Shogunate

Shogunate 

the government of the shoguns in feudal Japan from 1192 to 1867. The term is used in the literature along with the Japanese name Bakufu. The shogunate was a political form of dictatorship by the feudal lords. The feudal princes needed a strong authority to crush peasant movements and, in the late Middle Ages, to combat the rising bourgeoisie. At the same time, the shogunate, usually headed by a representative of the most important feudal house of the day (Minamoto, Ashikaga, or Tokugawa), exercised control over other principalities by force of economic superiority. Under the shogunate, the administrative apparatus was in the hands of the military class (bushi, or samurai), and there was no clear division between legislative and executive power or between administrative and military bodies.