Kōfukuji and Kasuga

Who holds it

Name

not known for 1 January 1200

Title

Chief administrator of the temple (bettō) with the two princely cloisters Ichijō-in and Daijō-in

Family

The abbots are sons of the Fujiwara regent houses (Ichijō-in and Daijō-in)

Confidence

low

No bettō list was reachable.

Overlord

none in law; the Fujiwara chief (the regent) is its patron

What it holds

• Yamato province in effect (the Nara basin and the hills round it)
• Kasuga Taisha at the foot of Mount Mikasa
• Dependent houses: Kiyomizudera, Hōryūji, Hasedera, Kinpusenji, Yakushiji and Tōshōdaiji in different degrees [not yet checked against the source]
• Estates across the provinces

How it was acquired

By gift and custom since the 8th century; patron of all the Fujiwara.

Allies and rivals

Rival of Enryakuji, of Tōnomine; patron of the Hossō school; the Kujō house is friendly, the Konoe now patron.

How things stand that morning

Standing feud with Enryakuji and Tōnomine. Still rebuilding after 1180. No shugo in Yamato [not yet checked against the source]. Hōnen's nembutsu will be criticised by Kōfukuji in 1205 (English Wikipedia, Hōnen), not yet.

Wealth

Estate rents and the offerings at Kasuga; no figure used.

Military

Warrior monks; no numbers.

Threats

• A Kamakura constable who tries to enter Yamato (not before the 13th century)
• The Enryakuji feud

Places of note

• Kasuga Taisha: Shrine of the Fujiwara clan, source of the sacred tree used in armed petitions

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The campaign board and the brief; the rebuilding and Yamato's constable-free status are recollection of the standard studies.

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

On the map: The province of Yamato itself is drawn by the Yamato province record.

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