at Yoshino and other places in the province of Yamato, and enjoyed a somewhat precarious independence. This system, known in Japanese history as the Nam-boku-chō (Southern and Northern Courts), was put an end to by the reunion of the two lines in the person of Go Komatsu (1392), after a prolonged series of intestine troubles. A new dynasty of Shōguns, the Ashikaga House, was by this time established at Muromachi, in Kiōto, a place which gave its name to the next period of Japanese history. It remained in power until 1603, when the Shōgunate, having again changed hands, was transferred a second time to the east of Japan.
The 270 years covered by these two periods were singularly barren of important literature in Japan. One or two quasi-historical works, a charming volume of essays, and a few hundred short dramatic sketches (the Nō) are all that deserve more than a passing notice.
"Jinkōshōtōki"
The author of the Jinkōshōtōki was a statesman and soldier named Kitabatake Chikafusa, who acted an important part in the civil wars which disturbed Japan during the first half of the fourteenth century.
Chikafusa was descended from a prince of the Imperial family. He was born in 1293, and held various offices in the early part of Go Daigo's reign, but on the death of a prince to whom he was attached he shaved his head and retired from public life. In 1333, when the Emperor Go Daigo returned from the island of Oki, whither he had been banished by the Kamakura Government, Chikafusa was persuaded again to take office, and distinguished himself greatly in the wars which followed. The eminent
