Temporal Regimes in Kenmu nitchū gyōji (Daily Observances of the Kenmu Era), with annotated translation

Abstract

This article examines time recording and time practices in Kenmu nitchū gyōji, a medieval document describing daily and monthly routine at the court of Emperor Go-Daigo in the beginning of the fourteenth century. By probing into the text’s chronographic and chronopolitical features, it is shown that Kenmu nitchū gyōji is strongly concerned with temporality, providing an ideal in which court regularities are meant to repeat identically according to a minutely regulated sequential progression. These peculiar temporal characteristics exhibit the text’s political function: by way of a chronological and at the same time cyclical structure, the image of a divine order is provided, thus legitimizing imperial rule.
Keywords: chronography; chronopolitics; imperial court; Kenmu nitchū gyōji; medieval Japan, time