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

Munakata

Three shrines to three sisters of the sea: Okitsu-miya on the remote island of Okinoshima in the strait, Nakatsu-miya on Ōshima off the coast and Hetsu-miya at Tashima on the mainland (English Wikipedia).

The whole Munakata district was given to the shrine as sacred land, and the clan that served as priests also ran its secular affairs; two generations of its chiefs took wives from daughters of Chinese merchants (a monument, without a date, the same page). Ritual offerings at Okinoshima belong to the 4th to the 10th centuries by archaeology; by 1200 the island is a taboo place, the priests' pilots still guide ships across the strait. In 1200 they are priests with a district; the change into samurai is a thing that happens from the Kamakura period on, as the page says without a date.

Who holds it

Name
not known for 1 January 1200
Title
Chief priest (daigūji) of the Munakata clan
Family
English Wikipedia: priests and administrators of the district since the ritsuryō age, samurai and local lords from the Kamakura period on; the Munakata Ujisada named there is of 1578
Confidence
low

English Wikipedia (Munakata Taisha).

Overlord

none in law; Kyoto's courtiers and the Chikuzen governors above it by office

What it holds

  • Hetsu-miya at Tashima with the Munakata district
  • Nakatsu-miya on Ōshima
  • Okitsu-miya on Okinoshima (no women may land)

How things stand that morning

Priestly lords of a coastal district, with ships and pilots; the monument-recorded marriages with Chinese merchants' daughters are undated, so we do not say how close they are to Hakata's merchants in 1200.

Military

No count used.

Places of note

  • Nakatsu-miya, Ōshima: Island shrine on the sea road
  • Okitsu-miya, Okinoshima: Sacred island in the strait; the old offerings date from the 4th to the 10th centuries

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board entry id munakata-shrine puts the point at 33.831, 130.514; we use 33.8138, 130.5176 for Hetsu-miya at Tashima.

Evidence: English Wikipedia (Munakata Taisha) for the structure and the clan; the 1200 holder is not known.

"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

  1. OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
  2. OMNIA board notes and places for area kjw (starting lead only, checked against the sources)
  3. Munakata Taisha, English Wikipedia

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