Goseibai Shikimoku

The Goseibai Shikimoku, also known as the Joei Shikimoku, was the legal code of Japan's Kamakura shogunate, issued on 27 August 1232 by Hojo Yasutoki, the third shikken, or shogunal regent, after compilation by a panel of thirteen councilors, the Hyojoshu. It set out fifty one article headings covering matters of governance and dispute resolution. Before its promulgation the Kamakura shogunate had conducted trials without a formal written body of law, and the surge of land disputes that followed the Jokyu War of 1221 made a codified system necessary. The code proved durable and influential well beyond its own era: the later Muromachi shogunate adopted it as a foundational legal text, and although most of it was formally repealed during the Edo period, parts of it remained in practical use until 1868, and it was also widely used in Japan's temple schools as a text for teaching reading and writing.