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NO ABODE
The Record of Ippen
• -• •

o Abode
Record oflppen
Dennis Hirota

m¿]J. i u
Li. .«H
University of Hawai'i Press • Honolulu
• H p lili
H
afea"
 Published in association with
The Institute of Buddhist Cultural Studies,
Ryukoku University, Kyoto,
and
The Center for Contemporary Shin Buddhist Studies,
Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley

RYUKOKU-IBS STUDIES IN BUDDHIST THOUGHT AND TRADITION

Dennis Hirota, Plain Words on the Pure Land Way: Sayings of the
Wandering Monks of Medieval Japan (1989)
Dennis Hirota, Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as
a Buddhist Path (1995)

C o p y r i g h t © 1986, rev. ed. 1997 by Dennis Hirota and Ryukoku University

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

BOOK DESIGN: W . S. Y O K O Y A M A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ippen, 1239-1289.
[Ippen Shonin goroku. English]
No abode : the Record of Ippen / Dennis Hirota. — Rev. ed.
p. cm. — (Ryukoku-IBS studies in Buddhist thought and
tradition)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 - 8 2 4 8 - 1 9 7 8 - 0 (cloth : alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8248-1997-7
(paper: alk. paper)
l.Ji(Sect)—Doctrines—Early works to 1800. I. Hirota, Dennis.
II. Title. III. Series.
BQ8559.I664I6613 1997
294.3'926—dc21
[B] 97-25770
CIP

University of Hawai'i Press books are printed on acid-free paper

and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources
To the Memory
of
My Father
CONTENTS

Foreword ix
Map x
A Chronology oflppen's Life and Writings xi
List of Illustrations xiv

Introduction XXI

T H E R E C O R D OF IPPEN

Hymn of Amida's Vow 3

A Gist in Empty Words 7
Verse of Aspiration 15
Precepts for the Nembutsu Practicer 17
The Deep Significance of the Tools of the Way 20
Letters 25
Verse in Chinese (Gathas) 36
Poems (Waka) 39
Words Handed Down by Disciples 71
Passages from Other Texts 125

Notes 129
Textual Variations 167
List of Correspondences I 169
List of Correspondences II 170
Selected Bibliography 171
Index 175

vii
 Foreword

Whose presence is it?

Garbed in a straw mat
in bright springtide.

komo o kite / tarebito imasu / hana no haru

—Basho

T h e materials in this book originally appeared in a series of articles published

in The Eastern Buddhist beginning in spring, 1978. I remain grateful to the
late NISHITANI Keiji, then head of the editorial board, and to Professor
NAGAO Gadjin for their encouragement and their careful review of portions
of the translation at the time of original publication.
No Abode: The Record oflppen first appeared in book form in 1986, published
in Japan by Ryukoku University. T h e support of YAMADA Meiji, Professor of
Buddhist Studies, has made both the initial book and the present edition
possible. An opportunity to prepare this book for American publication, to
add illustrations, and to make minor revisions was afforded by an appointment
as Visiting Professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies
in Kyoto during 1 9 9 6 - 1 9 9 7 . 1 am grateful in particular to Professor YAMAORI

Tetsuo of the Center for his encouragement. M y wife, Kimiko, obtained the
illustrations and performed numerous other editorial tasks.
T h e haiku I have adopted for the epigraph was written at the lunar new
year, 1690. Shortly after the journey described in Narrow Roads into the Deep
North, Basho continued to reflect on the wandering monks who were his
model, Saigyo in particular, and he refers to the same book of legendary
anecdotes, Collection of Tales (Senjusho), that apparendy provided inspiration
for Ippen. Perhaps Basho's mixed perceptions of the numinous and the
incongruous, of rooted tradition and necessary journey, lend us in our own
times a point of entry into the world of Ippen.

Lunar New Year, 1997,

at Katsurazaka
D. H.

ix
 A Chronology oflppen's Life and Writings

This chronology and the bracketed dates in the translation are based
chiefly on Ippen Hijiri-e.

1239 Born in Iyo province (modern Matsuyama city, Ehime prefecture)

[1].
1248 Mother dies; becomes a monk with the name Zuien.

1251 Journeys to Dazaifu [2] in northern Kyushu to study under Shodatsu;

sent to Hizen province (Saga) for basic studies under Kedai. Name
changed to Chishin.

1252 In spring, returns to Dazaifu for lengthy study under Shodatsu.

1263 Father dies in fifth month. Returns home to Iyo, where he eventually
marries. Poem 67.

1271 Resolves to abandon householding life. Visits Shodatsu. In spring,

pilgrimage to Zenkoji [3] in Shinano province (Nagano), where he
copies a painting of the parable of the two rivers and white path. In
autumn, returns to Iyo, to secluded life of nembutsu at Kubodera
[4]; composes verse, "The Nonduality of Ten and One."

1273 From seventh month, retreat in a mountain hut at Sugo [5], in Iyo,
for six months.

1274 Second month, departs from home in Iyo with a small party on a life
of propagation. Parts with Shokai. Receives the ten precepts at
Shitennoji (Osaka) [6]. Begins distribution of nembutsu fuda. In
summer, pilgrimage to Mount Koya [7] and to Kumano (Wakayama)
[8]. Revelation at Kumano shrine. Sends woodblock for nembutsu
fuda to Shokai. Chinese verse: "Salvation for All," "From the Begin-
ning Not a Single Thing."

1275 Kyoto [9]. Kyushu. In autumn, home to Iyo province. Propagation

throughout Iyo. Poem 1.

1276 Kyushu; meets Shodatsu and explains the ippen-nembutsu. Warrior's

residence in Chikuzen (Fukuoka). Osumi Shohachimangu shrine

xi
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

(Kagoshima) [10]. Bungo province (Oita) [ n ] ; meets Ta-amidabutsu

Shinkyo, the first disciple after Shokai to travel with him. Poems 68,
69; Words 100.

1278 Returns to Iyo in summer with a small party of followers. In fall, to

Itsukushima Island (Shinto shrine) [12] in the Inland Sea. Winter in
Bizen (Okayama) [13]; in a marketplace, more than 280 people take
tonsure under him.

1279 In spring, to Kyoto, residing in Inabado temple. In the eighth month

leaves for Zenkoji, which he reaches in forty-eight days. Twelfth
month, year-end nembutsu session in a private home in the
marketplace of Tomono, Shinano province [14]; at this time, purple
clouds appear. At Odagiri village in Shinano, at a warrior's residence,
engages in dancing nembutsu (odori-nembutsu).

1280 Autumn, at Onodera [15] in Shimotsuke province (Tochigi).

Shirakawa Barrier (Fukushima) [16]; north to visit the grave of exiled
grandfather Michinobu (Iwate) [17]. Poems 3, 5-8.

1281 Hiraizumi [18]; Matsushima [19]; Hitachi province (Ibaraki). At

Ishihama [20] in Musashi province (near Tokyo), four or five of his
followers take ill. Poem 9.

1282 Third month, attempts to enter Kamakura [21] but is prevented by

warriors and beaten. Fasting and special session of nembutsu in
Katase (Kanagawa, west of Kamakura). Resides for four months in
Jizodo in Katase, during which there are frequent appearances of
purple clouds and flowers falling from the sky. First builds roofed
platform for dancing nembutsu. In the seventh month, departs on
pilgrimage to Mishima shrine [22] in Izu province (Shizuoka).
Encounter with Ajisaka. Letter 7; Chinese verse "Response to a
Message from Kintomo"; Poems 10-13; Words 1 0 1 , 102.

1283 Jimokuji in Owari province (Aichi) [23]. Without completing a seven-

day session of nembutsu there, leaves for Kayatsu, where the deity
Bishamonten appears. Through Owari and Mino (Gifu) provinces to
Kusatsu in Omi province (Shiga) [24]. Meets Shinnen of Yokawa. At
first prevented from entering Sekidera because of a prohibition on
nembutsu by Onjoji, but later allowed to carry on distribution of
nembutsu fuda and dancing nembutsu for seven days. Because of the
crowds, extended to twenty-seven days. Poems 16, 17; Words 103.

1284 T o Shakado in Kyoto. After seventeen days, moves to Inabado. Brief

stays at temples in Kyoto: Hidenin; Renkoin; Ungoji; Roku-

xii
 CHRONOLOGY

haramitsuji; odori nembntsu at the Ichiya dojo founded by Kuya. Fifth

month, to Katsura (west of Kyoto), where he recuperates from illness.
Fall, travels north from Katsura. Letters i , 2, 3, 9; Poems 32-34,
36-38, 40-41; Words 104.

1285 Fifth month: Tango (Kyoto prefecture, on the Japan Sea), where the
god of the sea appears as a dragon. Inaba and Hold provinces (Tottori).
Village of Osaka [25]. Pilgrimage to Ichinomiya shrine in Mimasaka
(Okayama) [26]. Poems 42, 45.

1286 T o Shitennoji. Pilgrimage to Sumiyoshi shrine. Three-day retreat at

Prince Shotoku's tomb in Kawachi (near Osaka). Taimadera (Nara)
[27]; composes "Verse of Aspiration." In winter, to Iwashimizu
Hachimangu shrine (south of Kyoto). Returns to Shitennoji for special
session of nembutsu at the end of the year; composes "Precepts for
the Nembutsu Practicer." Chinese verse "All Practices Fulfilled in a
Single Utterance"; Poems 46-48.

1287 Amagasaki in Settsu province [near 6]. Komyofukuji in town of Hyogo,

Harima province (Hyogo) [28]. Pilgrimage to grave of Kyoshin,
Kyoshinji, in Inamino. Pilgrimage to Mount Shosha [29]. At the
Hachimangu shrine in Matsubara, composes "Hymn of Amida's Vow."
On the first day of the third month, composes "The Deep Significance
of the Tools of the Way." Karube in Bitchu (Okayama). Pilgrimages
to Ichinomiya shrine in Bingo [30] and Itsukushima. Chinese verse
"Homage to Mount Shosha"; Poems 53, 56-59.

1288 T o Iyo province. Pilgrimage to Sugo, site of earlier practice. Stays

three months at Hantaji temple. In the twelfth month, pilgrimage to
Daimishima shrine [31].

1289 On island of Shikoku, through Sanuki province (Kagawa); Zentsuji

[32] founded by Kukai at his birthplace; Mandaraji; to Awa province
(Tokushima) [33]. Becomes ill from the sixth month. Beginning of
seventh month, departs from Awa for Fukura [34] on Awaji Island.
Eighteenth day of seventh month, crosses to town of Akashi [3 5] by
boat and goes on to Kannondo in the town of Hyogo. Eighth month,
second day, sits and delivers a sermon (Letter 10). Eighth month,
tenth day, burns the books and writings in his possession while
chanting the Amida Sutra. Eighth month, twenty-third day, dies.
Poems 60-66, 70; Words 1 0 5 - m .

xiii
 List of Illustrations

Cover: Portrait of Ippen (1239-1289)

Ippen in travel, distributing nembutsu fuda with hands in a gesture of homage.

He holds a nenju (rosary) and a sheaf oí fuda, with one at his fingertips to
pass on together with the utterance of the Name. Barefoot, he wears a grey
monk's robe and an overrobe of roughly woven fiber, undyed but naturally
reddish in color. On top is a grey kesa (vestigial Buddhist surplice) worn
with a strap over the left shoulder. At his waist is a black sash, from which
hangs a handkerchief. The inscription is a variation on Ippen's Poem 32:
hotoke koso It is Buddha
inochi to mi to no who is master
aruji nare of my life and body—
wagafurumai mo of indeed my acts,
waga kokoro [ka?] via my very mind.
Namuamidabutsu Namu-amida-butsu

This painting dates from the late fourteenth century, but its depiction of
Ippen, darkened with travel, his large head rugged in feature, is a copy in a
lineage of similar portraits, the earliest extant example of which was hung in
the altar by Ippen's chief disciple Taa at the year-end session of uninterrupted
nembutsu in 1290. The posture and details also closely resemble a statue of
Ippen, shown in Hijiri-e, made by disciples and placed in a small shrine at
the site of Ippen's death. 62.5 cm x 31.0 cm. Courtesy of the Kanagawa
Prefectural Museum of History, Yokohama.

Scenes from Ippen Hijiri-e (Illustrated Biography of the Holy Man Ippen)

Ippen Hijiri-e comprises twelve horizontal handscrolls in which forty-eight

sections of narrative, including records of Ippen's words, alternate with
painted illustrations. The text was composed by Shókai ( £ ? £ , b. 1261),
Ippen's stepbrother. Ippen took the tonsure with the death of his mother
and spent eleven years in training in Kyüshü. During this period, his father
remarried and Shókai was born, twenty-two years Ippen's junior. With his
father's death in 1263, Ippen returned home. When he decided eight years
later to dedicate himself again to practice, Shókai, then twelve years old,

xiv
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

took the tonsure and accompanied him, attending him in retreats at Zenkoji,
Kubodera, and Sugo, during which Ippen underwent his formative religious
experiences. Shokai parted from Ippen in spring of 1274, before Ippen
embarked on his propagation activity at Shitennoji, and apparently took up
residence at a temple in Iyo. Later, after the revelation at Kumano, Ippen
sent Shokai a woodblock for printing nembutsu fiida. Shokai's next important
involvement in Ippen's life was his attendance during his final days.
After Ippen's death, Shokai was active in spreading Ippen's teaching,
notably in the aristocratic society of Kyoto, where he founded Kangikoji
temple. Hijiri-e was one fruit of this activity. According to the colophon, it
was completed on the twenty-third day of the eighth month, Shoan 1 (1299),
which corresponds to the tenth anniversary of Ippen's death. The artist is
identified as the monk En'i R # " of the rank Hogen ("Dharma-eye"); the
paintings themselves, however, reveal that the work was divided among
three hands. Further, it is stated that the work received the encouragement
of the "foremost personage" (ichi no hito), apparendy referring to the chancellor
{kampakii) Kujo Tadanori. Hijiri-e is distinguished from almost all other
illustrated handscrolls of the period by its use of silk rather than paper,
testifying to the patronage of a wealthy donor.
•The number of scrolls is said in the postscript to represent the twelve
epithets for the light of Amida in the Larger Sutra (see pp. 20-24), a n c ' the
forty-eight sections to correspond to the number of Vows established by
Amida. In general, however, Hijiri-e does not to employ such pictorial
hagiographic techniques as the magnification of the figure of Ippen, and
provides instead detailed depictions of scenes from his life and travels. Much
attention is given to Ippen's propagation among ordinary people and the
lower strata of society, perhaps to indicate his abandonment of conventional
social hierarchies, and the artists probably retraced Ippen's steps in his
pilgrimages to important temples and shrines. Hijiri-e is thus a major resource
for knowledge both of daily life in medieval Japan and of the architectural
features of many religious sites. Further, Shokai's close relationship with
Ippen may have contributed to a desire to convey a personal knowledge of
the master and to resist the impulse toward apotheosis often evident in
works of the period by disciples of religious leaders.
Each of the twelve scrolls comprises three to five scenes, with most
having four. Long preserved, along with a number of other early documents,
at Kangikoji, they are now in the joint possession of Kangikoji and the
present headquarters of the Jishu tradition, Shojokoji, in Fujisawa city near

xv
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

Kamakura, with the exception of scroll VII, which is in the collection of the
T o k y o National Museum. 38.2 cm x 9 0 8 . 5 - 1 1 5 7 . 5 cm. Illustrations 1 - 7 by
permission of Kangikoji and Shojokoji. Photographs courtesy of C h u -
okoronsha, T o k y o .

1. Second departure from householding life, 1 2 7 1 [title page]

Ippen at age thirty-two, on his w a y to see his teacher Shodatsu in Kyushu

after resolving to abandon worldly life a second time. H e wears wooden geta
on his feet and carries an umbrella, commonly used by traveling monks.
Attendant monks are shown wearing the severe grey robes with black kesa
that were to become the standard attire of Ippen's following. Such robes
contrast in particular with the elaborate robes worn by some monks of the
ecclesiastical establishment (cf. Tendai robes in Illustration 4). T h e second
monk is probably Shokai. T h e last two monks in simple dress bear legged
basket packs; they may be close in appearance to many of the wandering
monks of the period loosely affiliated with various temple centers.

Ippen's countenance and bearing reveal his determination. In the

background, the vista of the Inland Sea beyond the shore of his native Iyo.
T h e skiff on the strand hints of his travel to northern Kyushu by boat,
perhaps using his clan connections. O n the right are withered, windblown
pines with cormorants in the branches and seashells scattered about the
trunks. A s elsewhere in Hijiri-e, migrating geese echo the motif of extended
travel and no abode, (SCROLL I, SCENE 2)

2. Retreat at Sugo in the mountains of Shikoku, 1 2 7 3 [p. xxvi]

O n e of thirty-three peaks in the area, depicted using techniques of S u n g

dynasty Chinese landscape painting. T h e figures on the ladder are probably
Ippen and Shokai, climbing to worship at the shrine to a guardian kami on
the peak. Below, pilgrims pay homage to the monks. T h e w o m e n wear
veiled, broad-brimmed hats; the men, samurai eboshi caps. T h e preceding
portion of this frame depicts simple wooden shacks and Buddhist altars
perched on a cliff, connected by ladders. T h e main hall in the complex
enshrines an image of the protector spirit F u d o M y o o said to have been
carved by Kukai.
Hijiri-e, in a passage typical of its attention to the lore surrounding
sacred sites, relates how a bodhisattva had manifested himself at Sugo before
the spread of Buddhism. One night when a hunter touched his bow against
a rotting tree, the tree began to glow. L o o k i n g the next day, he found

xvi
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

beneath the moss a golden figure in human form, and realized at once it was
Kannon. Eventually he built a small hall to enshrine the bodhisattva and,
vowing to protect it, became the guardian deity of the place. Among the
legendary ascetics who practiced austerities in caves in the area seeking the
aid of Kannon was a woman who, through chanting the Lotus Sutra, overcame
the hindrance of a female bodily existence and gained the ability to fly.
(SCROLL II, SCENE L)

3. At Shitennoji temple, 1274 [p. xxx\

Ippen outside the west gate distributing nembutsu fiida. He probably decided
on this method of propagation during his earlier retreat at Sugo, and the
fuda are eagerly sought after, perhaps chiefly as amulets. At Ippen's side are
two figures in robes, tentatively identified as his wife and daughter. Monks,
nuns, and laypeople are shown about the gate. At the left, two hunters in
straw hats and cape approach, while nearby a samurai in formal robes (kariginu)
looks on.
T h e west gate of the temple, looking out to the Inland Sea, was said to
adjoin the Pure Land, and people made pilgrimages to the temple to perform
Pure Land devotions, worship relics of Sakyamuni Buddha, and enter retreats
in the hope of receiving the aid of Prince Shotoku, who founded the temple
for the protection of Buddhism in Japan. Almsgiving was also practiced, and
the temple became a gathering place for the homeless, which it has remained
down to the present. At the bottom, as frequently in Hijiri-e, beggars are
shown, here sitting on rough straw mats in front of shacks, some of which
are built on wheels. Kamo no Chomei also built his famed "ten-foot square
hut" to be portable, (SCROLL II, SCENE 3)

4. Revelation at theKumano shrine complex, 1274 [p. xxxiv]

Employing a technique in which different times or events are shown

simultaneously, this scene presents two phases of Ippen's dream. First,
kneeling on the ground in front of a shrine in a gesture of homage, Ippen
receives the divine message from the deity, who has emerged from the
shrine in the form of a mountain ascetic (yamabushi). Second, at the right,
Ippen distributes/«^ to boys aged about ten to twelve, in ordinary dress
and long hair prior to rites of manhood. At the bottom, pilgrims are shown
carrying torches, indicating night.
At the far left, before another shrine, a daytime scene: a Buddhist priest
in traditional Tendai robes conducts a prayer ritual. He is seated directly on

xvii
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

the ground holding a wand with Shinto cut-paper pendants (gohei). Before
him is a small stand with incense burner. Among the worshipers is a nun in
a headscarf, while the man sitting with his back to the shrine may be a
Shinto priest. T h e scene reveals the fusion of Buddhist and Shinto practices
in the Kamakura period, (SCROLL III, SCENE I )

5. Dancing nembutsu, 1279 [p. xxxviii]

T h e grounds of a warrior residence. At the left, Ippen stands on the verandah

striking a bowl with a stick and perhaps calling his followers to dance. He is
emerging from within, where he has delivered a sermon to the owner; an
attendant samurai sits at the end of the verandah. In the yard, bounded by a
brushwood fence, a follower dances, and about him a group including both
other followers in robes and ordinary people has gathered. Some of the
others have begun to dance also, with ecstatic expressions. In the background
stands a low, roofed shrine (hokora) of a common type, and to the right, a
mound with a young tree growing from it. T h e mound is probably a grave.
(SCROLL IV, SCENE 5 )

6. Ippen at his grandfather's grave, 1280 [p. 42]

Ippen performing rites for the repose of the spirit of his grandfather Kono
Michinobu ( 1 1 5 6 - 1 2 2 3 ) ; see Introduction, p. xli. About the mound are rice
fields in which the stubble of straw after harvest is visible in some; in others,
later strains of rice are shown cut and drying on the ground. T h e actual
mound, long known in the area as the "hijiri's grave," was identified as that
of Michinobu in 1965. It is rounded at the top with a square base, typical of
mounds of the aristocratic classes in the Kamakura period, and measures
approximately three meters in height and twelve meters in diameter. At
present, two pine trees grow from it. (SCROLL v, SCENE 3)

7. T h e attempt to enter Kamakura, 1282 [p. 120]

Ippen, with fuda in hand, and his followers just within the precincts of the
city, the coarse, mat-like weaving of their outer garments (ami-ginu) visible.
Several of the jishu look back apprehensively as behind them, beggars are
driven away from a low fence across the road. All the roads descending into
the coastal city through passes in the hills were of strategic importance.
From the right, warriors approach; see Introduction, p. xli. In the lead on
horseback is the Regent, Hojo Tokimune ( 1 2 5 1 - 1 2 8 4 ) , on his way to his
nearby manor at Yamanouchi. He extends his ceremonial fan to point at

xviii
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Ippen. In the foreground, two townspeople—a woman in a hooded cloak

(kazuki) and a girl carrying a parcel—observe the encounter, their ordinary
dress and sandals providing contrast with Ippen's band. A l o n g the road runs
a deep gutter. T h e buildings in the background include, at the middle and
right, fenced houses with shutters closed and lowered reed screens, and on
the left, shops with straw sandals and other goods on display, and a w o m a n
shopkeeper sitting within, (SCROLL V, SCENE 5)

8. Dancing nembutsu at the Ichiyadojo in K y o t o , 1284 [p. 128]

A t a site associated with Kuya (now grounds of Nishi Honganji), Ippen built
a platform and conducted dancing nembutsu during forty-eight days of
propagation in Kyoto. T h e resident Tendai monk, Karahashi Hoin, converted
to Ippen's teaching (see W o r d s 104). T h e atmosphere is festive. M a n y
townspeople have come in carriages to watch, and some have built stands
around the platform. Ippen is depicted dancing at the center front. A t the
lower right, food is being carried into the stands. Beneath the platform,
children play, and a beggar is also visible.
O n the right side of the platform is a nobleman in a tall court hat, a
relatively rare figure in Hijiri-e. A t the lower left is an itinerant biwa (lute)
monk. Such performers, often blind, performed chants for the repose of
spirits and recited episodes from war tales as a form of preaching on
impermanence. (SCROLL VII, SCENE 3) By permission of the T o k y o National
Museum.

Woodblock-printed nembutsu/wifo [p. 1]

T h i s fuda was recendy discovered inside a statue of Prince Shotoku at two

years of age. According to legend, at this age he faced the east and, with
hands in gesture of worship, uttered "Namu-hotoke" ("homage to Buddha").
In the widespread veneration for Prince Shotoku in the Kamakura period,
this occurrence was understood to reveal that he was an incarnation of
Bodhisattva Kannon, who appeared in Japan to spread the Pure Land teaching.
O n the basis of other inserted materials, it is conjectured that the statue
was made in 1292, just three years after Ippen's death, and that this fuda was
therefore distributed by either Ippen or Taa. It bears the N a m e of Amida,
"Namu-amida-butsu," and the inscription, "Decisive settlement of birth:
sixty myriad people" (¿ftTEiiife./N+Tj A , ketsujo ojo rokujumannin). Such
fuda, in almost the exact same dimensions and with the identical inscription,
are now printed at the beginning of each year by the head of the Jishu.

xix
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

Shown actual size (7.4 x 2.2 cm). Photograph courtesy of the Arthur M.
Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums.

Back cover: Rubbing of Ippen's engraving of "Namu-amida-butsu"

Taa records that Ippen, during a pilgrimage to Kumano sometime after his
initial revelation, raised a stone as a stupa by a mountain path at Banzai-ga-
mine, near the shrine, and carved the Name of Amida Buddha so that
pilgrims passing by would come to form bonds with it (Horn Engi-ki; see
Poem 5 for another example of such propagation). The inscription is in a
distinctive cursive style perhaps influenced by esoteric tradition, which
employs Sanskrit scripts. The stone has broken and been restored. The
rubbing measures 113.9 X3 3.4 cm. Photograph courtesy of Tachibana Shundo.

xx
 Introduction

I ppen was a hijiri or "holy man"—one who, while renouncing

secular life, lived apart from the authorized religious orders and
transmitted the Dharma to ordinary men and women. Such figures
roamed the landscape of medieval Japan and survive in legend: the
ferryman at a remote crossing who flees deeper into anonymity when
his attainments are glimpsed, the mendicant monk beating a gong
and chanting the Name of Amida Buddha in the marketplace. At
times they might travel from village to village in the countryside
performing rites, preaching, and collecting donations for temple
construction; and at others, train in special practice halls separated
from the main institutions, or seek supernormal powers and contact
with the sacred through mountain austerities and contemplative
seclusion. Some were warriors who turned to reclusive life in revulsion
at bloodletting or in face of defeat; some were of the nobility, having
suffered the disappointments of their class in a period of social turmoil;
some were learned monks repulsed by the hunger for power in the
ecclesiastical centers. 1
Perhaps the fullest, most compelling image we have of the
wandering holy man is that of Ippen (— fi, 1239-1289). In him we
find a form of Pure Land teaching in which various strands of Buddhist
thought are fused with a wide range of popularly-accepted religious
practices. H e studied in the lineage of Honen and is regarded as the
founder of the Jishu, one of the new Buddhist streams that emerged
during the Kamakura period. His basic message is framed in terms
of the Pure Land path: in the utterance of the nembutsu, Namu-
amida-butsu, persons become one with Amida Buddha, so that their
birth in Amida's Pure Land and their own realization of Buddhahood
are settled.2 At the same time, however, his religious attainment was
recognized by Zen master Kakushin, from whom he received sanction

xxi
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

(inka), and he also felt strong ties with the Shingon temple complex
on M o u n t K o y a , a center of esoteric Buddhism.
In addition, reflecting the fusion of Buddhist and Shinto traditions
that reached a high point in the Kamakura period, he adopted a
number of activities ultimately rooted in indigenous or non-Buddhist
practices: mountain asceticism; pilgrimages to sacred sites, including
major shrines and temples throughout the country; retreats at such
sites undertaken in the hope of receiving divine guidance and dream
messages; an itinerant life of propagation; rites for the repose of the
spirits of the dead, particularly deceased clan members; the use o f
verse as religious offerings at temples and shrines and as a medium
of sacred expression; distribution o f fiida (slips o f paper bearing a
holy inscription, such as the name of a Buddha or deity, and often
regarded as possessing protective powers); ecstatic dancing; and the
keeping of a register for recording the names of the faithful.
Further, Ippen's life of constant travel brought him into contact
with people o f diverse classes and livelihoods, from roving samurai
bandits w h o sought to seize the nuns in his f o l l o w i n g to f o r m e r
ministers and court ladies, and the events of his biography reveal the
religious climate of the times. In his admonitions against self-drowning
in order to be born in the Pure Land, for example, or the numbers
o f m e n and w o m e n w h o received the tonsure f r o m him, w e sense
both widespread disquiet and intense energy arising from the harsh
conditions o f daily life, radical social and political changes, and such
extraordinary pressures as the M o n g o l invasion attempts. Ippen was
known in particular as the "hijiri w h o discarded" (sute-bijiri), and in
his denial of attachments we find a probing, critical attitude, together
with a pervasive awareness of his own life and the life of all t h i n g s —
"mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, even the sounds of blowing
winds and rising waves" (Letter 5)—as bound together in the activity
of the Buddha Amida, "Immeasurable L i g h t and Life."

THE FORMATION OF IPPEN'S THOUGHT AND PRACTICES

Ippen was born into a provincial warrior family, the K o n o , a branch

of the powerful O c h i clan, in Iyo province (present Ehime prefecture)

xxii
 INTRODUCTION

on the island of Shikoku. Half a century before his birth, his grand-
father Michinobu brought the family considerable power and influence
by staunchly supporting the Minamoto in their struggle against the
Taira clan and participating in the final victory at Dannoura in
1185. The newly-formed warrior regime, the Kamakura bakufu,
rewarded him with an appointment as governor of Iyo, and from his
bases there he dominated the waters of the Inland Sea. But decline
came swiftly. Three decades later, in 1221, he joined the imperial
forces of the retired emperor Gotoba in an uprising against the
bakufu, and for his role in the short-lived incident, known as the
Jokyu disturbance, he was exiled to Mutsu province (Iwate prefecture)
far to the north, where he died in 1230. Of Michinobu's six sons,
two had not colluded against the government and therefore escaped
punishment; the elder took over the leadership of the clan, and the
younger, Michihiro, Ippen's future father, turned from the life of a
samurai to enter the priesthood with the name Nyobutsu, probably
in order to pray for the repose of slain clan members.
Nyobutsu studied in Kyoto under one of Honen's leading disciples,
the Pure Land teacher Shoku (fiESi, 1177-1247), and then returned
to Shikoku, where he married and held a small property. In a mode
of life seen increasingly in the period, particularly among Pure Land
Buddhists, he maintained his status as a priest, performing rites in
the family temple, and also openly fulfilled the role of head of a
warrior household. Ippen, his second son, was given the child's name
Shojumaru (the religious name "Ippen" was adopted later).
When Ippen was nine years old,3 his mother died, and shortly
thereafter he became a monk in a Tendai temple. Ippen Hijiri-e
(Illustrated biography of the holy man Ippen) states that with his
mother's death he "awakened to the truth of impermanence," but no
doubt Nyobutsu played a large role in the decision, as did the dimin-
ished prospects of the family.4 In 1251, at the age of twelve, Ippen
was sent to Kyushu to begin his studies in the Pure Land tradition
under the monk and active teacher Shodatsu (or Shotatsu Mil, 1203-
1279). Shodatsu in turn sent Ippen for a brief period of preliminary
study under another monk, Kedai. Both these men had been colleagues

xxiii
 NO ABODE: T H E RECORD OF IPPEN

of Ippen's father, all having studied under Sh5ku. Then, from about
1252 to 1263—from the ages of thirteen to twenty-four—Ippen
studied the Pure Land teachings under Shodatsu's guidance.5

Awakening

In 1263, Ippen's father died. On hearing the news, Ippen journeyed

home, where he eventually reverted to lay life as a warrior and took
a wife. He retained his religious aspirations, however. Hijiri-e states:

After [his return], at times he entered the gate of truth and

endeavored in practice; at other times he mingled in the dust of
worldly life and turned his thoughts to familial love and affection.
Then he would play with children, even spinning a spool-shaped
top in the air for them. On one occasion, the top fell to the
ground and lay still. Later he would say: "Going over this in my
mind, I saw that if you spin a top, it will turn, but if you do not
go about spinning it, it will stop. Our turning in transmigration
is precisely so. With our activities of body, speech, and mind,
there can be no end to transmigration in the six paths. But how
would we transmigrate if our self-actions ceased? Here for the
first time this struck my heart, and realizing the nature of birth-
and-death, I grasped the essence of Buddha-dharma." (SCROLL I)

After eight years at home, Ippen resolved to "sever emotional attach-

ments and enter the realm of the uncreated." Hijiri-e comments:

The Buddha taught that even sleeping in the mountains and

forests is superior to diligence while in householding life. More-
over, there was an incident that reminded him of the admonition,
"If they linger long in the village, hijiri and deer meet with
disaster." (SCROLL I)

The nature of this incident is not known, but there appears to have
been a serious feud within the clan. Another biography states that
Ippen, attacked by four men with swords, managed to disarm one
and flee while sustaining a severe wound.6
In 1271, at the age of thirty-two, Ippen set out for Kyushu once

xxiv
 INTRODUCTION

more to consult Shodatsu about his decision (see Illustration i).

There is no record of this meeting and shortly after we find him on
his way to distant Zenkoji temple in present Nagano prefecture.
Ippen was later to speak of his decade of study under Sh5datsu as
nothing but "an exercise of self-will" ("Words Handed Down by
Disciples," 85). It seems likely, therefore, that at this point he acutely
felt the inadequacy of his earlier efforts in doctrinal learning and
that he had already resolved to pursue his religious quest by other
means. Zenkoji, apparently in existence from the late Nara period,
was probably known to Ippen as a temple venerated by Shoku. Further,
it was a popular pilgrimage site and a center for nembutsu hijiri. Its
image of Amida flanked by two bodhisattvas, thought to have arrived
in Japan from India, was regarded as the living Buddha and as being
so sacred that it was kept hidden from sight. Hence, Hijiri-e speaks
of the temple as "auspicious ground for the decisive settlement of
birth in the Pure Land" and further states that Ippen succeeded in
gaining a direct encounter with the Buddha (scroll i).
Savoring his profound contact with Amida, Ippen remained in
retreat at Zenkoji for a number of days and copied a painting depicting
the parable of the two rivers and the white path, which describes
how a solitary traveler is able to traverse the turbulent rivers of blind
passion by walking the hairbreadth path of desire for the Pure Land.
He then returned close to his home in Iyo, where,

in autumn of the same year, at Kubodera, he made a clearing in

a secluded spot covered with blue moss and verdant ivy. There
he built a hermitage with a pine gate and brushwood door. On
the wall to the east he placed the painting of the two rivers as an
image of worship and, cutting off all outside contact, carried on
his practice in solitude. Abandoning all affairs, he solely recited
the Name of Amida. With no impediments to his practice in the
four forms of deportment—walking, standing, sitting, and
reclining—he greeted and passed the springs and autumns of
three years. At that time, he made a verse in seven-character
lines expressing Dharma as he understood it in his own heart
and placed it on the wall adjacent to the sacred image:

XXV
 tBBBBBIWBWW
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 INTRODUCTION

Perfect enlightenment ten kalpas past—pervading the realm of

sentient beings;
Birth in one thought-moment—in Amida's Land.
When ten and one are nondual, we realize no-birth;
Where Land and realm are the same, we sit in Amida's great
assembly. (SCROLL I)

Hijiri-e shows a bare, one-room structure made of boards, with a

large painting hung in the middle of a wall and a simple stand in
front to serve as altar. Although seldom noted, it is possible that
Ippen modeled his retreat in part on the example of Shoku, who is
said to have spent spent three years in his quarters studying Shan-tao's
Commentary on the Contemplation Sutra with the text pasted on his
walls and ceiling. Ippen is often depicted simply as responding to the
needs of ordinary people through the use of folk practices, but as we
will see below, his words reflect extended study of Pure Land doctrine,
and he continued to formulate his awareness using Shoku's concepts.
The verse in Chinese that Ippen composed during this retreat devoted
to deepening and sharpening his realization is titled "The Nonduality
of Ten and One." "Ten" signifies Amida's enlightenment, realized
ten kalpas ago when his Vow to liberate all beings who say his Name
was fulfilled, and "one" signifies human beings' attainment of birth
in Amida's Pure Land in the utterance of the Name. The inseparability
of Amida's transtemporal Buddhahood and beings' attainment in the
immediate present would remain the foundation of Ippen's thought
for the rest of his life.
T o verify his realization and receive guidance in manifesting it
in his life, Ippen went to Sugo, a mountainous region on Shikoku
favored byyamabushi or "mountain ascetics." Caves and precipitous
peaks made it ideal for rigorous practices, and a rich religious lore
identified it as a sacred site. The area was celebrated also as a place
where Kukai, the founder of the Shingon center on Mount Koya,
performed austerities. Ippen remained in a hermitage for six months:

Here the hijiri secluded himself and prayed for the fundamental
resolve of renouncing this world. Revelations in dreams appeared

xxvii
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

to him frequently.... After going out from this place he abandoned

house and property forever, detached himself from love and family,
and relinquished all temple halls and buildings to the Three
Treasures of the Dharma-realm. . . . He selected and arranged
only the most essential scriptures, which became the equipment
with which he furnished himself for his practice. (SCROLL II)

At this point Ippen seems to have made a major decision to cease his
solitary practice as a recluse and to take up a life of travel as a form
of practice (yugyo 2Mt) that combined renunciation of any settled
dwelling—whether house or temple—with journeying throughout
the country to bring people into living contact with Dharma.

Spreading the Dharma

From Sugo, Ippen returned home briefly, perhaps to settle his

problematic affairs there, and then, in the second month of 1274, set
out once more accompanied by three people, conjectured to be his
wife and daughter and a servant monk or nun.8 He made his way to
Shitennoji temple (in present Osaka), which, like Zenkoji, promised
special proximity to, and lasting relationship with, the sacred. Its
western gate was regarded as "the eastern gate of the Land of Bliss,"
for the sun setting to the Inland Sea viewed from the temple precincts
inspired pilgrims with thoughts of Amida's land in the west. It was
thus a site for Pure Land devotions, particularly the practice of one
million recitations of the nembutsu, which might require a week in
retreat. Some aspirants even sought immediate entrance into the
Pure Land by drowning themselves. Further, the temple was associated
with Prince Shotoku, worshiped as a compassionate bodhisattva, and
housed relics of Sakyamuni Buddha.

On this site, with complete faith and sincerity, he made fast his
aspiration [to work for the liberation of all beings], submitted
priestly vows to observe the ten major precepts,9 received the
Tathagata's proscriptions, and began propagating the ippen ("one-
utterance") nembutsu for the salvation of sentient beings.
(SCROLL II)

xxv in
 INTRODUCTION

Here Ippen probably first engaged in the method of propagation he

was to employ throughout his life. There are two basic elements.
One is suggested by the term ippen-nembutsu, in which ippen literally
means "once" or "one time," indicating a single utterance of "Namu-
amida-butsu." W e do not know whether this term was used by Ippen
at this point in his life; he does not appear to have taken it as his
name until later in the year, after receiving a revelation at the Kumano
shrine. As a concrete activity, however, it seems to have been an
"exchange" or "bestowal" of utterance in which Ippen, reciting the
Name himself, would urge a passerby to follow his example.10 T h e
significance of the person's utterance was monumental in Ippen's
eyes, for Amida Buddha had vowed not to attain enlightenment
unless he brought to birth into the Pure Land—into the realm of
enlightenment—every person who said the Name even once. "One-
utterance" does not, however, refer to a numerical count; rather, it
indicates the instant of the immediate present that becomes, through
utterance, the point in which the person's salvation and Amida
Buddha's enlightenment are both fulfilled simultaneously. T h e "one-
utterance nembutsu" never becomes two or three utterances, but is
always the present moment rooting itself in Amida's enlightenment
that transcends time, or the Buddha's enlightenment emerging into
the present moment of the person's utterance.
When people responded to Ippen's utterance with their own,
Ippen presented a slip of paper ( f u d a ) on which the six Chinese
characters making up "Namu-amida-butsu" had been block-printed.
This is the second element of his propagation. It is not certain what
significance Ippen attached to tht fuda, but he speaks of using the
written Name as the central image in the altar, so they were no
doubt considered sacred, especially having been received from a holy
man, and probably used in worship. Further, since the Name embodied
the oneness of a person's attainment and the Buddha's enlightenment,
xhtfuda were probably regarded as concrete evidence that the person's
birth in Amida's Pure Land was completely settled. Basically, however,
the fuda lent tangible form to the utterance of the nembutsu and to
the bond thus formed (kecbien) with Amida's Vow, and for the ordinary
 :
M¿pA ' i ' * .' ^
 INTRODUCTION

people Ippen encountered, it made acceptance of the Name a bodily

rather than chiefly intellectual act. T h e distribution of such juda
bearing holy inscriptions had been practiced before him and continues
down to the present at temples and shrines, where they are widely
purchased as amulets and charms for a variety of benefits. Ippen no
doubt encountered the active use of juda for propagation at Zenkôji,
since hijiri associated with the temple are said to have engaged in
the practice.
In addition to the Name, Ippen's^w^ carried the inscription,
"Decisive settlement of birth: sixty myriad people." "Sixty," the ap-
proximate number of Japanese provinces, signifies the whole country;
"myriad" implies all the people. The inscription expresses Ippen's
aspiration to take his propagation efforts to everyone in the country.
Although there is clear evidence for the use of this inscription only
from later in the year, it is possible that Ippen included it from the
start at Shitennôji, consciously formulating in his vows there his
determination to work for the liberation of all beings through
spreading the Name of Amida.
It is not known how Ippen settled on this method of propagation.
Before him, however, there were others who devoted themselves to
the immense undertaking of bringing Amida's Name to all people.
One of these was Ryônin ( S . S , 1 0 7 3 - 1 1 3 2 ) , the founder ofyûzii
nembutsu—"nembutsu of interpénétration"—in which, under the
influence of Kegon and Tendai thought, the nembutsu was considered
to be such that the recitation of a single person constituted practice
for all and vice versa. Ryônin toured the country writing in a record
book the names of those who promised to face the west each morning
and recite the nembutsu ten times. This register was regarded as
proof that practice had been performed and that birth in the Pure
Land was thus assured for all enrolled. In this way, Ryônin created a
communal body of nembutsu practice that would extend to all beings,
transcending the bounds of time and space, and his record gave a
count of the actual number of people who had been saved through
participation in collective, interpenetrating nembutsu. Beginning in
1279, Ippen also had a register kept of the names of followers who,
 NO ABODE : THE RECORD OF IPPEN

with death, had attained birth in the Pure Land. Further, although
the doctrinal foundations of their propagation differed, Ippen's use
of fuda lent enduring form to utterance of the nembutsu similar to
enrollment in Ryônin's record, and also allowed him to assess his
propagation activity. He seems to have kept count of the fuda he
distributed and thus of the people saved; Hijiri-e states that the total
reached 251,724, probably based on records of the number he block-
printed. In seeking to create an encompassing community of practicers
conjoined by the Name, Ippen appears to have accepted that his was
also "interpenetrating" or yûzû nembutsu, although he himself did
not use the term. Rather, as discussed below, he interpreted his
name Ippen to include this dimension of interpénétration.
From Shitennôji, Ippen traveled to Mount Kôya. Here we find
another hint concerning his decision to use fuda in his propagation.
On Mount Kôya, in profound samâdhi,

Kukai awaits the spring when Maitreya will appear in this world
to preach beneath the dragon-flower tree. Leaving behind a
printing block of the six-character Name, Kukai provided the
altar image for sentient beings of the five defilements who are
ever floundering [in the sea of birth-and-death]. For this reason
Ippen went to pay his respects at the place where that great
bodhisattva manifested himself, making his way far into the
mountain so that he might seal his bonds for the same birth in
the nine-leveled Pure Land. (SCROLL II)

Mount Kôya was one of a number of religious centers that took on

intense Pure Land Buddhist coloration during the Kamakura period,
and as a sacred mountain it was even popularly identified with the
Pure Land itself. It became the home of wandering monks who,
while based at special areas on Mount Kôya, traveled throughout the
country collecting donations, performing rites for the dead and bearing
bone remains to be interred on the mountain, and practicing Shingon-
influenced nembutsu in which Amida was identified with Dainichi
Nyorai (Mahâvairocana), the central Buddha of esoteric teachings.
One vehicle of propagation was the distribution of rubbings made
 INTRODUCTION

from blocks attributed to Kukai himself, like the one mentioned

here. Although no evidence remains for the use of Amida's Name on
such fuda before Ippen, Hijiri-e implies that he modeled his distribu-
tion on the activities of Koya hijiri.
From Mount Koya, Ippen went on toward Kumano, an ancient
Shinto shrine-complex whose central deity had come to be regarded
as a manifestation (gongen) of Amida Buddha. On the way, however,
he was thrown into a quandary concerning his method of propagation:

Ippen said to a monk, "Accept this fuda, awakening one thought

(ichinen) of faith and uttering Namu-amida-butsu."
T h e monk refused, saying, "At present faith that is whole-
hearted (<ichinen) does not arise in me. If I accepted your fuda, I
would be breaking the precept against lying."
Ippen said, "Don't you believe in the Buddha's teaching?
W h y can't you accept the fuda}"
T h e monk replied, "I do not doubt the teaching, but there is
nothing I can do about faith not arising in me."

T h e problem presented here seriously challenged Ippen, for it posed

the question of the need for faith in utterance in order to accord
with the Vow, an assumption he had not probed adequately. T h e
problem is crystallized in the term ichinen ( — w h i c h may mean
"one moment" of time or "one thought" in the sense of the mental
functioning of a single instant. By extension, as a Pure Land term, it
came to mean either "one utterance" of the nembutsu or, with oneness
understood as that which is pure or absolute, the "single-mindedness"
or complete sincerity of faith. In offering the fuda, Ippen probably
uses the term ichinen with the sense of "even once"—even a single,
simple act of faith and utterance. 11 For the monk, however, who is
identified in another illustrated biography as belonging to the Ritsu
or Mahayana precepts school, ichinen meant wholeness of heart, a
total entrusting. Ippen hastily grasped for a solution:

By that time, a large number of pilgrims had gathered. If the

monk did not take xht fuda, neither would any of the others, and
so with great reluctance Ippen said, "Accept it even if faith does

xxxtii
 INTRODUCTION

not arise in you," and gave him the fuda. Seeing this, the other
pilgrims all took one, and the monk went on his way.

Ippen realized that he had assumed a relationship between faith and

utterance, but if faith was necessary, the distribution o f f u d a to which
he had resolved to dedicate his life was not only meaningless, but
deceptive as well.

Reflecting on this incident, Ippen decided that it was not without

significance, and thinking that in the matter of propagation he
should look to higher guidance, he prayed with this wish before
the Hall of Witness (Shojoden) in the main shrine at Kumano.
When he had closed his eyes but not yet fallen asleep, the doors
of the sacred hall were pushed open and a yamabushi with white
hair and a long hood emerged. On the verandah three hundred
other yamabushi touched their heads down in obeisance. At that
moment Ippen realized that it was surely the Manifestation himself
and entrusted himself completely. T h e n the yamabushi stepped
before Ippen and said, "Hijiri spreading the nembutsu of inter-
penetration, why do you go about it mistakenly? It is not through
your propagation that sentient beings come to attain birth. In
Amida Buddha's perfect enlightenment ten kalpas ago the birth
of all sentient beings was decisively settled as Namu-amida-butsu.
Distribute your fuda regardless of whether people have faith or
not, and without discriminating between the pure and the impure."
T h e n Ippen opened his eyes and looked around. About one
hundred children of twelve or thirteen came up and, holding out
their hands, said, "Let us have your nembutsu." Taking t h e f a d a ,
they uttered Namu-amida-butsu and went off. (SCROLL III)

In this revelation, Ippen found decisive confirmation of the ippen

nembutsu, the genuine utterance in the immediate present. Not only
is there no need for practicers to direct their thoughts or attain a
certain state of faith or concentration; all such concerns are rejected
as nothing more than self-attachment. Ippen's teaching is traditionally
said to stem from a dual transmission: the teachings imparted from
India through China to Japan, and the direct revelation by the deity

XXXV
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

of the Kumano shrine, Amida Buddha's manifestation. While other

teachers stressed the orthodoxy of their teachings by tracing it to the
sutras and the Buddhist masters of India, China, and Korea, Ippen
later asserted: "My teaching is the oral transmission bestowed in
dream by the Kumano Manifestation" (85). For his activity to be in
accord with the Vow, it was necessary that all remnants of his own
clinging to self-power—evident in his lingering attachment to an
attitude of faith—be obliterated. This took place when the Kumano
revelation set forth the significance of "The Nonduality of Ten and
One." With this affirmation, Ippen spent the remaining sixteen years
of his life in constant travel throughout Japan.

Ippen's Life of Wandering

On receiving this revelation at Kumano, Ippen resolved to carry on

his itinerant propagation activity alone. Parting from the three who
had accompanied him, he found his way once again to Kyushu,
where he abandoned himself to complete poverty.

While Ippen was undertaking practice in Kyushu, few gave alms.

Having savored the spring mists, he passed the long day mindful
of the birth in the Pure Land that is no-birth. . . . A monk he
encountered as he spread the nembutsu gave him a torn surplice,
which he wrapped around his body as he continued walking on
as his steps led him. When the sun set on the mountain paths, he
brushed off the moss and lay down in the dew. (SCROLL IV)

Hijiri-e further records the isolation of these years:

When he first embarked on a life of renunciation, he announced,

"Master Kuya is my teacher and guide." Kuya's words imbued
his heart and were constantly at his lips. Among those sayings:
Seek fame or lead a following, and both body and mind grow
weary. Accumulate merit and practice good, and your desires
and ambitions increase. Nothing is comparable to solitariness,
with no outside involvement. Nothing surpasses saying the
Name and casting off all concerns....

xxxv i
 INTRODUCTION

Complying with these words of Dharma, Ippen first spent four

years forsaking body and life in the hills and meadows, taking
shelter where wind and cloud led him and spreading the teaching
alone in the Dharma-realm. H e entrusted the work of saving
beings to opportunities and conditions, and though he had fol-
lowers as the occasions arose, in his heart he was far removed
from all entanglements. (SCROLL VII)

After several years of solitary wandering, Ippen began to attract

disciples, including Ta-amidabutsu Shinkyo, two years his senior,
whom he took as the first disciple to join him in travel. These
disciples were known as jishu literally, "time-companions"), a
term that had been used to refer to groups of practicers who, during
sessions of uninterrupted nembutsu, took turns in leading chant during
the six "times" or four-hour periods of the day. Although there are
various interpretations, Ippen probably adopted the term from this
usage, for intensive nembutsu sessions (betsuji nembutsu), particularly
the seven-day period at the close of the year, were an important
activity among his followers. During this period, participants, both
tonsured and lay, would wash each dawn to purify themselves, and
then seek to devote themselves wholly to recitation, taking only one
meal a day. At the beginning, this occasion was used for self-reflection
and assessment of the practicers' level of faith, but toward the end of
his life Ippen abandoned such discussion as meaningless.
By 12 78, when he was thirty-eight years old, Ippen had a following
of seven or eight, and later scenes in Hijiri-e show the number
increasing to between twenty and thirty. T h e y are clothed in distinc-
tively austere gray robes with black surplices, and in some scenes
nearly half appear to be nuns. In addition, many people, both men
and women, asked to receive the tonsure from him, though they
continued to live in their homes. Hijiri-e records, for example, that
in a marketplace, 280 people received the tonsure. Ippen's years of
wandering in Kyushu correspond to the interim between Mongol
invasion attempts. Northern Kyushu bore the brunt of the Mongol
attacks, and no doubt the residents experienced deep anxiety amid
the bakufu's concentrated efforts to bolster defenses.

xxxvii
 INTRODUCTION

In spring, 1279, Ippen brought his propagation activities to Kyoto,

but failed to make an impression on the townspeople. In the latter
part of the year, he paid another visit to Zenkoji.

Dancing Nembutsu

Late in 1279, while conducting the year-end session of nembutsu in

a village in Shinano province (present Nagano), purple clouds—an
auspicious sign of Amida's presence often looked for at the time of
death—appeared in the sky. Sightings of such clouds, and of flowers
falling miraculously from the sky, occurred frequently thereafter
wherever Ippen went. It was shortly after this special session that
Ippen began to dance while reciting the nembutsu. Perhaps this was
a natural extension of the communal chant; Ryonin, for example,
employed circumambulation for a period of days in his yuzu nembutsu.
Others joined Ippen, waving their arms or beating out a rhythm
using whatever implements were at hand.13 Hijiri-e explains:

Dancing nembutsu was first practiced by Master Kuya, who said:

"My meditative practice lies in letting my lips freely utter Amida's
Name; hence, even the marketplace is my practice hall. My
contemplation of Buddha lies in following after my voice [in
utterance of the Name]; hence, my breath is a rosary. . . . T o the
course of nature I give charge of my thoughts, words, and deeds,
and to the working of enlightenment leave all my acts." After
Kuya, imitators appeared spontaneously, but the benefit [of danc-
ing nembutsu] did not spread. Now its time had come... .
At a warrior's residence, Ippen began dancing, and many
monks and laypeople gathered, all making their bonds with the
Dharma by joining in the dance. This practice was gradually
taken up and became an activity Ippen carried on for the rest of
his life. The Sutra of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life states:
Persons who have beheld a World-honored one in a past life
Are now able to entrust themselves to this teaching;
With humble reverence they hear and uphold it,
And they leap and dance, rejoicing greatly.
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

. . . This is not at all our own action, but is entirely the inconceivable
benefit of Amida Buddha, of Other P o w e r . . . . (SCROLL IV)

From this time on, Ippen frequently conducted sessions of dancing

nembutsu, the final occasion when lying sick two days before death.
When criticized for irreverence toward the sacred Name, he responded
that he was following the sutra teaching (Poem 17). He appears to
have led the first session spontaneously, but Hijiri-e indicates that
later, from about 1282, roofed, stagelike platforms were constructed
by supporters where Ippen and his followers stayed, and the dancing
itself appears to have become organized, with the use of gongs and
the group, usually restricted to the jishu, moving in a circle (see
Illustration 8). The rhythmic stamping of feet on the heavy planks of
the platform resounded through the area, and observers, including
monks, nuns, and yamabushi as well as laypeople from beggars to
the upper classes, are shown expressing their reverence for the sacred
rite by holding their hands in a gesture of homage. Religious dancing
had been performed in Japan as a prayer for the repose of the dead,
and the depiction of the first session of dancing nembutsu in Hijiri-e
includes both a small shrine and a grave, though the text gives no
explanation. It has been suggested that the grave is that of one of
Ippen's banished uncles. Clearer evidence for Ippen's concern to
alleviate the anguish of deceased relatives is seen the following year.
In 1280, Ippen led his group far to the north. Hijiri-e emphasizes
the breadth of his activity, stating that he kept the company of
people at the margins of society, whose very occupations were regarded
as violating Buddhist precepts against destruction of life or deceit
and therefore inherently sinful. At the same time, he is depicted in
the role of a traveler-poet at a site with classical literary associations:

Fishermen and itinerant peddlers were his companions on the

road. He talked with lowly people whose names he did not know,
and even before he spoke of the teaching, tough village elders
made their bonds with the Dharma through him. Upon nearing
the checkpoint at the Shirakawa Barrier, he wrote the following
poem on a post of the holy shrine of the barrier's deity:

xl
 INTRODUCTION

That those who pass beyond this gate

not slip from the working ofAmida's Vow,
let the Name be halted here: the renown barrier ofShirakawa.

Ippen took the opportunity to seek out the burial mound of his
grandfather, who had died in exile (see Illustration 6):

On reaching the Esashi district, he visited the grave of his

grandfather Michinobu, reflecting that human beings do not live
forever, that families do not endure. . . . H e cleared away the
briar and bramble, then performed a service out of filial gratitude,
chanting sutras and reciting the nembutsu as he circumambulated
the mound. Truly, when a child renounces home to become a
monk, seven generations of ancestors gain release [from the pain
of hell]; thus, for the departed spirit of Michinobu, lingering
dreams filled with yearning for home were surely brought to an
end, so that he could reach the land of everlasting bliss.
Ippen composed a poem:

This vanity! For the little while that corpse is undecayed,

earth of the meadow appears unrelated.
(SCROLL V)

Outside Kamakura

Ippen's goal was to spread the nembutsu to all people. Although he

had some success in his travels from Kyushu into the far north, he
felt it necessary to bring his small band of followers and his propagation
activity to Kamakura, the vital political center of the country. Support
from the warrior government and the people of the city would advance
his cause immensely, as it had the work of a number of other monks. 14
H e saw Kamakura as the test of his entire effort. Samurai there,
however, were under orders to keep the strategically important road
clear of beggars and other rabble (see Illustration 7).

In spring of 1282 the hijiri stayed three days at a place called

Nagasago with the intent of entering Kamakura. H e told his
followers, "Depending on the conditions of our entrance into

xli
 NO ABODE: T H E RECORD OF IPPEN

Kamakura, we will decide whether or not to continue our prop-

agation activity. If our work to benefit beings is obstructed here,
we must realize that it is over." Then, on the first day of the
third month, he attempted to enter Kamakura from Kobukuro
Hill, but was advised, "Today, the Regent is going to Yamanouchi;
you had better not use this road." Replying that he had his own
plans, he continued on. A warrior confronted them and blocked
their path, but they tried to force their way past. T h e warrior
had his henchmen attack the jishu and called for the leader of
the group. Ippen stepped forth to face him.
"This lawlessness cannot be allowed in front of the Regent,"
the warrior said. "It's solely for your own notoriety that you lead
these people along. Trying to force your way in despite the
prohibition is outrageous."
Ippen answered, "For me, nothing whatever is indispensable.
I merely urge people to say the nembutsu. But how long will you
be alive to assault and revile the Buddha-dharma thus? Even
though it is the nembutsu that can save you when, drawn by
your evil karma, you are about to head down the path of darkness."
T h e warrior, without the slightest reply, struck him twice
with his staff. T h e hijiri, out of great compassion that will not
abandon those possessed of anger and hatred, showed no sign of
pain. Acting to bring the teaching to every being, he spoke only
from the joy in linking another with the Dharma: "Propagation
of the nembutsu is my life. If, in spite of this, I am to be prohibited
thus, where should I go? I will face death here."
T h e warrior responded, "You will find no restrictions
regarding the outskirts of Kamakura."
Thus, Ippen passed the night in the hills, reciting the nembutsu
at the side of the road. Monks and laypeople came from Kamakura
and gathered like clouds to offer alms. (SCROLL V)

Despite Ippen's failure to enter the city, through the courage and
determination he demonstrated he seems to have gained the devotion
of the townspeople, and in fact it was from then on that numbers of
people gathered wherever he went.

xlii
 INTRODUCTION

In the fourth month of 1284, Ippen arrived at the Shakado temple

in the center of Kyoto. People of all ranks—noble and humble,
high and low—came to him in such throngs that it was impossible
even to turn around or for carriages to move. (SCROLL VII)

Hijiri-e shows Ippen being carried on the shoulders of a follower so

that he could distribute fuda to people crowding the alleys and
passageways.
Ippen had visits from prominent monks and other personages,
and a number of letters and verse exchanges date from this period.

Continuing Journey

Undistracted from his life of itinerancy by his successes, Ippen

formulated various sets of rules for his followers and even designed a
wooden backpack, which appears to come into use about 1282, to
carry the minimal possessions permitted each person and to separate
monks and nuns in temple halls. He is said to have composed "Verse
of Aspiration," which the jishu may have chanted together, at Taima-
dera in 1286, "Precepts for the Nembutsu Practicer" at Shitennoji
the same year, and " T h e Deep Significance of the Tools of the
W a y " in 1287. Amid the rigors of constant travel, however, he began
to express feelings of discouragement:

In 1289 the hijiri crossed to Shikoku Island and made pilgrimages

to Zentsuji temple [which Kukai founded at his place of birth]
and Mandaraji. . . . Though it is difficult to know his thoughts,
he said, "The conditions for my propagation have already grown
weak; people no longer put my teaching and precepts into practice.
Little remains to my life; the time of death is approaching."
People were apprehensive, and before long he fell ill and could
neither sleep nor eat n o r m a l l y . . . . On a slip of paper he attached
to the front of the Ninomiya shrine:

The heart in accord with the Name has passed into the West—
Escaped from the cast-off cicada's shell: How cool and fresh the call!
(SCROLL XI)

xliii
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

As his condition worsened, Ippen apparently sought to travel to the

way station of Inamino, where the "lay shami" Kyoshin had settled. 15
This legendary Heian-period figure was said to have abandoned all
the trappings of traditional practice and to have devoted himself to
utterance of the nembutsu for thirty years, living the impoverished
life of a laborer. Ippen, however, was able to journey only as far as
Kannondo in Hyogo.
T h e time of death had been regarded as of particular importance
for Pure Land practicers, for it was traditionally believed that Amida
Buddha and Pure Land bodhisattvas would appear to receive one
into the Pure Land. Ippen rejects any special significance of the
circumstances of death. H e turns his attention to the final guidance
for his followers.

Eighth month, second day (1289). T h e hijiri sat on a rope mat

facing south and spoke of Dharma. . . . Priests and laypeople
beyond number listened. Shokai was at his right, and Ippen had
him take up a brush and record the Dharma-teaching.
W h e n Shokai had made a clean copy and read it aloud,
Ippen said repeatedly: "After I die, some of you may want to
throw yourselves into the sea [to attain the Pure Land with me].
If the settled mind has been established in you, your birth is
certain whatever you may do. But if your self-attachment has not
been exhausted, you must not take your own life. Rare and difficult
is it to receive an existence in which one encounters the Buddha-
way. H o w lamentable it would be to cast it away in vain!" With
tears falling he went on, " T h i s is the reason for having this
written down and leaving it behind. Y o u should well take heed."
With this, he put it in his wooden p a c k . . . . His final instruction:

. . . Apart from awakening in ourselves one thought-moment

of the mind [taking refuge], there is no way we can be saved
even by the compassion of the Buddhas of past, present, and
future. Namu-amida-butsu. 16 (SCROLL xi)

People came to him reporting dreams in which he had appeared

as a bodhisattva and miraculous signs of Amida Buddha's closeness,

xltv
 INTRODUCTION

such as purple clouds in the sky. Since it was popularly believed that
Amida came to receive the truly faithful, concrete signs at the time
of death were considered auspicious, but Ippen rejected their signi-
ficance ("Words," 109).
Further, Ippen refused to establish himself as the founder of a
new movement, and in preparation for death, burned the texts in his
possession, including his own writings:

Tenth day, morning [a month before death], Ippen gave a few of

the sutras he possessed to a monk from Mount Shosha. He had
always said, "My propagation is for this lifetime only," and now,
while chanting the Amida Sutra, he burned the writings he
possessed with his own hands. Seeing this, people deeply grieved
that there was no one to transmit the teaching and that it would
perish with the teacher. Ippen said, "All the sacred teachings of
Sakyamuni's lifetime have wholly become Namu-amida-butsu."
(SCROLL XI)

In order to avoid apotheosis of himself at death, a process strongly

evident in treatment of religious leaders of the day, he provided
explicit instructions for the disposal of his body:

After I die, my disciples are not to mourn with funeral rites.

Bodies should be left out in the open fields and given to animals.
There is no need, however, to apply this prohibition to laypeople
who seek [through such rites] to effect bonds with Dharma.

Many of his followers expected his death to be marked by auspicious

signs, but he denied this:

Someone asked what would take place at the time of his death.
Ippen replied, "Good warriors and people of the way do not
make their final moments known to those about them. Others
will not be aware of my end." His death exemplified these words.
(SCROLL XII)

As Ippen had feared, after his death a number of his followers did
indeed drown themselves in the nearby sea out of sorrow and the

xlv
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

desire to attain the Pure Land with him. Others soon erected a small
shrine at the place of his death.
Shokai journeyed to Kyoto where he established Kangikoji temple
as a base for activities in the capital. Taa, who had joined Ippen as
the first of the jishu, assumed the leadership of what developed into
the main branch of the movement. He became the second yugyo
shonin or "Wayfaring Holy Man," which was adopted as a title used
for the head of the tradition, and continued to travel in the eastern
regions of the country until he relinquished the position and settled
in a temple. During the late medieval period, Jishu flourished with
the strong support of the ruling warrior class, often laying the
groundwork for the later spread of other nembutsu schools,
particularly the Shin tradition. Jishu monks accompanied patron
samurai into battle in order to administer the utterance of the
nembutsu should they fall, to pray for the repose of their spirits, and
to witness and report to relatives on their end. Further, as an extension
of this role, in the Muromachi period Jishu-affiliated monks became
a significant fixture in the daily life of the warriors by giving guidance
in matters of taste, garden and architectural design and in such enter-
tainments as linked verse, as the warrior aristocracy sought to create
a cultural ambience and rules of decorum that could function as a
counterpart to that of the emperor's court. In the Edo period, however,
Jishu fell into decline. Today, approximately four hundred local
temples are associated with the headquarters of Shojokoji in Fujisawa.

IPPEN'S REALIZATION:
THE NONDUALITY OF TEN AND ONE

As we have seen, Ippen first expressed his religious awakening in the

verse, "The Nonduality of T e n and One." It is spoken of as the
"Dharma as he understood it in his own heart," meaning that its
content is at once fundamental to his teaching and a personal, original
understanding. A close reading of it, then, will illuminate the charac-
teristic features of his thought and expression. Before taking up the
verse itself, however, it will be helpful to consider basic elements of
the teaching of Shoku, the founder of the Seizan branch of H5nen's

xlvi
 INTRODUCTION

Pure Land school, that Ippen studied as a youth and that forms the
foundation and conceptual framework of his thought.

Expounding in Parables

At the heart of Ippen's teaching lies a tenacious effort to break

through Pure Land symbols and concepts to the reality in which
they are rooted. This attitude has its doctrinal grounds in the
understanding of Sakyamuni's words developed by Shoku on the
basis of an interpretive method he discovered in the narrative structure
of the Sutra of Contemplation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life, or
Contemplation Sutra}1 In this, Shoku may have been influenced by
Tendai interpretations of the Lotus Sutra, in which the Buddha's use
of expedient means and parables to instruct is a major concern.
Sakyamuni delivers the core of the Contemplation Sutra to Vaidehi,
queen of the kingdom of Magadha. Her son has usurped the throne
by murdering his father and imprisoning her. From her cell, she
implores the Buddha to teach her how she can be born in a better
world, and from among the lands that the Buddha reveals to her, she
selects Amida's Pure Land as the object of her aspiration. In response,
Sakyamuni sets forth a series of practices identified in the sutra as
"sixteen contemplations." Actually, the first thirteen are meditative
practices (jozen zeU): contemplative exercises for seeing various
features of the Pure Land, Amida, and his accompanying bodhisattvas.
The final three "contemplations" describe, in three levels, a total of
nine grades of people who engage in nonmeditative practices (sanzen
ifclj)—from the highest, who perform both religious and moral good
deeds, down to the lowest, who live in evil up to the brink of death,
when, under the guidance of a good teacher, they utter the nembutsu
ten times and thereby attain birth. The body of the sutra thus presents
elaborate descriptions of the pavilions, ponds, trees, and other features
of the Pure Land, as well as scenes from the lives of the entire range
of nonmeditative monastic and lay aspirants in this world.
In contrast to the Chinzei branch, the other major stream of
Honen's Pure Land school, which recognizes the possibility of
attaining birth in Amida's Pure Land through the various meditative

xlvii
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

and nonmeditative practices described in the sutra, the Seizan branch

teaches that birth is possible only through the nembutsu—and that
this, in fact, is the sutra's true purport. In the Seizan view, the range
of contemplative exercises and the detailed treatment of the nine
levels of Pure Land aspirants were taught in order to reveal the
wisdom-compassion of the Primal V o w , which grasps all beings
without discrimination, whatever their capacity. 18 T h e two types of
practices are considered to embrace all practice, and the terms
"meditative" and "nonmeditative" are used together as a single term
indicating all people—good and evil—provisionally classified by their
capacity for good. It is taught that all levels of people, all doers of
"good" in any degree as described in the sutra, are able to attain
birth in the Pure Land. This means that attainment does not depend
on any of the specific practices presented. Since all people attain
birth regardless of their particular level or kind of "goodness," the
actual cause of birth must lie solely in Amida's universal V o w .
Scriptural basis for this understanding is provided by the sutra
itself. Before embarking on the exposition of the various practices,
Sakyamuni states, in response to Vaidehi's request to be shown how
to perceive Amida's Pure Land and thus achieve contact with the
realm of enlightenment, that he will teach her by "expounding fully
in many parables" (kosetsu shuhi iKM^ii). In Seizan thought, the
practices of the Contemplation Sutra all have symbolic or allegorical
significance. 19 Moreover, Sakyamuni goes on to speak of three kinds
of meritorious acts—moral virtues, upholding precepts, and awakening
aspiration for enlightenment and performing practices—but then
declares, "It is solely through the Buddha's power that one can, as
though taking up a gleaming mirror and looking into one's own
face, behold that Land of Purity." 20 That is, Sakyamuni's intent is to
awaken Vaidehi and all beings to the all-encompassing, nondiscrim-
inative working of Amida's wisdom-compassion, or Other Power,
and to the futility of their own judgments of good and evil ultimately
rooted in attachment to a delusional, fabricated self.
T h i s view of the sutra as "a detailed exposition in parables,"
applied broadly, extends to other sutras as well, and Sakyamuni's

xlviii
 INTRODUCTION

teachings are all understood to teach implicitly the way of birth in

the Pure Land through Other Power. In short, Sakyamuni has taught
only the Pure Land way, and none of his other teachings has any
significance apart from it. As Ippen states, all teachings concerning
practices other than the nembutsu are medicine prescribed for
particular diseases; they are directed to beings in certain conditions—
beings who cannot respond to the teaching in any other form—and
are meant ultimately to lead them to the Pure Land way, which
transcends the calculative thinking of ignorant beings. T o use the
terms adopted by Shoku, all the practices described in the various
sutras comprise the Gate of Practices ( gydmon frf"J); they are presented
as means by which beings can, through their own "self-power,"
advance toward enlightenment. The sixteen contemplations focusing
on Amida taught in the Contemplation Sutra form the Gate of
Contemplations or Discernment (kanmon IS PI). Taken literally, these
"contemplations"—meditative and nonmeditative—may be under-
stood as exercises and disciplines within the framework of the Gate
of Practices. When understood in accord with the intent of the
sutra, however, they are not prescriptions of acts in which beings are
to endeavor, but function rather to illuminate the virtues of Amida
Buddha and the Pure Land and to guide people from a conception
of practice to the entrusting of themselves to Amida's Vow, or to
birth through the nembutsu. This is the third gate, the Universal
Vow (gugan ?/JI).21 Thus, the Gate of Discernment, which represents
a pivotal shift in the interpretation of the sutra's teaching, expresses
the awakening to the working of Other Power.
Thus, at the heart of the Seizan view there develops a sense not
simply of the entire Contemplation Sutra, but of all Sakyamuni's
teachings—indeed, of all things that we experience, for Shoku speaks
of the "Dharma-gate expressed by the things" of the world—leading
us toward an encounter with Amida's Primal Vow. In this way we
undergo a conversion in which we finally cast off the discriminative
thinking that separates us from Buddha and seizes on the teachings
as a means for moving from this world to the world of enlightenment.
Moreover, this conversion and the proper grasp of the sutra are in

xlix
 NO ABODE: THE RECORD OF IPPEN

fact one and the same. When we see that the meditative and non-
meditative practices in the sutra are taught solely to lead us to the
Primal Vow already fulfilled by Amida, then we can only give up all
practices and take refuge in the nembutsu. Thus, the awakening of
faith is termed "understanding" or "apprehension" (ryoge flfB). In
Shoku's thought, the concepts and symbols of the Pure Land
teaching—in their true significance centering on the nembutsu—form
the final terms to which all the various other practices and teachings
lead. When the contemplations taught by Sakyamuni are understood
not literally, but as devices to strip us of our attachments to self-power,
we arrive at attainment of birth through the nembutsu.
Ippen, however, takes this "demythologizing" tendency of Seizan
hermeneutics—this drive to delve through all the dichotomies and
antinomies inherent in the verbal expressions of the teaching—to
the extreme, turning it against even basic Pure Land terms. Moreover,
whereas Sh5ku neatly accounts for all the teachings of Sakyamuni's
lifetime by delineating a process of conversion from the Gate of
Practices, through the Gate of Discernment, to the Universal Vow,
Ippen speaks solely from the stance of the person who has come
through—who has been drawn forth from the needle's eye where
attachments, even to teachings, cannot pass. "Apprehension," for
Ippen, means to realize that we cannot apprehend with the intellect.
Among all things in the world, only the Name can awaken us; only
the Name is true and genuine. Thus, near the end of his life, he
burned all the sacred writings in his possession—including his
own—saying that they had become the Name. In this way he pursued
Seizan thought to radical conclusion.
For Ippen, abandoning all attachment—whether to world or to
self—is crucial. For those whose attachments are especially strong,
this means abandoning both body and mind. T h e abandonment of
the body—renunciation not only of secular life but even of a settled
dwelling and regular sources of food and clothing—is considered
necessary in order to carry on life in realization that "this body is the
form of our drifting in the flow of impermanence" (26). But essentially
the problem is to overcome calculative thinking based on self-centered

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the Marquis of Hamilton with six thousand men to the assistance of
Gustavus; but the whole affair was so badly managed, the
commissariat and general care of the men were so miserable, that
the little army speedily became decimated by disease and was of no
service. Hamilton returned home, and the remains of his forces
under the command of the Prince Charles Louis, son of the Elector
Frederick, were routed in Westphalia. Frederick himself, deprived of
all hope by the fall of Gustavus, only survived him about a fortnight;
and thus ended the dream of the restoration of the Palatinate.
At home Charles had determined to rule without a Parliament, but
this necessarily drove him upon all those means of raising an income
which Parliament had protested against, and which must, therefore,
continue to exasperate the people. Between the dissolution of the
Parliament in 1629, and the summons of another in 1640, these
proceedings had apparently advanced the cause of despotism, but in
reality they promoted the cause of liberty; the nation had been
scourged into a temper which left no means but the sword of
appeasing it. The first unceremonious violation of his pledge to the
public conveyed in the granting of the Petition of Right was levying
as unscrupulously as ever the duties of tonnage and poundage; and
the goods of all such as refused the illegal payment were
immediately distrained upon and sold.
The king next appointed a Committee to inquire into the
encroachments on the royal forests, a legitimate and laudable object
if conducted in a spirit of fairness and liberality. In every age gross
encroachments have been made on these Crown lands, and
especially in the reckless reign of James. But it would seem that the
Commissioners proceeded in an arbitrary spirit, and, relying on the
power of the Crown, often ruined those who resisted their decisions
by the costs of law. The Earl of Holland—a noted creature of the
king's—was made head of this Commission, and presided in a court
established for the purpose. Under its operations vast tracts were
recovered to the Crown, and heavy fines for trespasses levied.
Rockingham Forest was enlarged from a circuit of six miles to one of
sixty, and the Earl of Southampton was nearly ruined by the king's
resumption of a large estate adjoining the New Forest. Even where
these recoveries were made with right, they exasperated the
aristocracy, who had been the chief encroachers, and injured the
king in their goodwill. Clarendon says, "To recompense the damage
the Crown sustained by the sale of old lands, and by the grant of
new pensions, the old laws of the forest are revived; by which not
only great fines are imposed, but great annual rents intended, and
like to be settled by way of contract, which burden lighted most
upon persons of quality and honour, who thought themselves above
ordinary oppressions, and therefore like to remember it with more
sharpness."
Besides the tonnage and poundage, obsolete laws were revived, and
other duties imposed on merchants' goods; and all who resisted
were prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned. But a still more plausible
scheme was hit upon for extorting money. The old feudal practice,
introduced by Henry III. and Edward I., of compelling persons
holding lands under the Crown worth twenty pounds per annum, to
receive knighthood, or to compound by a fine, had been enforced by
Elizabeth and James, and was not likely to be passed over in this
general inquisition after the means of income independent of
Parliament. All landed proprietors worth forty pounds a year were
called on to accept the title of knight and pay the fees, or were
fined, and in default of payment thrown into prison. "By this ill-
husbandry," says Clarendon, "which, though it was founded in right,
was most grievous from the mode of proceeding, vast sums were
drawn from the subject. And no less unjust projects of all kinds—
many ridiculous, many scandalous, all very grievous—were set on
foot, the damage and reproach of which came to the king, the profit
to other men; inasmuch as of twenty thousand pounds a year,
scarcely one thousand five hundred pounds came to the king's use
or account."
A great commotion was raised by the king depriving many
freeholders arbitrarily of their lands to enlarge Richmond Park, and
he saw the necessity of making some compensation.
Another mode of raising money was by undoing in a great measure
what the Parliament had done by abolishing monopolies. True,
Charles took care not to grant these monopolies to individuals, but
to companies; but this, whilst it arrested the odium of seeing them
in the hands of courtiers and favourites, increased their mischief by
augmenting the number and power of the oppressors. These
companies were enabled to dictate to the public the price of the
articles included in their patent, and restrain at their pleasure their
manufacture or sale. One of the most flagrant cases was that of the
Company of Soap-boilers, who purchased a monopoly of the
manufacture of soap for ten thousand pounds, and a duty of eight
pounds per ton on all the soap they made. The scheme was that of
the renegade Noye; and all who presumed to make soap for
themselves, regardless of the monopoly, were fined, the company
being authorised to search the premises of all soap-boilers, seize any
made without a licence, and prosecute the offender in the Star
Chamber. There was a similar monopoly granted to starch-makers.
King James had formed the idea that London was become too large,
and that its size was the cause of the prevalence of the plague and
contagious fevers. He had not penetrated the fact that the real
cause lay in the want of drainage and cleanliness, and he issued
repeated proclamations forbidding any more building of houses in
the Metropolis. The judges declared the proclamations illegal, and
building went on as fast as ever. Here was a splendid opportunity for
putting on the screw. Charles therefore appointed a Commission to
inquire into the extent of building done in defiance of his father's
orders. Such persons who were willing to compound for their
offences, got off by paying a fine amounting to three years' rental of
the premises. Those who refused, pleaded in vain the decision of the
judges, for Charles had a court independent of all judges but
himself, namely, the Star Chamber; and those who escaped this fell
into another inquisition as detestable—the Court of the Earl Marshal.
Sturdy resisters, therefore, had their houses actually demolished,
and were then fleeced in those infamous courts to complete their
ruin. A Mr. Moore had erected forty-two houses of an expensive
class, with coach-houses and stables, near St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
He was fined one thousand pounds, and ordered to pull them down
before Easter, under penalty of another thousand pounds, but
refusing, the sheriffs demolished the houses, and levied the money
by distress. This terrified others, who submitted to a composition,
and by these iniquitous means one hundred thousand pounds were
brought into the Treasury.
Simultaneously with these proceedings, Laud, Bishop of London,
pursued the same course in the Church. He had long been the most
abject flatterer of the royal power, and now, supported by
Wentworth, went on boldly to reduce all England to the most
complete slavery to Church and State. He was supposed to have the
intention of restoring the Papal power; but such was far from his
design. Neither Laud nor Charles dreamt for a moment of returning
to the union with Rome, for the simple reason that they loved too
well themselves the enjoyment of absolute power. Like Henry VIII.,
they could tolerate no Pope but one disguised under the name of an
English king. Never did the Church more egregiously deceive itself
than by suspecting Laud or Charles of any design to put on again
the yoke of the Roman Pontiff. That spiritual potentate, deluded by
such empty imagination, offered Laud a cardinal's hat, which was
rejected with scorn.
On the 29th of May, 1630, the queen gave birth to a son, afterwards
Charles II., who was baptised on the 2nd of July, the ceremony
being performed by Laud, who composed a prayer for the occasion.
Charles had issued a proclamation forbidding any one to introduce
into the pulpit any remarks bearing on the great Arminian
controversy which was raging in the kingdom—Laud and his party in
the Church on one side, the zealous Puritans on the other. Both sides
were summoned with an air of impartiality into the Star Chamber or
High Commission Court, but came out with this difference—that the
orthodox divines generally confessed their fault, and were dismissed
with a reprimand; but the Puritan ministers could not bend in that
manner and sacrifice conscience to fear, so they were fined,
imprisoned, and deprived without mercy. Davenant (Bishop of
Salisbury), Dr. Burgess, Dr. Prideaux, Dr. Hall (Bishop of Norwich,
whose poetry and liberality of spirit will long be held in honourable
remembrance), and many others, were harassed because they did
not preach exactly to the mind of Charles and Laud; but the
treatment of Dr. Alexander Leighton, a Scottish Puritan preacher, was
brutality itself. He had published a pamphlet called "An Appeal to
Parliament, or Zion's Plea against Prelacy." It attracted the notice of
the Government, which in June, 1630, had him dragged before the
Star Chamber, where he was condemned to the following horrible
punishment, than which the records of the Inquisition preserve
nothing more infernal:—That he should be imprisoned for life, should
pay a fine of ten thousand pounds, be degraded from his ministry,
whipped, set in the pillory, have one of his ears cut off, one side of
his nose slit, and be branded on the forehead with a double S.S., as
a "sower of sedition." He was then to be carried back to prison, and
after a few days to be pilloried again, whipped, have the other side
of his nose slit, the other ear cut off, and shut up in his dungeon, to
be released only by death.

INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.

 CHAPTER XX.
THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. (continued).
Visit of Charles to Scotland—Laud and the Papal See—His
Ecclesiastical Measures—Punishment of Prynne, Bastwick, and
Burton—Disgrace of Williams—Ship-money—Resistance of John
Hampden—Wentworth in the North—Recall of Falkland from
Ireland—Wentworth's Measures—Inquiry into Titles—Prelacy
Riots in Edinburgh—Jenny Geddes's Stool—The Tables—Renewal
of the Covenant—Charles makes Concessions—The General
Assembly—Preparations for War—Charles at York—Leslie at
Dunse Hill—A Conference held—Treaty of Berwick—Arrest of
Loudon—Insult from the Dutch—Wentworth in England—The
Short Parliament—Riots in London—Preparations of the Scots—
Mutiny in the English Army—Invasion of England—Treaty of
Ripon—Meeting of the Long Parliament—Impeachment of
Strafford—His Trial—He is Abandoned by Charles—His Execution
—The King's Visit to Scotland.

Having reduced the refractory members of the Church and of

Parliament in England to silence for the present, Charles determined
to make a journey into Scotland, there to be crowned, to raise
revenue, and to establish the Anglican hierarchy in that part of his
dominions. For the latter purpose he took Laud with him. He reached
Edinburgh on the 12th of June, 1633, where he was received by the
inhabitants with demonstrations of lively rejoicing, as if they were
neither aware of the character and views of the monarch, nor
remembered the consequences of the visit of his father. On the 18th
he was crowned in Edinburgh by the Archbishop of St. Andrews; but
Laud did not let that opportunity pass without giving them a
foretaste of what was coming. "It was observed," says Rushworth,
"that Dr. Laud was high in his carriage, taking upon him the order
and managing of the ceremonies; and, for instance, Spotswood,
Archbishop of St. Andrews, being placed at the king's right hand,
and Lindsey, Archbishop of Glasgow, at his left, Bishop Laud took
Glasgow and thrust him from the king with these words:—'Are you a
Churchman, and want the coat of your order?'—which was an
embroidered coat, which he scrupled to wear, being a moderate
Churchman—and in place of him put in the Bishop of Ross at the
king's right hand."
This question of the embroidered robes of the Roman hierarchy, with
the high altar, the tapers, chalices, genuflections, and oil of unction,
was introduced into Parliament, and forced on the reluctant Scots.
They had voted supplies with a most liberal spirit, and laid on a land
tax of four hundred thousand pounds Scots for six years; but when
the king proposed to pass a Bill authorising the robes, ceremonies,
and rites just mentioned, there was a stout opposition. Lord Melville
said plainly to Charles, "I have sworn with your father and the whole
kingdom to the confession of faith in which the innovations intended
by these Articles were solemnly abjured." And the Bishop of the Isles
told him at dinner that it was said amongst the people that his
entrance into the city had been with hosannas, but that it would be
changed, like that of the Jews to our Saviour, into, "Away with him,
crucify him!" Charles is said to have turned thoughtful, and eaten no
more. Yet the next day he as positively as ever insisted on the
Parliament passing the Articles, and, pointing to a paper in his hand,
said, "Your names are here; I shall know to-day who will do me
service and who will not."
Notwithstanding this, the House voted against it by a considerable
majority, there being opposed to it fifteen Peers and forty-five
Commoners; yet the Lord Register, under influence of the Court,
audaciously declared that the Articles were accepted by Parliament.
The Earl of Rothes had the boldness to deny this and to demand a
scrutiny of the votes; but Charles intimidated both him and all
dissentients by refusing any scrutiny unless Rothes would arraign the
Lord Register of the capital crime of falsifying the votes. This was a
course too perilous for any individual under the circumstances.
Rothes was silent, the Articles were ratified by the Crown, and
Parliament was forthwith dissolved on the 28th of June.
Having thus carried his point with the Parliament, Charles took every
means, except that which had brought upon him so much odium in
England—namely, imprisoning and prosecuting the members who
opposed him—to express his dissatisfaction with them. He
distributed lands and honours upon those who had fallen in with his
wishes, and treated the dissentients with sullen looks, and even
severe words, when they came in his way. They were openly
ridiculed by his courtiers, and dubbed schismatics and seditious.
Lord Balmerino was even condemned to death for a pamphlet being
found in his possession complaining of the king's arbitrary conduct in
these concerns; but the sentence was too atrocious to be executed.
Charles and Laud erected Edinburgh into a bishopric, with a diocese
extending even to Berwick, and richly endowed with old Church
lands, which were obtained from the noblemen who held them. A
set of singing men was also appointed for Holyrood Chapel; and
Laud, who had been made a Privy Councillor, preached there in full
pontificals, to the great scandal of the Presbyterians. Thence Charles
and his apostle made a tour to St. Andrews, Dundee, Falkland,
Dunblane, etc., to the singular discomfort of Laud amongst the
rough fastnesses of the Highlands.
Immediately after this, Charles posted to London in four days,
leaving Laud to travel more at leisure. No doubt both master and
man thought they had made a very fine piece of work in this forcing
of the Scottish consciences: they were destined in a while to feel
what it actually was, in rebellion and the sharp edge of the axe.
Scarcely had they reached London, when they heard the news of the
death of Archbishop Abbot, and Charles was thus enabled to reward
Laud for all his services in building up despotism and superstition by
making him Primate, which he did on the 6th of August, 1633. It
was a curious coincidence that about the same time Laud received a
second offer of a cardinal's hat, and he seems to have been greatly
tempted by it. He says that he acquainted his majesty with the offer,
and that the king rescued him from the trouble and danger; for, he
adds, there was something dwelling in him which would not suffer
him to accept the offer till Rome was other than she was. To have
accepted a cardinal's hat was to have gone over to the Church of
Rome, and the Church of England was for him a much better thing
now he was Primate.
There undoubtedly did at this precise time take place an active
private negotiation between the courts of Rome and England on this
topic. The queen was anxious to have the dignity of cardinal
conferred on a British subject. Probably she thought that the
residence of the English cardinal at London would be a stepping-
stone to the full restoration of Catholicism. Towards the end of
August, immediately after Laud's elevation to the Primacy, Sir Robert
Douglas was sent to Rome as envoy from the queen, with a letter of
credence, signed by the Earl of Stirling, Secretary of State for
Scotland. His mission was this proposal of an English cardinal, as a
measure which would contribute greatly to the conversion of the
king. To carry out this negotiation, Leander, an English Benedictine
monk, was despatched to England, followed soon after by Panzani
an Italian priest.
From the despatches of Panzani we find that there existed a strong
party at the English court for the return to the allegiance of Rome,
amongst whom were Secretary Windebank; Lord Chancellor
Cottington; Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester; and Montague, Bishop
of Chichester. He was informed that none of the bishops except
three—those of Durham, Salisbury, and Exeter—would object to a
purely spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and very few of the clergy.
Douglas was followed to Rome by Sir William Hamilton, to prosecute
this secret business, but it all came to nothing, for the king, who was
sincere in his attachment to the English Church, was not likely to
listen to any proposal for submitting again to the yoke of Rome; and
the Pope, on his part, would not comply with Charles's request to
exert his influence with Catholic Austria for the restoration of his
sister and her son in the Palatinate so long as they continued
Protestants. Laud was therefore relieved from his temptation to
receive the cardinal's hat by the resolve of the king to yield not one
jot of his spiritual or political power; and a Scottish Catholic named
Conn being at Rome, was mentioned as candidate for the purple
instead. He came to England and was graciously received, not only
by the queen, but the king too. He resided in England three years,
but without the cardinal's hat, and was succeeded by Count Rossetti
as the Pope's envoy. The rumours of the offers of the scarlet hat to
Laud, and the residence of these Papal envoys in London, excited
the jealousy of the people and added immensely to Charles's
unpopularity; for no one felt sure of his real faith.
As Laud, however, could not array himself in scarlet as a cardinal, he
determined to make the Anglican Church as Popish, and himself as
much of a Pope, as possible. Before reaching the Primacy he had
gone a good way. The spoliation of the Church by Henry VIII. and
Edward VI., and their greedy nobility, had deprived it of the means
of keeping the ecclesiastical buildings in repair. The Catholic Church
in England had devoted the property of the Establishment to three
objects: one, to the maintenance of the clergy and religious orders;
the second, to the maintenance of the buildings of the churches and
cathedrals; and the third to the support of the poor. Thus the
patrimony of the poor was swallowed up by the aristocracy, and the
maintenance of the poor thrown upon the country; and fixed there
by the 43rd of Elizabeth. The patrimony of the public for the
maintenance of Church buildings being equally shared by the
Russells, Villierses, Seymours, Dudleys, and a thousand other Court
leeches, neither Charles nor Laud, with all their stickling for the
Church, dared to call upon them to disgorge their prey; but a
proclamation was issued to the bishops for the repairs of all the
churches and chapels, and they were to levy the necessary rates on
the parishioners at large, and to exert the powers of the
ecclesiastical courts against all such as resisted.
 DUNBLANE IN THE 17TH CENTURY.
This excited a serious ferment amongst the people, which was
greatly increased by the general opinion that these repairs should be
done out of the tithes which they paid either to lay or clerical
personages. Laud carried matters with far too high a hand to pay
the slightest regard to these complaints, and he proceeded to
consecrate such churches as were thus repaired, with all the
splendid ceremony of Catholicism, as if they had been desecrated by
their neglect.
He obtained a commission under the Great Seal for the repair of St.
Paul's Cathedral. The judges of the prerogative courts, and their
officials throughout England and Wales, were ordered to pay into the
chamber in London all moneys derived from persons dying intestate,
to be applied to the restoration of this church. The clergy were
called on by the bishops in their several dioceses to furnish an
annual subsidy for this object. The king contributed at various times
ten thousand pounds, Sir Paul Pindar four thousand pounds, and
Laud gave one hundred pounds a year. He was bent on making St.
Paul's a rival of St. Peter's; and as more money became necessary,
he summoned wealthy people into the High Commission Court on all
possible pleas, and fined them heavily; so that there was a plentiful
crop of money and of murmurs against the Primate, who was said to
be building the church out of the sins of the people.
Laud had obtained for his devoted adherents Windebank and Juxon,
Dean of Westminster, the posts of Secretary of State and of Clerk of
the King's Closet respectively; thus, as Heylin observes, the king was
so well watched by his staunch friends that it was not easy for any
one to insinuate anything to Laud's disadvantage; and the Primate
went on most sweepingly in his own way. He put down all evening
lecturing, evening meetings, and extemporary praying. He re-
introduced in the churches painted glass, pictures, and surplices,
lawn-sleeves, and embroidered caps; had the communion-tables
removed, and altars placed instead, and railed in; and he carried his
innovations with such an arbitrary hand that many who might have
approved of them in themselves were set against them. The stricter
reformers complained of the looseness with which the Sabbath was
kept, and the Lord Chief Justice Richardson and Baron Denham
issued an order in the western circuit to put an end to the disorders
attending church-ales, bid-ales, clerk-ales, and the like. But no
sooner did Laud hear of it than he had the Lord Chief Justice
summoned before the Council and severely reprimanded as
interfering with the commands of King James for the practice of such
Sunday sports, as recommended in his Book of Sports, and since
confirmed by Charles.
 ARCHBISHOP LAUD.
The country magistrates, who had seen the demoralisation
consequent on these sports and Sunday gatherings at the ale-
houses, petitioned the king to put them down; and the petition was
signed by Lord Paulet, Sir William Portman, Sir Ralph Hopeton, and
many other gentlemen of distinction. But they were forestalled by
the agility of Laud, who procured from the king a declaration
sanctioning all the Sunday amusements to be found in the Book of
Sports, and commanding all judges on circuit, and all justices of the
peace, to see that no man was molested on that account. This
declaration was ordered to be read in all parish churches by the
clergy. Many conscientious clergy, who had seen too much of the
dissolute riots resulting from these rude gatherings on Sundays,
refused to read the declaration, and were suspended from their
duties, and prosecuted to such a degree that they had no alternative
but to emigrate to America.
This dictation of Laud extended over the whole kingdom, into Wales,
Scotland, and Ireland. Charles was urged to issue proclamation after
proclamation interfering in things entirely beyond the range of his
episcopal jurisdiction, such as regulating the price of poultry and the
retailing of tobacco. In Ireland, Wentworth, now made Lord Deputy,
went hand-in-hand with him. That he might the better interfere in all
kinds of matters Laud was appointed in 1634 Chief of the Board of
Commissioners of the Exchequer, and—on the death of Weston, Lord
Portland—the Lord High Treasurer. He then got his friend Juxon
made Bishop of London, and in about a year surrendered to him the
Treasurership, to the surprise and murmuring of many, for Juxon, till
the primate brought him forward, was a man of no mark whatever.
Lord Chancellor Cottington, who had been a fast friend of Laud's,
and calculated on the white staff of the Treasurer, now fell away
from Laud, and many noblemen who had had an eye to it began to
prophesy what the end of his career would be. But the University of
Oxford, going the whole way with him in his advances towards
Popery, styled him "His Holiness Summus Pontifex, Spiritu Sancto
effusissime plenus, Archangelus et nequid minus!" And Laud
accepted all this base adulation, and declared that these revolting
titles were quite proper, because they had been applied to the popes
and fathers of the Romish Church. In fact, he desired to be the pope
of England.
And in this great Papal authority he was fain to stretch his coercing
hand over the churches wherever they were. He procured an order
in Council to shut the English factories in Holland, and compel the
troops serving there to conform to the Liturgy of the Church of
England. Most of the merchants and many of these soldiers had
gone thither expressly to enjoy their own forms of religion; but no
matter, they must conform. And says Heylin, "The like course was
prescribed for our factories in Hamburg, and those farther off, that is
to say in Turkey, in the Mogul's dominions, the Indian islands, the
plantations in Virginia, the Barbadoes, and all other places where the
English had any standing residence in the way of trade." This order
was to be carried into the houses and establishments of all
ambassadors and consuls abroad.
William Prynne was a young graduate of Oxford, originally from
Painswick, near Bath, but now an outer barrister of Lincoln's Inn. He
was a thorough Puritan, grave, stern in his ideas, and rigid in his
morals, a man who was ready to sacrifice reputation, life, and
everything, for his high ideal of religious truth. He was persuaded
that much of the dissoluteness of the young men around him arose
from the debasing effect of frequenting the theatres; and in that he
was probably correct, for the theatres were not in that age, nor for
long after, fitting schools for youth. He therefore wrote (1632) a
volume of a thousand pages against the stage, called
"Histriomastix." He stated that forty thousand copies of plays had
been exposed for sale within two years, and were eagerly bought
up; that the theatres were the chapels of Satan, the players his
ministers, and their frequenters were rushing headlong into hell.
Dancing was, in his opinion, an equally diabolical amusement, and
every pace was a step nearer to Tophet. Dancing made the ladies of
England "frizzled madams," polluted their modesty, and would
destroy them as it had done Nero, and led three Romans to
assassinate Gallienus. He went on to attack everything that Laud
had been supporting—Maypoles, public festivals, church-ales, music,
and Christmas carols: the cringings and duckings at the altar which
Laud had so much fostered, and all the silk and satin divines, their
pluralities, and their bellowing chants in the Church.
Laud had made two vain attempts to lay hold on this pestilent
satirist, but the lawyers had defeated him by injunctions from
Westminster Hall. But the third time, by accusing him more
exclusively of reflecting on the king and queen by his strictures on
dancing, he obtained an order for the Attorney-General Noye to
indict him in the Star Chamber. There he was condemned to be
excluded from the bar and from Lincoln's Inn, to be deprived of his
University degree, to pay a fine of five thousand pounds, to have his
book burnt before his face by the hangman, to stand in the pillory at
Westminster and in Cheapside, at each place to lose an ear, and
afterwards to be imprisoned for life. This most detestable sentence
was carried into effect in May, 1634, with brutal ferocity, although
the queen interceded earnestly in his favour, and the nation
denounced the barbarity in no equivocal language.
Prynne, undaunted, nay, exasperated to greater daring by this
cruelty, resumed the subject in his prison, whence he issued a tract
(1637) styled "News from Ipswich," in which he charged the prelates
with being the bishops of Lucifer, devouring wolves, and execrable
traitors, who had overthrown the simplicity of the Gospel to
introduce the superstitions of Popery. He had found in prison a
congenial soul, Dr. Bastwick, a physician, who had written a treatise
against the bishops, called "Elenchus papismi et flagellum
episcoporum Latialium," for which he had been condemned to pay a
fine of one thousand pounds to the king, to be imprisoned two
years, and to make recantation. He now, that is in 1636, wrote a
fresh tract: "Apologeticus ad præsules Anglicanos," and (in 1637)
the "Litanie of John Bastwick, doctor of physic, lying in Limbo
patrum," in which he attacked both the bishops' and Laud's service
books.
A third person was Henry Burton, who had been chaplain to Charles
when on his journey to Spain; but being now incumbent of St.
Matthew's, in London, he had preached against the bishops as "blind
watchmen, dumb dogs, ravening wolves, anti-Christian mushrooms,
robbers of souls, limbs of the beast, and factors of antichrist."
These zealous religionists, whom the cruelties and follies of Laud
and his bishops had driven almost beside themselves, were
condemned in the Star Chamber to be each fined five thousand
pounds, to stand two hours in the pillory, where they were to have
their ears cut off, to be branded on both cheeks with the letters S.L.,
for "seditious libeller," and then imprisoned for life.
This sentence, than which the Spanish Inquisition has nothing worse
to show, was fully executed in Old Palace Yard, on the 30th of June,
1637. Prynne from the pillory defied all Lambeth, with the Pope at its
back, to prove to him that such doings were according to the law of
England; and if he failed to prove them violators of that law and the
law of God, they were at liberty to hang him at the door of the Gate
House prison. On hearing this the people gave a great shout; but
the executioner, as if incited to more cruelty, cut off their ears as
barbarously as possible, rather sawing than cutting them. Prynne,
who is said to have had his ears sewed on again on the former
occasion, had them now gouged out, as it were; yet as the hangman
sawed at them he cried out, "Cut me, tear me, I fear thee not. I fear
the fire of hell, but not thee!" Burton, too, harangued the people for
a long time most eloquently; but the sun blazing hotly in their faces
all the time, he was near fainting, when he was carried into a house
in King Street, saying, "It is too hot! Too hot, indeed!"
This most disgraceful exhibition made a terrible impression on the
spectators, of whom the king was informed that there were one
hundred thousand; whilst the executioner sawed at the ears of the
prisoners they assailed him with curses, hisses, and groans. Both
Charles and Laud were unpleasantly surprised at the effect
produced; and to remove the sufferers from public sympathy, they
determined to send them to distant and solitary prisons, far separate
from each other—to Launceston, Carnarvon, and Lancaster. But the
king and his high priest were still more amazed and alarmed when
they found on the removal of the prisoners the crowds were equally
immense, and that they went along from place to place in a kind of
triumph. To attend Burton from Smithfield to two miles beyond
Highgate, there were again at least one hundred thousand people,
who testified their deep sympathy, and threw money into the coach
to his wife as she drove along. Money and presents were also
offered to Prynne, but he refused them. Gentlemen of wealth and
station pressed to see and condole with the prisoners, whom they
honoured and applauded as martyrs. When Prynne reached Chester,
on his way to Carnarvon, one of the sheriffs, attended by a number
of gentle men, met him, invited him to a good dinner, discharged the
cost, and gave him some hangings to furnish his dungeon with in
Carnarvon Castle.
This popular demonstration still more startled Laud, who summoned
the sheriff, as well as the other gentlemen, before the High
Commission Court at York, where they were fined in sums varying
from two hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred pounds, and
condemned to acknowledge their offence before the congregation in
the cathedral and the Corporation in the town hall of Chester. The
prisoners themselves were ordered to be removed farther still, and
accordingly Bastwick was sent to the Isle of Scilly, Burton to the
Castle of Cornet in Guernsey, and Prynne to that of Mount Orgueil in
Jersey. But the king and archbishop had now roused a spirit, by their
cutting off of ears, which would be satisfied ere long with nothing
less than their whole heads.
To stop the outcry against their cruelties, they next determined to
gag the press. An order was therefore issued by the Star Chamber,
forbidding all importation of foreign books, and the printing of any at
home without licence. All books on religion, physic, literature, and
poetry must be licensed by the bishops, so that all truths unpleasant
to the Church would thus be suppressed. There were to be allowed
only twenty master printers in the kingdom, except those of his
majesty and the universities; no printer was to have more than two
presses nor two apprentices, except the warden of the Company.
There were to be only four letter-founders; and whoever presumed
to print without licence was to be whipped through London and set
in the pillory. All this time the High Commission Court kept pace with
the Star Chamber in its prosecutions and arbitrary fines, under
pretence of protecting public morals.
Laud soon had delinquents against the atrocious order for gagging
the press. In about six months after the infliction of the sentence on
Prynne and his associates, he cited into the Star Chamber John
Lilburne and John Warton, for printing Prynne's "News from Ipswich"
and other books called libellous (1638). The accused refused to take
the oath proposed to them, protesting against the lawfulness of the
court. Being called up several times, and still obstinately refusing,
they were condemned to be fined five hundred pounds apiece,
Lilburne to be whipped from the Fleet to the pillory, and both to be
bound to their good behaviour. Lilburne was one of the most
determined of men. He continued to declaim violently against the
tyranny of Laud and his bishops whilst he was standing in the pillory
and undergoing his whipping. He drew from his pockets a number of
the very pamphlets he was punished for printing, and scattered
them from the pillory amongst the crowd. The court of Star Chamber
being informed of his conduct, sent and had him gagged; but he
then stamped with his feet to intimate that he would still speak if he
could. He was then thrown into the Fleet, heavily ironed and in
solitude.
To complete Laud's attacks on all persons and parties, there lacked
only an onslaught on the episcopal bench, and there he found
Williams, formerly Lord Keeper, and still Bishop of Lincoln, for a
victim. Williams, with all his faults, had been a true friend of Laud's
at a time when he had very few, and the wily upstart had declared
that his very life would be too short to demonstrate his gratitude:
but he took full occasion to display towards him his ingratitude. From
the moment that Laud was introduced to the king, Williams could ill
conceal his disgust at the clerical adventurer's base adulation. But
Laud continued to ascend and Williams to descend. Williams having
lost the seals, retired to his diocese, where he made himself very
popular by his talents, his agreeable manners, his hospitality, and
still more by his being regarded as a victim of the arbitrary spirit of
the king and of Laud. Williams, who had a stinging wit, launched a
tract at the head of the Primate, called the "Holy Table," in which he
unmercifully satirised Laud's parade of high altars and Popish
ceremonies. The Primate very speedily had him in the Star Chamber,
where he received private information that if he would give up to
Laud his deanery of Westminster, that disinterested prelate would let
the prosecution slip. Williams refused, and then commenced one of
the most disgraceful scenes in history. Laud, Windebank, and the
king were determined to force the deanery and a heavy fine from
him. They browbeat his witnesses; threw them into prison to compel
them to swear falsely; removed Chief Justice Heath to put in a more
pliant man; and at length, through the medium of Lord Cottington,
induced Williams, from terror of worse, to give up the deanery and
pay a fine of ten thousand pounds. His servants and agents, Walker,
Catlin, and Lunn, were fined three hundred pounds apiece, and
Powell two hundred pounds.
This being done, Laud uttered a most hypocritical speech, professing
high admiration of the talents, wisdom, learning, and various
endowments of Williams, and his sorrow to see him thus punished,
declaring that he had gone five times on his knees to the king to sue
for his pardon. But even so Williams was not destined to escape.
The officers who went to take possession of his effects, found
amongst his papers two letters from Osbaldeston, master of
Westminster School, in one of which he said that the great leviathan
—the late Lord Treasurer, Portland—and the little urchin—Laud—
were in a storm; and in the other, that "there was great jealousy
between the leviathan and the little meddling hocus-pocus."
This, which was no crime of Williams, but of Osbaldeston, was,
however, made a crime of both. Williams was condemned on the
charge of concealing a libel on a public officer, and fined eight
thousand pounds more, and to suffer imprisonment during the king's
pleasure. The chief offender, Osbaldeston, could not be found; he
had left a note saying he was "gone beyond Canterbury;" but he was
sentenced to deprivation of his office, to be branded, and stand
opposite to his own school in the pillory, with his ears nailed to it. He
took good care, however, not to fall into such merciless hands.
 JOHN LILBURNE ON THE PILLORY. (See p. 556.)
Besides those means of raising a permanent revenue for the Crown,
independent of Parliament, which we have already detailed—as
tonnage and poundage, the fees on compulsory knighthood, and the
resumption of forest lands,—there was discovered another which
was owing to the ingenuity of Attorney-General Noye. The landed
proprietors had been much alarmed by the rumours that the king
would lay claim to the greater part of every county in England
except Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, but the whole public was struck
with consternation at the additional project of the Attorney-General.
As he had been always of a surly and morose disposition, he carried
this ungracious manner with him into his apostacy. Formerly he had
acted like a rude ill-tempered patriot, now he was the more odious
from being at once obsequious to the Crown, and coarsely insolent
to those whose rights he had invaded.
In the Records of the Tower he discovered writs compelling the ports
and maritime counties to provide a certain number of ships during
war, or for protecting the coasts from pirates. It was now declared
that the seas were greatly infested with Turkish corsairs, who not
only intercepted our merchantmen at sea, but made descents on the
coast of Ireland and carried off the inhabitants into slavery. The
French and Dutch mariners, it was added, were continually
interrupting our trade, and making prizes of our trading vessels. It
was necessary to assert our right to the sovereignty of the narrow
seas, which, it was contended, "our progenitors, Kings of England,
had always possessed, and that it would be very irksome to us if
that princely honour in our time should be lost, or in anything
diminished."
But the real cause was that Charles was at that time, 1634, engaged
in the treaty with Spain to assist it against the United Provinces of
Holland, on condition that Philip engaged to restore the Palsgrave.
Noye's scheme was highly approved and supported by the Lord
Keeper Coventry. On the 20th of October, 1634, a writ was issued by
the Lords of the Council, signed by the king, to the city of London,
commanding it to furnish before the 1st of March next, seven ships,
with all the requisite arms, stores, and tackling, and wages for the
men for twenty-six weeks. One ship was to be of nine hundred tons,
and to carry three hundred and fifty men; another of eight hundred
tons, with two hundred and sixty men; four ships of five hundred
tons, with two hundred men each; and one of three hundred tons,
with one hundred and fifty men. The Common Council and citizens
humbly remonstrated against the demand as one from which they
were exempt by their charters, but the Council treated their
objections with contempt, and compelled them to submit.
In the spring of 1635 similar writs were issued to the maritime
counties, and even sent into the interior, a most unheard-of demand;
and instructions were forwarded to all parts, signed by Laud,
Coventry, Juxon, Cottington, and the rest of the Privy Council,
ordering the sheriffs to collect the money which was to be levied
instead of ships, at the rate of three thousand three hundred pounds
for every ship. They were to distrain on all who refused, and take
care that no arrears were left to their successors. The demand
occasioned both murmuring and resistance. The deputy-lieutenants
of some inland counties wrote to the Council, begging that the
inhabitants might be excused this unprecedented tax; but they were
speedily called before the Council, and severely reprimanded. The
people on the coasts of Sussex absolutely refused to pay, but they
were soon forced by the sheriffs to submit. Noye died before this
took place, and squibs regarding him were publicly placarded, saying
that his body being opened, a bundle of proclamations was found in
his head, worm-eaten records were discovered in his stomach, and a
barrel of soap, alluding to the enforcement of the monopoly on that
article, was found in his paunch.
To put an end to all murmurs or resistance, Charles determined to
have the sanction of the judges, knowing that he could not have
that of Parliament. He therefore removed Chief Justice Heath on this
and other accounts, and put in his place the supple Sir John Finch,
lately conspicuous as Speaker of the Commons. The questions
submitted to the judges were whether, when the good and safety of
the realm demanded it, the king could not levy this ship-money, and
whether he was not the proper and sole judge of the danger and the
necessity. Finch canvassed his brethren of the Bench individually and
privately. The judges met in Serjeant's Inn on the 12th of February,
1636, when they were all perfectly unanimous except Croke and
Hutton, who, however, subscribed, on the ground that the opinion of
a majority settled the matter.
To obtain this opinion, Charles had let the judges know through
Finch, that he only required their decision for his private satisfaction;
but they were startled to find their sanction immediately proclaimed
by the Lord Keeper Coventry in the Star Chamber, order given that it
should be enrolled in all the courts at Westminster, and themselves
required to make it known from the Bench on their circuits through
the country. Nor was this all, for Wentworth, now become a full-
fledged agent of despotism, contended that "since it is lawful for the
king to impose a tax towards the equipment of the navy, it must be
equally so for the levy of an army; and the same reason which
authorises him to levy an army to resist, will authorise him to carry
that army abroad, that he may prevent invasion. Moreover, what is
law in England is also law in Ireland and Scotland. This decision of
the judges will, therefore, make the king absolute at home, and
formidable abroad. Let him," he observed, "only abstain from war a
few years, that he may habituate his subjects to the payment of this
tax, and in the end he will find himself more powerful and respected
than any of his predecessors."
Such were the principles of Wentworth, ready on the smallest
concession to grant a dozen other assumptions upon it, and such the
counsellors, himself and Laud, who encouraged the already too
fatally despotic king to his destruction. The judges were, for the
most part, equally traitorous to the nation, and preached the most
absolute doctrines and passed the most absolute sentences. Richard
Chambers, the London merchant, who had already suffered so
severely for resisting the king's illegal demands, also refused
payment of this, and brought an action against the Lord Mayor for
imprisoning him for his refusal. But Judge Berkeley would not hear
the counsel of Chambers in his defence; and afterwards, in his
charge to the grand jury at York, described ship-money as the
inseparable flower of the Crown. But they were not so easily to
override the rights of the people of England. There were numbers of
stout hearts only waiting a fitting opportunity to unite and crush the
spirit of despotism now growing so rampant. One of the most
distinguished of these patriots was John Hampden, a gentleman of
Buckinghamshire, whose name has become a world-wide synonym
for sturdy constitutional independence. He determined not only to
resist the payment of ship-money, but to try the question, so as to
make known far and wide its illegality. He consulted his legal friends,
Holborne, St. John, Whitelock, and others, on the best means of
dealing with it, and encouraged by his example, thirty freeholders of
his parish of Great Kimble, in Buckinghamshire, also refused
payment. No sooner, therefore, had Charles obtained the opinion of
the judges, than he determined to proceed against Hampden in the
Court of Exchequer. The case was conducted for the Crown by the
Attorney-General, Sir John Banks, and the Solicitor-General, Sir
Edward Littleton. The sum at which Hampden was assessed was
only twenty shillings: the trial lasted for twelve days before the
twelve judges, that is, from the 6th to the 18th of December, 1637.
It was argued on the part of the Crown that the practice was
sanctioned by the annual tax of Dane-gelt, imposed by the Saxons;
by former monarchs having pressed ships into their service, and
compelled the maritime counties to equip them; and that the claim
on the part of the king was reasonable and patriotic, for if he did not
exercise this right of the Crown, in cases of danger, before the
Parliament could be assembled serious damage might accrue. The
Crown lawyers ridiculed the refusal of a man of Mr. Hampden's great
estates to pay so paltry a sum as twenty shillings; and declared that
the sheriffs of Bucks ought to be fined for not putting upon him
twenty pounds. But it was replied upon the part of Hampden, that
the amount of the assessment was not in question, it was the
principle of it. Nor could the Dane-gelt give evidence in the case, the
imperfect accounts to be drawn on the subject from our ancient
writers being too vague and uncertain. Moreover, the practice of
monarchs before or after Magna Charta could not establish any law
on the subject, for Magna Charta abrogated any arbitrary customs
that had gone before, and strictly and clearly forbade them
afterwards. No breach of that great Charter could be pleaded against
it, for it was paramount and perpetual in its authority. Again, various
statutes since, and last of all the Petition of Right, assented to by the
king himself, made any such taxation without consent of Parliament
illegal and void; while the very asking of loans and benevolences by
different monarchs was sufficient proof of this, for if they had the
right to tax, they would have taxed, and not borrowed. The most
arbitrary prince that ever sat on the English throne—Henry VIII.,—
when he had borrowed, and was not disposed to repay, did not
consider his own fiat sufficient to cancel the debt, but called in
Parliament to release him from the obligation. They reminded the
judges of Edward I.'s confirmation of the charters, and of the statute
De Tallagio non concedendo. As to the plea of imminent danger from
foreign invasion, as in the case of the great Armada, as the Crown
lawyers had mentioned, such cases, they argued, were next to
impossible; notices of danger, as in the instance of the Armada itself,
being obtained in ample time to call together Parliament. In this case
there was no urgency whatever to forestall the measures of
Parliament; for neither the insolence of a few Turkish pirates, nor
even the threats of neighbouring States, were of consequence
enough to warrant the forestalling of the constitutional functions of
Parliament.
The Crown lawyers, baffled by this unanswerable statement, then
unblushingly took their stand on the doctrine that the king was
bound by no laws, but all laws proceeded from the grace of the king,
and that this was a right which all monarchs had reserved from time
immemorial. Justice Crawley declared that the right of such
impositions resided ipso facto in the king as king, that you could not
have a king without these rights—no, not by Act of Parliament. "The
law," said Judge Berkeley, "knows no such king-yoking policy. The
law is an old and trusty servant of the king's; it is his instrument or
means which he useth to govern his people by. I never read or
heard that Lex was Rex, but it is common and most true that Rex is
Lex." The pliable Finch said, "Acts of Parliament are void to bind the
king not to command the subjects, their persons, and goods, and, I
say, their money, too, for no Acts of Parliament make any
difference." Certainly they made no difference to him; and if these
base lawyers could have talked away the rights of the people of
England, they would have done it for their own selfish interests.
When Holborne contended that it was not only for themselves, but
for posterity, that they were bound to preserve the constitution
intact, Finch testily exclaimed, "It belongs not to the Bar to talk of
future governments; it is not agreeable to duty to have you bandy
what is the hope of succeeding princes, when the king hath a
blessed issue so hopeful to succeed him in his crown and virtues."
But Holborne replied, "My lord, for that whereof I speak, I look far
off—many ages off; five hundred years hence!"
But all the judges were not of like stamp. Hutton and Croke, who
had dissented when the opinion of the judges was first taken, now
made a bold stand against the illegal practice. As the ruin of a judge
who thus dared to act in upright independence was pretty certain at
that time, we may estimate the degree of virtue necessary to such
decision, and the noble self-sacrifice of Lady Croke, who bade her
husband give no thought to the consequences of discharging his
duty, for that she would be content to suffer want, or any misery
with him, rather than he should do or say anything against his
judgment and conscience.
The case was not decided till the Trinity Term, the third term from
the commencement of the trial, when, on the 12th of June, 1638,
judgment was entered against Hampden in the Court of Exchequer.
But even then five of the judges had the courage to decide for
Hampden, though three of them did this only on technical grounds,
conceding the main and vital question. The decision of this most
important trial was apparently in favour of the king, and there was,
accordingly, much triumphing at Court; but in reality, it was in favour
of the people, for it had been so long before the public, and the
arguments of Hampden's counsel were so undeniable, those of the
Crown so absolutely untenable, and opposed to all the history of the
nation, that the matter was everywhere discussed, and men's
opinions made up that, without a positive resistance to such claims
and such doctrines as had here been advanced, the country was a
place of serfdom, and the bloodshed and the labour of all past
patriots had been in vain. It was accordingly found that people were
more averse than ever from paying these demands; and even the
courtly Clarendon confesses that "the pressure was borne with much
more cheerfulness before the judgment for the king than ever it was
after." Lord Say made a determined stand against it in Warwickshire,
and would fain have brought on another trial like that of John
Hampden; but the king would not allow another damaging
experiment; and events came crowding after it of such a nature, as
showed how deep the matter had sunk into the public mind.
The course which matters were taking was exceedingly disgusting to
the ministers of King Charles—Laud and Wentworth. The latter had
been appointed Lord President of the North, where he had ruled
with all the overbearing self-will of a king. The Council of the North
had been appointed by Henry VIII., to try and punish the insurgents
concerned in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and it had been continued
ever since on as lawless a basis as that of the Star Chamber itself. In
fact, it was the Star Chamber of the five most northern counties of
England, summoning and judging the subjects without any jury, but
at the will of the Council itself. Wentworth had risen from a simple
baronet to be Privy Councillor, baron and viscount, and President of
the North, with more rapidity than Buckingham himself had done.
On accepting this last office, his power and jurisdiction were
enlarged, and he displayed such an unflinching spirit in exercising
the most despotic will, that on difficulties arising in Ireland, he was,
without resigning his Presidency of the North, transferred thither,
where Charles had resolved to introduce the same subjection to his
sole will as in England and Scotland.
When the unfortunate expedition to Cadiz had been made, and the
king feared the Spaniards would retaliate by making a descent on
Ireland, he ordered the Lord-Deputy, Lord Falkland, to raise the Irish
army to five thousand foot and five hundred horse. There was no
great difficulty in that, but the question how they were to be
maintained was not so easy. Lord Falkland, who was one of the most
honourable and conscientious of men, called together the great
landed proprietors, and submitted the matter to their judgment.
These, who were chiefly Catholics, offered to advance the necessary
funds on condition that certain concessions should be made to the
people of Ireland. These were, that, besides the removal of many
minor grievances, the recusants should be allowed to practise in the
courts of law, and to sue the livery of their lands out of the court of
wards on their taking the oath of Allegiance without that of
Supremacy; that the Undertakers on the several plantations should
have time to fulfil the conditions of their leases; that the claims of
the Crown should be confined to the last sixty years, the inhabitants
of Connaught being allowed a new enrolment of their estates; and
finally, that a parliament should be held to confirm these graces, as
they were called.
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