Princess Kibi

Princess Kibi was a daughter of Prince Kusakabe and Empress Genmei, and a sister of Emperor Monmu and Empress Genshō. Her husband, Prince Nagaya, was the son of Prince Takechi. Their marriage joined two branches descended from Emperor Tenmu. In 715, Kibi's children were accorded the status of imperial grandchildren. In 724, she advanced from the third to the second princely grade, a distinction with implications for her household's staffing. [S01, S02]

Kibi had a household administration of her own. Excavated wooden documents preserve an order issued in her name, while a shaving found at Heijō Palace refers to the residence of the deceased second-grade Princess Kibi. These traces place her among people whose households issued instructions and employed staff. The precise relationship between her administration and the two groups of household officials represented in Nagaya's excavated documents remains debated; assigning every reference to the “North Palace” to her goes beyond that evidence. [S02, S03]

In the second lunar month of 729, officials accused Nagaya of treason. The Shoku Nihongi, completed in 797, records that he was ordered to kill himself and that Kibi and four sons also died by suicide. The following day's decree declared Kibi innocent, ordered customary funeral arrangements with one musical exception, and released her household officials and attendants. It distinguished her treatment from Nagaya's after their deaths. Her rank and surviving administrative documents preserve a public identity that the family's destruction did not erase. [S01, S04, S05]