Database: Social Class in Medieval Society

Unlike early modern Japanese society where status was fixed and social mobility relatively controlled, medieval society was more fluid with surprising examples of social mobility. The extreme example was Hideyoshi, who was the son of a simple, commoner infantryman yet managed to climb the ranks of the vassal hierarchy. He was able to establish himself as Oda Nobunaga's best general before taking power and being ennobled by the emperor himself. He was granted the patronymic name Toyotomi along with the function of Minister of Supreme Affairs (Daijō-daijin), the highest function of the ancient State of Codes. This title was fictitious, yet an honor.

During the medieval period, warriors represented the most powerful yet most unstable social group. They were victims of the phenomenon called "world turned upside down (gekokujō)." The great lords of the 15th century, who were seduced by the allure of the capital city, left their lands in the hands of local representatives or provosts who then seized power for themselves during times of conflict. In fact, this was the strategy the Oda clan used to overthrow their own lords, the Shiba, in the Owari province.

In the countryside, wealthier peasants were able to establish themselves locally as "the samurai of the land," or jizamurai, forming a middle-class that the daimyō attempted to vassalize. In the cities, an emerging middle-class called the machishu, "people of the cities," prospered and emancipated themselves in cities like Kyoto and Sakai. They formed a flourishing oligarchy that ruled urban communities before later submitting to the hegemons of Nobunaga and then Hideyoshi at the end of the 16th century.

As for the peasantry, who constituted the majority of the population, they were mostly composed of independent farmers. They often organized into powerful village communities, strong enough to resist feudal and fiscal pressures. There were also some dependents (genin) whose status was close to slavery, under the service of the jizamurai.