The Imperial Court in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

was the nominal ruling

government of Japan The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary state ...

from 794 AD until the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

(1868–1912), after which the court was moved from

(formerly

Heian-kyō Heian-kyō was one of several former names for the city now known as Kyoto. It was the official capital of Japan for over one thousand years, from 794 to 1868 with an interruption in 1180. Emperor Kanmu established it as the capital in 794, mov ...

) to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

(formerly

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

) and integrated into the

Meiji government The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan. Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji ...

. Upon the court being moved to Kyoto from Nagaoka by

Emperor Kanmu , or Kammu, was the 50th emperor of Japan, Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'') 桓武天皇 (50) retrieved 2013-8-22. according to the traditional order of succession. Kanmu reigned from 781 to 806, and it was during his reign that the s ...

(737-806), the struggles for power regarding the throne that had characterized the

Nara period The of the history of Japan covers the years from CE 710 to 794. Empress Genmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō (present-day Nara). Except for a five-year period (740–745), when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the c ...

diminished. Kyoto was selected as the location for the court because of its "proper" amount of rivers and mountains which were believed to be the most auspicious surroundings for the new capital. The capital itself was built in imitation of

Changan Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin ...

, closely following the theories of yin-yang. The most prominent group of people within the court was the civil aristocracy (

kuge The was a Japanese aristocratic class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th century until the rise of the Kamak ...

) which was the ruling class of society that exercised power on behalf of the emperor. Kyoto's identity as a political, economic, and cultural centre started to be challenged in the post-1185 era with the rise of the shogunate system which gradually seized governance from the emperor.

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate of Japan, ruling from 1192 until 1199.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako who acted as regent (''shikken'') after his ...

was the first to establish the post of the shōgun as hereditary, receiving the title in 1192. After Yoritomo launched the shogunate, true political power was in the hand of the '' shōguns'', who were mistaken several times for the Emperors of Japan by representatives of Western countries. The

Kamakura Shogunate The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459. The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no ...

(or Kamakura Bafuku) would go on to last for almost 150 years, from 1185 to 1333.

References

* Ackroyd, Joyce. (1982). Arai_Hakuseki,_1712.html" ;"title="Arai_Hakuseki.html" ;"title="Arai Hakuseki">Arai Hakuseki, 1712">Arai_Hakuseki.html" ;"title="Arai Hakuseki">Arai Hakuseki, 1712''Tokushi Yoron''; "Lessons from History: the Tokushi yoron" translated by Joynce Ackroyd. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. * Asai T. (1985). ''Nyokan Tūkai''. Tokyo: Kōdansha. * Brown, Delmer and Ichiro Ishida, eds. (1979). Jien,_c._1220.html"_;"title="Jien.html"_;"title="Jien">Jien,_c._1220">Jien.html"_;"title="Jien">Jien,_c._1220__''Gukanshō.html" ;"title="Jien">Jien,_c._1220.html" ;"title="Jien.html" ;"title="Jien">Jien, c. 1220">Jien.html" ;"title="Jien">Jien, c. 1220 ''Gukanshō">Jien">Jien,_c._1220.html" ;"title="Jien.html" ;"title="Jien">Jien, c. 1220">Jien.html" ;"title="Jien">Jien, c. 1220 ''Gukanshō; "The Future and the Past: a translation and study of the 'Gukanshō', an interpretive history of Japan written in 1219" translated from the Japanese and edited by Delmer M. Brown & Ichirō Ishida''. Berkeley: University of California Press. * Yukio Ozaki, Ozaki, Yukio. (2001). ''The Autobiography of Ozaki Yukio: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in Japan''. [Translated by Fujiko Hara]. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (cloth) * Ozaki, Yukio. (1955). ''Ozak Gakudō Zenshū''. Tokyo: Kōronsha. * George Bailey Sansom, Sansom, George (1958). ''A History of Japan to 1334''. Stanford:

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officially ...

. * Sansom, George. (1952). ''Japan: A Short Cultural History''. Stanford:

. (cloth) (paper) * Screech, Timon. (2006). ''Secret Memoirs of the Shoguns: Isaac Titsingh and Japan, 1779–1822''. London:

RoutledgeCurzon Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, ...

. * Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). iyun-sai_Rin-siyo/Hayashi_Gahō,_1652.html" ;"title="Hayashi_Gahō.html" ;"title="iyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō">iyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652">Hayashi_Gahō.html" ;"title="iyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō">iyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652 ''Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon, tr. par M. Isaac Titsingh avec l'aide de plusieurs interprètes attachés au comptoir hollandais de Nangasaki; ouvrage re., complété et cor. sur l'original japonais-chinois, accompagné de notes et précédé d'un Aperçu d'histoire mythologique du Japon, par M. J. Klaproth''. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Irelandbr>...Click link to digitized, full-text copy of this book (in French)
* Ury, Marian. (1999). "Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life", ''The Cambridge history of Japan: Heian Japan''. Vol. II. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

. (cloth) * Varley, H. Paul, ed. (1980). Kitabatake_Chikafusa,_1359.html" ;"title="Kitabatake_Chikafusa.html" ;"title="Kitabatake Chikafusa">Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359">Kitabatake_Chikafusa.html" ;"title="Kitabatake Chikafusa">Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359 ''Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley)''. New York: Columbia University Press. {{coord missing, Kyoto Prefecture [ ategory:Japanese monarchy Royal and noble courts Former capitals of Japan History of Kyoto ja:京都御所

References

See also

Further reading