Growing Mercantilism Undermines The Four-Tier System
The Artisans:
Although artisans produced many beautiful and necessary goods, such as clothes, cooking utensils, and woodblock prints, they were considered less important than the farmers. Even skilled samurai sword makers and boatwrights belonged to this third tier of society in feudal Japan.
The artisan class lived in its own section of the major cities, segregated from the samurai (who usually lived in the daimyos' castles), and from the lower merchant class.
The Merchants:
The bottom rung of feudal Japanese society was occupied by merchants, both traveling traders and shop-keepers.
Merchants were ostracized as "parasites" who profited from the labor of the more productive peasant and artisan classes. Not only did merchants live in a separate …show more content…
Growing Mercantilism Undermines the Four-Tier System:
During the Tokugawa era, the samurai class lost power. It was an era of peace, so thesamurai warriors' skills were not needed. Gradually they transformed into either bureaucrats or wandering troublemakers, as personality and luck dictated.
Even then, however, samurai were both allowed and required to carry the two swords that marked their social status. As the samurai lost importance, and the merchants gained wealth and power, taboos against the different classes mingling were circumvented with increasing regularity.
A new class title, chonin, came to describe upwardly-mobile merchants and artisans. During the time of the "Floating World," when angst-ridden Japanese samurai and merchants gathered to enjoy the company of courtesans or watch kabuki plays, class mixing became the rule rather than the exception.
This was a time of ennui for Japanese society. Many people felt locked in to a meaningless existence, in which they just sought out the pleasures of earthly entertainment as they waited to pass on to the next
Although artisans produced many beautiful and necessary goods, such as clothes, cooking utensils, and woodblock prints, they were considered less important than the farmers. Even skilled samurai sword makers and boatwrights belonged to this third tier of society in feudal Japan.
The artisan class lived in its own section of the major cities, segregated from the samurai (who usually lived in the daimyos' castles), and from the lower merchant class.
The Merchants:
The bottom rung of feudal Japanese society was occupied by merchants, both traveling traders and shop-keepers.
Merchants were ostracized as "parasites" who profited from the labor of the more productive peasant and artisan classes. Not only did merchants live in a separate …show more content…
Growing Mercantilism Undermines the Four-Tier System:
During the Tokugawa era, the samurai class lost power. It was an era of peace, so thesamurai warriors' skills were not needed. Gradually they transformed into either bureaucrats or wandering troublemakers, as personality and luck dictated.
Even then, however, samurai were both allowed and required to carry the two swords that marked their social status. As the samurai lost importance, and the merchants gained wealth and power, taboos against the different classes mingling were circumvented with increasing regularity.
A new class title, chonin, came to describe upwardly-mobile merchants and artisans. During the time of the "Floating World," when angst-ridden Japanese samurai and merchants gathered to enjoy the company of courtesans or watch kabuki plays, class mixing became the rule rather than the exception.
This was a time of ennui for Japanese society. Many people felt locked in to a meaningless existence, in which they just sought out the pleasures of earthly entertainment as they waited to pass on to the next