Kenmu Restoration - Calendrical Peculiarities of The Era

Calendrical Peculiarities of The Era

The Kenmu era is in the anomalous condition of having two different durations. Because Japanese era names (nengō) change with the Emperor and the Imperial House split in two after 1336, the Kenmu era was counted by the two sides in two different ways. "Kenmu" is the era after the "Genkō" era, and it is understood to have spanned the years 1334 through 1336 before the beginning of the "Engen" era, as time was reckoned by the Southern Court; and it is concurrently said to have spanned the years 1334 through 1338 before "Ryakuō", as time was reckoned by the rival Northern Court. Because the Southern Court, the loser, is nonetheless considered the legitimate one, its time reckoning is the one used by historians.

Read more about this topic:  Kenmu Restoration

Famous quotes containing the word era:

    The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)