Among the developments of the early Edo period that distinguish it most clearly from preceding eras is the emergence of a distinctive popular culture among the urban commoners. From Nara times the imperial court had been the fountainhead of poetry, literature, the arts, and scholarship. After the court's decline in resources and strength in the twelfth century, members of the military elite increasingly came to serve as patrons for cultural and intellectual developments in their mansions and in Buddhist monasteries. In the Edo period, while the shogun and daimyo continued their patronage of the higher culture and learning, the most original and lively developments took place among the populace of the cities. For the first time, commoners, the nonelite, became culturally important.

Major economic and social changes followed political unification and the establishment of a stable political order under the Tokugawa in the years after 1600. The rapid development of trade and commerce was accompanied by the dramatic growth of the three major cities – Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo. Much of this growth came from the function of these cities as national markets for goods from all areas. Because the increase in population was largely among those engaged in commercial activities – merchants, craftspeople, shopkeepers, rice brokers, builders, and laborers – and because it was they who benefited most from the economic expansion, the social composition of cities and also the distribution of wealth took on entirely new patterns. The rise in income of many chŌnin, as the urban commoners were called, brought an increasing demand for goods and services, as they had leisure to engage in a more active social and cultural life and to seek entertainments.