Ashikaga house

Who he is

Name

Ashikaga Yoshiuji (a child of ten or eleven)

Title

Head of the Ashikaga house: the boy Yoshiuji (born 1189), under the care of his mother Hōjō Tokiko

Since

His father Yoshikane died on 5 April 1199 (the English page's date, not converted from the lunar count)

Born

1189 (English Wikipedia: Ashikaga Yoshikane)

Family

Father Ashikaga Yoshikane (c. 1154 to 1199), a houseman of Shimotsuke who became a monk in 1195 under the name Gishō and withdrew to the Kabasakidera temple at Ashikaga; mother Hōjō Tokiko, a daughter of Hōjō Tokimasa (married 1181). An older half-brother, Ashikaga Yoshizumi (1175 to 1210), is listed by the page; his mother is not named there (he is recalled as the son who later takes the Hatakeyama name; that is after 1205).

Confidence

medium

English Wikipedia (Ashikaga Yoshikane): appointed governor of Shimotsuke in 1185 (the page's word), commander of Kamakura's forces against the Ōkawa Kanetō revolt in 1190, Buddhist monk 1195, died 5 April 1199.

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie; the Hōjō as the child's maternal kin

What it holds

• The Ashikaga manor in Shimotsuke (Ashikaga-no-shō) with the residence that is becoming the Banna-ji
• Offices in the Kantō held by Yoshikane (a governorship of Shimotsuke in the page's word; the Kazusa governorship is recalled and not pinned)

How it was acquired

By descent and by the Hōjō marriage.

Allies and rivals

Hōjō, who are the boy's maternal kin; the Nitta, of the same stock; Oyama and Utsunomiya, neighbours.

How things stand that morning

A minority of about nine months, under the Hōjō's eye.

Wealth

The rice and silk of the Ashikaga plain, the Watarase river, and the road to Kōzuke; no figure.

Military

Ashikaga housemen; no numbers.

Threats

• A minority in a house that others covet
• Hōjō guardianship

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1205 (after Genkyū 2/6, July)The half-brother Yoshizumi marries the widow of Hatakeyama Shigetada, a Hōjō daughter, and takes the Hatakeyama name (recalled).Depends on: Shigetada's death and the Hōjō's wishes Stopped by: The bridegroom's death, a change of Hōjō policy, or the court's choice of another bride.

Places of note

• Banna-ji (Ashikaga residence turned temple): The family's residence-temple, recalled as founded in 1196 by Yoshikane (not on the English page; not re-checked)

Where the sources disagree

• The English page says Yoshikane's mother was an adopted daughter of Fujiwara no Suenori and also a daughter of Fujiwara no Noritada; we leave her unnamed. Suenori was the Atsuta great priest and Yoritomo's maternal grandfather, so the Ashikaga and the Minamoto head share Atsuta kin; this is recalled, not on the page.
• The page lists Yoshizumi as b. 1175, before the 1181 marriage; he is by another mother.

Evidence: A clear English page for the father; the boy's age is from the page's list.

On the map: Home district 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