Northern Court - Southern Court

Southern Court

The Imperial Court supported by the Ashikaga shoguns was rivaled by the Southern Court (南朝, nanchō?) of Go-Daigo and his descendants. This came to be called the Southern Court because its seat was in a location south of its rival. Although the precise location of the emperors' seat did change, it was often identified as simply Yoshino.

In 1392, Emperor Go-Kameyama of the Southern Court was defeated and abdicated in favor of Kōgon's great-grandson, Emperor Go-Komatsu, thus ending the divide. The Southern Court of the Japanese Imperial Line is nonetheless seen as legitimate. In fact, Northern Court members are officially called pretenders. One Southern Court descendant, Kumazawa Hiromichi, declared himself to be Japan's rightful Emperor in the days after the end of the Pacific War. He claimed that Emperor Hirohito was a fraud, arguing that Hirohito's entire line is descended from the Northern Court. Despite this, he was not arrested for lèse majesté, even when donning the Imperial Crest. He could and did produce a koseki detailing his bloodline back to Emperor Go-Daigo in Yoshino, but his claims and rhetoric failed to inspire anything other than sympathy.

Read more about this topic:  Northern Court

Famous quotes containing the words southern and/or court:

    I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous ... as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “But such as you and I do not seem old
    Like men who live by habit. Every day
    I ride with falcon to the river’s edge
    Or carry the ringed mail upon my back,
    Or court a woman; neither enemy,
    Game-bird, nor woman does the same thing twice....”
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)