Every province of the west still has a governor (kokushi), a courtier appointed by the court, but most are absentee and send a deputy (mokudai) to the provincial office (kokuga).
The office itself is run by hereditary local clerks and warriors (zaichō kanjin), such as the Ōuchi in Suō and the Abiru on Tsushima, who keep the registers, collect what is collected and answer to whoever holds the province. Many provinces are benefice provinces (chigyō-koku): the court assigns their revenue, for years or for good, to a great person or institution (Suō to Tōdaiji). Above and beside the governor, Kamakura's constable (shugo) keeps the peace in the provinces where one was placed, and its stewards (jitō) hold the former Taira and rebel lands.
So the rule of a province is never one man: the governor's paper, the proprietor's revenue, the constable's army, the steward's fields.
Who he is
- Name
- not known by name for 1 January 1200; the appointment lists were not reachable
- Title
- Governors (kokushi) appointed by the court, mostly absentee
- Confidence
- low
Structure from the standard studies; no governor's name is given because none was checked.
Overlord
The court
What it holds
- The provincial offices (kokuga) of the forty-odd provinces of the west
- The registers of public land (kokugaryō) which still pay tax in a few places
How things stand that morning
The system works on paper. Each province record gives what is known of its governor, constable and temple powers; where a name is not known it says so.
Wealth
Tax in rice and goods from public land, a share to the governor, a share to the proprietor.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Structure only; no names.
Primary sources for Kyoto court
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
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. 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
4 more in the sources library for Korea and Japan.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
- Jeffrey Mass, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan (background reading, not re-read in this session)
- Cambridge History of Japan vol. 3, Medieval Japan (background reading, not re-read in this session)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.