Fujiwara no Michinaga
Fujiwara no Michinaga ran the Japanese court for thirty years as the father-in-law of three emperors and the grandfather of two, and at the banquet for his third daughter's installation as empress in 1018 recited a poem that this world was his and lacked nothing, like the full moon; the Tale of Genji was written in his household, and its author did not like him. He was born in 966, the fifth son of the regent Kaneie, and had no prospect until the smallpox of 995 killed two elder brothers within weeks; he then fought his nephew Korechika for the succession, with the help of his sister, the empress dowager. He had the young man exiled in 996 for shooting an arrow at a retired emperor. The method of the house was marriage. The Fujiwara supplied the emperors' consorts, the consorts bore the heirs, the heirs came to the throne as children with a Fujiwara grandfather as regent, and abdicated young to make room for the next. Michinaga married his eldest daughter Shōshi to Ichijō in 999 beside the existing empress, the first time an emperor had two, and her sons were the emperors Go-Ichijō and Go-Suzaku, and their empresses were her sisters. He rarely took the title of regent, holding it for a year in 1016, and governed instead as minister of the left and head of the clan, which was enough. The court he presided over is the one in the literature: Murasaki Shikibu was a lady-in-waiting to Shōshi and wrote Genji there, whose hero's rise is a portrait and a reproach. Sei Shōnagon served the rival empress and wrote the Pillow Book against his side; his own diary in Chinese survives in his hand. The provinces meanwhile went to the estates and the warriors, which the court did not see. He became a monk in 1019, built the Hōjō-ji temple with a golden hall for the paradise of Amida, and died there in January 1028 holding cords tied to the Buddha's hands so that he would be led straight to it. His son Yorimichi governed for fifty years more and built the Phoenix Hall at Uji, and the emperors then began ruling from retirement to escape the family.
- Lived: 966 CE – 1028 CE
- Nationality: Japanese
- Roles: regent, statesman
