Sasaki of Ōmi

Who he is

Name

Sasaki Sadatsuna

Title

Constable (shugo) of Ōmi [not yet checked against the source]

Since

1185 or soon after [not yet checked against the source]

Born

not known to me; on the likely course he dies in 1205 [not yet checked against the source]

Family

Eldest of four brothers (Sadatsuna, Tsunetaka, Moritsuna, Takatsuna) who joined Yoritomo in 1180 with their father Sasaki Hideyoshi, who fell at the Ōhara fight in Ōmi in 1184 (English Wikipedia, Sasaki clan)

Confidence

medium

English Wikipedia (Sasaki clan) confirms the four sons and the Ōmi shugo title for the family 'and other provinces'; Sadatsuna as constable of Ōmi is recollection.

Overlord

Kamakura

What it holds

• The constable's charge of Ōmi
• Sasaki-no-shō near Azuchi and Gamō, east of the lake [not yet checked against the source]

How it was acquired

By Yoritomo's grant after the Genpei war.

Allies and rivals

Allied with Kamakura; sits next to Enryakuji's Biwa shore, a neighbour he does not command.

How things stand that morning

Constable of a province that the temples and the court's estates share between them: his part is the road and the peace.

Military

The Sasaki housemen; no numbers.

Places of note

• Sasaki heartland: Sasaki-no-shō and Azuchi, east of Lake Biwa [not yet checked against the source]

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: One English Wikipedia statement and recollection.

Primary sources for Kyoto court

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
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. 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

4 more in the sources library for Korea and Japan.