In the time of the Kamakura Shogunate, as aforesaid, each province had a military governor, called the _shugo_, appointed by the Shogun. The _shugo_, himself a _djito_, and a very influential one of that class, served as an intermediate commander in transmitting to the _djito_ under him the military instructions which he had received from Kamakura. He was, therefore, nothing else but a marshal of all the _djito_ within that province. There existed no relation of vassalage between him and the _djito_ under his military jurisdiction. The latter remained to the end the direct vassals of the Shogunate at Kamakura, and only as regards the military organisation were subordinated to the _shugo_. The office of the _shugo_ was not the hereditary possession of any family, so that the Shogun could nominate any _djito_ to be _shugo_ of any province at his pleasure, without fear of disturbing thereby the personal relation between him and his retainers in that province. In some respects this relation resembled that of the English king and the barons, who swore, besides their oath of fealty to a higher noble as their liege lord, direct allegiance to their king. As long as the line of Yoritomo, therefore, continued as hereditary Shogun, the Shogunate could depend on the fidelity of those _djito_, who were but the household vassals of the Minamoto family, and by this personal tie keep the political unity of the country infrangible. After the extinction of the Minamoto family, the Shogun who succeeded one after another had no hereditary nor personal relations with those _djito_, and could claim no more than the official prestige of the Shogun allowed them to do. As to the Hojo family, though the real power of the Shogunate was in its hands, originally it was no higher in rank than the _djito_, and could not, in its own name, command obedience from any of the Shogun's retainers. There is some similarity between the organisation of the time of the Kamakura Shogunate in this second phase and the "Kreis" institution of the German empire in the fifteenth century, which was initiated with the object of political concentration by Maximilian I., whose real power lay in his being a duke of Austria, and not Emperor of Germany. However admirable as an organisation, such a political status was undoubtedly untenable. No wonder that the military regime of Kamakura gradually collapsed.