The one figure centrally involved in championing renga or "linked verse" as a courtly genre was Tonna's student Nijo Yoshimoto. During 1345-1372 Yoshimoto produced four major treatises aimed at drawing attention to renga as a literary art, providing it with a historical narrative that connected it to the earliest times, and analyzing it in aesthetic terms taken from similar works in the waka tradition. In 1392 the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu arranged a rapprochement that ended the era of the divided courts and inaugurated a period of relative peace and prosperity for both the court nobility and the military aristocracy. Sogi, a Zen monk who, more than any commoner poet before, seems to have made an explicit decision to make a career for himself as a renga master. Given his emphasis on maintaining the proper atmosphere in a renga gathering, it is no surprise that Sogi is regarded as the first renga master to realize the full potential of the hyakuin.

This chapter deals with the establishment of a new capital city in the Kyoto river basin during the reign of Emperor Kammu in the eighth century. It describes the construction of the Greater Imperial Palace, the layout of the emperor's residential compound, and the existence of public buildings, facilities and spaces. Little is known about individual residential land occupancy and use in the early days of the city; individuals who held court rank may have been entitled to varying amounts of land. The most conspicuous and best-known part of large official or courtly population was the political and social elite: the imperial clan and the court nobility. The Heian noble wife also enjoyed many customary rights that tended to give additional substance to the degree of her social and economic autonomy. The chapter also discusses the Heian officialdom's functions, and the capital city's economy and administration. The Heian city was also an intensely ceremonious and ritualistic city.