hyojo-sho

Updated: May 20, 2025

At first there were three machi-bugyo, but when the Tokugawa moved to Yedo, the number was decreased to one, and subsequently increased again to two in the days of Iemitsu. Judicial business occupied the major part of the machi-bugyo's time. The Bakufu court of law was the Hyojo-sho.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Sometimes, also, the three bugyo met at the Hyojo-sho merely for purposes of consultation. The holder of the latter office served as the eyes and ears of the roju and supervised the feudal barons. There were four or five great censors. Another had to inspect matters relating to religious sects and firearms a strange combination.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Thenceforth, the custom came to be this: Where comparatively minor interests were involved and where the matter lay wholly within the jurisdiction of one administrator, that official sat as judge in a chamber of his own mansion; but in graver cases and where the interests concerned were not limited to one jurisdiction, the Hyojo-sho became the judicial court, and the three administrators, the roju, together with the censors, formed a collegiate tribunal.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

Suits involving issues that lay entirely within the jurisdiction of one bugyo were tried by him in his own residence, but where wider interests were concerned the three bugyo had to conduct the case at the Hyojo-sho, where they formed a collegiate court. On such occasions the presence of the censors was compulsory.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era