was the collective name for the four cadet branches of the

Imperial family of Japan The , also referred to as the Imperial Family or the House of Yamato, comprises those members of the extended family of the reigning Emperor of Japan who undertake official and public duties. Under the present Constitution of Japan, the Emperor i ...

, which were until 1947 entitled to provide a successor to the

Chrysanthemum throne The is the throne of the Emperor of Japan. The term also can refer to very specific seating, such as the throne in the Shishin-den at Kyoto Imperial Palace. Various other thrones or seats that are used by the Emperor during official functions ...

if the main line failed to produce an heir. The heads of these royal houses held the title of , regardless of their genealogical distance from the reigning

Emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...

, as the term ''seshū'' in their designation meant that they were eligible for succession.

History

The Imperial family of Japan considers itself a single dynasty in unbroken succession; however, the succession has often not been directly from father to son, but has been in the male line within a closely related group of people. In the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by ...

, Prince Yoshihito, the son of the

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

Emperor Sukō (May 25, 1334 – January 31, 1398) was the third of Emperors of Northern Court during the Period of the Northern and Southern Courts in Japan. According to pre- Meiji scholars, his reign spanned the years from 1348 through 1351.Titsingh, Isaa ...

was permitted to establish a parallel lineage to the main imperial line, and took the name

Fushimi-no-miya The is the oldest of the four shinnōke, branches of the Imperial Family of Japan which were eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out. The Fushimi-no-miya was founded by Prince Yoshihito, ...

from the location of his palace. Without this permission, the line would be considered commoners, and therefore excluded from the succession. This served politically to cement the reunification of the Northern and

Southern Court The were a set of four emperors (Emperor Go-Daigo and his line) whose claims to sovereignty during the Nanboku-chō period spanning from 1336 through 1392 were usurped by the Northern Court. This period ended with the Southern Court definitivel ...

, but provided insurance in the extreme event that the main imperial line should fail to produce a direct heir and become extinct. This proved to be a fortunate decision, as in 1428, the son of the 2nd Prince Fushimi-no-miya ascended the throne as

Emperor Go-Hanazono (July 10, 1418 – January 18, 1471) was the 102nd emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')後花園天皇 (102) retrieved 2013-8-28. His reign spanned the years from 1428 throug ...

. In the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

, three additional ''seshū shinnōke'' households were created by the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

, in conscious imitation of the Tokugawa Gosanke. However, aside from

, the only time a member of the ''seshū shinnōke'' ascended to the throne was in 1779, when the son of Prince Kan'in-no-miya Sukehito became Emperor Kōkaku. Within the ''seshū shinnōke'' households, younger non-heir sons (who were titled ), had two career options. They could "descend" to subject status with a surname such as

Minamoto was one of the surnames bestowed by the Emperors of Japan upon members of the imperial family who were excluded from the line of succession and demoted into the ranks of the nobility from 1192 to 1333. The practice was most prevalent during the ...

Taira The Taira was one of the four most important clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi Periods of Japanese history – the others being the Fujiwara, the Tachibana, and the Minamoto. The clan is divided ...

, and serve as a government official, or they could enter the

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

priesthood, generally as the head of one of the '' monzeki'' temples in and around

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 ...

. During the Edo period, the latter practice became almost universal. Non-heir sons who entered the priesthood were styled , and were automatically excluded from the succession, but could be recalled to "secular" status (and thus reinstated as potential successors) if the need arose. Unwed daughters, once they crossed a certain age, often became Buddhist nuns. However, marriage was the norm for them, and they could hope to enter the highest houses of the land. The great ''seshū shinnōke'' houses gave their daughters in marriage only to families of high rank, such as the ''

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 ...

,'' ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

'' or Tokugawa houses, if not to the imperial family. During and after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

, members of the ''seshū shinnōke,'' whether they were elder sons or younger sons, often served in the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

The four ''seshū shinnōke'' lineages

The four ''seshū shinnōke'' were, in order of creation: #

Katsura-no-miya :''See also Prince Katsura, the second son of Prince Mikasa.'' The was the one of the four '' shinnōke'', branches of the Imperial Family of Japan which were eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should ...

(extinct 1881) #

Arisugawa-no-miya The was one of the shinnōke, branches of the Imperial Family of Japan which were, until 1947, eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne in the event that the main line should die out. History The Arisugawa-no-miya house was founded by Pr ...

(extinct 1913) # Kan'in-no-miya (extinct 1988) The sixteenth son of Prince Kuniie, the twentieth head of the Fushimi-no-miya, succeeded to the Kan'in-no-miya house in 1872, but the house died out in 1988 on the death of his son. The Fushimi-no-miya house was the progenitor of nine other cadet branches of the imperial family, the'' ōke,'' during the reign of

Emperor Meiji , also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...

. After the 25th Fushimi-no-miya, the "''seshu shinnōke''" ceased to exist. When

Fushimi Hiroaki is a former Japanese prince and 24th head of the Fushimi-no-miya shinnōke (collateral branch of the Imperial Family of Japan). He has not been a member of imperial family since the passing of the Imperial Household Law of 1947. If the law had ...

dies all the four main ''seshū shinnōke'' will become extinct because he had three daughters and no sons (only male heirs can carry on the family name and title). Five of the ten original ''ōke'' sub-branches that originally came from the Fushimi-no-miya house are still not extinct in terms of having male heirs.

Dissolution

The ''shinnōke'' and ''ōke'' households, along with the ''

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. They succeeded the feudal lords () and court nobles (), but were abolished with the 1947 constitution. Kazoku ( 華族) should not be confused with ...

'' (Japanese

peerage A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles (and sometimes non-hereditary titles) in a number of countries, and composed of assorted noble ranks. Peerages include: Australia * Australian peers Belgium * Be ...

) and the '' shizoku'' (Warrior families) were reduced to Japanese nationals (Nihon kokumin) status during the American occupation of Japan, in October 1947. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shinnoke Japanese nobility