A swordsmiths' village in eastern Bizen on the Yoshii river, near Osafune, where the Ichimonji school forges long blades in the gorgeous clove-pattern temper that the age prizes.
The campaign board ties the Ichimonji school to Fukuoka and puts its first rank in these years; the names we know (Norimune, Sukemune) are active a little after 1200 and in the Gobankaji of Go-Toba (the cloistered emperor's rotating smiths) from 1208, which is later [not yet checked against the source]. We cannot say which smiths worked in 1199; the village is the point. Bizen's wider reputation (Osafune school) rests on the smiths of the later 13th century.
Who holds it
- Title
- Not known; the smith Norimune and the Ichimonji school are the names of the village's makers
- Confidence
- low
Recollection and the campaign board.
Overlord
the court
What the town holds
- The forges of the Fukuoka village [not yet checked against the source]
How things stand that morning
A craft village with an established reputation; no event known.
Trade and crafts
Swords; iron brought down the Yoshii river [not yet checked against the source].
Where the sources disagree
- The campaign board entry id bizen-kokufu: 'the Ichimonji forges of Fukuoka village are hammering the finest blades of the age' is a good statement of the school's later fame; Go-Toba's Gobankaji (1208) is later than 1 January 1200.
Evidence: The campaign board entry and recollection. The site is placed by the name Fukuoka, Bizen, to within a few kilometres.
"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.
On the map: Placed by name; the village lies within a few kilometres of the point.
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.
Sources and studies
- OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
- OMNIA board notes and places for area kjw (starting lead only, checked against the sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.