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Edit Property Page: Fortified Manor
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English Name:
Japanese Name:
Property Type:
Ashigaru
Bridges
Castle Condition
Castle Type
Castle town
Daimyo
Designations
Edo Period
Features
Flatland
Fortified Manor
Garden
Gates
Has Important Cultural Properties
Has National Treasures
Hilltop
Historical Period
House
Important Cultural Property
Local Historic Site
Lower Class
Main keep
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Middle Class
Moats
Mountaintop
National Historic Site
Next 100 Castles
No main keep but other buildings
Original
Original main keep
Palace
Pre Edo Period
Prefectural Historic Site
Prefectural Treasure
Reconstructed main keep
Registered Tangible Cultural Property
Relocated
Residence Type
Ruins only
Samurai Residence Features
Samurai homes
Special Historic Site
Stone walls
Top 100 Castles
Top 100 Mountaintop Castles
Trenches
Turrets
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Upper Class
Walls
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Water moats
Description:
Fortified Manors (居館, kyokan) are the fortified residences of powerful local leaders and samurai. They are typically simple rectangular fortifications with a moat and earthen embankment, or sometimes stone walls. In Japanese they are often called Yashiki or Yakata. Many of these Fortified Manors are from the Heian and Kamakura Periods, before castles enlarged and developed to include quarters for samurai and other powerful local lords. In the Sengoku Period you often see the pair of a fortified manor at the foot of the mountain for everyday use and a mountaintop castle for use in times of unrest. [[Kazurayama Castle]] is one such good example and so is the [[Sanada Palace]] / [[Sanadahonjo Castle]] pair. Some might ask if such Fortified Manors are really castles. The definition of "castle" in Japanese is actually vague. It is simply a fortification to help protect from one's enemies. This includes everything from the earliest fortified villages ([[Yoshinogari]]) to primarily political centers ([[Taga Castle]]) to smoke signal towers (noroshidai) or even fortified towns like Kamakura which itself was called Kamakura Castle at one point. The military purpose and defensive fortifications are what separates these from ordinary homes. This distinction is also separates them from [[Samurai Homes]] of the Edo Period, which were strictly controlled by local lords and did not have castle-like defenses such as embankments or trenches. There is a frequently used Japanese castle term 城館 (jokan), which includes the characters for both castle (城) and fortified manors (館) that clearly covers both. There are also a few yakata in the [[Top 100 Castles]] and [[Next 100 Castles]].
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