The Kyoto Shoshidai was an important administrative and political office in the early moderngovernment of Japan. However, the significance and effectiveness of the office is credited to the third Tokugawa shōgun, Iemitsu, who developed these initial creations as bureaucratic elements in a consistent and coherent whole.
The official was the personal representative of the military dictators Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi; and it was institutionalized as the representative of the Tokugawa shōguns. The office was similar to the Rokuhara Tandai of the 13th and 14th centuries. Tandai was the name given to governors or chief magistrates of important cities under the Kamakura shogunate. The office became very important under the Hōjō regents and was always held by a trusted member of the family.
The office was expanded and its duties codified as an office in the Tokugawa shogunate. The shoshidai, usually chosen from among the fudai daimyōs, was the shōgun's deputy in the Kyoto region, and was responsible for maintaining good relations and open communication between the shogunate and the imperial court. No less important, this official was also tasked with controlling the access of the daimyōs to the Court. He was appointed to oversee financial measures and the court, and to ensure the emperor's personal security and for guarding the safety of the court. For example, the shoshidai supported the Kyoto magistrate or municipal administrator in making positive policy about firefighting for the royal palaces. In this context, working with the shoshidai would have been the administrator of the reigning sovereign's court and the administrator of the ex-emperor's court, both of whom would have been shogunate appointees. He would have been at the head of a network of spies whose quiet task was to discover and report any covert sources of sedition, insurrection or other kinds of unrest. As Governor-general of Kyoto and the surrounding eight provinces, the shoshidai was responsible for collecting taxes in the home provinces and for other duties attached to this office as well. The municipal administrators of Nara and Fushimi, in addition to Kyoto's municipal governance, the Kyoto deputy, and the officials of the Nijō Palace were all subordinate to the shoshidai. He was empowered to hear suits-at-law and he had oversight control of all temples and shrines. The shoshidai had a force of constables and policemen under their command. In addition to administrative duties, the shoshidai's participation in ceremonial events served a function in consolidating the power and influence of the shogunate. For example, in September 1617, a Korean delegation was received by Hidetada at Fushimi Castle, and the shoshidai was summoned for two reasons for the Koreans, to underscore the importance accorded the embassy, and for the kuge courtiers in attendance, to make sure that they were properly impressed. To qualify for this high office, it eventually developed that service as governor of Osaka was a prerequisite. The close, personal link with the shōgun was maintained through visits to Edo every five or six years to report directly to the shōgun. The conventional route of promotion was from governor of Osaka to the shoshidai of Kyoto and from that position to the highest governing council. The shusidai earned 10,000 koku annually, in addition to the income from his own daimyoate. In September 1862, a concurrent, nearly co-equal office was created, the "Kyoto shugoshoku", was created in an attempt to strengthen the kōbu-gattai faction. The kōbu-gattai were feudal lords and Court nobles who sought a greater share of political power without actually destroying the shogunate, as contrasted with a more radical faction, the tōbaku, which attracted men like Ōkubo Toshimichi. The related office of the shugoshoku had essentially the same functions as that of the shoshidai, but it was considered the senior of the two; and only members of the Matsudaira family were appointed. The last Kyoto shoshidai, Matsudaira Sadaaki, came from a collateral Tokugawa branch. As a practical matter, it could be said that this office ended with his resignation in 1867; but matters were not so unclouded in that time. After the Imperial edict sanctioning the restoration of Imperial government, there was a time lag before the office of shoshidai was abolished and affairs of the city were temporarily entrusted to the clans of Sasayama, Zeze and Kameyama.
