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Sankin kotai ("alternate attendance") was a policy of the shogunate during most of the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
 of Japanese history
History of Japan

The written history of Japan begins with brief references of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD....
. The purpose was to control the daimyo
Daimyo

The were powerful territorial lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. The term derives from a shortening of the title , which literally means "great named land" and originally simply referred to the owner of a large estate....
. In adopting the policy, the shogunate was continuing and refining similar policies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi

was a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, after Hideyoshi's castle....
. In 1635, a law required sankin kotai, which was already an established custom.






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Tokiwa Bashi
Sankin kotai ("alternate attendance") was a policy of the shogunate during most of the Edo period
Edo period

The , or , is a division of History of Japan running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu....
 of Japanese history
History of Japan

The written history of Japan begins with brief references of Twenty-Four Histories, a collection of Chinese historical texts, in the 1st century AD....
. The purpose was to control the daimyo
Daimyo

The were powerful territorial lords who ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. The term derives from a shortening of the title , which literally means "great named land" and originally simply referred to the owner of a large estate....
. In adopting the policy, the shogunate was continuing and refining similar policies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi
Toyotomi Hideyoshi

was a Sengoku period daimyo who unified Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama period, after Hideyoshi's castle....
. In 1635, a law required sankin kotai, which was already an established custom. The law remained in force until 1862.

The details changed throughout the twenty-six decades of Tokugawa
Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the , and the , was a feudalism regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family....
 rule, but generally, the requirement was that the daimyo of every han
Han (Japan)

The , or domains, were the fiefs of feudal lords of Japan that were created by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and existed until their Abolition of the han system in 1871, three years after the Meiji Restoration....
 move periodically between Edo
Edo

, literally: Headlands and bays-door, "estuary", ), also Romanization of Japanese as Yedo or Yeddo, is the Geographical renaming of the Capital of Japan Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868....
 and his han, typically spending alternate years in each place. His wife and heir were required to remain in Edo as hostages. The expenditures necessary to maintain lavish residences in both places, and for the procession to and from Edo, placed financial strains on the daimyo making them unable to wage war. The frequent travel of the daimyos encouraged road building and the construction of inns and facilities along the routes, generating economic activity.

In principle, the sankin kotai was a military service to the shogun. Each daimyo was required to furnish a number of soldiers (samurai
Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of Pre-industrial society Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character ? was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau....
) in accordance with the assessment of his han. These soldiers accompanied the daimyo on the processions to and from Edo.

With hundreds of daimyo entering or leaving Edo each year, processions (???? daimyo gyoretsu) were almost daily occurrences in the shogunal capital. The main routes to the provinces were the kaido
Kaido

were ancient roads in Japan dating from the Edo period. Major examples include the Edo Five Routes, all of which started at Edo . Minor examples include sub-routes such as the Hokuriku Kaido and the Nagasaki Kaido....
. Special lodgings, the honjin, were available to daimyo during their travels.

The sankin kotai figures prominently in some Edo period ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e

, "pictures of the floating world", is a genre of Japanese woodblock printing and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre and pleasure quarters....
 (woodblock prints), as well as in popular theater such as kabuki
Kabuki

is the highly stylised classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers....
 and bunraku
Bunraku

, also known as Ningyo joruri , is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theater, founded in Osaka, Osaka in 1684.Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance:...
.

Similar practices

King Louis XIV the Great
Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV ruled as List of French monarchs and of King of Navarre. He ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister , the Italians Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661....
 of France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 instituted a similar practice upon the completion of his Palace at Versailles
Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal ch?teau in Versailles, the ?le-de-France region of France. In French language, it is known as the Ch?teau de Versailles....
, requiring the French nobility
French nobility

The nobility in France, in the France in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern France period, had specific legal and financial rights, and prerogatives....
, particularly the ancient Noblesse d'épée (nobility of the sword) to spend six months of each year at the palace, for reasons similar to those of the Japanese shoguns. The nobles were expected to assist the King in his daily duties and state and personal functions, including meals, parties, and, for the privileged, rising from and getting into bed
Levée (ceremony)

Lever , adopted in English as lev?e? initially the simple act of getting up in the morning? was raised to a ceremonial custom at the court of Louis XIV of France....
, bathing, and going to church.

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