How did Japan change under the Tokugawa Shogunate?

by kaykhosrow
  1. What were the arts like?

  2. Did class lines become rigid and unchanging?

  3. What were foreign relations like?

  4. How did ethnic identity change?

  5. Did religion/spirituality undergo any changes?

  6. Did the standard of living of your average peasant change? (less war, happier lives?)

LorentheGreat

This would be painfully long to answer so ill give you the short and sweet to all the questions and feel free to ask anything and ill happily follow up.

  1. The arts became more ridged and formalized. This is specific to the preforming arts, Noh, kabuki, and bunraku. During the warring states period those art forms were unregulated and troupes would parade around the country preforming for whomever they pleased. Afterwards not so much.

  2. Yes, but it wasn't the Tokugawa that imposed that. It was Toyotomi Hideoshi. He was a poor beggar and became Oda Nobunagas sandal carrier and later his most trusted adviser. When Nobunaga died he became Kampaku. He could not rise to the position of Shogun since he was not of noble birth. He instituted the class distinctions and the laws regarding that.

  3. Everyone was kicked out, especially the Portuguese and Spanish. The Dutch were allowed to stay providing they stayed in a small island in Nagasaki Harbor and did not proselytize.

  4. I cant answer to this

  5. The "traditional" Japanese Zen Buddhism Shinto mix became the orthodox religion. Christianity and Buddhist offshoots like Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism were repressed.

  6. Not really, This one is harder to write to in that nobody ever really writes about the peasants. I do know that famine was common and peasants were always dying off in droves. Japan even today is not self sufficient in food production and imports most of their food. Only rice do they grow in great enough quantity. Some of the early Westerners in Japan write about endemic famine in Japan that wont be solved until more advanced farming methods were introduced and implemented.

again ask about anything specific you would like clarified.