kuge

“Socially Japan was divided into eight hereditary and closed classes: kuge (court nobles), daimio, hatamoto, samurai, labourers, artisans, merchants, eta (a kind of pariah).”

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 8: Infamy-Lapparent

“Court houses or families, kuge; come into power again at restoration; in Muromachi period; driven to provinces; Ieyasu's laws for; intermarriage with military; college for, established by Ninko; influenced by anti-foreign party; in Restoration; distinction between territorial and court nobles abolished (1871)”

A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

“The Imperial Court, when confronted with any crisis, was constrained to borrow the aid of these magnates, and thus there came into existence the buke, or military houses, as distinguished from the kuge, or Court houses.”

A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

“The lower classes in Japan have also reason for this, for whatever influence the latest political changes may have had on the old kuge, daimio, and samurai families of Japan, the position of the cultivator of the soil is now much more secure than before, when he was harmed by hundreds of small tyrants.”

The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II

“(military families) had been crushed and that the kuge (Court nobility) had come to their own again.”

A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era