| The Kamakura period. The outstanding feature of this era was the clear division between the now powerless civil and religious government of the imperial court at Kyoto and the military government (bakufu) of the Minamoto established at Kamakura, near the clan estates in eastern Japan and away from the enervating influence of the court nobility. The transition from civil to feudal military rule had begun with the Taira and was not completed until centuries later, but it was in the Kamakura period that the most significant changes occurred, and the political and economic institutions of the next several centuries began to take shape. | 1 |
