Moriya

The moriya (from mori, 'to protect, watch') was the landed and military aristocracy of Turon that dominated the Akahasu period (1347–1722). Emerging from the teyoroi knights that brought the Mitama line to pontifical supremacy, the class was a broad and heterogeneous group who simply held some form of title of mori or 'protector, guard' investing them with authority to act in name of defense of the Emperor and the body politic. The moriya began as autonomous local notables competing for independent spheres of influence, but as they began to participate in common court and urban politics, by the 17th century they became a rigidly ordered bureaucracy with offices and responsibilities appointed. The moriya are best remembered as the rivals of the sakanwata, who they traditionally despised as upstart merchants, but eventually conceded much political influence to over the course of the 18th century. By this time, many moriya nobles adopted the culture and economic methods of sakanwata, and became owners of powerful estates or prosperous businesses in their own right; the term now applied more narrowly to elements in court politics that contested sakanwata demands for republican, pluralist, or negotiatory government, particularly the Aotsubame. The 1794–1804 Aotsubame regime saw the hibernating concept of 'imperial protection' being invoked in a reactionary crackdown on sakanwata liberals, to which the Toll Convention responded by abolishing the system and title in legislation, and indefinitely postponing imperial succession, creating the Turonian Paramony. Nevertheless, many prominent Paramony politicians and businessmen still had backgrounds in great moriya clans and dynasties.