Barons and castellans · The Kamakura house and its housemen · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Wada Yoshimori

Yoshimori is the housemen's own officer: since 1180 the head of the Saburai-dokoro, the office that keeps the roll of the housemen, calls them to service and judges the soldiers' disputes.

With Kajiwara Kagetoki out of the office (and dead within weeks on the likely course), he alone runs it. He is blunt and well liked by the warriors, a Miura cousin who sat on the Thirteen and signed the petition. Wada is a place on the Miura peninsula. On the likely course his family rises after 1200 and is broken by the Hōjō in 1213.

Who he is

Name
Wada Yoshimori
Title
Bettō (head) of the Saburai-dokoro; member of the Thirteen
Since
Bettō since 1180 (English Wikipedia: first bettō of the Samurai-dokoro)
Born
1147 (about 52)
Family
A branch of the Miura of Sagami, cousin of Yoshizumi. Later Wada Rebellion of 1213 destroys him.
Confidence
medium

English Wikipedia (Wada Yoshimori): first bettō of the Samurai-dokoro; the Wada rebellion of 1213; in Kazusa when the war began. His 1193 request to be Kazusa-no-suke is recalled.

Overlord

Yoriie

What it holds

  • The Saburai-dokoro (the housemen's office)
  • Wada district on the Miura peninsula
  • A seat in the Thirteen

How it was acquired

By early service in 1180 and cousinhood with the Miura.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Miura, Chiba, Hatakeyama; rival of Kajiwara.

How things stand that morning

At the peak of his influence; Kajiwara, his deputy, is out of favour and the deputy's post is about to fall vacant (the formal dismissal is about 5 January).

Military

Wada retainers; no numbers.

Threats

  • Hōjō jealousy later

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. Kenpō 1/5/2 to 3 (about June 1213)The Wada rebellion: Wada Yoshimori and his family are defeated and killed by the Hōjō.Depends on: Hōjō-Wada rivalry after 1200 Stopped by: A change in who holds the power to order it (see the dependency), or the victim's escape or protection.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The office is attested; the details of 1200 are not.

On the map: Rough.

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: Wada Yoshimori (read this session; thin)
  5. English Wikipedia: Miura clan (read this session; thin)

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