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

Usa Hachimangū

The mother shrine of all Hachiman shrines, in Buzen, built together with a Buddhist temple, Miroku-ji, in 779 (English Wikipedia); in 749 its god was carried to Nara to guard the Great Buddha (the same page), and in 859 a branch was set up at Iwashimizu near the capital.

On the Kunisaki peninsula behind it stand the Tendai temples called the Rokugō Manzan (the page gives no dates). Its oracle in 769 checked the monk Dōkyō's bid for the throne, a story the campaign board mentions [not yet checked against the source]. Usa is the great landholder of north-east Kyushu, its estates in Buzen, Bungo and Hyūga; Ōtomo Yoshinao's claim to Buzen and Bungo (house tradition) puts him over Usa's lands [not yet checked against the source].

Who holds it

Name
not known for 1 January 1200
Title
Chief priest (daigūji) of the Usa house, with the shrine-temple (Miroku-ji) beside him
Family
The Usa family are the hereditary priests [not yet checked against the source]; the family sided with the Taira in 1183 to 1185 and was reduced afterwards [rec, thin]
Confidence
low

English Wikipedia (Usa Shrine) says nothing on the Usa family, the estates, the Taira or anything between 1180 and 1210; the family is recollection.

Overlord

none in law; the court and Iwashimizu are patrons

What it holds

  • The shrine-temple at Usa
  • The Kunisaki temples (Rokugō Manzan)
  • Estates in Buzen, Bungo and Hyūga [not yet checked against the source]

Allies and rivals

Tied to Iwashimizu and Tōdaiji by history; its neighbour is the Ōtomo claimant.

How things stand that morning

Large landholder; Kamakura's stewards and the Ōtomo claim lie over its lands.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: English Wikipedia (Usa Shrine) gives the founding and no Heian-Kamakura history; the rest is recollection.

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. Usa Shrine, English Wikipedia

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