Though in its general character Japanese feudalism resembled the feudal systems prevailing at various times in the continental countries of Europe, in one respect—the position of the population inhabiting the fiefs—it came closer to the clan type of Scottish feudalism; with this important distinction, however, that, whereas the Scottish clan was a family, or tribal, organization, the basis of the Japanese clan was purely territorial, the clansmen being held together by no family link. The Japanese word _Han_ (borrowed from China), the usual English rendering of which is “clan,” does not, in its feudal sense, refer to the territory included in a fief, but to the people inhabiting it. In unsettled times, which were the rule and not the exception before the middle of the sixteenth century, the map of feudal Japan was constantly changing. The area of a fief expanded, or contracted, according to the military fortunes of the daimiō concerned; and at times both fief and feudal owner disappeared altogether. Nor in the alterations thus occurring from time to time in the feudal map was any consideration paid to natural boundaries. A daimiō’s fief, or, in other words, the territories of a clan, might consist of the whole or only part of a province, of portions of two or three provinces, or even of several whole provinces, as in the case of the founder of the Tokugawa line of Shōguns, and, at one time, of Mōri, “the lord of ten provinces.” In earlier days the word “clan” (_Han_) was not much used, the personality of the daimiō of the fief being the chief consideration. As conditions became more settled, however, under the peaceful sway of the Tokugawa Shōguns, the boundaries of fiefs became more fixed and permanent. As a result, too, of these unwarlike conditions, and of the spread to feudal circles of the corrupt and effeminate atmosphere of the Imperial Court, the personality of a daimiō counted for less, while the term “clan” gradually came to be more commonly employed to express the idea of a distinct feudal community, united solely by territorial associations. These acted as provincial ties do everywhere, but where feudal and provincial boundaries were the same, the tie uniting the population of a fief was naturally stronger than elsewhere. Some idea of what the clan really was in Japan is necessary in order to understand how it was that clan spirit should have survived when feudalism died, and how it is that Japan to-day, more than half a century after its abolition, should be ruled by what the Japanese themselves speak of as a clan government (_Hambatsu Séifu_).