Princess Tokushi

Princess Tokushi
Empress consort of Japan
Tenure	1093–1107
Born	1060
Died	1114 (aged 53–54)
Spouse	Emperor Horikawa ​ ​ (m. 1093; died 1107)​
House	Imperial House of Japan
Father	Emperor Go-Sanjō
Mother	Kaoruko

Princess Tokushi (篤子内親王; 1060–1114 CE) (also Atsuko[1]) was a princess and an empress consort of Japan. She was the consort of her nephew, Emperor Horikawa.[2][1]

Biography

She was the fourth daughter of Emperor Go-Sanjō and his cousin Imperial Princess Kaoruko. Additionally, she was the sister of Emperor Shirakawa.[3][4]

Her father died in 1073 and was succeeded by her brother, Emperor Shirakawa.[5] In 1087, Shirakawa abdicated, and appointed his young son, who was crowned Emperor Horikawa. This was against the wishes of the late Emperor Go-Sanjō, who had indicated that, after Shirakawa, the throne should pass to Shirakawa's brothers.[5]

To ensure that his direct familial line retained power, and to avoid any chance for others to gain influence, in 1093 Shirakawa had his thirty-four-year-old sister Princess Tokushi married to his son, the thirteen-year-old Emperor.[1][5]

Despite hopes and imperial prayers, the marriage did not result in children, and 1098 Emperor Horikawa took an additional wife, who gave birth to a crown prince (later Emperor Toba).[5] Horikawa and Tokushi's court was known for fostering poetry and literature.[6]

In 1107, Emperor Horikawa died, and Tokushi became a Buddhist nun.[7][3]

Notes

1. Suke, Sanuki no (1977). The Emperor Horikawa Diary. University Press of Hawaii. ISBN 978-0-8248-0605-7.
2. Blair, Heather (2020-05-11). Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan. BRILL. ISBN 978-1-68417-551-2.
3. Stone, Jacqueline I. (2016-11-30). Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-6765-2.
4. Shinkokinshū (2 vols): New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern. BRILL. 2015-02-24. ISBN 978-90-04-28829-4.
5. Hall, John Whitney; Mass, Jeffrey P. (1988). Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-1511-9.
6. Sarra, Edith (1999). Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japanese Court Women's Memoirs. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-3378-6.
7. "篤子内親王". コトバンク (in Japanese). The Asahi Shimbun Company. Retrieved 2019-10-13.

Japanese royalty
Preceded by Princess Yasuko	Empress consort of Japan 1093–1107	Succeeded by Princess Reishi