Isawa Iezumi

Who he is

Name

Isawa Iezumi

Title

Caretaker of the Mutsu provincial offices (Mutsu rusu-shiki)

Since

Named in 1189 or the following year (recalled)

Born

not known

Family

His descendants take the name Rusu from the office (recalled). Whether he came from a Kyoto official family is recalled, not pinned.

Confidence

low

The brief and recollection; no page opened.

Overlord

Kasai Kiyoshige as commissioner; the court's governor of Mutsu in law

What it holds

• The Mutsu rusu-dokoro at Taga castle (the old provincial centre)
• The province's records and the collection of the public revenue (kokuga)

How it was acquired

By Kamakura's appointment after 1189 (recalled).

Allies and rivals

Allied with Kasai Kiyoshige and the Hōjō; the stewards who hold Fujiwara lands are his clients and his rivals.

How things stand that morning

At Taga; routine.

Wealth

The public revenue of Mutsu, partly sent to the court and partly kept; no figure.

Military

No troops of his own beyond the rusu-dokoro's guard; no numbers.

Threats

• The stewards' encroachments
• Court versus Kamakura over the province's revenue

Where the sources disagree

• The rusu-shiki office and Isawa's name are the brief's; his origin and his dates are not pinned.

Evidence: Office from the brief; no page opened.

On the map: Seat 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