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後醍醐天皇影/養福摸 / 東京国立博物館

Emperor Go-Daigo

The 96th emperor of Japan, who presided over the defeat of the Kamakura shogunate and the Kenmu Restoration—events that resulted in the division of the court into the Northern and Southern Courts

1288-1339

       Emperor Go-Daigo, who bore the name Takaharu, reigned from 1318 to 1339. He was the second imperial prince fathered by Emperor Go-Uda, and his mother was Dantenmon-in Fujiwara no Chushi. He belonged to the Daikakuji imperial lineage. In 1302 he became imperial prince by order of the emperor, and in 1304 director of the Dazaifu (under the ritsuryo system, the government office with jurisdiction over Kyushu, Iki, and Tsushima), and he became known as director prince (sochi no miya).

       In 1321 he abolished the cloistered government of the retired emperor Go-Uda and began direct imperial rule. In an effort to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate, which exercised control over the throne, he hosted trusted aristocrats, monks, and members of the Mino Minamoto family in a party and conspired to bring down the shogunate, but in 1324 (year 1 of the Shochu era) the shogunate got word of the plan, and the Shochu Incident ended in failure. Undeterred, Emperor Go-Daigo continued to seek the downfall of the shogunate. In 1330 he established official prices for rice and sake and issued a decree suspending checkpoints, thereby enticing merchants and artisans over to his side, and to win the support of major temples, he appointed Prince Moriyoshi (also a monk) as head priest of the Tendai sect, and he visited Kofuku Temple in Nara and Enryaku Temple on Mt. Hiei. He also schemed to gain the support of samurai, the so-called akuto (evil gang), opposed to the Hojo clan's control of distribution routes, the Hojo being the clan behind the Kamakura government.

       In 1331 Emperor Go-Daigo's plan for bringing down the Kamakura shogunate was leaked to the authorities by Yoshida Sadafusa, a close retainer of the emperor. Emperor Go-Daigo then fled the capital and took refuge in Kasaki (present-day Kasaki-cho in Kyoto). There he was captured, and in the following year he was exiled to Oki Province (the Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan). In the lunar Intercalary Second Month of 1333, he left Oki to join the forces being raised by Prince Moriyoshi and Kusunoki Masashige. He gained the support of Nawa Nagatoshi of Hoki Province (present-day western Tottori Prefecture) and sought to raise forces in the provinces. Ashikaga Takauji was among those who secretly agreed to support him. In the Fifth Month of the same year, when the Kamakura Shogunate fell in the Genko War, Emperor Kogon, supported by the shogunate, was removed from the throne, and Emperor Go-Daigo resumed his reign in what is known as the Kenmu Restoration. But his autocratic rule caused opposition from local samurai, the aristocracy, and others, and his government collapsed in 1336.

       He then fled to Yoshino, near Nara, and established the Southern Court. There he continued to vie with the Northern Court, supported by the Ashikaga shogunate, but the Southern Court forces suffered a series of defeats, and in 1339 he yielded the throne to Prince Noriyoshi, who ascended the throne as Emperor Go-Murakami. Shortly thereafter he died.

       While he was alive, he selected his own posthumous name, Go-Daigo (the later Daigo), and that of his son, Go-Murakami (the later Murakami), to hark back to the reigns of Emperor Daigo (r. 897-930) and Emperor Murakami (r. 946-967). To aid him in his direct rule, he revived the Records Office, and as can be seen from his works Kenmu nenju gyoji (Annual Functions of the Kenmu Era [1334-1338]) and Nitchu gyoji (Daily Functions of the Court), he sought to revive court ceremony. He made considerable use of, and conferred considerable power on, written messages containing imperial orders, and he did away with rigid hierarchies among officials and families by personally conferring ranks on aristocrats, etc. He thus did much to break down the traditional power of regents in politics. In the cultural sphere, he promoted scholarship and Japanese poetry, was knowledgeable in the doctrines of Shingon Buddhism, and even delved into the study of Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. His grave is located at the Emperor Go-Daigo Mausoleum in Yoshino-cho, Nara Prefecture.

12881339
文保2年(1318)即位
正中元年(1324)正中の変
元弘元年(1331)笠置に布陣(元弘の乱始まる)
元弘2年隠岐に配流(翌年、脱出)
建武元年(1334)建武新政
乾元元年(1302)親王宣下
延元元年(1336、建武3)吉野に移る
延元4年義良親王に譲位。同年没
元亨元年(1321)天皇親政開始
正応元年(1288)に生まれる
文保2年(1318)即位

Related People, Things and Events

Books

Portraits of the emperor

Calligraphy by the emperor

Related Works

Figures associated with the emperor

Institutions Holding Related Materials

  • 奈良県奈良郡吉野町にある、後醍醐天皇の勅願寺。毎年9月27日に「後醍醐天皇御忌」を執り行う。

  • 隠岐島には、この地に配流された後醍醐天皇に関係する史跡が多数ある。

  • 鳥取大山だいせん観光ガイド

  • The National Diet Library (NDL), founded in 1948, is the library which belongs to the Diet. The NDL assists the activities of the National Diet. The Library collects and conserves materials and information both from Japan and abroad, serving as a foundation of knowledge and culture and providing library services to administrative and judicial entities and Japanese citizens.

  • The National Archives is an organization for preserving, as historical materials, public records and archives of importance transferred from state organs, and providing them for public use, with the aim of achieving appropriate preservation and use of such public records and archives that are kept in the National Archives or state organs as historical materials.

  • As Japan’s representative museum, Tokyo National Museum collects, preserves, displays, and researches the cultural properties of Asia with a focus on Japan, and also provides educational programs.

  • Kyoto National Museum collects, preserves, displays, researches and provides educational programs focusing on cultural properties from Heian- through to Edo- period Japan, when the capital was located there.

  • Nara National Museum collects, preserves, displays, researches and provides educational programs about cultural properties with a focus on Buddhist art.

  • This institution strives to serve researchers in the field of Japanese literature as well as those working in various other humanities fields, by collecting in one location a massive archive of materials related to Japanese literature from all corners of the country.

  • Keio Museum Commons [KeMCo] functions as a "hub" of Keio's cultural assets, which spans a variety of fields including art, archaeology, literature, history, and medicine, and the educational and research activities behind it. At KeMCo, we aim to create a place where various communities can interact and generate new discoveries and ideas based on cultural properties (objects) in an environment where digital and analogue technologies are fused together.

  • The Art Research Center was established in 1998. Since then, the Center’s mission has been not only to conduct historical and social research and analyses of both tangible and intangible human cultural properties such as visual and performing arts and craftsmanship, but also to record, organize, preserve, and disseminate the research outcomes. To make the vast amount of database of resources on Japanese culture kept at the Art Research Center available to joint researchers in and outside of Japan, while providing the hitherto accumulated digital archiving and database management technologies as the basis for research project activities to promote information archiving and the circulating of joint research on knowledge. Through these undertakings, the Center aims to “become a world class research center” in the field of Digital Humanities.

  • The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum is founded on November 3, 1983, in Hachioji, a thriving university town in the western suburbs of the Japanese capital. Priding itself as “a museum creating bridges around the world” to facilitate the exchange of different cultures, our museum has forged cordial relations with art museums and cultural institutes in 32 countries and territories to date. We do so by bringing the world’s finest works of art to Japan while reciprocating in kind by introducing the finest Japanese treasures to the world through special exhibitions that showcase their beauty and wonder through a unique new set of prisms and perspectives. Our museum possesses some 30,000 pieces of artworks from various periods and cultures including Japanese, Eastern and Western works, ranging from paintings, prints, photography, sculptures, ceramics and lacquer ware to armor, swords and medallions. Especially noteworthy is its outstanding collection of Western oil paintings that spans a five-hundred-year period from the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Romanticism to Impressionism and contemporary art, as well as its exceptional collection of photographic masterpieces that can give an overview of the history of photography from the birth of the photograph to the present age.

  • The Photo Archives of Japan is archiving organization specialized in photographic film and plates.

External Links

  • 奈良県歴史文化資源データベース「いかす・なら」 深堀!歴史文化遺産。南朝が開かれた吉野と後醍醐天皇の関係について解説。

  • 「後醍醐天皇綸旨」など宮内庁書陵部所蔵の史料を検索できる。画像が公開されているものもある。

References

  1. サンプルページ「後醍醐天皇」の項。
  2. サンプルページ「後醍醐天皇」の項。
  3. サンプルページ「後醍醐天皇」の項。
  4. 平凡社
  5. 網野善彦 著,平凡社
  6. 黒田日出男 著,平凡社