Regents and Cloistered Rule — Between Authority and Power

So far, we have followed the path by which the great kings of Yamato became emperors, set at the summit of the legal system known as the ritsuryo. Yet standing at the highest place within an institution and actually moving the daily work of government are not necessarily the same thing. As the age shifted from Nara to Heian, the practical affairs of the court gathered, little by little, into the hands of the powerful nobility. Foremost among them rose the Fujiwara clan. In this installment, taking as our axis the Fujiwara regency, the mechanism of the emperor’s maternal kin, and the new form of power that later appeared — cloistered rule — we trace as quietly as we can the structure by which the emperor endured as a source of authority.

Through Daughters — The Fujiwara Regency

In the Heian period, the family that long wielded great power at the heart of the court was the branch of the Fujiwara known as the Northern House. The method they took was neither force nor intrigue but a steady one, pursued through marriage. They made their daughters consorts of emperors, and if a prince born of that union became the next emperor, then they themselves became the emperor’s relatives on the mother’s side — that is, his maternal kin. Leaning on this position of maternal kinship, they came to occupy the office of regent, who assisted on behalf of a young emperor, and the office of chancellor, who assisted an emperor come of age.

The beginning of the regency government is often placed in the year 858, when Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, as a subject, took the position of regent. In time his descendants came to inherit the offices of regent and chancellor almost as a matter of course, and the government is said to have reached its zenith in the early eleventh century, in the age of Fujiwara no Michinaga and his son Yorimichi. Michinaga is recorded to have made several of his daughters consorts of emperors one after another, creating a situation in which his grandsons became emperors in succession. A poem said to express his sense of complete contentment is also widely known, conveying the scale of his power down to our own day.

What must not be overlooked here is that the Fujiwara did not seek to take the emperor’s place. The source of their power lay entirely in their blood ties to the emperor. It was precisely because the emperor existed that they could grasp the affairs of government as his maternal kin. In other words, the regency government was not a denial of the emperor’s authority but a mechanism that drew close to that authority and used it as a support for moving actual power. The emperor stood at the summit of politics, yet most of the daily decisions proceeded among the nobles centered on the regent and chancellor — this division of roles took shape in this age.

Another Center — The Mechanism of Cloistered Rule

The power of the Fujiwara was supported by their blood ties to the emperor. If so, then should that chain of blood weaken, the form of power, too, could change. And indeed, in the latter half of the eleventh century, an emperor appeared who did not have the Fujiwara as maternal kin, and the situation began to move. From this arose a new mechanism known as cloistered rule.

The beginning of cloistered rule is generally placed in the year 1086. Emperor Shirakawa is said to have abdicated in favor of the young Emperor Horikawa and, while becoming a retired emperor — an emperor who had stepped down from the throne — to have continued to be deeply involved in government thereafter. It was not the reigning emperor but the retired emperor who held the real power of politics. This retired emperor was sometimes called a cloistered emperor after taking Buddhist vows. The retired emperor who carried out cloistered rule was often styled the ‘ruler of the realm,’ the sovereign who governed all under heaven.

Why was it that the abdicated retired emperor could hold power? One view is that, whereas a reigning emperor was bound by the framework of various rites and institutions, the position of retired emperor allowed comparatively free movement. A retired emperor who was the father or grandfather of the reigning emperor could lead government by supporting the young emperor from behind, and also by guiding him. In this way there arose within the court a configuration of two centers standing side by side — the ‘reigning emperor’ and the ‘retired emperor who held real power.’ One might also arrange it thus: in the regency government the nobles carried the work of government, while in cloistered rule it passed into the hands of the elders of the imperial family.

Even so, such transitions did not switch over cleanly at any single dividing day. The influence of the Fujiwara, the family of regents, long remained afterward, and the nobles continued to play important roles in the age of cloistered rule as well. The turning points of history are often lines drawn looking back from a later age; to those who lived through the time, it is more natural to think that it was a daily life in which many powers overlapped and shifted little by little.

The Court Culture and the Authority That Remained

While the center of power shifted, the Heian court was nurturing another great legacy: culture. With the spread of the kana script, from among the people serving at court were born the many tales, essays, and poems that would long be read by later ages. The names of Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon are still well known today as their representatives. Dazzling rites and annual observances, a refined sense of beauty — what is called court culture blossomed precisely in this age of the regency and cloistered rule.

And at the center of that culture was the court, with the emperor at its summit. Regardless of whose hands moved the actual affairs of government, the court remained the wellspring of dignity and tradition. To grant rank, to set the calendar and the rites, to change the era name — such matters lay with the emperor and the court. Wherever the real power of politics might move, the role of giving authority to the order of society still remained with the emperor.

In this way, toward the end of the Heian period, a distinctive layered structure formed within Japanese politics. The power that actually moved people, and the emperor who gave that power its authority. The form in which these two were separated yet bound together became the basic framework of the long ages that followed. And before long, those who had been storing up strength outside the world of the nobles stepped forward onto the stage of history. People whose calling was the martial arts — the warriors. When they rose up as the protagonists of a new age, the place of the emperor and authority would meet a fresh trial.