from the tax collectors of the central government, afforded them no protection from their local enemies. For this, they needed the aid of other fighting men, the knights on other local estates. Quite naturally these warrior aristocrats began to form small local cliques for their mutual protection.
These cliques were held together by common interest, ties of marriage and of old friendships, and sometimes the qualities of leadership displayed by a local warrior hero. Particularly in the eastland did such associations of knights flourish, possibly because the greatest concentration of estates in the whole land was to be found on the Kanto Plain around the modern city of Tokyo, and also because the continuing campaigns against the retreating Ainu in northern Honshu made the need for such associations all the more evident.
The tenth and eleventh centuries saw many clashes and small wars between different groups of knights in the provinces. These contests are often described in histories as revolts against imperial authority, for one faction would resist domination by another faction which enjoyed the backing of the central government. The provincial knights, however, for the most part showed little desire to assume the governmental prerogatives of the Kyoto court. They were content to leave the central government undisturbed as long as they themselves could continue to rule the peasants on their own estates and to organize their cliques for local defense without interference from the capital.
The court aristocrats, rather than the knights themselves, eventually brought these provincial warriors onto the capital stage. The courtiers, lacking all knowl-