Konoe Sakiko (近衛前子; 1575 – August 11, 1630) was a member of the Japanese imperial court from the Azuchi-Momoyama period to the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. She was a consort to

Emperor Go-Yozei The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

, and the mother of

Emperor Go-Mizunoo , posthumously honored as , was the 108th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional List of Emperors of Japan, order of succession. Go-Mizunoo's reign spanned the years from 1611 through 1629, and he was the first emperor to reign entirely d ...

. Her birth father was Konoe Sakihisa, and her adopted father was

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

. Her posthumous Buddhist name was Chukamonin (中和門院).

Life

Konoe was born in 1575 to Konoe Sakihisa. In 1586, she was adopted by

so that he could bring a daughter to the court and introduce her as the Emperor's new consort, something that chancellors in his position traditionally do. Konoe was officially presented at court on December 16, 1586. She had the title ''nyōgo'', which put her one step below the empress. She was the first person to hold that title in more than 200 years. She had 12 children with

, most notably

Konoe Nobuhiro , Ōzan (応山) as a monk, was a ''kugyō'' or Japanese court noble of the Edo period (1603–1868). He was born the fourth son of Emperor Go-Yōzei. His mother was Empress Dowager Chūka, or Konoe Sakiko by birth. Nobuhiro was adopted by Konoe ...

, and Ichijo Akiyoshi. Her title changed to "Empress Mother" after giving birth to Go-Mizunoo. Konoe died on August 11, 1630. Her remains are interred at the Sennyu-ji.

References

1630 deaths 1575 births Konoe family 17th-century Japanese women 16th-century Japanese women Imperial consorts Mothers of Japanese emperors Women of the Sengoku period {{DEFAULTSORT:Konoe, Sakiko