Andrea Valedon-Trapote

“Crafting the Mongol Sovereign” explores the ways in which Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) Mongol sovereigns used performances of gender and reconfigurations of imperial space to institutionalize Mongol ontologies of kingship within the institutions of the emperor (huangdi) and empress (huanghou) that they inherited from the Jurchen-founded Jin (1115–1234) and Song (960–1279) empires. I argue that this reconstruction of the institutions of the huangdi and huanghou reshaped the system of governance that under previous dynasties was an absolute monarchy into a coregency, which crafted the emperor and empress as specifically Mongol sovereigns. The shift towards coregency took place through reconfigurations of gendered space in the capital Dadu (contemporary Beijing), imperial women’s visibility at the Yuan court, the establishment and growth of the Bureau for the Empress’s Administration, and the continuation of Mongol-style regency in which an emperor’s primary wife ruled with his authority until his successor was enthroned.

This dissertation pushes back against the idea that Mongol emperors were “Sinicized” and simply copied local traditions of imperial city planning and governance, as is often asserted in scholarship. I use official and unofficial histories, travelogues, court poetry, and court artwork to illustrate that the founder of the Yuan dynasty Qubilai Khan (1215–1294) and his successors reframed the empress as an extension of the emperor’s authority in life and after his death. They did this through visual performances of kingship where the empress sat at the emperor’s side at court and institutional innovations such as the creation of bureaus for the empress and empress dowager over which imperial women held great control and that allowed empresses to amass wealth and troops. The Bureau for the Empress’s Administration functioned in many ways like her ordo, or Mongol military encampment. The layout of the emperor’s and his consort’s palaces are also arranged as in an ordo, following Mongol ideas of gender and space that, when facing south, placed men on the left and women on the right. This is in contrast to previous dynasties’ ideas of yin and yang that placed men on the right and women on the left. This incorporation of steppe urbanism into the layout of the capital’s imperial and palace cities and the visual and institutional innovations that crafted the empress as coregent indicate that Yuan emperors did not simply Sinicize themselves and their court. Instead, my dissertation argues that they incorporated elements of nomadic urbanism, Mongol understandings of gender, space, and authority, and Mongol ontologies of kingship into the layout and court practice of the capital, which altogether crafted Mongol emperors and empresses.