Shugoshi funyu (守護使不入)
Shugoshi funyu means that in the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period, the bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun) forbade shugo (provincial constables) and their officials from entering some specific koryo (public lands), shoen (manors), and so on, which were specified by the bakufu, when pursuing criminals and collecting taxes. Shugoshi funyu is also referred to as shugo funyu.
During the Sengoku Period (Period of Warring States), this privilege which had been granted by the bakufu was denied and instead daimyo (Japanese territorial lords) in the Sengoku Period came to give it to their shugo and kokushu (landed daimyo) as part of their rights.
Kamakura bakufu
Originally not only a shugo but also his officials and emissaries acting as his agents had been empowered to enter domestic koryo and shoen to perform their duties of Taibon Sankajo (three major tasks of peacekeeping), but the Kamakura bakufu agreed to provide special areas in which a kokushi (regional lord), ryoke (lord of the manor), honjo (proprietor or guarantor of manor), or kenmon (an influential family) were not interfered with by shugo, in order to avoid a confrontation with them. This agreement was further clarified by the Goseibai-shikimoku (code of conduct for samurai), and then a principle was established that even when a criminal and others ran into such funyuchi (special areas for excluding shugo), the criminal should be searched by kokushi or ryoke, and handed over to the shugo side on a border line of the funyuchi.
Muromachi bakufu
In the Muromachi bakufu, extensive rights were given to shugo (or shugo daimyo, shugo that became daimyo, which were Japanese feudal lords), such as Karita Rozeki Kendan (the shugo's right to suppress provincial warriors who entered shoen unlawfully to harvest rice, and to prosecute and convict them), Shisetsu Jungyo Ken (a right empowered to shugo to implement shisetsu jungyo, in which shugo who received orders from the bakufu sent jungyo-shi, emissaries, to a region and have them execute the orders) and Tansen Choshu Ken (a right to collect surtax), in addition to the existing Taibon Sankajo, but bakufu gokenin (an immediate vasal of the shogunate in the Kamakura and Muromachi through Edo periods) who had been granted the shugoshi-funyu privilege backed by the authority of the Ashikaga family positioned to accede to the shogunate, refused collection of tansen (surtax) from shugo, and responded to one from the bakufu as direct payment to the bakufu (known as kyono) was approved, which enabled them to escape from a danger of being surcharged by the shugo.
Although this could have apparently produced a chigaihoken (extraterritoriality) area in the domains of shugo daimyo and seems to have caused an obstacle in ruling systems of the Muromachi bakufu, in fact, contrary to that, by tightening of the shugo-ryogoku system (the system that a shugo dominates a manor), it prevented shugo daimyo from executing ryogoku ichien shihai (ruling the whole region of the territory) and suppressed expansion of his power, and at the same time, the privileged gokenin class tried to maintain this privilege by increasing dependence on the bakufu powers, which helped the bakufu form support for political, economic, and military bases to confront the shugo daimyo.
The Sengoku Period
After the Sengoku Period, however, the authority of the bakufu declined and Sengoku daimyo (Japanese territorial lord in the Sengoku period) who formed their own territories by winning gekokujo (an inverted social order when the lowly reigned over the elite) without dependence on the bakufu's power not only began to deny the privilege but also came to grant or despoil it as their own rights. Also, some of the shugo daimyos who had observed the shugoshi funyu rules released by the bakufu came to take measures to deny in public such shugoshi-funyu privilege granted by the bakufu, on the pretext of maintaining their territories.
In 1498, for example, Fusayoshi UESUGI, the Governor of Echigo Province, declared that he would not approve to claim shugoshi funyu within Echigo Province, and during the Eisho era (1504-1521) Ujichika IMAGAWA, the Governor of Suruga Province, expelled the Shiba clan, the Governor of Totomi Province, without permission of the bakufu, ruled the province, and conducted a land survey even in the territories specified as shugoshi funyuchi. Thereafter, his son Yoshimoto IMAGAWA completely denied the shugoshi funyuchi specified by the bakufu authority in his bunkokuho (the law individual sengoku-daimyo enforced in their own domain) 'Imagawa Kana Mokuroku Tsuika' (expanding on house rules left by Ujichika), published in 1552, on the ground that those who maintain order in the present Imagawa territory are not the Ashikaga shogun family, but the Imagawa clan itself. This was also clear declaration by the Imagawa clan that he was no longer the shugo daimyo who ruled his territory backed by the authority of the Muromachi bakufu, but the Sengoku daimyo who ruled his own territory with his own capability.