ABSTRACT

The ritsu-ryo system was honored more in its breach than in its observance.

IRushton Coulborn, Feudalism in History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), p. 185. Other excellent discussions of Japanese feudalism can be found in John W. Hall and Marius B. Jansen, eds., Studies in the Institutional History 0/ Early Modern Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), Kanichi Asakawa, The Documents 0/ Iriki (Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1955), Minoru Shinoda, The Founding 0/ the Kamakura Shogunate, 1180-1185 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), and John W. Hall, Government and Local Power in Japan, 500-1700: A Study Based on Bizen Province (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).