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

Hōjō Yoshitoki

Yoshitoki is thirty-six, a fighting man, married to a Hiki woman and loyal to his sister.

He sits beside his father on the Thirteen. In 1200 his tie to the Hiki through Himenomae is a bridge, not yet a cause of shame: on the likely course, in 1203, he is the one who must cut it. He takes his byname Eto from a place in Izu. On the likely course he later becomes shikken (1205) and rules until 1224.

Who he is

Name
Hōjō Yoshitoki
Title
Member of the Council of Thirteen; Masako's brother
Since
Thirteen since 8 May 1199
Born
1163 (about 36)
Family
Son of Tokimasa; Masako's brother; his wife in this period is Himenomae, of the Hiki house (the father is variously given: not pinned); son Tomotoki b. about 1193 (Yasutoki, b. 1183, is by another mother).
Confidence
medium

English Wikipedia (Hōjō Tokimasa); the Yoshitoki page was not read.

Overlord

Yoriie

What it holds

  • A seat in the Thirteen
  • Hōjō lands in Izu (the place Eto, near Nirayama)
  • A house at Kamakura

How it was acquired

By inheritance and service.

Allies and rivals

His father and sister; the Hiki are his wife's kin.

How things stand that morning

At Kamakura. On the likely course (below) the sources know him in autumn 1200 as the man Masako sends to settle the quarrel between Yoriie and Adachi Kagemori; that has not happened on 1 January.

Military

Hōjō retainers; no numbers.

Threats

  • The Hiki quarrel, which cuts through his own marriage

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 2/8, about late September 1200Sent by Masako to calm Adachi Kagemori after Yoriie takes his concubine.Depends on: Masako's order Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Later, on the likely course

  1. Genkyū 2/6 to 7 (about July to August 1205)Leads the army that destroys Hatakeyama Shigetada, then helps remove his father and becomes shikken.Depends on: Tokimasa's plot Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Well attested; details of 1200 beyond the Kagemori affair are not known.

On the map: Shares the Hōjō's home district.

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: Hōjō Tokimasa (read this session; thin)

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