Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 429, The Glorious Fool.

Think back, if you will, to European history in the time of monarchy, when individual rulers

amassed, or at least tried to amass, power to themselves to shape their societies.

What sort of things did they use that power for? Promoting their own rule, of course,

stronger armies, more territory, that sort of thing, but many rulers of this time were also, of course,

patrons of the arts. From the Emperor Augustus and Virgil, Palozo de Medici and Sandra Bocicelli,

to Louis XIV and Andre Le Notary, many a great ruler attempted to prove their chops, their wisdom, their refinement,

and of course their wealth, by helping to support and promote the arts.

In Japan, meanwhile, one ruler stands above all others in terms of his impact on the world of arts and culture.

His impact on everything from architecture to poetry was such that, in the words of the great scholar Donald Keen, he, quote,

played a leading part in the formation of Japanese taste, and he contributed more to Japanese culture than did, it might be argued, anyone else who ever ruled over Japan, unquote.

This is a guy whose views on what constituted good art were so influential that, in a certain sense,

he helped invent what we think of as classical Japanese aesthetics.

And yet his reputation as a ruler could not be further from the other names I just listed.

Augustus, Lorenzo de Medici, and Louis XIV, are all titanic names in the history of European

politics, generally regarded as brilliant and influential men.

By contrast, the historical reputation of the 8th Shogun of the Ashkaga clan, Ashkaga Yoshimasa, is, well, bad. He is pretty universally regarded as a failure of a ruler, a weak, spineless man who abdicated his responsibilities and allowed

himself to be dominated by his advisors and by his wife. Why is that his reputation, and why,

despite that is he worth remembering, that is what today is all about? But first, of course,

we have to set the table, which means talking a bit about what is

happening in Japan at the time Yoshimasa rules. The Ashkaga, you might remember, are the second

of Japan's three shogunal families who ruled the country from 1336 to 1467, though they remained on paper the rulers until they were officially

...