Kamakura << `kah` muh KOO rah >> shogunate was a military government in Japan. Headquartered in Kamakura in eastern Japan, the government was established in 1185 and ruled until 1333. In 1192, the emperor gave the head of this government, Yoritomo, the title of shogun. Yorimoto’s military government then became known as a shogunate or bakufu. It oversaw the settlement of land disputes among warriors called gokenin. Most other government functions were left to the emperor’s court based in Heian-kyo (now Kyoto). The period of Kamakura rule saw an expansion of literacy among the gokenin as well as the rise of new forms of Buddhism.
