Originally posted by W.Bodiford
Before 1868 martial arts never were controlled by an *iemoto* or *sôke* structure. This is the reason why there exists so many different schools (*ryûha*) of martial arts. Different styles and lineages proliferated because the ruling authorities never would allow any single martial entity to exercise monopoly control throughout the land. In every generation there always existed martial students who broke away to start their own schools with their own secret teachings and their own repertoire of kata. When they issued diplomas they did so by their own authority without paying license fees to any larger organization. In contrast to the wide diversity of martial schools, only a limited number of schools of Noh or Ikebana or Tea Ceremony (etc.) could exist because the monopoly power of the *sôke* prevented any rival schools from being created. In short, the ability to found new schools constitutes a repudiation of the *sôke* power. If there are new schools, then there is no *sôke*. If there is a *sôke*, then there are no new schools.
I just want to add a minor--albeit important--quibble/clarification to an otherwise excellent post:
Will's treatment of this topic seems to at least partially confound what I think ought to be understood as two distinct constructs: the idea of what might be called the "soke system" and that of a "soke (or iemoto) + natori system." I would argue (actually, I guess I already have, in *Legacies*) that bugei ryuha had the former, but not the latter.
Whether or not the term "soke" itself was used in reference to bugei ryuha prior to the Meiji period, the family soden traditions and the license & rank systems that developed during the Edo era do amount to a "soke system" (meaning proprietorship over a package of teachings vested exclusively in the hands of one individual per generation) albeit without the natori component (networks of authority across political lines or networks of branch schools) found in arts like ikebana, chanoyu, or Noh. While bugei ryuha didn't license and promulagate branch schools on the natori pattern, they DO seem to have PROHIBITED them. That is, they do appear to have made efforts to stop unauthorized use of a ryuha name, which amounts to affirmation (in the negative) of much the same sort of proprietary rights to artistic/intellectual property claimed by other arts. Certainly it was not the case that any student, or even any "graduate" (recipient of menkyo kaiden) was free to claim to teach xyz-ryu under that name. Ryuha headmasters did have designated successors. Other "graduates" appear to have had the right to advertise their affiliation with the ryuha, but not the right to pass that right on to their own students.
That is, bugei ryuha were like ryuha of other arts in their concept of proprietary possession or transmission of the tenets of their arts. The key organizational difference was the absence of branch schools and the use of the term "soke" itself among bugei schools, prior to the modern era.
Karl Friday
Dept. of History
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602