Daijō Daijin

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Daijō Daijin ( Japanese. 太 政 大臣 ) is a historical government office in Japan and denotes the highest rank of minister in the Grand Chancellery ( 太 政 官 , daijō-kan ). In German he is usually rendered as Grand Chancellor . The title was also read Dajō Daijin , or in the historical Kun readings Ōimatsurigoto no Ōmaetsugimi , Ōki Ōidono , Ōki Ōimouchigimi , Ōki Otodo , Ōmatsurigoto no Ōmatsugimi .

The names and terms of office of the individual incumbents can be found in the list of Dajō Daijin .

The prerequisite for the office was either the first prince rank or the following first court rank .

History and meaning

The title was introduced with the adaptation of Ritsuryō law in the late 7th century at the imperial court and remained in place until the Meiji period . Since its owners had no official duties, it was a kind of honorary title. It remained vacant if no suitable title holder could be found. Its bearer should be a teacher ( 師範 , shihan ) to the Tennō through "virtue" ( 人 徳 , jintoku ) , and enable him to govern the country in peace ( 治安 , chian ). The office was endowed with real power until the fall of the Fujiwara, but with the transfer of actual government power from the emperor to the nobility and later to the warrior nobility, it became almost insignificant.

At the end of the 7th century, the sons of emperors, the princes Ōtomo and Takechi, temporarily held office, and in the late 8th century, after he had won the power struggle against Fujiwara no Nakamaro , the monk Dōkyō . After his exile, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa held the title from 857 , which meant that it was held almost continuously by the Fujiwara for almost 250 years .

At the end of the Heian period it was principally given to a person from the “five regent houses” ( gosekke ) or the so-called “nine pure flowers” ​​( seigake ), in the Edo period only to experienced regents ( Sesshō or Kampaku ).

Six Daijō Daijin came from the warrior nobility ( 武 家 , buke ): Taira no Kiyomori , Ashikaga Yoshimitsu , Toyotomi Hideyoshi , Tokugawa Ieyasu , Tokugawa Hidetada and Tokugawa Ienari .

In the Meiji government of the Restoration period , the Daijō Daijin was the highest ministerial office ( 長官 , chōkan ). With the abolition of the Han system and the creation of prefectures in 1871 , Sanjō Sanetomi was the last statesman to take office, and in 1885 it was completely abolished.