Ōgimachi

Emperor of Japan (r. 1557-1586)

• Born: 1517
• Birthplace: Kyoto, Japan
• Died: 1593
• Place of death: Kyoto, Japan

Ascending the throne at the height of the Warring States or Sengoku period(1467-1600), when the fortunes of Japan’s imperial dynasty were arguably at their lowest ebb, Ōgimachi succeeded in reclaiming part of the prestige and authority that the Japanese imperial institution had lost. By refusing to be reduced to a mere pawn in the hands of powerful warlords, he revived and redefined the political position of the imperial court in a feudal society controlled by samurai.

Early Life

Prince Michihito, the future EmperorŌgimachi (oh-gee-mah-chih), was the son of Crown Prince Tomohito and Fujiwara Shigeko. His grandfather had reigned as Emperor Go-Kashiwabara since 1500, but the official enthronement ceremonies were postponed for lack of funds until 1521, when Michihito was four years old. Although this particular situation resulted largely from the fact that Japan had disintegrated into a patchwork of autonomous fiefdoms ruled by warlords (daimyo) in the half century preceding Michihito’s birth, the Japanese imperial institution had ceased to play an active political role centuries earlier.

Believed to be direct descendants of the sun goddess Amaterasu, Japanese emperors traditionally played a role that was sacerdotal rather than political, with real power resting in the hands of regents and, since the thirteenth century, of the shogun. By the time of Michihito’s birth, the shogun’s powers had been reduced to almost nothing by the civil wars. Tellingly, the position of shogun remained officially vacant from 1508 until 1522, and it was a former shogun, Ashikaga Yoshitane (r. 1490-1493), who provided the funds for the enthronement ceremonies for Go-Kashiwabara in 1521.

Michihito was thus born into illustrious but impoverished circumstances. This remained unchanged after the succession of his father to the throne in 1526. Reigning as Emperor Go-Nara for thirty-one years, he became famous for “peddling his calligraphy” in the streets of Kyōto” to earn a living, as contemporary observers remarked. While this is almost certainly an overstatement, that the calligraphy of Emperor Go-Nara was for sale is undisputed. That there was a market for his artwork hints at the continued prestige the imperial institution held even at that point. Go-Nara had to wait for ten years for his official enthronement ceremonies, financed by the powerful daimyo houses of Imagawa, Hōjō, Asakura, andŌuchi. Again, the willingness of powerful warlords to finance the seemingly empty rituals of a politically insignificant institution shows that political capital could be gained by making such an investment.

At the time of Go-Nara’s official enthronement, his son and heir apparent Michihito was a young adult of nineteen, but he would have to wait for another twenty-one years before ascending the throne himself. He thus had ample time to devote both to classical learning and to the observation of the political realities in Warring States Japan, an era of turmoil when, as the saying went, “those below overthrow those above.”

Life’s Work

On the death of Go-Nara, Michihito took the throne as Emperor Ōgimachi in 1557, at the age of forty. Not since the eighth century had a person of such relatively advanced age become emperor. Officially he was the 106th in a line of rulers stretching back to antiquity, in actuality a direct descendant in the male line from the likely dynastic founder Keitai (r. 507-531). He formally took possession of the imperial regalia (a sacred mirror, a sword, and a jade jewel) but, like his father and grandfather before him, lacked the funds for the ceremony of communion with the sun goddess that officially marked an emperor’s enthronement.

Kyōto, seat of the courts of both emperor and shogun, was effectively ruled by a daimyo who had forced the shogun to flee the capital in 1549. The shogun was allowed to return in 1558 but was in no position to support the imperial court financially.

The year 1560 brought two events that would be significant for EmperorŌgimachi. In the first month of the new lunar year, his official enthronement ceremonies could finally be conducted, thanks to the financial support of a powerful daimyo from western Japan. Later that year, in the Battle of Okehazama, a relatively little-known daimyo by the name of Oda Nobunaga eliminated the house of Imagawa, a traditional supporter of the imperial court. Known as one of the three “Great Unifiers” of Japan after a century of civil war, Oda is portrayed by historians as a cunning politician who made shrewd use of traditional sources of legitimacy. Yet he did find the emperor somewhat less pliable than expected. By working with Oda,Ōgimachi intended to restore at least some measure of autonomy to the imperial institution, instead of becoming a mere legitimizing figurehead for Oda’s military actions.

Although he lent some financial support to the court in 1563, Oda did not respond to an official missive from the emperor about a year later. As the political situation in the capital had deteriorated once again,Ōgimachi was looking for military and political support, especially with regard to recovering the estates from which the court derived its income.

More tumultuous times were to come before Oda would make his entry to the capital. Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru was assassinated in 1565. Ashikaga Yoshiaki, the slain Yoshiteru’s younger brother, succeeded in claiming the vacant position of shogun in 1568 with the help of Oda, entering Kyōto and deposing his cousin, the fourteenth shogun, Yoshihide. Yoshiaki had tried to enlist the support of several other daimyo before settling on Oda.Ōgimachi, however, had been endorsing Oda all along; he even sent an official approval when Oda conquered Mino Province in 1567.

The investiture of Ashikaga Yoshiaki as shogun in late 1568 was perhaps the best example of political deal making in the capital. Oda legitimized what was in essence a coup d’état by posing as the protector of traditional order as embodied by the shogun. Yoshiaki could not have staked his claim without Oda. Most important, however, was that the emperor formally invested the shogun.Ōgimachi used the occasion to issue an order to both Oda and the shogun to restore the imperial estates to his control.

In the ensuing conflict between Shogun Yoshiaki and his erstwhile champion Oda, the emperor was apparently not afraid to take the side of the former. In 1569, he urged Oda to accept the post of vice shogun offered to him by Yoshiaki, an offer that Oda refused to consider. Even when relations between the shogun and Oda deteriorated to the point of open warfare in 1573, with Oda’s forces torching large sections of the capital, Ōgimachi initially saved Yoshiaki but could not prevent his ouster later the same year.

After effectively ending the Ashikaga shogunate, Oda took the unprecedented step of petitioning the emperor to abdicate, offering to pay for the considerable expense of the ceremonies. After initially consenting to the petition, the emperor postponed his abdication indefinitely and offered a high-level court appointment to Oda. The acceptance of this appointment by Oda can be construed as a political victory forŌgimachi, since it bound the warlord into the court hierarchy. Oda was being promoted through the ranks for several years, but he abruptly resigned all his court appointments in 1578, freeing himself from formal obligations toŌgimachi. The emperor had no choice but to accept this resignation, but he adamantly refused to transfer Oda’s rank and title to his son.

This peculiar tug-of-war continued in 1581. After attending a splendid parade of Oda and his vassals in the capital, the emperor offered Oda the title of grand minister of the left, the second highest in the imperial government. Oda, in turn, accepted, on the condition that the emperor make good on his earlier promise and abdicate in favor of Crown Prince Sanehito. The court retorted that times were singularly inauspicious for such a transfer, and the matter became moot with the assassination of Oda in 1582.

Ōgimachi finally abdicated in 1586, several months after the death of his son, in favor of his grandson, who ruled as Go-Yōzei for the next twenty-five years. Already of advanced age,Ōgimachi lived for seven more years and died in 1593.

Significance

From the pages of diaries, chronicles, and his own writings, Ōgimachi emerges as an astute politician who stood his ground against vastly superior forces. Historians will continue to debate his moves and the motivation behind them for some time, but in the final analysis his reign put the imperial court back onto the political stage of Japan. Refusing merely to reflect the glory of great warlords, he managed to rescue the imperial institution from obscurity and to prevent it from slipping into obsolescence.

Bibliography

Hall, John W., et al., eds. Japan Before Tokugawa: Political Consolidation and Economic Growth, 1500 to 1650. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. A collection of scholarly essays on the Sengoku period.

Hall, John W., et al., eds. Sengoku and Edo. Vol. 4 in The Cambridge History of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Contains a comprehensive account of the Sengoku period.

Lamers, Jeroen. Japonius Tyrannus: The Japanese Warlord Oda Nobunaga Reconsidered. Leiden, the Netherlands: Hotei, 2000. A detailed scholarly account with ample quotations from primary sources, informative on the relationship between Ōgimachi and Oda.

Martin, Peter. The Chrysanthemum Throne: A History of the Emperors of Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. A collection of short biographical sketches of all emperors and empresses.