monasteries were jealous of the new-fangled growths on the slopes of Mount Hiei; the Hieizan household was encouraged to go in for domestic feuds. The appointment of a Zashu, or Archbishop, of the Tendai community, chosen not from the monks of the Mother House of Hieizan, but from the inmates of the daughter institution at Otsu--the Onjoji, or Miidera--gave the signal for a strange civil war within the fold of the Tendai itself. Hieizan and Miidera became the headquarters of two warring armies, with a military organization of tera-samurai, or temple knights, and train bands of fighting men. The other large temples followed suit, and the lay people of Japan had the undesirable privilege, several times during these centuries, of beholding armies of "religious" persons engaging in fratricidal strife, killing, burning, and laying waste.

In the mean time there was growing up in Japan an upper middle class, closely connected with the aristocracy, and yet independent of them, and corresponding very nearly to our English gentry.

It had been the practice, both of the Fujiwara and also, from time to time, of the Emperors themselves, to raise money for political or religious purposes by the sale of certain patents (not unlike the baronetcies of King James I.), known as sho-en, which conferred upon their holders the privilege of possessing their estates free from Imperial taxation and exempt from the jurisdiction of the provincial governors. Some of the Emperors, e.g. Gosanjo (1069), had set their faces against this practice; but needy and religious-minded rulers, such as Shirakawa (1073) and Toba (1108), had been very lavish in the granting of these patents, and the holders of these privileges became an important element in the State. They formed the main support of the rival factions of Taira and

[paragraph continues] Minamoto, and even after Yoritomo's formal and successful organization of their scattered members, continued to be, as samurai, down to our own times, the true backbone of the Japanese nation.

Independent, freedom-loving, fairly educated, addicted to martial exercises and the outdoor sports which have been the pastime of the country gentleman in all ages and climes, these men had absolutely nothing but contempt for the sickly sentimentalism of the fashionable priests, with their legends and repetitions, and their somewhat hypocritical prohibitions against hunting and fighting. That they were not devoid of religious feeling we shall see in another chapter. For the present let us note merely that they were coming into prominence as a social and religious element, qualified to exercise a determining influence on the destinies of their country.