The was the hereditary peerage of Empire of Japan that existed between 1869 and 1947. Origins Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ancient court nobility of Kyoto ( kuge ) regained some its lost status. Several members of the kuge played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Tokugawa bakufu, and the early Meiji government nominated kuge to head all seven of the newly established administrative departments. The Meiji oligarchs, as part of their Westernizing reforms, merged the kuge with the former daimyo (feudal lords) into an expanded aristocratic class on 25 July 1869, to recognize that the kuge and former-daimyo were a social class distinct from the other designated social classes of shizoku (former samurai) and heimin (commoners). It? Hirobumi, one of the principal authors of the Meiji constitution intended the new kazoku peerage to serve as a political and socia

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