Shugo daimyo

[Elijah Bender]

Hello everyone,

I have a rather basic question that maybe some Kamakura or Muromachi
folks could help with.

My understanding is that the term "shugo daimyo" was never used
contemporaneously as an official title, but is a label scholars
developed to describe the phenomenon. Is that correct? I just want to be
absolutely sure about this.

Thanks,

--
Elijah Bender, PhD
History Department
Concordia College

[David Eason]

Dear Dr. Bender,

My understanding has always been that the term “daimyo” was not used as an official title at any point prior to the Edo period. My experience in reading through sixteenth-century documents also bears this out though it is, of course, far from conclusive. Still, a quick look through the historical text databases for earlier periods available through the Historiographical Institute at the University of Tokyo similarly yields a total of zero search results for “shugo daimyo” as a phrase. 

The term “daimyo” was, of course, used in contemporaneous written records and, it seems, particularly literary sources, as a label for powerful local figures. Thus, one can imagine that starting from the Kamakura period up through the sixteenth century, to the extent that some of these warriors might also have held appointments as shugo, there would certainly appear to be at least the possibility that different sources might refer to the same individual as a “shugo” and a “daimyo.” Still, the actual pairing of these two terms together into a single phrase is indeed a creation of modern historians and one that, insofar as I can tell, seems to have started to first gain traction only beginning in the 1950s. 

Best,

David

--

Dr. David Eason (デービット・イーソン)

関西外国語大学外国語学部准教授

david...@gmail.com / easo...@kansaigaidai.ac.jp

「己が分を知りて及ばざる時は速かに止むを智といふべし」

2025/12/06 午前0:17、Elijah Bender <ben...@cord.edu>のメール:

Hello everyone,

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[Lee Butler]

I'd just add to David Eason's excellent points that it appears that references in sixteenth-century sources to "daimyo" generally refer to influential, well-to-do members of communities. I know of examples of villagers describing village headmen and elders accordingly.  

Lee Butler

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[Dennis Darling]

I don't have access to Heibonsha's Sekai Daihyakkajiten at the moment,
but I seem to remember reading in it years ago that the term ‘shugo
daimyo’ was only coined after WWII.

Dennis

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[Chris Kern]

Yes, this is the beginning of the Heibonsha encyclopedia entry:

室町時代の守護をさす語。当時の史料上の用語ではなく，第2次大戦後，鎌倉幕府体制下の守護と対比させて，室町幕府の守護の特質を地域的封建領主の性格にあるととらえ，それを概念化した歴史学上の用語。

-Chris

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[Elijah Bender]

Thank you for the confirmation everyone. 

Elijah Bender, PhD
History Department
Concordia College

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