Emperor Sutoku

Emperor Sutoku (1119–1164) came to the throne as a young child in 1123. His mother was Fujiwara no Tamako, known as Taikenmon’in, and court genealogy recognized him as Emperor Toba’s son. Retired Emperor Shirakawa directed his accession; after Shirakawa’s death, Toba continued government from his retired household. Sutoku’s imperial title therefore did not give him an uncontested command of court affairs. [S01, S03]

He abdicated to the child Emperor Konoe in 1142, while Toba retained the governing position. Literary patronage still gave Sutoku ways to act. He commissioned the poetry anthology Shika Wakashū in 1144, and, after its completion in 1151, requested a further selection that removed seven poems. When Konoe died in 1155, however, the throne passed to Sutoku’s younger brother Go-Shirakawa, closing the expected route for Sutoku’s own son. [S01, S02, S04]

After Toba died in 1156, Sutoku joined Fujiwara no Yorinaga against Go-Shirakawa in the Hōgen conflict. Defeat brought exile to Sanuki, in present-day Kagawa, where he died in 1164. Later fear of his resentful spirit transformed political loss into a powerful religious memory. That tradition records how people understood an exiled sovereign’s death; it cannot make supernatural revenge the cause of later disasters or recover every emotion of his final years. [S01, S03]