Fujiwara clan

“ But what the Fujiwara had done in their days of greatness, what the Taira had done during their brief tenure of power, the Saionji were now doing, namely, aspiring to furnish Prime Ministers and Empresses solely from their own family. They had already given five consorts to five Emperors in succession, and zealous rivals were watching keenly to attack this clan which threatened to usurp the place long held by the most illustrious family in the land. ”

“ See also American Diplomatic Correspondence, 1868, p. 727.320.See Kinsé Shiriaku, Yokohama, p. 116.321.See Kinsé Shiriaku, Yokohama, p. 125. Also American Diplomatic Correspondence, March 14, 1871.322.This house was one of the five regent families (go-sekké) all of the Fujiwara clan, from whom the kwambaku, daijō-daijin, or sesshō, the highest officers under the emperor, were always filled and from which the emperors selected their wives.—Dickson's Japan, p. 52.323.See Chamberlain's Things Japanese, 1892, p. 300.324.Adams' History of Japan, vol. ”

“ THE Emperor Mommu took for consort a daughter of Fuhito, representative of the Fujiwara family and son of the great Kamatari. She did not receive the title of Empress, that distinction having been hitherto strictly confined to spouses chosen from a Kwobetsu family, whereas the Fujiwara belonged to the Shimbetsu. But this union proved the first step towards a practice which soon became habitual and which produced a marked effect on the history of Japan, the practice of supplying Imperial consorts from the Fujiwara family. ”

“ There festivals of various kinds, dancing, verse-composing, flower picnics, archery, polo, football—of a very refined nature—hawking, hunting and gambling absorbed the attention of the aristocracy. Nothing disturbed the serenity of the epoch except a revolt of the northern Yemishi, which was temporarily subdued by a Fujiwara general, for the Fujiwara had not yet laid aside the martial habits of their ancestors. In 794 the Imperial capital was transferred from Nara to Kiōto by order of the emperor Kwammu, one of the greatest of Japanese sovereigns. ”

“ Throughout the Fujiwara era the centre of political gravity, though shifted from the sovereign to the Court nobles, remained always in the Court. Throughout the era of the Taira, the Minamoto, and the Tokugawa, the centre of political gravity was transferred to a point altogether outside the Court, the headquarters of a military feudalism.
One fact has always to be remembered in connection with the usurpations of these families: their ancestors were not ordinary subjects. The Fujiwara traced their origin to the era of gods. ”

“ Prince Sanjo belonged to the eighth Kuge family, and was therefore a descendant of the Fujiwara house which has from very early days provided consorts for the Emperors. The mothers and wives of the sovereigns of Japan have all been Fujiwaras by descent, and the rule still holds good that the princesses of the blood shall marry into Fujiwara houses. ”

“ LOYAL, EVEN UNTO DEATH Or The Sugawara Tragedy NOTE.—For many centuries the Fujiwara nobles (the Empresses were always chosen from this family) had secured for themselves supreme control and influence over the Mikados in Kyoto. In the ninth century another family of courtiers came into prominence, namely the Sugawara, who eventually gained sufficient power with the Emperor to be a serious menace to the schemes of the Fujiwara. At the end of the ninth century there arose one especially, Lord Michizane Suguwara, brilliant statesman, scholar, high-souled patriot and poet. ”

“ In short, though great enough to conceive and consummate the kingly project of recovering the reality of imperial power from the Fujiwara nobles who had usurped it, he afterwards, by reducing the nominal sovereign to the status of a mere puppet vis-à-vis, the retired monarch deliberately placed himself in the position that the Fujiwara had occupied vis-à-vis the Throne. Neither could he escape the taint of his time, for though undoubtedly a man of high ability and forceful character, he was neither economical nor upright. ”

“ The four centuries that followed are conveniently designated the Fujiwara era, because throughout that long interval affairs of state were controlled by the Fujiwara family, whose daughters were given as consorts to successive sovereigns and whose sons filled all the high administrative posts. It has been related above that Kamako, chief of the Shintō officials, inspired the assassination of the Soga chief, Iruka, and thus defeated the latter’s designs upon the throne in the days of the empress Kōgyoku. ”

“ Under these circumstances the choice of an imperial consort or the nomination of an heir apparent being synonymous with the acquisition of complete control over administrative and financial affairs, the branches of the Fujiwara family often intrigued and fought among themselves to secure the great prize. ”

“ All classes of the nation accepted that view. Religious ceremonies on a magnificent scale were constantly held at the Imperial Court, as many as a thousand priests sometimes officiating. However straitened might be the finances of the State, funds were never spared for these purposes, or for the building of splendid temples. The Fujiwara family behaved as though it considered that its fortunes depended solely on the intervention of the priests, and the example thus set by the greatest nobles in the land did not fail to produce its effect on their inferiors. ”

“ Farmers had to borrow money and seed-rice from local officials or Buddhist temples, hypothecating their land as security; thus the temples and the nobles extended their already great estates, whilst the agricultural population gradually fell into a position of practical serfdom.
Meanwhile the Fujiwara family were steadily developing their influence in Kiōto. Their methods were simple but thoroughly effective. “By progressive exercises of arbitrariness they gradually contrived that the choice of a consort for the sovereign should be legally limited to Rise of the Fujiwara. ”

“ As men got along in years they had masses said for the prolongation of their lives,—with an increase in the premium each year for such life insurance. Thus, at forty, a man had masses said in forty shrines, but ten years later at fifty shrines in all.
In this matter, as in others, the influence of the Fujiwara was great. They were in a close alliance with the priests, and they controlled the Throne through consorts and kept the people in check through priests and superstitions. ”

“ Another method of naming was inaugurated in very early times: the sovereign bestowed a patronym, much as titles were given in the West. In constructing such a name, the feat that it commemorated was translated into symbolical language—as when a great archer was called "noble target,"—or some natural object of special beauty or grandeur was taken, or else a part of the donor's name was joined to a part of the recipient's. The greatest family that Japan ever possessed—the Fujiwara (wistaria plain) —had the honour of obtaining its designation from an Emperor. ”

“ These generals, howsoever inferior they might be in rank compared with the court nobles of the Fujiwara, were still to be classed among the nobles, and it was yet a very far cry to the time when the common people could have some share in the politics of their own country. ”

“ The central government, altogether powerless to control them, found itself steadily weakened not only by their frank indifference to its mandates, but also by the shrinkage of revenue that gradually took place as the estates of the local captains ceased to pay taxes to Kyōtō. Had the Fujiwara family continued to produce men of genius and ambition, the capital would probably have struggled desperately against the growth of provincial autonomy. But the Fujiwara had fallen victims to their own greatness. ”

“ The contrast is remarkable when we compare it to the government by the Fujiwara nobles, who made an elaborate legislation, professing to govern uprightly and leniently, and to be beneficial even to the lowest stratum of the people, yet in reality caring very little for the felicity of the governed, looking on them always with contempt, though this lack of sympathy might be attributed more to some old racial relation than to the morality of those nobles. ”

“ IT has been shown that after the fall of the patriarchal system of government the administrative power reverted to the sovereign, and that a series of vigorous reforms were undertaken on the lines of Chinese civilisation. But the Emperor did not long remain autocratic, nor did many of the reforms prove permanent. Mommu's (697–707) democratic edict, declaring that the throne rested on the people, had scarcely been acclaimed by the nation when the Fujiwara [1] family began to wield power which soon assumed extraordinary proportions. ”

“ All this while, courtiers and officials of Kyōto despised administrative duties, whether civil or military, so that in the event of a disturbance or of a feud among themselves, they were driven to rely upon the military classes, thus involuntarily but surely strengthening the influence of the men whom they professed to contemn. Although the Fujiwara remained in Kyōto and filled all the important posts in the general government, their sway was only apparent. The reins of state affairs were in reality held by the military classes dispersed throughout the provinces. ”

“ Almost all the essential traits of our civilisation during the whole military régime can be said to have been initiated in this brief Taira epoch. As an inheritor of the borrowed civilisation, the Taira warriors were not so much saturated with the alien refinement as the Fujiwara nobles were, and therefore, when they came nearer the throne, the aspect of the court was not a little vulgarised, but instead there was a freshness in those warriors which was found wanting among the Fujiwara, already overwrought and exhausted by too much Chinese civilisation. ”

“ The gradual advent of a social state in which one section of the people ministered to the luxurious proclivities of the other, was accompanied by the rise of three great families, the Minamoto, the Taira, and the Fujiwara, whose feuds devastated the country for five centuries. ”

“ The Fujiwara in the main restricted themselves to civil duties. Wherever it was necessary to send military expeditions against the barbarians of the north, or rebels in Kyūshū, or into the disaffected districts of Korea, commanders were selected from families devoted to military service. The Taira family was of this class. Hei is the Chinese equivalent of the Japanese name Taira, and is more often used in the literature of the times. The Taira family sprang from the Emperor Kwammu (a.d. 782-806) through one of his concubines. ”

“ The fact is that the Fujiwara were a natural outcome of the situation. The Tang systems, which Kamatari, the great founder of the family, had been chiefly instrumental in introducing, placed in the hands of the sovereign powers much too extensive to be safely entrusted to a monarch qualified only by heredity. Comprehending the logic of their organization, the Chinese made their monarchs' tenure of authority depend upon the verdict of the nation. ”

“ CONVENTION AND MORALITY If the men of the period were effeminate and emotional, the women seem to have sunk to a lower stage of morals than in any other era, and sexual morality and wifely fidelity to have been abnormally bad and lightly esteemed. The story of Ariwara Narihira, prince, poet, painter and Don Juan, and of Taka and her rise to power (see p. 238) has already been told; and it is to be noted that the Fujiwara working for the control of the Throne through Imperial consorts induced, even forced, the Emperors to set a bad example in such matters. ”

“ In the struggle of the great families of Japan for precedence, the lords of the Fujiwara held the civil power of the realm, while the shoguns, or generals, were chosen from the Taira and Minamoto clans. Bred to arms, leading the armies of the empire in many a hard-fought war, making the camp their home, and loving best the trumpet-blast of battle, they became hardy and daring warriors, the military caste of Japan. ”

“ Greatest in this family was the renowned Sugawara Michizané, a polished courtier and famous scholar, whose talents raised him to the highest position in the realm. Japan had no man of greater learning; his historical works became famous, and some of them are still extant. But his genius did not save him from misfortune. His rivals, the Fujiwara, in the end succeeded in having him banished to Kiushiu, where, exposed to dire poverty, he starved to death. This martyr to official rivalry is now worshipped in Japan as a deity, the patron god of literature and letters. ”

“ Mime, Dengaku
Mimoro, Prince
Mimoro, Mt., in early myth; Kami of, a serpent
Minamoto, princely family; Fujiwara take wives from; generals of Imperial guards; called Gen and Gen-ji; academy; manors and troops; win Taira estates; quarrel with Taira; revolt against Fujiwara; literature; military power in provinces, especially Kwanto; "claws" of Fujiwara; provincial branches; war with Taira; power taken by Hojo
—Hikaru (845-913) , son of Nimmyo, accuses Sugawara Michizane ”

“ Hence hereditary office involved perpetual tenure of untaxed land, and every claim established on the Court's favour by great families meant a further reduction of the taxable area with a correspondingly increased impost on the remaining lands. These abuses were well illustrated at the commencement of the Heian epoch. The Emperor Saga (810-825) conferred an estate of "fifteen thousand houses" on the Fujiwara family, and made large grants to princes, princesses, Court ladies and nobles ”