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Rh were secular, and others of a more or less sacred character.

When the dance and music of the Kagura were supplemented by a spoken dialogue, the Nō were the result. The addition of words is said to have been suggested by the chanted recitations of the Heike Monogatari by itinerant bonzes, and there is much in the language of the Nō to countenance this supposition. It is certain that the authors were well acquainted with it, and also with the Gempei Seisuiki and the Taiheiki.

The beginnings of the Nō date from the fourteenth century. They were at first purely religious performances, intended to propitiate the chief deities of the Shinto religion, and were acted exclusively in connection with their shrines. At Ise, the principal seat of the worship of the Sun Goddess, there were three Nō theatres, in Ōmi three, in Tamba three, and at Nara four, all devoted to the service of the respective Shinto gods worshipped in these places.

In the early part of the Muromachi period a manager of one of the Nō theatres at Nara, named Kwan-ami Kiyotsugu, attracted the notice of the ruling Shōgun, who, for the sake of his art, took him into his immediate service. It is a noteworthy circumstance, as indicating the social position of the Nō performers, that this Kwan-ami was a small daimio, holding a fief in the province of Yamato. He died in 1406. From this time forward the Nō were under the special patronage of the Shōguns, just as the Tanka found favour and official protection at the court of the Mikado. Kiyotsugu was succeeded by his eldest son Motokiyo, who died in 1455, in his eighty-first year. Their descendants enjoyed the favour of the Shōguns