The history of the other, or official, titles is this. When the government of the country passed out of the hands of the _Kugé_ or Court nobles, into those of the military class, the official posts previously held by the former were filled by members of the feudal nobility, who accordingly assumed the official titles attached to those posts. In the course of time, as successive changes in the details of administration occurred, the duties of these posts became merely nominal, until at last the titles, some of which had become hereditary, came to be merely honourable distinctions, having no connection with the discharge of official duties. There were in Iyéyasu’s time about sixty of these official titles, which were, nominally, in the gift of the Crown. Until the end of the Shōgunate there was much competition for these titles, which were the cause of constant intrigue between the Imperial Court and the Yedo Government. CHAPTER IV Political Conditions—Reopening of Japan to Foreign Intercourse—Conclusion of Treaties—Decay of Shōgunate. Much space has been given in the preceding chapter to the Tokugawa period of administration. For this no apology is due to the reader. The period in question, held in grateful remembrance by the nation as the Era of Great Peace, is the most important in Japanese history. This importance it owes to its long duration; to the singular character of its government—a centralized and autocratic bureaucracy flavoured with feudalism; to the progress which took place in literature, art and industry; to its being the immediate predecessor of what is known as the Meiji Era—the reign of the late Emperor, which began in 1868; and, consequently, to the fact that the Japanese people, as we see them to-day, are the product of that period more than of any other. Before leaving the subject, therefore, it may perhaps be convenient to explain very briefly what kind of feudal system it was which formed, as it were, the basis of Tokugawa government, for one feature of it still survives. In his _History of the Civilization of Europe_, Guizot puts forward on behalf of feudalism the claim that it constitutes an essential stage in the evolution of nations. It certainly played a very noticeable part in the development of Japan, lasting as it did from the close of the twelfth century down to the middle of the nineteenth, a period of more than seven hundred years. The French author and statesman in question, however, might have been surprised had he known that one feature of Japanese feudalism would survive its abolition, and that feature one not known on the continent of Europe.