Five regent houses
The Five Regent Houses ( Japanese 摂 関 家 , sekkanke , 五 摂 家 , go-sekke or 摂 家 , sekke ) are five Japanese noble families ( Kuge ) of the Fujiwara clan, who had the privilege of serving the imperial regents (Sesshō and Kampaku) at the imperial court in To ask Kyoto. They held the monopoly on this office from the 12th to the 19th century. In detail, these five houses are the Konoe , the Takatsukasa , the Kujō , the Ichijō and the Nijō .
Other lines also belonged to the extensive Fujiwara family, but only the five Sekke were entitled to provide the regent. This made them the most powerful families among the spheres.
While the Japanese imperial family traces its origins back to Amaterasu , the Fujiwara family, according to their own family legend , descends from another kami , Ame-no-Koyane . This makes these two the only Japanese families who claim divine ancestors for themselves. The tradition is based on this that a Tennō (emperor) may only take a woman from the Fujiwara or the imperial family as his wife - accordingly the empress must also have divine ancestors.
In fact, from the Heian period to the Edo period , all empresses were from the Fujiwara family, with one notable exception: Tokugawa Masako , daughter of the second Tokugawa shogun Hidetada , became the wife of Emperor Go-Mizunoo . The main purpose of this marriage was to bind the imperial family and the newly established Tokugawa shogunate together.
See also
Web links
- Sekke Kamon - The coat of arms ( Kamon ) of the five regent houses