was not a man of original or brilliant
conceptions. He had not even the imperturbability essential to
military leadership. The most prominent features of his character
were unbridled ambition, intolerance of opposition, and unscrupulous
pursuit of visible ends. He did not initiate anything but was content
to follow in the footsteps of the Fujiwara. It has been recorded that
in 1158--after the Hogen tumult, but before that of Heiji--he married
his daughter to a son of Fujiwara Shinzoi. In that transaction,
however, Shinzei's will dominated. Two years later, the Minamoto's
power having been shattered, Kiyomori gave another of his daughters
to be the mistress of the kwampaku, Fujiwara Motozane. There was no
offspring of this union, and when, in 1166, Motozane died, he left a
five-year-old son, Motomichi, born of his wife, a Fujiwara lady. This
boy was too young to succeed to the office of regent, and therefore
had no title to any of the property accruing to the holder of that
post, who had always been recognized as de jure head of the Fujiwara
family. Nevertheless, Kiyomori, having contrived that the child
should be entrusted to his daughter's care, asserted its claims so
strenuously that many of the Fujiwara manors and all the heirlooms
were handed over to it, the result being a visible weakening of the
great family's influence.*

*See Murdoch's History of Japan.

RESULTS OF THE HOGEN AND HEIJI INSURRECTIONS

The most signal result of the Hogen and Heiji insurrections was to
transfer the administrative power from the Court nobles to the
military chiefs. In no country were class distinctions more
scrupulously observed than in Japan. All officials of the fifth rank
and upwards must belong to the families of the Court nobility, and no
office carrying with it rank higher than the sixth might be occupied
by a military man. In all the history of the empire down to the
twelfth century there had been only one departure from this rule, and
that was in the case of the illustrious General Saka-no-ye no
Tamura-maro, who had been raised to the third rank and made dainagon.

The social positions of the two groups were even more rigidly
differentiated; those of the fifth rank and upwards being termed
tenjo-bito, or men having the privilege of entree to the palace and
to the Imperial presence; while the lower group (from the sixth
downwards) had no such privilege and were consequently termed
chige-bito, or groundlings. The three hi