Konoe Sakiko (近衛前子; 1575 – August 11, 1630) was a member of the

Japanese imperial court The Imperial Court in Kyoto was the nominal ruling government of Japan from 794 AD until the Meiji period (1868–1912), after which the court was moved from Kyoto (formerly Heian-kyō) to Tokyo (formerly Edo) and integrated into the Meiji gover ...

from the Azuchi-Momoyama period to the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

. She was a consort to

Emperor Go-Yozei An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( e ...

, and the mother of

Emperor Go-Mizunoo was the 108th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Go-Mizunoo's reign spanned the years from 1611 through 1629, and was the first emperor to reign entirely during the Edo period. This 17th-century sovereign was n ...

. Her birth father was

Konoe Sakihisa (1536 – June 7, 1612), son of regent Taneie, was a court noble of Japan. His life spanned the Sengoku, Azuchi–Momoyama, and early Edo periods. He served as kampaku-sadaijin and '' daijō-daijin'', rising to the junior first rank. He was ...

, and her adopted father was

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

. Her posthumous Buddhist name was Chukamonin (中和門院).

Life

Konoe was born in 1575 to

. In 1586 she was adopted by

so that he could bring a daughter to the court and introduce her as the Emperor's new consort, something that chancellors in his position traditionally do. Konoe was officially presented at court on December 16, 1586. She had the title ''nyōgo'', which put her one step below the empress. She was the first person to hold that title in more than 200 years. She had 12 children with

, most notably

Konoe Nobuhiro , Ōzan (応山) as a monk, was a '' kugyō'' or Japanese court noble of the Edo period (1603–1868). He was born the fourth son of Emperor Go-Yōzei. His mother was Empress Dowager Chūka, or Konoe Sakiko by birth. Nobuhiro was adopted by Konoe ...

, and Ichijo Akiyoshi. Her title changed to "Empress Mother" after giving birth to Go-Mizunoo. Konoe died on August 11, 1630. Her remains are interred at the Sennyu-ji.

References

1630 deaths 1575 births Konoe family 17th-century Japanese women 16th-century Japanese women Imperial consorts {{DEFAULTSORT:Konoe, Sakiko