Buddhist monasteries · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Yōfukuji (Nikaidō)

Yōfukuji stands at the head of the Nikaidō valley east of the Ōkura mansion.

Yoritomo began it in 1189 to console the dead of the Ōshū war, copying the great Hiraizumi hall that his own campaign had burned, and had it dedicated in 1192 (recalled). It is a Pure Land (Amida) temple with a two-storied hall, a pond and a garden. The family of Nikaidō Yukimasa takes its name from the neighbourhood. The temple burned in 1405 and is gone.

Who holds it

Name
not pinned for 1200
Title
Head of the temple
Since
not applicable
Family
not known
Confidence
low

Recollection: begun in 1189 after the fall of Hiraizumi, consecrated in 1192 (Kenkyū 3), a Pure Land temple with a two-storied hall (the Nikaidō) copying the Fujiwara's Ōchōju-in; no page opened.

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie as head of the house

What it holds

  • The hall, pond and garden at the Nikaidō valley

How it was acquired

Built by Yoritomo 1189 to 1192 (recalled).

Allies and rivals

Masako and the Hōjō maintain it.

How things stand that morning

Standing, new.

Wealth

Endowments; no figure.

Threats

  • Fire

Places of note

  • Yōfukuji: Site of the Nikaidō temple (approximate)

Where the sources disagree

  • The assignment asks for the Kamakura temples standing on 1 January: the dates here are recalled.

Evidence: Recollection only.

On the map: Point only.

Primary sources for Kamakura regime

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
  • Diary of the Inokuma Regent: the diary of Konoe Iezane, Konoe Iezane (近衛家実) (1197 to 1218, as a daily diary). The diary of the regent's heir, aged twenty-one in 1200 and already a senior courtier under his father Konoe Motomichi, who was regent (sessho) for the child emperor Tsuchimikado. 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: Northern Fujiwara (read this session; thin)

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