Hōjō Masako

Who he is

Name

Hōjō Masako

Title

Widow of Minamoto no Yoritomo; Buddhist nun (the Azuma Kagami calls her Ama Mi-daidokoro, the nun consort); not a regent

Since

Became a nun after Yoritomo's death in 1199 (the day was not re-read)

Born

1157 (about 42 on 1 January 1200)

Family

Eldest daughter of Hōjō Tokimasa; sister of Yoshitoki, of Awa no Tsubone (Senman's nurse) and of the women married to the Ashikaga, Hatakeyama, Inage, Hiraga and Utsunomiya houses; mother of Ōhime (d. 1197), Yoriie, Otohime (d. 1199) and Senman.

Confidence

high

Brief; English Wikipedia on Hōjō Tokimasa (the family marriages). The page on Masako was not read; the brief says it wrongly calls her regent.

Overlord

none in the household; the court's rank and the nun's vows

What it holds

• The inner household of the Ōkura mansion and the care of Senman
• The memorial services for Yoritomo at the Hokkedō (the hall holding his remains)
• Alms, endowments and, on the likely course from later in 1200, Jufukuji at Kamegayatsu (not yet founded on 1 January)
• No office and no named estate: her power is the household's and her family's

How it was acquired

By marriage to Yoritomo in 1177 and by Yoritomo's death.

Allies and rivals

Her father Tokimasa and brother Yoshitoki; her sister Awa no Tsubone; the Miura and Chiba houses; against them stand the Hiki, who hold Yoriie's wife and son and have the foster-mother's claim on him.

How things stand that morning

Keeping the household together after the petition against Kajiwara; preparing the first anniversary (1/13, about 30 January); thinking of Jufukuji. She is not at the head of a faction in the open: she acts through her family.

Wealth

Whatever the household and the memorial endowments hold; no figure.

Military

None of her own; her father's and brother's men are the Hōjō's.

Threats

• The Hiki, if they win Yoriie's ear and Ichiman becomes heir
• Yoriie's temper
• The death of Senman, her second son

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.

In 1200

1. Shōji 2/1/13 (about 30 January 1200)First anniversary of Yoritomo's death, kept at the Hokkedō.Depends on: The conditions of 1 January 1200 continuing: no player action in the east that changes them is assumed. Stopped by: Only an order of Yoriie's, or the removal or death of Masako; it is a custom, not a decision.
2. Shōji 2 (1200), month not pinnedShe founds Jufukuji with Eisai as first abbot, on the old house site of Yoshitomo at Kamegayatsu.Depends on: Eisai coming to Kamakura; her endowment Stopped by: Masako's death or change of mind, Eisai's refusal, or a decision of Kamakura or the court against a Zen house.
3. Shōji 2/8, about late September 1200She stops the quarrel between Yoriie and Adachi Kagemori.Depends on: The conditions of 1 January 1200 continuing: no player action in the east that changes them is assumed. Stopped by: Her authority

Later, on the likely course

1. Kennin 3 (1203) to Genkyū 2 (1205)She sides with her father against the Hiki and later with her brother against her father (Tokimasa's fall, Genkyū 2/7).Depends on: The Hōjō quarrel with Yoriie's party; Tokimasa's plots Stopped by: Yoriie's recovery in 1203

Places of note

• Hokkedō (Yoritomo's hall): The private Buddhist hall of Yoritomo's mansion, holding his remains (position approximate)
• Jufukuji site at Kamegayatsu: The old house site of Yoshitomo, given to Eisai in 1200

Where the sources disagree

• The brief says the English Hōjō Masako page calls her regent: she is not; the regency of her father (shikken) begins in 1203 and 'ama-shōgun' is a title of the 1220s.
• The campaign board's calendar says Masako calls Eisai east and founds Jufukuji; Eisai's Shōfukuji at Hakata is of 1195 and Kenninji of 1202.

Evidence: The woman is well attested but mostly through Hōjō-friendly texts.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Points only: she holds no land of her own that a source names.

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