Magnates and their honours · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Hiki Yoshikazu and the Hiki

The Hiki are the family that fed Yoritomo in exile, and Yoshikazu is the adopted son of the nurse who did it.

That debt and the marriage of his daughter to Yoriie make him the most important man in the young lord's household. He is a member of the Thirteen, held, as we recall, the constable's posts of Shinano and Kōzuke and the command of the Hokuriku road army in the Ōshū war of 1189 (recalled, not re-read), and has a district of his own in Musashi (Hiki, round Ranzan and Ogawa) and a quarter in Kamakura (Hikigayatsu). In the Kajiwara affair they are losing their partner on the Yoriie side; the Hōjō, Miura and old guard who broke Kajiwara are the rivals.

On the likely course, in October 1203, Hōjō Tokimasa kills Yoshikazu at his house at Nagoe and the Hiki are destroyed; the Azuma Kagami says the Hiki rose first, the Gukanshō that the Hōjō plotted it.

Who he is

Name
Hiki Yoshikazu
Title
Head of the Hiki; member of the Thirteen; Yoriie's father-in-law; constable of Shinano and Kōzuke (recalled)
Since
Thirteen since 8 May 1199
Born
not known
Family
Adopted by Hiki no Ama, Yoritomo's wet nurse, who with her husband fed Yoritomo through his twenty years of exile in Izu. His daughter Wakasa no Tsubone is Yoriie's wife and the mother of Ichiman. The Hiki also include Hiki Munetomo and Hiki Tokikazu (companions of Yoriie, recalled), and Himenomae (Yoshitoki's wife). The English Wikipedia names him as a powerful Musashi houseman adopted by Yoritomo's nurse.
Confidence
medium

English Wikipedia (Hiki Yoshikazu): his daughter's marriage and Ichiman, his death on 8 October 1203; other details (posts, the Hokurikudō command of 1189) recalled and not re-read.

Overlord

Yoriie

What it holds

  • The Hiki district of Musashi (round Ranzan and Ogawa, in the Hiki hills)
  • Hikigayatsu, the Hiki quarter of Kamakura
  • Constable's posts in Shinano and Kōzuke (recalled, not re-read) and a share in Kamakura's Hokuriku business
  • A seat in the Thirteen
  • Yoriie's wife and son in the Hiki household

How it was acquired

By Hiki no Ama's kindness to Yoritomo in exile and by the marriage of Wakasa no Tsubone to Yoriie.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Yoriie, Kajiwara (until he fell: out of favour on 1 January, dead on 6 February on the likely course), the sons Munetomo and Tokikazu. Rivals: the Hōjō (Tokimasa, Masako) and the old guard.

How things stand that morning

At the height of their credit with Yoriie and short of friends among the housemen. Kajiwara, the other Yoriie loyalist, is falling.

Wealth

Musashi lands and, in the recalled reading, the revenues of the constable's posts in the Shinano-Kōzuke country.

Military

The Hiki house's retainers; no numbers.

Threats

  • The Hōjō, if Yoriie loses power
  • Isolation after Kajiwara's fall

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. Kennin 3/7 to 9/2 (about 29 August to 8 October 1203)Yoriie's illness, his division of the realm and Yoshikazu's killing at Nagoe; the Hiki are destroyed and Ichiman killed.Depends on: Yoriie's illness; Tokimasa's resolve Stopped by: Yoriie's recovery, or a Hiki move against Senman, which the Hōjō say took place

Places of note

  • Hikigayatsu (Hiki quarter, Kamakura): The family's town house (position approximate)
  • Hiki district in Musashi: Home country of the Hiki; the exact hall is not located

Where the sources disagree

  • English Wikipedia's page does not name Wakasa no Tsubone or the constable's posts; both come from our recollection. The brief says 'the Hiki'.
  • The Hiki's later quarter Hikigayatsu is the site of Myōhonji (1260s), not yet built.

Evidence: Yoshikazu's role and fall are attested; his posts are recalled.

On the map: Only the Musashi home district is drawn.

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: Hiki Yoshikazu (read this session; thin)

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