Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/62

 had only such power over them as the law permitted, the provincial chiefs exercised absolute authority over their followers, rewarding them with lucrative posts or grants of land and punishing them with imprisonment or death. It was thus that there grew up in the provinces a large body of men skilled not only in administration but also in arms; bound by strong ties of gratitude, loyalty, and expediency to their own particular chiefs, and strictly forbidden to transfer their services elsewhere without special permission. Japan, as an entity, did not exist in the mental vista of these vassals. For each his fief was his country.

Class distinctions partially lost their ancient value under such circumstances. The provincial captains, coming into collision with the Court nobles who were immeasurably superior to them in social rank, by right of might stripped them of their estates and dignities, and even sent them into exile or contrived their death. The provincial vassals, often men of mean origin, the despised semmin who formerly laboured under so many disabilities, found themselves raised to the level of honoured subjects, brought within reach of high offices, and entrusted with large authority. Thus the old distinction of ryōmin (respectable people) and semmin (degraded people) disappeared in great part, and there grew up in its place a classification derived less from accident of birth than from the nature of a man's