Background
Tennō Ichijō was born on July 15, 980 in Kyoto. He was a son of Emperor En'yu and a daughter of Fujiwara no Kaneie.
条天皇
Tennō Ichijō was born on July 15, 980 in Kyoto. He was a son of Emperor En'yu and a daughter of Fujiwara no Kaneie.
His reign, from 986 to 1011, saw the “Fujiwara culture,” which centered around the person of Fujiwara no Michinaga, reach its zenith.
Politically the reign is well known for the large number of able figures it produced. Personally, however, the emperor was politically ineffectual, since real power lay in the hands of his maternal grandfather, Kaneie, and his stepbrother Michinaga.
The emperor himself had a taste for literature and gathered about him at his court such figures as Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji, and Sei Shonagon, author of the celebrated Pillow Book.