The two shrines of the capital's guardian god, on the Kamo river at the north and at the junction of the Kamo and Takano, whose Aoi festival is the oldest of the court's pageants.
They hold wide estates, many of them as harbours and fisheries (the Kamo's branch at Murotsu in Harima among them [not yet checked against the source]), and supply the priestess (Saiin) who serves the god. The priestly houses are numerous and quarrelsome.
Who holds it
- Name
- not known as a single head
- Title
- Hereditary priests of the Kamo houses (the Kamo kannushi families)
- Family
- Kamo no Chōmei (b. 1155), later author of the Hōjōki, is a Shimogamo priest's son in Kyoto [not yet checked against the source]
- Confidence
- low
Recollection.
Overlord
none in law; the court provides the Saiin priestess
What it holds
- The two shrines and the Kamo river banks
- Estates and harbour rights in the provinces
How things stand that morning
Quiet; the Aoi festival falls in the fourth month.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: The campaign board entry and recollection.
"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
Sources and studies
- OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
- OMNIA board notes and places for area kjw (starting lead only, checked against the sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.