Kasai Kiyoshige

Who he is

Name

Kasai Kiyoshige

Title

Commissioner for Ōshū (Ōshū sōbugyō); houseman of Kasai in Shimōsa

Since

Named after the fall of Hiraizumi in autumn 1189 (recalled)

Born

1161 (recalled); on the likely course he dies in 1238

Family

Of the Taira of the Chichibu and Toshima line, seated at Kasai (Katsushika) on the Shimōsa-Musashi border (recalled). He is one of the first lords to join Yoritomo at the Sumida crossing in 1180.

Confidence

medium

Recalled from the Azuma Kagami through Mass; no page on him could be opened (the English title was not found); the brief names the office.

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie, through the Mandokoro and the Monchūjo

What it holds

• The office of Ōshū sōbugyō: oversight of the stewards and housemen in Mutsu and Dewa
• Large stewardships round Hiraizumi and in Mutsu (recalled, not pinned)
• The Kasai home lands in Shimōsa on the east bank of the Sumida

How it was acquired

By Yoritomo's appointment in 1189 and the grants that went with it (recalled).

Allies and rivals

Allies: the Chiba, Isawa Iezumi, the Hōjō. The old Ōshū retainers are not reconciled (Ōkawa Kanetō's rising); the court's governor of Mutsu holds the paper title.

How things stand that morning

At work on the north's affairs from Kamakura or Hiraizumi (his usual place is not pinned).

Wealth

Mutsu gold and horses by way of the stewards; rice and silk of the Kasai home lands; no figure.

Military

The call-out of the northern housemen; no numbers.

Threats

• A new rising among the old Ōshū retainers
• Quarrels between the stewards
• The court's claims to Mutsu's governorship

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. 1201 and after (not dated)Kasai remains commissioner through the 1200s; his descendants hold Mutsu lands for centuries (recalled).Depends on: Kamakura's retaining the north Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Where the sources disagree

• The title Ōshū sōbugyō is the brief's; the date of his appointment and the districts he received are recalled and not pinned.

Evidence: No page opened; office from the brief; dates recalled.

On the map: Home district only; the commissioner's authority covers Mutsu and Dewa.

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