Origins
Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ancient court nobility of Kyoto (kuge) regained some of its lost status. Several members of the kuge played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate, and the early Meiji government nominated kuge to head all seven of the newly established administrative departments.
The Meiji oligarchs, as part of their Westernizing reforms, merged the kuge with the former daimyo (feudal lords) into an expanded aristocratic class on 25 July 1869, to recognize that the kuge and former daimyo were a social class distinct from the other designated social classes of shizoku (former samurai) and heimin (commoners). Itō Hirobumi, one of the principal authors of the Meiji constitution intended the new kazoku peerage to serve as a political and social bulwark for the "restored" emperor and the Japanese imperial institution. At the time, the kuge and former daimyo consisted of a group of 427 families.
All members of the kazoku without an official government appointment in the provinces were initially obliged to reside in Tokyo. By the end of 1869, a pension system was adopted, which gradually displaced the kazoku from their posts as provincial governors and as government leaders. The stipends promised by the government were eventually replaced by government bonds.
Read more about this topic: Kazoku
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