The Heian Period
The Japanese court moved to Heian-kyō in 794 and spent four centuries there producing an aristocratic culture with almost no interest in the country it governed. The move was made to escape the Buddhist monasteries that had accumulated power at Nara, and the new capital was laid out on a Chinese grid, though the outer wall and the great southern gate were never really completed. Political power drifted from the emperor to the Fujiwara family, who married daughters to emperors, served as regents for their own grandsons, and encouraged early abdications so that the regency never lapsed. The state's institutions — the provincial administration, the land allotment system, the conscript army — decayed steadily while the court perfected other things. What it perfected is the reason the period matters. Court life was governed by aesthetic judgement to a degree that has few parallels: the correct layering of colours in a woman's twelve robes, the paper and hand of a note, the ability to produce the apt poem in the moment. Chinese was the language of men's official writing, which left the Japanese kana syllabary to women — and so the greatest works of the period were written by women of the court: Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji, generally called the world's first novel, and Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book. The provinces meanwhile were run by resident families with private armies, and those families ended the arrangement. The Taira and Minamoto fought a civil war in the 1180s, and a warrior government at Kamakura replaced the court's authority in 1185. The court survived the loss of power by four centuries and kept its prestige throughout, which is why Japanese emperors were never deposed and never ruled. Kyoto remained the imperial capital until 1868.
- Year: 794 CE
- Category: Cultural
