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The Ritual That Made the Empress: Silkworm Ceremony of Ancient China

Amimisu

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Have you ever wondered why every powerful Empress in Chinese history spent weeks each year as a manual laborer? That's the ancient Silkworm Ceremony, an imperial ritual that transformed silk from a simple fabric into a divine sign of power. From the massive political spectacles of Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty to the final, elegant revivals led by Empress Fuca in the Qing Dynasty, let's go through Chinese history and see how the thread of silk held every Empress together.

Drama titles of the footage used in this video:
延禧攻略 - Story of Yanxi Palace
如懿傳 - Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace
美人心計 - Schemes of a Beauty
長安十二時辰 - The Longest Day In Chang'an
妖貓傳 - Legend of the Demon Cat
武媚娘傳奇 - Empress of China

00:00 - Introduction
02:30 - The Ritual Foundations
07:41 - Silk as Currency
12:13 - The Language of Excellence
16:33 - The Qing Restoration
22:34 - Final Thoughts

Disclaimer: Visuals used in this video are for reference/illustrative purposes and are not intended as accurate historical depictions.

#chinesehistory #empress #silk #silkworm #ancientritual #tangdynasty #harem #ancientchina #womeninhistory #documentary #historicalfigures

20 Comments

@MorgottTheGraceGiven 8 months ago (edited)

I don’t think people appreciate the insane history of silkworms/silkmoths. As you mentioned, the story with Leizu is considered the foundation story, but there’s evidence that the split between the wild and domestic silk moths was actually about 5,000 years ago! That’s older than the evidence for fully domesticated chickens and camels. Also, they’re the ONLY insects humans have fully domesticated. Honeybees are semi-domesticated, but silkworms are fully, 100% reliant on humans.
I raised silkmoths to spin and weave on my loom for my senior thesis, and they’re truly incredible little critters. The entire process, including raising them, is so laborious intensive and requires so much patience and attention to detail. They rely on you for everything. Even when you let them emerge from their cocoons to breed, they cannot fly, and have no fear of predators. I can only hope that my care and love for the craft of sericulture brought dignity and honor to such an incredible and important part of Chinese imperial history and culture.
Sorry for the long comment, I just love silkworms, and it’s such a delight to watch this video and learn even more! There’s so much in here that I never knew, and it’s so fascinating to see how the ceremony changed throughout history. Great video as always, keep up the good work! Peace and love from Pennsylvania!

@jacku8304 8 months ago

The Japanese Imperial Family still perform silkworm ceremonies as a cultural tradition. The task of raising silkworms have been led by successive Empresses since 1871, when Empress Dowager Shoken established the tradition to promote Japan's silk industry. In May 2024, Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako were reported to have fed young silkworms together at the the Momijiyama Imperial Cocoonery.

@Siddharth-x4u 8 months ago

I am currently watching yanxi palace and the thumbnail instantly made me go- HER HIGHNESS THE EMPRESS!!!!✨️ she will forever be my favourite actor as an empress. She is so talented

@ZiggyWhiskerz 8 months ago (edited)

18:00 mother of the nation, but none of the "children" of the nation can see her? Ok...

@greygryphon6881 8 months ago

What a contrast between our current days of cheap, practically disposable clothes, and clothing that was so important it's production was sacred. (I know silk was only for the wealthy few, but all clothing was much more valuable before industrialization...and probably better made too)

@naty_witchygirl6151 8 months ago

Takings notes for the imperial exam😂😂😂

@oyunnbolstad 6 months ago

I really like the «banner» on the bottom of the screen telling us where we are in the imperial history when mentioning different emperors or empresses. It’s really helpful for reminding us «when» we are in history. ❤

@merchantfan 8 months ago

The description of the changes made around the time foot-binding became prevalent are so depressing 😭. Those were actual disability accommodations because they (literally) hobbled girls for no reason but "beauty"

@archervine8064 8 months ago

Thank you! From watching dramas, I knew that this ceremony was a huge deal, but not what exactly happened.

@mushroom-beans 5 months ago

I’ve unwound a silkworm cocoon before! It took me ages to fully unwind it. Everyone else in my class gave up but I was determined to finish and reach the center

@good_vibes_mostly 8 months ago

I’ve been so curious about this ceremony since you first mentioned it, it’s fascinating! Seeing a ritual like this evolving over hundreds or even thousands of years is amazing.

@taebundy658 8 months ago

I know that a lot of people would not find a video of this type interesting but I genuinely do. The US is a very young country so learning how people lived hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago teaches about longevity. 🙏🏼:_baobunAwkward:Thank you (again) Ami! :_baobunEmpress:

@suikerkahuure5753 8 months ago

No wonder Empress Langhua was livid when she found out Ruyi carried out the silk worm ceremony 😉

@systemofahistory 8 months ago

This historical content is so fascinating.Your talent for education is remarkable. Please continue to share historical content. Best wishes to you and your channel, and I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

@sumiller1850 8 months ago

This is so cool. I often wondered about this scene in Story of Yanxi Palace and this explains it a lot!

@halimasultan03 8 months ago

We see short videos on tiktok of chinese artist in the countryside making ceramics, fabrics, silk, makeups etc. Its always fascinating but very hard backbreakign time consuming work. It is amazing to me that someone as royal as the empress and consorts, would be responsible for doing such busy work. I wonder if she enjoyed it, since she would finally have something productive to do than to just wait for the emperor... Or if it was a very difficult responsibility.

@ScarletSilverIron 8 months ago

I actually wondered why some ceremonies were important.

@leonardmccoy4797 8 months ago

Ooooooo!!! How pretty your outfit and hairpins are. You seem to glow brighter and brighter Empress Ami

@OriginalCreatorSama 8 months ago (edited)

if there's evidence of silk use back 5000 years, what happened to the silkworm population that made it such a big deal that the empress figured out how to farm them?

were the naturally occurring silkworms over-harvested? was there a silkworm pandemic that killed off a bunch of them and made it hard to come by? There's too much caution in the ceremony to believe that the ancient Chinese weren't terrified of losing the silkworm. Maybe we narrowly avoided a silkworm extinction??? a big enough society that they can create whole dynasties would have a lot of silk requirements, which might lead to over-harvesting of natural resources. that'd explain why figuring out farming them was so important. 🤔 fascinating to think about!

thank you! Can we learn about Empress Ma next? <3