Kamakura

Who holds it

Name

Minamoto no Yoriie

Title

Lord of Kamakura (Kamakura-dono)

Since

1199

Born

1182

Family

See the lord record.

Confidence

high

The brief; the campaign board; the Azuma Kagami through Mass.

Lord in 1200

Minamoto no Yoriie, with the Thirteen sitting beside him; the Saburai-dokoro keeps the peace in the city

Charter

None: a seat of government and not a chartered town.

Council

The Mandokoro (Ōe no Hiromoto), the Monchūjo (Miyoshi Yasunobu) and the Saburai-dokoro (bettō Wada Yoshimori) under the Thirteen; the city has no council of its own.

Communities

Housemen and their households; the court-trained officials from Kyoto (Ōe, Miyoshi, Nakahara, Nikaidō); monks; carvers and craftsmen; boatmen at Yuigahama. Population: no figure.

Fairs and markets

None known (the regulation of the markets of Kamakura belongs to 1213 and 1253, later).

Militia

The housemen's guard duty in Kamakura, ordered by the Saburai-dokoro; no numbers.

Walls and castle

No walls. The Ōkura mansion is the centre; the hills and the sea are the defence, and the passes are tracks.

Trade and crafts

Rice, salt, fish and cloth by sea through Yuigahama and Mutsuura; Song copper coin in use; armourers and smiths; carvers and painters of the Nara and Kyoto schools working for the Minamoto temples (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 2/1/13 (about 30 January 1200)First anniversary of Yoritomo's death at the Hokkedō.Depends on: The household at peace Stopped by: Only an order of Yoriie's, or the removal or death of Masako; it is a custom, not a decision.
2. Shōji 2/1/20 to 23 (about 6 to 9 February 1200)News reaches the city that Kajiwara is dead in Suruga and that Miura Yoshizumi has died; the sixty-six and the Hōjō have won the winter.Depends on: The roads and the news speed Stopped by: Not known: no source says what would prevent it.

Later, on the likely course

1. Kennin 3/9 (October 1203)Fighting in and round the city: the Hiki quarter is burned; Yoriie is sent to Izu.Depends on: The Hiki and Hōjō quarrel Stopped by: A Hiki victory

Places of note

• Ōkura mansion (Ōkura gosho): Yoritomo's mansion, seat of the Mandokoro, Monchūjo and Saburai-dokoro (site approximate)
• Tsurugaoka Hachimangū: The Minamoto war-god shrine at the head of Wakamiya Ōji
• Yuigahama: The beach where ships are drawn up and the town ends

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board puts Kamakura at 35.319 139.55, the gazetteer at 35.309 139.550: both fall in the valley; the campaign board's is nearer the shrine.

Evidence: The place is well attested; the details of the streets 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: The near land is drawn as seeds round the town; rights over men are scattered.

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