Heian court warriors grow autonomous

1095

Provincial military houses like the Taira and Minamoto were consolidating private armed followings independent of central Heian government. Tax collection, justice, and land tenure were quietly shifting from court appointees to regional warlords. The foundations of the Kamakura shogunate that would emerge a century later were being laid. The court aristocracy, absorbed in poetry and ceremony, scarcely noticed the erosion of their own authority.