Fujiwara no Kanefusa

Who They Were

Fujiwara no Kanefusa (藤原兼房, ふじわら の かねふさ) was a court noble of the late Heian period, born in 1153 and dead on 30 March 1217. He reached the office of Daijō-daijin (太政大臣, だいじょうだいじん), the Chancellor of the Realm, the highest post in the imperial government's Council of State. He was the fourth son of Fujiwara no Tadamichi, the regent who dominated the court through the middle of the twelfth century, and of Kaga, a daughter of Fujiwara no Nakamitsu.

His brothers were among the most powerful men of the age: Motozane, Motofusa and Kanezane all served as regent, and Jien became a celebrated monk and historian. Kanefusa is remembered less for political skill than for his devotion to Japanese poetry, and for a dream in which the greatest of all Japanese poets appeared to him.

Life and Career

Kanefusa was born in 1153, during the third year of the Ninpei era (仁平, にんぺい). His father Tadamichi was then at the height of his authority as regent, the senior adviser who governed on behalf of the emperor. As a younger son of a large and competitive house, Kanefusa entered a court in which his brothers occupied the commanding positions.

Contemporary judgement held that he lacked political capability. He nonetheless rose through the ranks of the nobility until he became Daijō-daijin, following his brother Kanezane into that office. The chancellorship was in principle the summit of a courtier's career, though by the late twelfth century its holders were often senior figures whose real influence lay elsewhere. Kanefusa's tenure belongs to the closing decades of Heian court government, as military houses in the provinces were gathering the power that would soon eclipse the old aristocracy.

He married two women, both identified in the records by their fathers: a daughter of Fujiwara no Tsunemune, and a daughter of Fujiwara no Takasue. His children included Kujō Kaneyoshi and a daughter known as Ichijō-dono no Tsubone. He died on 30 March 1217.

Why They Matter

Kanefusa's importance rests on a single story. The Kokon Chomonjū (古今著聞集, ここんちょうもんじゅう), a collection of anecdotes compiled by Tachibana no Narisue, records that Kanefusa was a great lover of Japanese poetry and longed to know what the poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro had looked like. Hitomaro, who had been dead for some four centuries, was the most revered figure in the native poetic tradition.

One night Hitomaro appeared to Kanefusa in a dream. Kanefusa had an image made from the vision, and found that his own poetry improved as a result. The original image was later destroyed in a fire, but Fujiwara no Akisue obtained permission to make a copy. That copy passed to Akisue's descendants, beginning with his son Fujiwara no Akisuke, and came to be revered as a honzon (本尊, ほんぞん), a principal sacred image, and as proof of headship of the Rokujō School (六条家, ろくじょうけ) of poetry.

Through this episode Kanefusa becomes a link in the chain by which the Rokujō School claimed its authority: a dream, an image, and a lineage of poets.

The Name in Japanese

The full name as recorded is 藤原兼房 (太政大臣). The parenthetical element is an office title, not part of the personal name.

• Kana reading: ふじわら の かねふさ
• Romaji: Fujiwara no Kanefusa

The element の (no) is a possessive particle, marking 藤原 as the family and 兼房 as the personal name.

藤 — read here as fuji. It means "wisteria." The Fujiwara clan took its name from the wisteria, a plant associated with the family.

原 — read here as wara. It means "field," "plain" or "moor." Together 藤原 (Fujiwara) is a place-derived surname, literally "wisteria field."

兼 — read here as kane. It means "to combine," "to serve concurrently" or "to hold two things at once." It is a common element in male names of the period.

房 — read here as fusa. It means "chamber," "room" or "tuft." In names it is a conventional closing element with no independent meaning.

The title 太政大臣 breaks down as follows:

太 — dai, "great" or "grand." 政 — jō, "government" or "administration." 大 — dai, "great." 臣 — jin, "minister" or "retainer." Read together, 太政大臣 is daijō-daijin, the Great Minister of State, the head of the Council of State and the highest civil office in the pre-modern Japanese court.

Legacy

The image that Kanefusa commissioned from his dream outlived him. After the original burned, the copy made by Fujiwara no Akisue descended through his heirs, beginning with his son Fujiwara no Akisuke, and was treated as the honzon of the Rokujō School and as evidence of its right to lead the poetic tradition. The school's claim thus rested partly on Kanefusa's vision of Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.

His descendants through Kujō Kaneyoshi and his daughter Ichijō-dono no Tsubone carried the family line forward into the thirteenth century. Kanefusa himself died on 30 March 1217, having held the highest office of the old court and left behind, in the Kokon Chomonjū, one of the most durable anecdotes in Japanese literary memory.