Women of the Rear Palace: Naishi no kami and the Fujiwara Clan

• Author / Creator

  Barndt, Jillian R

• The “Code for Officials of the Rear Palace” (Kōkyū shiki-in ryō) in the Yōrō Law Codes lists twelve bureaucratic offices held by women in the imperial court. The most prominent of these offices, naishi no kami (Director of the Palace Retainer’s Office) was held exclusively by women of the Fujiwara clan during the Heian period, most often by those who would later became consorts and bore the emperor’s children. This thesis explores the role and responsibilities of naishi no kami in late Heian Japan in relation to the Fujiwara clan through the examination of the “Code for Officials of the Rear Palace” itself, as well as courtier diaries and chronicles from the same period.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Fujiwara
  • Heian
  • Premodern Japan
  • Japan
  • Gender
  • History
  • Naishi no kami
  • Ritsuryo

• Graduation date

  Fall 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3Z68N

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.