ABSTRACT
During the period of the Ashikaga Shogunate (1338–1573), Kyoto was the centre of luxury and effeminate culture among the wealthy, and of increasingly licentious revelry among high and low alike. The first half of this era, known as the Muromachi Period (1338–1443), was characterized by an influx of Chinese influence, an increase of education among the priesthood, and of such gentle arts as Cha-no-yu (tea ceremony), Ko-awase (incense judging), and Ikebana (flower arrangement), among the leisured. Noh, also, during this period was brought to its perfection and exercised a refining influence over the military class in particular. None of these apparently noble arts, however, was able to check the social evils which grew up, especially during the later years of that Shogunate (1444–1573), in part because of the strict isolation of the sexes demanded by Buddhist ethics and Buddhism’s failure to bring matters of sex under the ennobling sanctions of religion.
