone Domain and Wakisaka Yasuaya (1840–1908) of Tatsuno Domain, both famous masters of chanoyu in the late Tokugawa period – Matsura was typical of most domain lords, who did not learn chanoyu in any depth. They had to know the basic skills, because chanoyu was an essential social skill for them at Edo Castle. Back in the domains, however, while the lords ran the administration, the Tea Specialists ran chanoyu-related matters. In other words, the Tea Specialists were the ones who provided the necessary labour and handed down the expert knowledge and skills. Chanoyu was their duty. When the Tokugawa regime fell, and the master–vassal relationship was dissolved, in many cases the reason for (and the means with which to maintain) the tea tradition also disappeared.
V
The Shogunate had devoted time and many other resources to stage the tea-related ritual almost until the end of Tokugawa rule. In the second year of Bunkyū (1862), the Shogunate ordered the simplification of administrative matters relating to the Travelling of the Tea Jar, seemingly as part of the Shogunate's effort to resolve its fiscal crisis and to restore public confidence in its rule.Footnote 95 Five years after this order, in the third year of Keiō (1867), the Shogunate decreased the number of Tea Specialists working in the shogunal administration and reduced the size of the procession accompanying the procession, with only one Tea Specialist accompanied by four warriors.Footnote 96 A year later, the ritual finally ended, as did the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Since the mid-seventeenth century, for more than two centuries, the annual procession had not only reinforced shogunal authority but had also provided patronage for Uji tea suppliers and Shigaraki and other potters. When the Tokugawa regime fell, and the master–vassal relationship was dissolved, in many cases the reason for the Tea Specialists to hand down the tea tradition disappeared, as did their means to do so. The fall of the Shogunate in 1868, quickly followed by the abolition of the domains, threw the survival of the tea professionals and suppliers who provided the material constituents of chanoyu into question.
Throughout the Tokugawa period, chanoyu and its material culture embodied the regime's power and authority. The exaggerated procession of the shogun's tea jars and Tea Specialists in distinctive attire must have impressed those who saw it – and who therefore associated tea, the ritual and the object, with the shogun and domain lords. This is not to dismiss the significance of chanoyu amongst the commoners, and of the opportunities for inter-rank socializing that such gatherings provided or to understate the emergence and influence of tea institutions in the development of chanoyu practice outside the Shogunate and the domain administrations. The shoguns and the domain lords, however, remained the principal patrons of the practice of chanoyu and the production of its related material culture. Chanoyu, therefore, continued to perform its customary functions of supporting political life almost until the final fall of the Shogunate.
This article has argued that the interplay of the Shogunate's ceremonial events, objects, and matcha – a psychoactive substance/intoxicantFootnote 97 that was originally for religious use and was a novelty from China in the twelfth century – reaffirmed the place of matcha as a symbol of power in early modern Japanese society. Chanoyu had been institutionally patronized by the Shogunate and the domain administrations by becoming a normal part of the elite's lives. Consequently, it fostered reliable supply networks to cater to the demand. In other words, this institutional patronage developed regional industries, created economic networks of providers, and generated a class of tea professionals. The effect was to embed the idea that to be qualified as an elite subject, it was essential to master the art of chanoyu at all levels of Japanese society, even after the introduction of another intoxicating novelty – sencha (a leaf tea) – from China in the seventeenth century. Although chanoyu may have no longer been necessary for conducting political affairs in general, and thus tea gatherings became less significant as a political act, chanoyu remained a part of the official rituals at Edo and other castles throughout the Tokugawa period.
