Talk:Cloistered rule

I do not think that the article at present is correct, as is obviously mixes two distinct systems: on one hand, cloistered rule, and on the other, rule by regents.

Cloistered rule, in my knowledge, certainly has not that dimension of a shogun or a regent. It is a clear-cut system of predecessor ruling from "retirement".

Regents, shoguns, majordomos and/or other "VICARS" is a different system: monarch is only nominal power because the government is held by an underling.

We should make distinct narratives of these different systems. Arrigo 19:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I wonder what Cloistered rule in English means. I guess, though, one of these may be correct:

1. The system in which the patriarch of the royal family, who has retired as Tenno, has actual power or the system compared to this in which a person such as Sodanyaku who has already retired still has actual power. Translation of Insei in Japanese.
2. The system in which an assistant to Tenno or Shogun, such as Sessho and Kampaku in the Imperial Court in Kyoto, Shikken in the Kamakura shogunate, Kanrei in the Ashikaga shogunate and Tairo and Karo in the Tokugawa shogunate, has actual power. This system is different from 1 in that the assistant has not been Tenno yet or he does not belong to royal or shogunal family.
3. Both 1 and 2. The system in which the actual authority is different from the nominal one.

Anyway, I'm afraid this article has to be rewritten as Arrigo pointed out.
Spirituelle 08:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the term originally meant that the ruler retired and (at least nominally) became a Buddhist monk. The cloister here is the monastery. It would be worthwhile to make this clear. (I'm not sure if I recalled it correctly, though.) Should the term "cloistered rule" be applied at all to regency, sodanyaku and other systems? Fg2 05:46, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Joko is not someone retired to a monastery. It just means an ex-emperor who retired from the throne. They sometimes become a monk and then they are called "hoo (法皇)." I find using English word cloister confuses the readers who don't know much about Japanese history. How about rather changing the title of the article to Insei, and mention "cloistered emperor" as a term also refers to it (like the French version does)?

Also, as mentioned by Arrigo, the last paragraph has to be completely rewritten or at least separated as "related topics." Aotake 00:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I rewrote Joko and created Cloistered Emperor (check please...). I definitively agree with Aotake, I think the cloistered rule here article should deal with the Insei system (Monastery = "in" = "cloister") not with the various regency systems. Problem being, there are several articles linking to here, with not a lot to do with the Insei. Is someone courageous enough to start the rewrite ? incl. the rewrite of the linking articles...Ex : the Sessho and Kampaku articles says "The Sesshō and Kampaku had held the practical powers of the ruling emperor, conducting cloistered rule until shogunates took over the power from them.".... as far as I remember Sessho and Kampaku were not (ex-) emperors nor were they "cloistered". We need to separate Cloistered Rule and Japanese Imperial Regency Tensaibuta 16:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC) .

I tried to clean a bit linking articles (actually it was not that problematic). Next step is cleaning up of this article... Tensaibuta 17:25, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I attempted a rewrite... should the accuracy mark be removed ?Tensaibuta 02:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I read and rewrote the last part a little. I think the accuracy mark can be removed, but I wait for another day or two. Aotake 14:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for writing in Japanese, because I cannot write what I am going to explain in English. 本項目がだいぶ充実してきたことを嬉しく思います。これならaccuracy markは取り払っても構わないでしょう。その上で一言二言ほど。院政を行った上皇は、天皇の代行者としてではなく、あくまで「日本国王（=治天の君）」及び「天皇家の家督者」の立場から政務に当たっていました。「天皇家の家督者」という立場は父権に基づくものであり、平安中期の貴族社会に見られ始めていた「家」の成立と深い関係があると考えられています。また、院政が始まった背景には、平安時代を通じて不安定だった皇位継承を安定的にしようとする意図があったとされています。こうした点は近年の院政研究で明らかとなり、研究上、非常に重視されていますので、どなたか加筆して頂けると嬉しいです。

この他、院政を始めたのは確かに白河上皇ですが、前代の後三条天皇が院政開始へ与えた影響は小さくないこと、院政は平安末期だけ存続したのではなく、むしろ鎌倉初期の後白河院政・後鳥羽院政期が院政最盛期とされており、少なくとも室町前期までは政治的に十分機能し、形式的にも江戸時代まで存続していたこと、なども記述されると良いと思います。それでは、Thanx-a-lot.--Shimoxx 16:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Shimoxx for the above. Following your comments I expanded a bit the article. Tell me if that seems OK to you Tensaibuta 11:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It's my pleasure that Tensaibuta san wrote quite accurate expantion. I thank you for your great job. --Shimoxx 18:10, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Information concerning Daijo Tenno is inserted in Cloistered rule. Please remove Daijō Tennō and all merge links. Bulmabriefs144 12:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree to a simple merge. A clean up would be much better, as we are dealing with 2 different things. This (insei) article deals with a kind of government, whereas Daijō Tennō is a retired emperor. To my opinion, the Daijo Tenno paragraph should be removed from the article about the insei. What do you think? Tensaibuta 13:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Empress Gemmei

NOTE: The following is copied from Talk:Daijō Tennō. The recent merge came up on my watchlist, and I used "undo" to revert the page. My terse explanation was plainly inadequate, as evidenced by Birgitte's plaintive rejoinder. I am re-posting my comments from that venue so that my apology will be clear, and also because, having invested the time to develop my thinking into edited prose, I want to ensure that a constructive result will ensue ... if possible. --Ooperhoofd 18:49, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The first to style herself "Daijō Tennō" was Empress Jitō (持統天皇, Jitō-tennō) in 697. Also, Empress Gemmei (元明天皇, Genmei-tennō) abdicated and took the title "Daijō Tennō" in Wadō 8 (715). Neither women did not do anything post-abdication which turned out to be anything like the cloisterd rule of Emperor Shirakawa in Heian era Japan .... In my view, it would be inappropriate to merge Cloistered rule and Daijō Tennō at this time. --Ooperhoofd 23:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

It would have been nice if you had brought this up before the merge happened since the history shows you have edited the article during this time period, but I am not going to argue over the issue. However I do expect you clean up to Cloistered rule which has all this material repeated in it from the October merge and remove the merge tags. Reverting my edit alone does not help the status of these articles. BTW finishing up a merge that was done in October is completely appropriate. Just because you disagree with someone does not mean their edits are "not appropriate". -BirgitteSB 00:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Birgitte -- There are several issues here.

FIRST: The first and most important, it seems to me, is a matter of common courtesy. Your response suggests that the the words "not appropriate" were ill chosen -- that a connotation of offense or some other unwarranted association is implied. That wasn't my intention, but now that you bring it to my attention, I can readily imagine situations in which that reading would be precisely on point. Although I have not myself encountered the word "appropriate" in a Wikipedia setting, I can guess that it has a specific usage in this venue. In any case, I meant neither disrespect nor derision. In this context, why not consider the following:

• Please suggest an alternate, non-controversial way I could have/should have explained my response to the merge of daijō-tenno and cloistered rule. Other than this plain apology, there is nothing I can do to retrieve the sense of frustration and annoyance I inadvertently caused you; but with a little more care, I can avoid a similar needless blunder in future.
• Please suggest an alternate action I could have/should have considered other than "undo." Perhaps it would have been better to place a heads-up message at Birgitte rather than at the discussion page for Daijō Tennō ... or maybe a better protocol is to leave word in both discussion venues. I duuno.

Bottom line: I am sorry to have caused annoyance. It is very clear that YOU did nothing wrong. In fact, it's clear that your actions were not only justified, prudent, modest and timely; but that you had every reason to feel that you'd accomplished a thankless task for which your only reward was knowing that you'd done something to help make Wikipedia better. Instead, you reaped an entirely unwelcome and un-looked-for harvest of disagreeable complaint. I entirely empathize -- been there, done that.

SECOND: You are quite correct in observing: "It would have been nice if you had brought this up before the merge happened since the history shows you have edited the article during this time period, but I am not going to argue over the issue." But in this case, I didn't understand what to do or say until just yesterday. I just didn't "get it" .... For this I need have no apology. There is no explaining the time it takes for anyone to come to understand something as simple as 2+2=5.

THIRD: You have plainly construed my objection to this "merge" to mean that I believe:

• Cloistered rule ≠ Daijō Tennō

Yes, this is correct. I do note that Švitrigaila expressly argues that these two articles were (or are), in his/her view, duplicative, redundant, unnecessary ... but at the discussion page for Cloistered rule, you will see that, like me, Tensaibuta does parse the consequences of this merge quite differently. The exchange of views in which Tensaibuta participated prior to the merge involved Shimoxx and Aotake and Fg2 and Spirituelle; and the focus shifted over time as various aspects of the Insei system were considered. The somewhat scholarly commentary examines the ramifications of this subject across the span of serial post-Taika Reforms (大化の改新, Taika no Kaishin) or post-Emperor Kōtoku (孝徳天皇, Kōtoku-tennō) Imperial history. My approach was quite different. I only identified one very specific illustrative example to explain why Švitrigaila was mistaken. I focused solely on Empress Gemmei, the first to take the post-abdication title of daijō-tennō.

The more interesting point to make here is that you seem to have understood Daijō Tennō as something like a mathematical sub-set of Cloistered rule. You seem to have construed the retired emperor as a subset of the system in which he exercised significant political and other powers.

• Cloistered rule ≥ Daijō Tennō

Without going into it too much, I assumed the exact opposite: that Cloistered rule was and is self-evidently a logical sub-set of Daijō Tennō -- not quite in the same relationship as a work of literature (Chushingura) can be seen as a logical subset of an historical event (Forty-seven Ronin) ... but a plausible connection which might be argued with some merit. I assumed that engagement in Imperial government after retirement was amongst the options which were possible, but that it was also possible for an emperor to devote himself entirely to spiritual pursuits as a "mere" Buddhist monk.

• Cloistered rule ≤ Daijō Tennō

The difference between your seeming assumptions and mine is a little like the difference between the hand saw of a Japanese carpenter (cuts on the pull-stroke) and the hand saw of a European carpenter (cuts on the push stroke).

I have more to say, but this is already taken more time that I'd originally anticipated. Frankly, I can't tell whether what I've just written will be perceived as helpful, thoughtful, constructive or simply tedious, rambling, irrelevant. The response -- if any -- which this posting engenders will guide me in better assessing what I might want to write in future. --Ooperhoofd 18:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for taking your edit so badly. I was not feeling my best last night and did not react very well. Even with our misunderstandings; I could have been much more gracious. I suppose it was that the article was reverted to the point where it was still marked for merger with no edits to Cloistered rule that frustrated me. I would have been less frustrated if you had removed the merge tags and added the new information about Emperess Gemmei other differences to the correct articles, but that is no excuse for my poor response to your correction. Thank you for responding so graciously.--BirgitteSB 19:28, 12 November 2007 (UTC)