<論説>「漢家の制」と皇后・皇太后 : 漢代における皇帝支配の確立過程

Abstract

前漢代は最末期を除いて皇帝との実際の血縁・姻戚関係によって皇后・皇太后の尊卑秩序が構築されていた。文帝や昭帝が生母を皇太后に尊び、哀帝が実の祖母や生母を尊位に即けていたようにである。皇帝の妻・母である皇后・皇太后の地位自体も、皇帝に近いが故に諸侯王国の王后や王太后に比して格上げされ続けた。こうした秩序立ては前漢末には「漢家の制」と回顧され皇帝の至尊性を示すのに一定の効果があったが、皇帝ごとに秩序が構築されるため、非嫡子の皇帝が即位すると生母と先代皇后との尊卑が逆転し政治的対立を生むこともあった。しかし前漢末に皇后の地位が確立し皇太后となるための基本的地位となったことで、実際の血縁関係に左右されることのない、皇帝を中心とした礼制上の関係による秩序が構築されることになった。これにより、秩序の逆転や皇太后と皇帝生母の対立による政治的混乱は回避されるようになる。皇后位の確立は、実際の母子関係に左右されない安定的な皇帝支配体制をもたらしたのである。

The Former Han period was that of the establishment of the broad framework of the imperial system, and a body of studies on the Former Han has been compiled, but the structure of the status order of the elite of the Han Empire has not been examined sufficiently. The status order of the elite was both a large-scale framework within the imperial system, but as it was also deeply related to concept of political rule during the period, elucidating it is a necessary step in clarifying the rule of the emperor during the Han period. In this article, I focus on the fact that the institution of the Hanjia (漢家之制: the ruling house of the Han), which entailed favoring the mother of the reigning emperor, is concentrated in historical sources from the last period of the Former Han and the early period of the Latter Han, and aim to elucidate the process of the establishment of imperial rule in the Han period by clarifying the changes in the status of the huanghou (皇后: empress) and huangtaihou (皇太后: empress dowager). In this article, I carefully re-examine the appellations huanghou and huangtaihou and those for the consorts of the emperors, and the fact that I compare the inner courts of the emperors with those of the Feudal Lords is a methodological characteristic of this study. Previous research has employed the actions of the huanghou and huangtaihou as the object of study, yet these were governed not only by these women's individual characters but also frequently limited by political circumstances and are thus not appropriate for an objective diachronic approach. From this point of view, taking the absolute change of appellations in the inner court, and making a comparison of the inner courts of the emperor and those of the Feudal Lords are convenient ways to grasp relative changes during the Han Empire, and effective in marking the changes in the position of the huanghou and huangtaihou. As a result of this consideration, it has become clear that the status of the huanghou and huangtaihou were intimately related to that of the emperor and an impetus for the growth of the system of imperial rule. In the Former Han monarchy the status of the huanghou and huangtaihou continued to be elevated, in contrast to that of wives and mothers of the Feudal Lords, in order to increase reverence for the emperor, and this was ultimately because they were wives or mothers of an emperor. Before the huangtaihou was appeared as appellation of mother of emperor in the historical material, Empress Lu (呂后), the wife of Emperor Gao Zu (高祖), was in particular called huangtaihou by her ministers as she ruled with the heir following her husband's death, and based of this, Emperor Wen Di (文帝), who had risen to the rank of emperor from that of Lord, honored his mother Consort Bo (薄氏) by calling her huangtaihou, which is a representative example of this trend. As Emperor Wen Di was no longer a Feudal Lord but an emperor his mother Consort Bo was not to be addressed as a mother of a Lord (王太后: wangtaihou) and must be called by the appellation fit for the mother of an emperor. Empress Lu and Consort Bo were related to Emperor Gao Zu as wife and concubine, but what was important was the sole fact that they were mothers of emperors. It was necessary to honor Consort Bo with the title huangtaihou as Empress Lu had been. In this manner, this way of ordering the world (called the Hanjia Institution at the close of the Former Han) used actual relationships to an emperor by blood or marriage as the criteria. On the one hand, the status of consorts of the emperor was elevated in relative terms, but the consorts of the Feudal Lords could not use high status appellations, and they received little financial support. In this ordering of the world, the tendency to favor the mother was visible prior to the Han, and it can be located as an undercurrent from the Qin of the Warring States Period. The Hanjia Institution can be understood as demonstrating ultimate reverence for the emperor on the one hand, but as each emperor constructed the order, the reversal of the status order could occur and become a cause of political confrontation. However, the status of the huanghou and huangtaihou was firmly established through the impetus of the strengthening of Wang Mang (王莽)' s power base at the end of the Former Han, and this also led to changes in criteria for ordering the world. While Wang Mang was the nephew of the taihuangtaihou (太皇太后: grand empress dowager), as he lost power in the period of Emperor Ai Di (哀帝) and suffered bitter setbacks, he aimed to enhance the status of the huanghou, which was the fundamental position of the taihuangtaihou, in order to harden his political base. As a result, the status of the huanghou became recognized as the fundamental position for becoming huangtaihou, and a consort would never again become huangtaihou in place of the huanghou. This was a shift from ordering the world based on actual blood relationships to the emperor to one of ordering the world based on relations in a ritual system based on the medium of parent-child relations of a ritual system born out of the imperial succession. Thus, there would be no reversal in the status order, and political turmoil caused by confrontation between the huangtaihou and the mother of the emperor was avoided. The establishment of the status of the huanghou brought about a stable system of imperial rule that was not swayed by actual blood relations.