Hereditary lords · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Satake house

The Satake are the cautionary tale of the east.

A Minamoto house of Hitachi with its seat at Satake, they sided with the Taira in the Genpei war and were crushed by Yoritomo in 1180, their land confiscated (English Wikipedia; the recalled name of the battle is Kinpara). Nine years later, in 1189, Yoritomo forgave Takayoshi's son Hideyoshi and took him as a vassal, and Hideyoshi served in the attack on Mutsu; the clan 'later returned to its old Hitachi territory'. The page says the Satake became constables of Hitachi only in the Muromachi age.

In 1200 the constable of Hitachi is Hatta Tomoie, so the Satake are a houseman house, restored but watched, seated in the north of Hitachi (Ōta, the campaign board's identification) on the edge of the Mito and Ōshū roads.

Who he is

Name
Satake Hideyoshi
Title
Head of the Satake house; houseman restored in 1189
Since
Forgiven by Yoritomo in 1189 and made his vassal; served in the Ōshū campaign (English Wikipedia: Satake clan)
Born
recalled as 1151; on the likely course he dies in 1225 (recalled)
Family
Son of Satake Takayoshi, who sided with Taira no Kiyomori; descended from Minamoto no Yoshimitsu through Yoshinobu and Masayoshi (English Wikipedia).
Confidence
medium

English Wikipedia (Satake clan); the dates are recalled.

Overlord

Minamoto no Yoriie; the Hitachi constable Hatta Tomoie in the call-out of housemen

What it holds

  • The Satake manors in northern Hitachi, with the seat at Ōta (the campaign board's point, likely)
  • A houseman's stewardships confirmed in 1189 (not itemised)

How it was acquired

Lost 1180, returned 1189 (English Wikipedia).

Allies and rivals

Rival in the past: the Chiba and the Kazusa lords who helped crush them in 1180. Watched by the Hitachi constable (Hatta Tomoie).

How things stand that morning

Restored, loyal on paper, and keeping quiet.

Wealth

Rice and horses of the Hitachi uplands, the Kuji river landings; no figure.

Military

Satake housemen; no numbers.

Threats

  • Hatta Tomoie's constable's powers
  • Memory of 1180

Where the sources disagree

  • The English page gives Masayoshi's dates as 1081 to 1147 and also a death in 1106; it does not name the leader crushed in 1180. The campaign board calls Ōta the Satake seat 'likely': accepted with that word.

Evidence: One English page; the dates are recalled.

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

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

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: Satake clan (read this session; thin)

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