Kyoto shugo (Takayoshi)

Who he is

Name

Ichijō Takayoshi

Title

Constable of Kyoto (Kyōto shugo) for Kamakura [not yet checked against the source]

Since

After the death of his father Ichijō Yoshiyasu in 1197 [not yet checked against the source]

Born

about 1176 [not yet checked against the source]

Family

Son of Ichijō Yoshiyasu (1147-1197) and Yoritomo's sister, so Yoritomo's nephew; brother of Nobuyoshi and brother-in-law of Kujō Yoshitsune [not yet checked against the source]

Confidence

low

The brief names Takayoshi as Kyoto shugo (marked recollection). The Michichika page's plot of 1199 is by Takayoshi, not Yoshiyasu (brief). We found no source for his dates of office.

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie, head of the Kamakura house (not yet shogun)

What it holds

• The constable's post at Kyoto and its guard
• A mansion in the capital and the old Taira compound of Rokuhara east of the Kamo, used by Kamakura's men [board]

How it was acquired

By succession to his father's post, confirmed by Yoritomo.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Kujō Yoshitsune, the Ichijō family; Kamakura's weak new head Yoriie. Rival: Michichika.

How things stand that morning

The Kyoto shugo's office is the only Kamakura presence in the capital. It is not yet the Rokuhara tandai (1221). The housemen of the guard serve in rotation and answer to him and to their own constables. His own later fate is not pinned: our recollection is that he dies young, between 1200 and 1203, and that Hiraga Tomomasa is Kyoto shugo from 1203 or 1204 (killed 1205); no source for either was reachable.

Wealth

His house's estates and the guard's maintenance by Kamakura; no figure used.

Military

A guard of Kantō housemen in rotation; no number given.

Threats

• Michichika's party
• Kamakura's own quarrels: the Council of Thirteen is split and Kajiwara Kagetoki falls (formal dismissal about 5 January 1200 and death about 6 February, both the likely course; he is out of favour on 1 January)

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. 1200 to 1203, not pinnedA new Kyoto shugo is named (Hiraga Tomomasa from 1203 or 1204, recollection)Depends on: Takayoshi's death or recall Stopped by: Takayoshi's survival

Places of note

• Rokuhara: Old Taira compound east of the Kamo, used by Kamakura's men

Where the sources disagree

• Board: Rokuhara 'a garrison and a listening post' (board, rokuhara); the brief says it is a district with a constable and housemen on guard. Agreed: no tandai office until 1221.

Evidence: The brief and one English Wikipedia statement; his dates and the post's later holders are recollection.

On the map: A tiny district; the constable's powers are over people and guard, not ground.

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