Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

francisdavey t1_ixlk3fu wrote

There was only one shogun (when there was any). The emperor > shogun relationship was not at all like emperor's relationship with kings or imperial subjects in the Holy Roman Empire for instance.

The shogun *nominally* ruled on behalf of the emperor but in fact the emperor was a ceremonial figure and had no actual power (except, perhaps, at the outset of the Ashikaga Shogunate, when there was what we might think of as a civil war between pro- and anti-Ashikaga factions, one of which was "imperial").

Sometimes the shogun was themselves a figurehead - eg during much of the Kamakura Bakufu when it was the Hojo regents that were actually in control or at least nominally so.

Daimyo are more complicated and a bit more like feudal subjects in the Reich sense. But only a bit.

14