The cloistered rule or Insei system (Japanese 院政 ) was a specific form of government in Japan during the Heian period. In this bifurcated system, an Emperor abdicated, but he retained power and influence. The emperors who withdrew to live in monasteries (in) continued to act in ways which were intended to counterbalance the influence of Fujiwara regents and the warrior class. Simultaneously, the titular emperor (the former emperor's successor) would fulfill all the ceremonial roles and formal duties of the monarch.
Retired emperors are called Daijō Tennō or Jōkō. Those emperors who entered a Buddhist monastic community became a Cloistered Emperor (Japanese 太上法皇 Daijō Hōō).
There were emperors who abdicated and cloistered emperors before and after the Heian period, but the cloistered rule system usually refers to the governing system put in place by Emperor Shirakawa in 1086 and remained in force until the rise of the Kamakura shogunate in 1192.
Read more about Cloistered Rule: Background, End of The Heian Period, During The Shogunates
Famous quotes containing the words cloistered and/or rule:
“Ere the bat hath flown
His cloistered flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons
The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)