Definition
The shogunate was the form of military government that ruled Japan for most of the period from the late twelfth century to the late nineteenth century CE. Its head, the shogun, was a supreme military commander who governed the country in practice.
A distinctive feature of this system was that Japan still had an emperor, who remained the symbolic and religious head of the nation. Real political and military authority, however, rested with the shogun and his administration.
Why it matters
How it works
The shogun ruled through a network of regional lords, the daimyo, who governed their own domains and commanded the samurai. In return for confirmation of their lands and titles, the daimyo owed loyalty and service to the shogun — a feudal pyramid of obligation.
The Tokugawa shogunate kept this system stable through strict controls, requiring daimyo to spend alternating periods at the capital and tightly regulating travel and contact abroad. When Western pressure exposed the limits of that isolation in the mid-nineteenth century, the shogunate lost legitimacy and collapsed.