Itsukushima

Who holds it

Name

not known for 1 January 1200

Title

Hereditary chief priest (kannushi) of the Saeki family [not yet checked against the source]

Family

The assignment names 'the Saeki'; we cannot name the head in 1200

Confidence

low

English Wikipedia (Itsukushima Shrine) does not mention the Saeki priesthood; the family is from the assignment and recollection.

Overlord

none in law; Aki's governor and the Kamakura constable of Aki are above it by office

What it holds

• Miyajima island with the shrine and its pilgrim town
• Estates on the Aki shore [not yet checked against the source]

How it was acquired

By Kiyomori's patronage from 1168 (English Wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

Patron once: the Taira. Now the Saeki deal with Aki's governors and with Kamakura's men. Ōe's Aki lands lie beside it (see the Ōe record).

How things stand that morning

A major shrine of the Inland Sea in quiet times; the Taira rule over it ended in 1185.

Places of note

• Miyajima landing: The pilgrim landing on the mainland side

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry id itsukushima says Kiyomori rebuilt it in splendour; English Wikipedia says he 'contributed heavily' from 1168 and that the torii dates from 1168 (the present one from 1875). The building recorded by the campaign board is the Taira shrine, which later fires replaced.

Evidence: English Wikipedia for 1168; the Saeki from the assignment.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

Primary sources for Temple powers (west)

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Hundred Times Refined Extracts: court annals (late thirteenth century, from court diaries). Short dated annals of the imperial court excerpted from courtiers' diaries, among them the Gyokuyo and the Meigetsuki. Read online
• Mirror of the East, Anonymous; compiled by officials of the Kamakura shogunate (compiled about 1300 from the shogunate's records, diaries and family documents). The Kamakura house's own chronicle, in daily entries. Read online
• Jottings of a Fool: an interpretative history of Japan, Jien (慈円) (about 1219 to 1220, revised to about 1223). A history by Kujo Kanezane's brother, head of the Tendai school and the leading churchman of the court, written to explain the fall of the Kujo and the rise of the warriors as the working of principle (dori). Read online
• Leaves of Jade: the diary of Kujo Kanezane, Kujo (Fujiwara) Kanezane (九條兼實) (1164 to 1200, as a daily diary). The diary of the former regent, Yoritomo's ally at court, who had been driven from power in the Kenkyu purge of 1196 and lived in retirement in 1200. Read online
• Record of the Bright Moon: the diary of Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家) (1180 to 1235, as a daily diary, with gaps). The diary of the poet and courtier, then thirty-eight and a middle-ranking official of the Kujo house. Read online
• Surviving Documents of the Kamakura Period, Various; collected by Takeuchi Rizo (竹内理三) (documents of 1185 to 1333, collected and printed 1971 to 1997). The collected charters, deeds, court orders, shogunal directives, temple records and land registers of the Kamakura age, printed in date order. Read online
• The Tale of the Heike, Anonymous; traditionally attributed to Shinano no Zenji Yukinaga, performed and reshaped by blind reciters (early thirteenth century in its first form; the standard Kakuichi text was fixed in 1371). The epic of the Genpei war, in the form the reciters gave it over the century after 1200. Read online