Japanese Nobility - Development

Development

Under the Peerage Act of 7 July 1884, pushed through by Hirobumi Ito after visiting Europe, the Meiji government expanded the hereditary peerage with the award of kazoku status to persons regarded as having performed outstanding services to the nation. The government also divided the kazoku into five ranks explicitly based on the British peerage, but with titles deriving from the ancient Chinese nobility:

1. Prince or Duke (公爵, kōshaku?)
2. Marquess (侯爵, kōshaku?)
3. Earl or Count (伯爵, hakushaku?)
4. Viscount (子爵, shishaku?)
5. Baron (男爵, danshaku?)

The initial rank distribution for kazoku houses of kuge descent depended on the highest possible office to which its ancestors had been entitled in the imperial court. Thus, the heirs of the five regent houses (go-seike) of the Fujiwara dynasty (Konoe, Takatsukasa, Kujō, Ichijō, and Nijō) all became princes. The heads of other kuge houses (including Daigo, Hamuro, Kumamoto, Hirohata, Kazan'in, Kikutei, Koga, Nakamikado, Nakayama, Oinomikado, Saga, Sanjo, Saionji, Shijō, and Tokudaiji) became marquesses. Also, the head of the Shō family, the former royal family of the Ryūkyūs (Okinawa), was given the title of marquess. When the Korean Empire was annexed in 1910, the House of Yi was mediatized as a kingship (王).

Excluding the Tokugawa, the initial kazoku rank distribution for the former daimyo lords depended on rice revenue: those with 150,000 koku or more became marquesses, those with 50,000 koku or more become counts, and so forth. The former shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, became a prince, the heads of primary Tokugawa branch houses (shinpan daimyo) became marquesses, and the heads of the secondary branches became counts.

The Mōri (Chōshū Domain) and Shimazu (Satsuma Domain) clans were both raised to the rank of prince for their role in the Meiji Restoration; the Yamauchi (Tosa Domain) clan was given the rank of marquess.

As in the British peerage, only the actual holder of a title and his consort were considered part of the kazoku. The holders of the top two ranks, prince and marquess, automatically became members of the House of Peers in the Diet of Japan upon their succession or upon majority (in the case of peers who were minors). Counts, viscounts, and barons elected up to 150 representatives from their ranks to sit in the House of Peers.

Titles and hereditary financial stipends passed according to primogeniture, although kazoku houses frequently adopted sons from collateral branches of their own houses and other kazoku houses to prevent their lines from dying out. A 1904 amendment to the 1889 Imperial Household Law allowed minor princes (ō) of the imperial family to renounce their imperial status and become peers (in their own right) or heirs to childless peers. Initially there were 11 non-imperial princes or dukes, 24 marquesses, 76 counts, 324 viscounts, and 74 barons, for a total of 509 peers. By 1928, through promotions and new creations there were a total of 954 peers: 18 non-imperial princes or dukes, 40 marquesses, 108 counts, 379 viscounts, and 409 barons. The kazoku reached a peak of 1016 families in 1944.

The 1946 Constitution of Japan abolished the kazoku and ended the use of all titles of nobility or rank outside the immediate Imperial Family. Nonetheless, many descendants of former kazoku families continue to occupy prominent roles in Japanese society and industry.