The Rest Is History
561. The Golden Age of Japan: Secrets of the Imperial Court (Part 2)
Wed, 30 Apr 2025
In the vibrant but vicious golden age of Imperial Japan, how did women use writing as a way to secure their status, and express their deepest desires? Who was Sei Shōnagon, the witty courtier whose account of life around the Japanese Empress during the iconic Heian period, provides a scintillating insight into this colourful world? And, behind the sophisticated melee of the Imperial court, with its elegance and decorum, what risks and hazards haunted every aspiring courtier…? Join Tom and Dominic for the climax to their tantalising journey into the beating heart of Imperial Japan, and the remarkable woman whose moving, keenly perceptive, but also slyly venomous, insights into this complicated arena, bring it flamboyantly to life. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is The Pillow Book and who was Sei Shōnagon?
It is the beginning of a really, really remarkable and original masterpiece called The Pillow Book, which was written in the early years of the 11th century in what is now Kyoto. And Tom, we talked last time about the great Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji. This was written round about the same time in what was then called Heian-kyo. And as with the tale of Genji, its author was a woman.
Yes. The woman was called, say, Shonagon. And Murasaki Shikibu, the author of the tale of Genji... knew Seishonagon and didn't like her. So she wrote in her diary, Seishonagon was dreadfully conceited. She thought herself so clever and littered her writings with Chinese characters. But if you examine them closely, they left a great deal to be desired.
So like a kind of negative review of our podcast. Left by the hosts of an inferior Goldhanger podcast. No doubt. Although, of course, I mean, you know, Murasaki and Seishonagon are both transcendent geniuses. Right. So actually the analogy doesn't work at all. It breaks down there.
Yeah.
So... I think what you get there is a clear tone of envy. I mean, you know, we're concerts of tones of envy. We are. I guess it's not surprising, actually, because the two women are in lots of ways quite alike. So say Shonagon, say is a family name, but Shonagon, like Shikabu, so Murasaki's kind of second name, is the name of a post in the Imperial Civil Service.
So like Murasaki, Shikabu, say Shonagon is the daughter of a functionary, of a civil servant. And Murasaki knew about Seishonagon because they had both served as kind of ladies-in-waiting to an empress in the imperial court. And also, like Murasaki, Seishonagon knew Chinese. We talked about this in the previous episode, that for a woman to know Chinese is seen as very unladylike, very unbecoming.
And Murasaki... tried to keep her knowledge of Chinese secret. She was embarrassed by it. Her fellow ladies in waiting teased her about it. But Seishonigan did not veil it. She absolutely paraded her knowledge of Chinese. She's absolutely unafraid to make a show of her brilliance. And she does it with such style and charisma that it clearly makes her a kind of a massive star at court.
So unlike Murasaki, she boasts of how ready she is to kind of stand up and be the center of attention. So she writes in the Pillow book, I am not renowned for my modesty or prudence.
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Chapter 2: How did Sei Shōnagon's writing style differ from Murasaki Shikibu's?
So again, the comparison between Shea Shonigan, who's not renowned for her modesty, and the presenters of The Rest is History, that rather breaks down there, doesn't it, Tom? We're very shy and retiring like Murasaki. Exactly. Exactly. Now, we talked last time when we were explaining about the tale of Genji and this world of kind of 9th, 10th, 11th century Japan.
We sort of talked about what a remarkable book it is to read. And I have to say, in many ways, I think the Pillow book is even more remarkable. So I've been reading it over the last few days.
And what shines through on every page is the wit, the brilliance, the sophistication, the charm, and the individual personality of the author in a way that I don't think I've ever encountered with any other work of medieval literature. I mean, this really is, say, Shonagan's book, and you feel like you know her when you're reading it in a way you don't with any other author at the time.
I mean, I can't think of any work of ancient or medieval literature where charm and wit, as you say, is manifest on every page. I mean, it's not what you associate really with kind of ancient literature. And as you say, her personality is so vivid that you feel like you completely know her. And I agree that like the tale of Genji, it feels dislocating.
You have to keep pinching yourself and reminding yourself, this is someone who's writing, you know, keep saying this. In England, this is the Anglo-Saxon period. I mean, it is amazing. So how did she come to write it?
Because that in itself is a remarkable story.
Yes, and may well be made up. So this is part of the fun of reading the Pillay book is that Sage Onagin is very, she's very playful. You can never entirely trust what she's saying, I think. So the name Pillow Book, it comes from the story of how she comes to write it.
So the story she gives is that a minister comes to the Empress, who is, say, Shonagan's mistress, presents the Empress with a great sheaf of paper. And the Empress makes a gift of it to, say, Shonagan. And she uses this paper to start recording observations, thoughts, experiences, whatever. And she seems to have kept the sheaf of papers either under or next to her pillow.
And she then leaves the court and continues to write it. And then one day, oh me, oh my, she is disturbed by a governor who comes to pay his respects to her. And so she pulls out the pillow for the governor to sit on. And there are the sheaf of papers. And Seishonagon is so mortified.
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Chapter 3: What kinds of content and themes are found in The Pillow Book?
But also, I mean, that is a universal experience, isn't it? I mean, the joy of being warm in bed in a cold night. I mean, it's incredible. Exactly. The other thing She loves a list. And actually, when I was in Japan, I realised that this is a continuing thing in Japan. So you go to a castle and say, this is the fourth best castle in Japan or that kind of thing. You know, they love it.
And it clearly begins with, say, Shonagon. So she will list, you know, top mountains, top ponds, top horses, all that kind of thing. Her list of top birds. She's not keen on the heron. She says the heron looks horrible. Horrible, yeah. Very keen on the mandarin duck. which he says is very touching in the way the pair will change places on cold nights to brush the frost from each other's wings.
And I think the Japanese generally are very keen on the Mandarin duck because it seems to have been an emblem of marital fidelity. So Genji, in Murasaki's novel, he's walking out under the moonlight with Murasaki, his great love, and he hears a Mandarin duck. He has this great Proustian rush of memory, thinking of all the times that he's spent with Murasaki.
And it brings back fond memories of times now gone by.
But the best things are the lists that are simultaneously bonkers, but also the kind of things that people write on social media or on blogs. Kind of listicles. Yeah, listicles. So you've got some of your favourites written down. So a couple of mine are, she's got a list of things people despise. One of which is people who have a reputation for being exceptionally good natured.
Yeah. It's kind of almost like Oscar Wilde, isn't it?
Yeah. Or rare things. A son-in-law who is praised by his wife's father. Likewise, a wife who is loved by her mother-in-law. And then the next entry under rare things she's written is a pair of silver tweezers that can actually pull out hairs properly. Yeah.
And embarrassing things. And this will be so familiar, I think, to anyone who has ever been at the school gates. Someone insists on telling you about some horrid little child carried away with her own infatuation with the creature, imitating its voice as she gushes about the cute and winning things it says. And Seishonigan generally doesn't seem to be very fond of children.
So she also accuses three-year-olds of being smug and cocky, which is... I mean, she's not wrong.
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Chapter 4: How important was poetry and calligraphy at the Heian court?
I mean, she certainly gives that impression. But Murasaki as well, even though in her personal relations, she seems to have been viewed actually as a bit of a prude. And it reflects the way in which women are given a degree of kind of license that I think in the Muslim or Christian world would have prompted a lot of anxiety on the part of male moralists. There are absolutely rules.
I mean, very strict rules. But the whole point is, is that you master the rules and then, you know, all kinds of opportunities open up. And that's precisely the thrill and the fun of it. So for women especially, the reason that you want to be very good at poetry is that you are not supposed to show yourself to men who are courting you. You stay behind a screen.
And so how then are you meant to establish relations with a man if the man can't actually see you, if you have to stay cloistered away behind a screen? And This is where the poetry comes in. You kind of exchange verses. And if this goes well and if the man thinks, yeah, that's witty, that's well expressed or whatever, then other markers of taste can be unleashed.
And this is what Genji is so good at. He is, in Murasaki's novel, the absolute master of these kind of arts of courtship. So poetry comes first. Then you might have incense mixing. So remember, Genji is perfumed. Seishonagon is very good on how wonderful, beautiful scents are and how awful hideous ones are. It's clearly very, very important in the court. Calligraphy, of course.
There's a passage in the Tale of Genji where the war minister literally sobs over Genji's calligraphy. And, you know, you can't kind of imagine, I don't know, Pete Hegseth weeping over J.D. Vance's handwriting. That's such a great image. It's not going to happen. And then, of course, there's the exquisiteness of dress and so on.
So the woman would wear perhaps very, very long sleeves and she would very decorously allow perhaps just a glimpse from behind the screen. So it's that kind of thing, a glimpse of ankle. And in due course, a woman who decides that she is happy to allow a man to pay court to her This would initiate a series of secret nighttime visits.
And when I say secret, it's not really secret because there is effectively no privacy in these.
Right, because people would see you coming and going, wouldn't they?
Yeah. So the screens operate as walls within rooms. But I mean, they're not permanent walls. So ultimately, there isn't really any privacy. And it means that in poetry, in prose, in both Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book, the coming of dawn is a repeated theme because it's absolutely touched with a sense of the erotic. And Seishonagon is predictably brilliant on it.
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Chapter 5: What were the rules and rituals of courtship in Imperial Japan?
But I guess, Tom, a precondition for this world is that it's peaceful. They can afford to be putting all their energy into calligraphy and being snobbish about snow on the houses of the common people and talking about how repulsive three-year-old children are precisely because, Japan is at peace. Yes.
But I guess, I mean, one of the themes that runs through the pillow book is the sense of time and aging and the passing of the seasons and everything must have an end. And I guess the writers of the Heian court, as much as anybody, are aware that time is slipping away, as it were, and that this world of peace and tranquility and elegance and sophistication may be for the ash heap of history.
Well, I think there is absolutely a sense that the very exquisite quality of life at the court can never be taken for granted and that it is always shadowed. And in the second half, perhaps we could look at some of those shadows. Very good. We'll see you after the break.
Hi there, I'm Al Murray, co-host of WW2Pod, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, the world's premier Second World War history podcast from Goalhanger.
And I'm James Holland, and together we tell the greatest stories from the war. Our latest series focuses on the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe and the often untold closing stages of World War II.
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Genji pretended not to look at her and gazed into the garden, but he gave her many a sidelong glance. What was she like? How glad he would be, ah, foolish hope, if their present intimacy had brought out anything at all attractive. First, her seated height was unusual. She was obviously very long in the back. I knew it, he thought in despair.
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Chapter 6: What standards of beauty and fashion defined attractiveness in Heian Japan?
And so Teishi, his wife, she is the empress for whom Seishonagon, whom she served and the one who got Seishonagon to write all his poems and, you know, had the bet with her about the snow and all that sort of thing.
And Seishonigan thinks Teishi is great. You know, she thinks she's funny, she's smart, she's stylish. And in exchange, the presence of Seishonigan at Teishi's side as part of her retinue adds greatly to Teishi's prestige because Seishonigan is that famous, that celebrated. Right. But obviously the position of both women is kind of precarious.
I mean, both of them are completely aware of this because it depends on Michitaka and remaining on the scene and keeping hold of power. And I think despite the pretty consistent tone of sunniness and lightness that you get in the pillow book, occasionally there's the odd hint from Satonagon that she is aware of this. It's a little bit like the black shorts in Bertie Worcester.
There's kind of little hint of the darkness off stage. So there's a scene where Seishonagon describes Michitaka. She thinks he's great, looking wonderfully slender and elegant, pausing to adjust his ceremonial sword. And then she describes how Michitaka's brother, the commissioner Michinaga, did not just bow before his brother, but sank to his knees.
And she goes and relates to Teishi what she's seen and says, oh, it's marvelous. Such a beautiful scene. And then she writes, when I kept mentioning to Her Majesty how Commissioner Michinaga, so the younger brother, had bowed before the region, she smilingly teased me by referring to him as that perennial favourite of yours.
If she could have lived to witness the greatness he later attained, she would have realised how right I was to find him so impressive. So she's writing at a time where Teishi has died. and where Michinaga has replaced Michitaka as regent. And that happened in, so Michitaka died in 995. And what happens then is that the next brother in line succeeds Michitaka, dies within a few days.
And so Michinaga then becomes regent. And for Teishi and Seishonagon, this is very bad news because obviously Michinaga is going to want to marry one of his own daughters to the emperor Ichijo.
Oh, right. Okay. So the fact that it's his niece, it's his niece, right? That's not good enough. It's got to be his daughter.
He's not going to bump Teishi off. He's not going to set her aside. But what he is going to do is essentially ensure that there is a second empress. So there will be two empresses of equal rank. But this obviously destabilizes Teishi's position massively. And it happens in the year 1000. So Michinaga has a 10-year-old daughter called Shoshi. And she gets married to the emperor.
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Chapter 7: Who was Izumi Shikibu and what was her role in the Heian literary world?
And we haven't yet touched really on the sacral. There is another aspect of Chinese culture which takes off in Japan to a momentous degree, and that is Buddhism.
Well, you say the sacral, Tom, but that word would be slightly meaningless to them, wouldn't it? It would. Because the very idea of religion would be meaningless because there's no distinction between the secular and the religious in Japan. God almighty, I'm sounding like Tom Holland. You are sounding like me.
Yes, you are absolutely right. But let's call it Buddhism for want of a better word. And it arrives in Japan probably in the 6th century. It flourishes at Nara in the 8th century. Nara boasts the most wonderful Buddhist temples, astonishing statues. I mean, you're just about to go to Japan, aren't you, I think?
This will blow people's minds. I'm actually going to stay in a Buddhist monastery in Japan.
Wow.
Are you going to Nara? I am going to Nara. And it's not in Mara. It's on Mount Koya, which is the sacred Buddhist mountain. Now, I know this is not part of the persona. And so I hate to tell people this, but our podcast personas are not our entire personalities. It's quite white lotus as well. Well, yeah.
I hope there won't be white lotus style. behavior. So Nara is a kind of great Buddhist city. And that's one of the reasons actually why the capital gets moved is because the monks there are wielding such power that the emperor is feeling in their shadow as well.
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Chapter 8: Why is the Heian period considered a golden age of female literary achievement?
And by the ninth century, going into the 10th and 11th century, native and Buddhist traditions are kind of merging to create a definitively Japanese form of Buddhism. And this is manifest everywhere in Heian-kyo. So that temple bell which Seishonagon hears ringing in the dead of night when she's tucked up under her bedclothes. That's a Buddhist bell.
And Murasaki, when she's describing how the Emperor Soshi is preparing to give birth to her child, she describes hearing voices in ceaseless recitation of sutras, which are the voices of Buddhist monks. And there is a town called Uji, which is about 10 miles south of Heian-kyo, where the final chapters of the Tale of Genji is set.
And Michinaga buys a villa there, which is then converted by his son into a great Buddhist temple. This temple appears on one of the Japanese coins, and it contains what is one of the few surviving masterpieces of Heian art, which is this colossal wooden sculpture of the Buddha. So Buddhism is an absolutely fundamental part of Heian Kiyo, this world described by the great writers of the period.
But if you think of it, you mentioned Shinto before. These are not competing religions in the sense that we would think of Christianity and Islam or Christianity and paganism, right? Even today, lots of Japanese people struggle when they're asked questions do you believe in Shintoism or you're Buddhist?
Because they don't understand the concept that you would be picking and choosing different belief systems entirely.
Yeah, I mean, it's really striking having written so much about Christianity and its emergence in antiquity and pagan antiquity. Buddhism in Japan is such a contrast So whereas Christianity banishes the ancient gods of the Mediterranean, that doesn't happen in Japan. I mean, there are definitely tensions. There are elements of the native traditions that really oppose the introduction of Buddhism.
But they are not driven out. So in the time of Murasaki and Seishonagon, the emperor, as the emperor today does, is still claiming descent from the sun goddess. His virgin daughter will be serving as the sun goddess's priestess in what is the greatest shrine in Japan. And you still have this sense that the divine is imminent in the natural world that was evident in that poem that Genji writes.
But Buddhism, although it is able to coexist with these beliefs, it does teach that the gods worshipped in these various shrines or whatever are themselves part of the illusory world, along with the beauties of the natural world, love, the world itself, in fact. And this is what everybody that we've been talking about in this episode and the previous episode believes. So Shainagon does.
And it's said, we don't know with what reliability, but it's often repeated that at the end of her life, she follows the example of what lots of other people at court, including emperors do, which is to renounce the world. And she throws away her beautiful clothes and she shaves off her beautiful hair and she becomes a nun.
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