shimbetsu

Updated: April 30, 2025

. The Jibu-sho, or Department of Civil Government, which examined and determined everything concerning the position of noblemen, and administered affairs relating to priests, nuns, and members of the Bambetsu,* that is to say, men of foreign nationality residing in Japan. *The reader is already familiar with the terms "Kwobetsu" and "Shimbetsu." All aliens were classed as Bambetsu.

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

The Kwobetsu comprised all Emperors and Imperial princes from Jimmu downwards. This was the premier class. The Bambetsu ranked incomparably below either the Kwobetsu or the Shimbetsu. It consisted of foreigners who had immigrated from China or Korea and of aboriginal tribes alien to the Yamato race.

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

This prince, a great-grandson of the Emperor Temmu, enjoyed high reputation as a scholar, was looked up to as a statesman of great wisdom, and possessed much influence owing to his exalted official position. He urged that neither precedent nor law sanctioned nomination of a lady of the Shimbetsu class to the rank of Empress. The Daiho code was indeed very explicit on the subject.

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

He reduced two of his own sons, born of a non-Imperial lady, from the Kwobetsu class to the Shimbetsu, conferring on them the uji names of Nagaoka and Yoshimine, and he followed the same course with several of the Imperial grandsons, giving them the name of Taira.

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

She did not receive the title of Empress, that distinction having been hitherto strictly confined to spouses chosen from a Kwobetsu family, whereas the Fujiwara belonged to the Shimbetsu.

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

Each unit of the population either was a member of an uji or belonged to the tomobe of an uji, and each uji was governed by its own omi or muraji, while all the uji of the Kwobetsu class were under the o-omi and all those of the Shimbetsu class, under the o-muraji. Finally, it was through the o-omi and the o-muraji alone that the Emperor communicated his will.

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

It is plain that few genealogical trees could be actually traced further back than the Chigi. Hence, for all practical purposes, the Shimbetsu consisted of the descendants of vanquished chiefs, and the fact was tacitly acknowledged by assigning to this class the second place in the social scale, though the inclusion of the Tenjin and the Tenson should have assured its precedence.

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

Another method of distinguishing was to include the former in the Kwobetsu and the latter in the Shimbetsu distinctions which will be more fully explained hereafter and after apotheosis the members of these two classes became respectively "deities of heaven" and "deities of earth," a distinction possessing historical rather than qualificatory force.

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

*The distinction of Shimbetsu and Kwobetsu was not nominally recognized until the fourth century, but it undoubtedly existed in practice at an early date. The blood relations of sovereigns either assisted at Court in the administration of State affairs or went to the provinces in the capacity of governors. History gives no evidence of a fixed official organization in ancient times.

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