Barons and castellans · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Kajiwara Kagetoki

Kajiwara Kagetoki is the man the housemen hate most.

A Sagami warrior who changed sides to Yoritomo in 1180 and was made his chief of retainers' discipline, he was the deputy head of the Saburai-dokoro (under Wada Yoshimori) and, in the common story, the man whose slanders destroyed Yoshitsune in 1185. After Yoritomo died he was Yoriie's chief adviser until, in the tenth month of 1199, Yūki Tomomitsu was reported to have said a loyal retainer should not serve two lords and Kajiwara slandered him to Yoriie; a woman of Masako's household (Awa no Tsubone, in the Azuma Kagami's story) told Tomomitsu; sixty-six housemen under the Miura, Chiba and Wada put their names to a petition for Kajiwara's removal, and Ōe no Hiromoto carried it to Yoriie, who gave way. On 1 January Kajiwara is out of favour and out of the Saburai-dokoro, either already at Ichinomiya in Sagami or, on the brief's reading, still to be formally dismissed from Kamakura on 12/18 (about 5 or 6 January).

What the sources have after that is the likely course (below), not the state of 1 January: he sets out for Kyoto with his sons, to raise Takeda Ariyoshi as a rival lord, in the story the Kamakura men tell afterwards, and on 1/20 (about 6 February) the Suruga housemen kill him and his party near the Kiyomi barrier or Kambara; the Azuma Kagami counts thirty-three of his house dead. Those who gain: the Hōjō, the Miura, Wada and Chiba houses, and Yūki Tomomitsu; the Hiki lose their ally.

Who he is

Name
Kajiwara Kagetoki
Title
Deputy (shoshi) of the Saburai-dokoro until his dismissal; member of the Thirteen; lord of Kajiwara and Ichinomiya in Sagami
Since
Served Yoritomo from 1180; the shoshi's office from the 1180s (recalled)
Born
about 1140 (English-language sources; one French page gives about 1162, which is the age of his son Kagesue)
Family
Sons Kagesue (b. 1162), Kagetaka and Kageie (recalled); kin of the Kajiwara house of Sagami. On the sources' sequence he is killed with his sons and kin on 6 February 1200; that is the likely course below, not yet true on 1 January.
Confidence
high on the death date, medium on the sequence

English Wikipedia (Kajiwara Kagetoki; says he fell with his son Kagesue on 6 February 1200); de.wikipedia (same date, the plot to set up Takeda Ariyoshi); zh.wikipedia page said only that the Kamakura housemen impeached him; fr.wikipedia says he was killed by Yoriie's officers in Suruga. The day-by-day sequence is the brief's own reading of the Azuma Kagami, [own, rec]; ja.wikipedia was refused.

Overlord

Yoriie

What it holds

  • Kajiwara (in Kamakura-gun, Sagami) and the estate of Ichinomiya (Kōza-gun), by the Sagami Ichinomiya shrine at Samukawa
  • The deputy's post in the Saburai-dokoro (lost in the fall)
  • A constable's post in Harima (recalled; one report adds Bizen), held through a deputy: lost with the fall
  • A seat in the Thirteen (lost)

How it was acquired

By his change of sides in 1180 and by Yoritomo's confidence.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Yoriie, the Hiki. Enemies: Yūki Tomomitsu, the Miura, Wada, Chiba and Hatakeyama, and the Hōjō family.

How things stand that morning

On 1 January he is finished but alive: the petition has been answered, he has withdrawn or is about to be sent from Kamakura, and he has not yet moved. The campaign board places him at Ichinomiya, which may be five days early on the brief's reading of the date of dismissal. The sequence the sources give is: petition (autumn 1199), dismissal from Kamakura 12/18 (about 5 or 6 January), departure from Ichinomiya about 1/19 (about 5 February), death 1/20 (6 February); all of it after the petition is the likely course, not the state of 1 January.

Wealth

Kajiwara and Ichinomiya; confiscated at his fall (the heirs of the confiscated lands are not named in any source we read).

Military

His sons and household retainers, a party of thirty-odd on the road west; no numbers beyond the Azuma Kagami's count of the dead.

Threats

  • The housemen's hatred
  • Kamakura's orders to the Suruga housemen on the road west

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. Shōji 1/12/18 (about 5 or 6 January 1200)Dismissed from Kamakura; his deputy post in the Saburai-dokoro is taken; he lives at Ichinomiya.Depends on: Yoriie bowing to the petition Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.
  2. Shōji 2/1/19 (about 5 February 1200)Leaves Ichinomiya with his sons and kin for Kyoto, to join Takeda Ariyoshi in the Azuma Kagami's later account.Depends on: A decision to flee rather than wait for judgement Stopped by: Staying put, in which case he is arrested at Ichinomiya
  3. Shōji 2/1/20 (6 February 1200)Killed with Kagesue and others by the Suruga housemen near the Kiyomi barrier or Kambara (the sources name Kikkawa men, Kiyomi, Kambara and Kitsunegasaki; Kikugawa is in the brief and lies in Tōtōmi: not pinned).Depends on: Kamakura's orders and the Suruga men's readiness Stopped by: Passing the barrier before the order arrived

Places of note

  • Ichinomiya (Samukawa), Kajiwara's estate: Estate beside the Sagami Ichinomiya shrine
  • Kiyomi barrier (Kiyomi-seki, Okitsu): Tōkaidō checkpoint under Satta pass; the likely end of the road west
  • Kambara: Post town east of Okitsu in Suruga; one of the places named

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board puts Kajiwara at Ichinomiya on 1 January in disgrace: possible on one reading of the Azuma Kagami (a withdrawal after the petition); the brief gives a formal dismissal on 12/18, four or five days later. We give both and mark it not pinned.
  • The brief names Kikugawa, Kambara and the Kiyomi barrier as places in the death story. Kambara and the Kiyomi barrier (Okitsu) are in Suruga on the Tōkaidō; Kikugawa is a river and town in Tōtōmi, west of the Ōi river, and is too far for a party killed on the 20th after leaving Ichinomiya on the 19th: it may be a confusion with the Suruga family Kikkawa. Not pinned.
  • A French Wikipedia page gives his birth as about 1162; that is the age of his son Kagesue. We use about 1140.

Evidence: Death date sure from three Wikipedia editions; the rest from the brief and recollection.

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

On the map: The estates are drawn as held until the fall; the bounds are rough.

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: Kajiwara Kagetoki (read this session; thin)
  5. de.wikipedia: Kajiwara Kagetoki (read this session; gives the death date 6 February 1200, the plot to raise Takeda Ariyoshi, and nothing more)
  6. fr.wikipedia: Kajiwara Kagetoki (read this session; thin)
  7. zh.wikipedia: 梶原景時 (read this session; thin)

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