著者

辻 浩和

出版者

公益財団法人 史学会

雑誌

史学雑誌 (ISSN:00182478)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.116, no.7, pp.1230-1251, 2007-07-20 (Released:2017-12-01)

---

This article focuses on the interest and participation of retired emperor Gotoba in performing arts, understood as shodo (lit. various pursuits) during his regime, and compares his activities with those of other emperors. In concrete terms, the author collected approximately 3000 items regarding performing arts related to the imperial courts during the regimes of the retired emperors (In) during the early medieval period, focusing on the term shodo and extracting common elements from items related to it, in order to show that from the regime of Goshirakawa-In, the emperors' participation in the performing arts became one ideal of Japanese kingship and was a determining factor in the diversity and talent characterizing Gotoba-In. From the fact that emperors in medieval Japan were expected to be well-versed in all aspects of the performing arts, it should be a problem that the court culture of the In regimes would be characterized by unprecedented popularity and breadth in forms of entertainment, surpassing the traditional imperial pursuits, which were limited to merely poetry and music. Although the emperors of the In regimes were expected to be personally involved in a wide range of cultural pursuits, in fact such attempts were not always successful. Goshirakawa-In, partly succeeded, but on the other hand he did not become actively involved in either poetry or music and did not live up to his expected role as a participating patron of the arts. It was Gotoba-In who filled this gap and became a leader in promoting and participating in the lively cultural aspects of court life. Diversity was the trademark of the Gotoba-In performing arts, and with the exception of a partial interruption due to the Jokyu Incident (1221), set the cultural standards for kingship during the entire medieval period.