Shinto shrines · The temple and shrine corporations · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Kashima shrine

Kashima, on the south-east shore of the Kantō inland sea, is the war-god shrine of the east: Takemikazuchi, who is joined to Katori's Futsunushi.

It was the Ichinomiya of Hitachi, the highest-ranked shrine of the east in the Heian age with Ise and Katori, and Yoritomo granted it many estates (English page, which gives no list). Warriors enter its priesthood, and Kamakura's housemen offer to it before war. It stands among the Hitachi lords: the Hitachi Daijō (Taira) of Ishioka-Kasama and Hatta Tomoie, constable of Hitachi, whose stewards sit beside the shrine's estates.

It also marks the end of the road across the Katori sea.

Who holds it

Name
not pinned for 1200
Title
Great priest (daiguji) of the Nakatomi (Fujiwara) line, with warrior priests
Since
not applicable
Family
The page names the Nakatomi, who rose in the Nara age and took the name Fujiwara; no individual is named for 1200.
Confidence
low

English Wikipedia (Kashima Shrine): Ichinomiya of Hitachi, warrior cult, many estates granted by Yoritomo, samurai entering the priesthood.

Overlord

The emperor (rank); Kamakura as protector; the court's governor of Hitachi

What it holds

  • The shrine and the town of Kashima
  • Estates granted by Yoritomo (not itemised)
  • A warrior priesthood

How it was acquired

By the old Nakatomi cult; Kamakura's grants after 1180.

Allies and rivals

Allied with Kamakura; rivals: the stewards of the Hitachi constable; Katori across the water.

How things stand that morning

Quiet; honoured.

Wealth

Rice and the fishery of the lagoon; estates; offerings; no figure.

Military

Warrior priests; no numbers.

Threats

  • Stewards' encroachments

Where the sources disagree

  • The gazetteer's 'Kashima' is in Saga: coordinates are given. The Year-of-the-Horse festival of the English page falls in 1198 and 1210, not 1200.

Evidence: One English page.

On the map: Small block.

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

  1. KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board for sheet kja (the lead's notes: [own] computation, [not yet checked against the source] recollection, [en] English Wikipedia)
  2. Azuma Kagami (the Kamakura chronicle), Kenkyu 10 to Shoji 2 entries, recalled and through the brief; ja.wikipedia and ja.wikisource were refused in this session, so no entry was re-read
  3. Jeffrey P. Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (1974), from memory; the archive.org full text could not be opened
  4. English Wikipedia: Kashima Shrine (read this session; thin)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.