Those who were appointed as _djito_ by Yoritomo at the beginning of the Shogunate had all been retainers of the Minamoto family from the first. Though they discharged the duties of military police within their respective manors as if they were public officials, yet their private character far outweighed their public semblance. As the Shogunate gradually took the form of a regular government, this private and personal bond between the Shogun and his retainers grew weaker, and the public character of the _djito_ began to predominate. This was especially the case after the virtual management of the Shogunate fell into the hands of the Hojo family. It is true that those retainers still called themselves the _go-kenin_, or the domestics of the Shogun of Kamakura. The later Shogun, however, sprung from the Fujiwara family or of blood imperial, and could not demand the same obedience which Yoritomo had found easy to obtain from his hereditary vassals. In effect, the Shogunate reserved to the end the right of giving sanction as regards the inheritance of the office of _djito_, but the exercise of the reserved right was generally nominal. A _djito_ could appoint as his successor either his wife or any of his children, or could divide his official tenure among many inheritors. No Salic law and no law of primogeniture yet existed in Japan of the Kamakura period, so that, besides many _djito_ who were incapable of discharging the military duties in person on account of sex or age, there were to be found eventually a great number of _djito_, whose official tenure covered a very small patch of ricefield, so small that it was too narrow to exercise any jurisdiction within it! Moreover, men of utterly unwarlike professions like priests, and corporations such as Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, were also entitled to succeed to the inheritance of the office of _djito_, if only it were bequeathed to them by a lawful will. In these cases, where the rightful _djito_ could not officiate in person, a lieutenant, private in character, used to be appointed. Those lieutenants, however, not being publicly responsible to the Shogun, behaved very arbitrarily. That was a breach severely felt in the military system of the Shogunate.