Diplomatic Protocol of the Tokugawa Shogunate: With a Focus on Continuity from Early Modern Inter-Asiatic Exchages to late Edo Western Diplomacy

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This project aimed at elucidating how the Tokugawa shogunate officials prepared the ceremonial protocol for the shogun to receive Western diplomats in the bakumatsu period. I looked into Japanese and foreign primary sources, and also referred to the existing studies on various rites of the samurai class as well as on different cultural elements of the time, such as cuisine and clothes, of which an official ceremony was composed.I have reached to grasp the overall picture of the diplomatic protocol, valid between 1857 and 1867, which was developed step by step, in the beginning based on the Tokugawa shogunate's experiences of receiving Korean envoys. The diplomatic protocol of this decade had largely been overlooked in the academic studies, in spite of its importance as functioned prior to the Westernisation of diplomatic practices under the Meiji government. The results of this project would encourage reconsideration of continuity/discontinuity of broader Japanese diplomacy.