rrent saying that loyal
acts, not evil deeds, were penalized, and the truth of the comment
found confirmation in the case of an official, Kumagaya, who was
dismissed from his post and deprived of his property for venturing to
memorialize the shogun in a critical manner.

These same records of the Onin year-period also make clear that one
of the factors chiefly responsible for the disturbance was
Yoshimasa's curious lack of sympathy with the burdens of the people.
Even one grand ceremony in the course of from five to six years
sufficed to empty the citizens' pockets. But in Yoshimasa's time
there Were nine of such fetes in five years, and four of them had no
warrant whatever except pleasure seeking--as a performance of the
Sarugaku mime on an immense scale; a flower-viewing party; an
al-fresco entertainment, and a visit to the cherry blossoms. On each
of these occasions the court officials and the military men had to
pawn their estates and sell their heirlooms in order to supply
themselves with sufficiently gorgeous robes, and the sequel was the
imposition of house taxes and land taxes so heavy that the provincial
farmers often found vagrancy more lucrative than agricultural
industry. Pawnshops were mercilessly mulcted. In the days of
Yoshimitsu, they were taxed at each of the four seasons; in
Yoshinori's time the same imposts were levied once a month, and under
Yoshimasa's rule the pawnbrokers had to pay nine times in November,
1466, and eight times in December of the same year.

Even after full allowance has been made for exaggeration, natural in
the presence of such extravagance, there remains enough to convict
Yoshimasa of something like a mania for luxury. He built for himself
a residence so splendid that it went by the name of the Palace of
Flowers (Hana no Gosho) and of materials so costly that the outlay
totalled six hundred thousand strings of cash;* and he built for his
mother, Shigeko, a mansion concerning which it is recorded that two
of the sliding doors for the interior cost twenty thousand strings.**
Yet at times this same Yoshimasa was reduced to such straits for
money that we read of him borrowing five hundred "strings" on the
security of his armour, to pay for a parturition chamber.

*L4,500,000--$22,000,000.

**L150,000--$7,300,000.

The Palace of Flowers came into existence in 1459, just on the eve of
a period of natural calamities which culminated in famine and
pestilence. In 1462, these condi