Oyama Tomomasa

Who he is

Name

Oyama Tomomasa

Title

Head of the Oyama house and constable (shugo) of Shimotsuke; also constable of Harima (English Wikipedia; the date is not pinned)

Since

Rewarded for the victory of Noginomiya (1183) with stewardships in Hitachi and Shimotsuke; the Shimotsuke constable's post is his by the 1190s (recalled)

Born

1155 (English Wikipedia); on the likely course he dies on 15 May 1238

Family

Second head of the Oyama. Father Oyama Masamitsu, who founded the house at the Oyama manor in Tsuga; mother the nun Samukawa-no-ama, Yoritomo's wet nurse (English Wikipedia). Brothers (recalled): Nagayama Munemasa and Yūki Tomomitsu. Also called Oyama Koshirō. A son, Oyama Tomonaga, is listed.

Confidence

high on the man, medium on the offices

English Wikipedia (Oyama Tomomasa). The brothers are recalled.

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie, as head of the housemen

What it holds

• The Oyama manor in Tsuga and the home district of Oyama in Shimotsuke
• The constable's post of Shimotsuke (recalled); the constable's post of Harima (English Wikipedia; date not pinned)
• Stewardship of Murata Shimo manor in Hitachi and of Higano township in Shimotsuke (English Wikipedia, rewards for 1183)
• A place in the Kamakura guard: he is a 'lieutenant of the Right Outer Palace Guards' in the court's rank

How it was acquired

By inheritance and Yoritomo's grants after the war of 1183.

Allies and rivals

Allies: his brothers Yūki and Nagayama, the Chiba, Miura and Hatakeyama, the Hōjō; the Utsunomiya and the Ashikaga are his Shimotsuke neighbours and the three houses are bound by marriage into the Hōjō in the recalled lists. Past rivals: Shida Yoshihiro (beaten 1183), the Northern Fujiwara (beaten 1189).

How things stand that morning

At home in Shimotsuke or at Kamakura for the New Year audiences. The house has just helped to break Kajiwara and expects the Thirteen to be tidied.

Wealth

The rice of the Watarase-Kinu plain, the Kinu river landings and the road tolls on the way north; no figure.

Military

The Oyama housemen and the Yūki and Nagayama branches; no numbers.

Threats

• The Hiki and Kajiwara's friends, until Kajiwara is gone
• A court claim to Shimotsuke's governorship (the Ashikaga hold it, recalled)

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 (1200)After Kajiwara's fall the Oyama stand with the old guard; nothing special is recorded for Tomomasa for the year (recalled).Depends on: The conditions of 1 January 1200 continuing: no player action in the east that changes them is assumed. Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Later, on the likely course

1. Genkyū 2/6 (about July 1205)The Oyama stand with the Hōjō against Hatakeyama Shigetada (recalled).Depends on: Tokimasa's accusation of Shigetada Stopped by: A different line-up in the quarrel

Where the sources disagree

• The English page does not name his wife or the Kajiwara petition; the story that he and his brothers took part is recalled from the Azuma Kagami through the brief and other pages.

Evidence: A good English page for the man, nothing on 1200 itself.

On the map: Home district 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