Iitoyo

Princess Iitoyo ( Jap. 飯豊天皇 Iitoyo-tennō ; also Iitoyo no Ao ( 飯豊青 ) Iitoyo no Miko or Aomi no Iratsume ( 青海郎女 ) Iitoyo Ao no Kojo ( 飯豊青皇女 ) - instead Kojo historically also himemiko - Oshinumi -no-iratsume ( 忍 海 郎 女 ); * 440 in Japan ; † November 484 in Japan), was an imperial Japanese princess of the Kofun period , who was named Ii-toyo-awo- from her palace Tsunuzashi in Oshinomi in 484 . hime no mikoto or ancient Oshinomi no Ihitoyo no Awo no Mikoto is said to have ruled Japan for a short time between the 22nd Tennō Seinei and the 23rd Tennō Kenzō .

Tomb ( Misasagi ) of Iitoyo no Ao, Mount Hanikuchi, Katsuragi .

ancestry

Princess Iitoyo should, like the ruling Tennō Kenzō ( Prince Woke ; ruled 485-487) and Ninken ( Prince Ohoke ; ruled 488-498) of the 17th Tennō Richū (ruled 400-405) descend from her. The exact degree of this relationship is presented differently in the earliest chronicles from the 8th century :

After the Kojiki of 712, Iitoyo was the younger sister of the Imperial Prince Ichinobe no Oshiha and thus the daughter of Richū-tennō and aunt of Prince Ohoke and Woke.

According to the Nihonshoki of 720, in turn, Iitoyo was the daughter of the prince and his wife Hayehime, whereby she would have been the sister of Ohoke and Woke and just like the two a grandchild of the Richū-tennō.

Regency

According to the chronicles mentioned, after the death of the 20th Tennō Ankō (presumably ruled 453–456) his brother murdered all rivals who could lay claim to the throne, and then became the 21st Tennō Yūryaku (presumably ruled 456–479). to rule. This also included his cousin Prince Ichinobe no Oshiha, who, as the eldest son of Richū-tennō, was his crown prince. While we learn that his sons Ohoke and Woke fled to the province after his murder, no information is available about their aunt / sister Iitoyo during this time.

It appears in the chronicles for the first time in the depictions of the 22nd Tennō Seinei (presumably ruled 479-484), the son and successor of Yūryaku-tennō. He had no children and no other close relatives, which is why a suitable heir to the throne from the lineage of the sun deity Amaterasu was sought.

According to the Kojiki, this search began only after the death of Seinei and ended with the discovery of Princess Iitoyo in the palace of Tsunusashi, in Oshinumi in Kazuragi. She then seems to have taken over, as Wodate, the governor of Harima Province , sent her a message to the capital after his discovery of Princes Ohoke and Woke. Thereupon Iitoyo gave the order to bring her nephews to her in the palace, where she presumably handed over the rule to her.

The course of these events is presented somewhat differently in Nihonshoki. Here, the princes are found before Seinei's death, so that he can elevate the older Ohoke himself to crown prince and Woke to imperial prince. Iitoyo is briefly mentioned for the first time in the same place. It only gains importance in the tale of Tennō Kenzō, when the princes cannot agree on a successor after the death of Seinei, as each wanted to give the other the throne. In the resulting interregnum, Iitoyo took over the reign and ruled the country from the Tsunuzashi Palace in Oshinomi. She gave herself the title Oshinomi no Ihitoyo no Awo no Mikoto . After eleven months in the winter of that year, she died and was buried in a tomb ( misasagi ) on Mount Haniguchi in Katsuraki.

reception

After Jingū -kōgō, Princess Iitoyo is the second woman described in the chronicles who held the affairs of government for a while. But just like this, she is generally not recognized by historians as the ruling empress and she does not appear in the official Tenno lists . In the Japanese historical work Gukanshō , written in 1219 by the Buddhist monk Jien, there is the following explanation of Iitoyo as the ruling empress:

“Since the two brothers [Note: Ninken and Kenzō] were adamant about letting the other take precedence, their young sister died as reigning empress on the throne in the 2nd month of the year in which Seinei died. But she herself died in the 12th month [note: 11th month elsewhere] of the same year. Perhaps this is the reason why we do not find their rule in the usual Imperial Chronicles and why nothing is known about them at all. She was called Empress Iitoyo and it is said that she ruled in the cinematic year of the 60 year cycle .
( Since the two brothers were unbending in deferring to each other, their young sister followed Seinei on the throne as a reigning Empress in the second month of the year in which Seinei died. But she herself died in the 12th month of that same year. Perhaps that it is why we not find her reign listed in the ordinary Imperial chronologies and why people know nothing at all about her. She was calles Empress Iitoyo and it is said that her reign was in the kinoe-ne year of the sexegenary cycle. ) "

- Jien: Gukanshō

Iitoyo's entry as Tsunuzashi Tennō in Ernest Mason Satow's Tennō List , Japanese Chronological Tables , 1874.

Even after Isaac Titsingh's translation of Nihon Ōdai Ichiran , created in 1625, Iitoyo was not counted among the official Tennō, since she had ruled for less than ten months, but after her death she had received a posthumous Tennō name ( Japanese 飯 豊 天皇 Iitoyo- tennō ). Iitoyo is also known by other posthumous Tennō names ( okurina ), such as B. Seitei Tennō and Tsunuzachi Tennō . She is also recognized variously as a sovereign empress, for which references can also be found in the Nihonshoki, e.g. B. if there the term bō is used for her death , which is otherwise reserved exclusively for Tennō.

Various theories are circulating among historians regarding her reign: According to one, Iitoyo could be identical to Iyo, a successor to Himiko in the reign of Yamatai . The historian Orikuchi Shinobu sees her as the first reigning empress in the history of Japan, who combines the role of shaman and sovereign . Mitakō Mihoo, however, believes that Iitoyo should have been a rival ruler at the time of the 26th Tennō Keitai (traditionally ruled 507-531) before this brought the unified Yamato under his rule. Mizuno Yū even argues that the Tennō Seinei, Kenzō and Ninken did not even exist and that Iitoyo ruled for 15 years after Tennō Yūryaku.

swell

• Kojiki → Basil Hall Chamberlain: A Translation of the “Ko-ji-ki,” or “Records of ancient matters” , Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan April 12th, May 10th, and June 21st, 1882; Reprinted, May, 1919.

• Nihonshoki → William George Aston: Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to AD 697 , Vol. 1, London: The Japan Society 1896.

• Gukanshō → Delmer M. Brown, Ichirō Ishida: The Future and the Past: a translation and study of the Gukanshō, an interpretative history of Japan written in 1219 , University of California Press 1979.

• Nihon Ōdai Ichiran → Isaac Titsingh (Ed.): Nipon o daï itsi ran ou Annales des empereurs du Japon. ; French translation by Hayashi Gahō: Nihon Ōdai Ichiran , 1652; Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland 1834. p. 29

literature

• Louis-Frédéric (translated by Käthe Roth): Japan Encyclopedia , Harvard University Press 2005.
• Ernest Mason Satow: Japanese Chronological Tables (ua) , reprint of Yedo 1874, Bristol: Ganesha 1998.
• Ben-Ami Shillony: Enigma of the Emperors: Sacred subservience in Japanese History , Global Oriental 2005.
• Joan R. Piggott: Chieftan Pairs and Corulers: Female Sovereignty in Early Japan , in: Hitomi Tonomura, Anne Walthall, Wakita Haruko (Eds.): Woman and Class in Japanese History , Michigan Monograph Series in Japahese Studies, No. 25, Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University Michigan

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Shillony: Enigma of the Emperors, p. 37
2. ↑ ^{a b} Louis-Frédéric: Japan Encyclopedia , p. 375
3. ↑ Chamberlain: “Ko-ji-ki” , p. 409 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Satow: Japanese Chronological Tables , Plate IV, p. 13.
5. ^ Aston: Nihongi , p. 383 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Chamberlain: “Ko-ji-ki” , pp. 409 , 411 .
7. ^ Aston: Nihongi , p. 378 .
8. ↑ Chamberlain: “Ko-ji-ki” , pp. 385-387 ; Aston: Nihongi , 336 , p. 378 .
9. ^ Aston: Nihongi , p. 376 .
10. ^ Aston: Nihongi , p. 383 .
11. ↑ ^{a b} Shillony: Enigma of the Emperors , p. 38; Piggott: Chieftan Pairs and Corulers , p. 26.
12. ↑ Brown, Ishida: Gukanshō , S. 259th
13. ↑ Brown, Ishida: Gukanshō , p. 24
14. ^ Titsingh: Nipon o daï itsi ran , 1834, p. 29 .
15. ↑ ^{a b} Shillony: Enigma of the Emperors , p. 38.