Gakumonjo (a school) (学問所)

Gakumonjo (a school) was the name of a kind of educational institution in medieval and modern times.

Originally, 'gakumonjo' referred to a privately-owned study or library, but after the Kamakura period, people came to use gakumonjo as a place to instruct academics. In 1213, eighteen guards of gakumonjo (three groups of six) were deployed who would play the roles of not only the guards of the gakumonjo owned by Seii Taishogun (literally, "great general who subdues the eastern barbarians") of the Kamakura bakufu MINAMOTO no Sanetomo but also fellow students. And Yasutoki HOJO, Kagemori ADACHI, Tadahisa SHIMAZU and others were appointed ("Azuma Kagami" - The Mirror of the East). With the establishment of the Shoin-zukuri style, book repositories such as shosai (a study) and libraries came to be called gakumonjo.

In the Edo period, 'gakumonjo' was known as the abbreviation of Shoheizaka Gakumonjo (Shoheizaka school) established by the Edo bakufu, and in addition, the name was adopted by some of the schools established by the Edo bakufu and hanko (domain schools) owned by domains.

[Original Japanese]