Fujiwara no Michinori

Who They Were

Fujiwara no Michinori (藤原 通憲, ふじわら の みちのり) was a court noble, Confucian scholar and Buddhist monk of the late Heian period. He is far better known by his Buddhist name, Shinzei (信西, しんぜい), which he took when he entered the clergy. Born in 1106 in Kyoto, he died on 23 January 1160 at Tawara, killed in the opening days of the Heiji rebellion.

Michinori belonged to the Nanke branch of the Fujiwara family, the great aristocratic clan that had dominated Japanese court politics for centuries. His father was Fujiwara no Sanekane and his mother was a daughter of Minamoto no Ariie. He served as a Shōnagon (少納言, しょうなごん), a senior counsellor of state, and was one of the closest advisers to Emperor Nijō. He was also a scholar and writer, producing the historical works Honchō Seiki and Hōsō Ruirin.

Life and Career

Michinori was born in 1106, in the first year of the Kashō era (嘉承, かしょう). As a Fujiwara aristocrat he was raised for office, and he rose to the position of Shōnagon, a counsellor within the imperial government. Alongside his administrative career he built a reputation as a Confucian scholar, and he is remembered as a writer as well as a monk.

He took the Buddhist name Shinzei upon entering the monastic order, and in his later career he was one of the chief advisers to Emperor Nijō and one of the principal allies of the warrior Taira no Kiyomori. From this position at the head of the leading faction at court, Shinzei enjoyed access to the emperor and the privileges that came with it.

That pre-eminence made him enemies. His rival Fujiwara no Nobuyori resented Shinzei's standing at court. In early 1160, Kiyomori left the capital with much of his family, and Nobuyori's faction, allied with the Minamoto clan, moved to seize power. Nobuyori and the Minamoto set fire to the Sanjō Palace and abducted both Emperor Nijō and the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa. They then attacked Shinzei's home, destroying it and killing everyone inside. Shinzei alone escaped, only to be captured in the mountains near Kyoto and decapitated soon afterwards. He died on 23 January 1160.

Shinzei had taken part in two of the great conflicts of the era: the Hōgen rebellion and the Heiji rebellion, the latter of which killed him. His wife was Fujiwara no Asako, and he had numerous children, among them Fujiwara no Shigenori, Fujiwara no Naganori, Fujiwara no Toshinori, Fujiwara no Sadanori, the monks Chōken, Shōken, Jōken and Myōhen, and several daughters who married into other prominent houses.

Why They Matter

Shinzei sits at the hinge between the aristocratic world of the Heian court and the warrior politics that would soon replace it. As the leading adviser to Emperor Nijō and the chief court ally of Taira no Kiyomori, he was a central figure in the factional struggles that reshaped the capital in the late 1150s.

His death is bound up with the Heiji rebellion of 1159, the conflict that broke out partly out of the enmity his rivals felt towards him. The burning of the Sanjō Palace and the abduction of two emperors were dramatic escalations, and Shinzei's killing early in the fighting removed one of the principal architects of the court's alignment with the Taira.

He was also a scholar and writer in his own right. His historical works, Honchō Seiki and Hōsō Ruirin, place him among the literate statesmen of the period, men who combined office with learning. The siege of the Sanjō Palace, one of the events of the conflict that destroyed him, is recorded as one of the episodes in which he is referenced.

The Name in Japanese

The name most readers encounter is the Buddhist name 信西. Its kana reading is しんぜい, and its romaji is Shinzei. It is made up of two kanji.

信 — read here as しん (shin). This character means "trust", "belief" or "faith". It is the same character used in words like 信仰 (しんこう, shinkō, religious faith) and 信頼 (しんらい, shinrai, trust or reliance). In a monastic name it carries the sense of conviction or devotion.

西 — read here as ぜい (zei). This character means "west". It is the same character found in 西洋 (せいよう, seiyō, the West) and 関西 (かんさい, Kansai, the western region of Japan). The reading ぜい is a voiced variant that appears in this name rather than the more familiar せい or さい.

Together the two characters give the name Shinzei, a religious name rather than a birth name. His original name, Fujiwara no Michinori, is written 藤原 通憲 (ふじわら の みちのり). The surname 藤原 combines 藤 (ふじ, fuji, wisteria) and 原 (はら, hara, field or plain), while 通憲 is read みちのり (Michinori).

Legacy

Shinzei's reputation rests on two things: his role as a court power-broker in the final decades of the Heian period, and his writings. As the head of the leading faction at court and the chief ally of Taira no Kiyomori, he shaped the political alignments that carried into the conflicts of 1159 and 1160.

His death at Tawara on 23 January 1160 made him one of the most prominent casualties of the Heiji rebellion. The destruction of his home and the killing of everyone inside it, followed by his own capture and decapitation, became one of the defining episodes of that conflict.

He left a large family, including sons who entered the clergy and daughters who married into other great houses, and he left behind historical works that preserve his name among the scholars of the late Heian court. For students of the period, he is a figure who links the world of Fujiwara court scholarship to the violent factional politics that ended it.