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

Ōsumi kokufu

The provincial seat (kokufu) of Ōsumi, at Kokubu. Ōsumi is the south end of Kyushu with the volcano of Sakurajima across the bay; Kokubu stands at the head of Kagoshima bay.

Tane and Yaku are its islands. The Shimazu are its constables by house tradition (Shimazu Tadahisa). As everywhere in 1200 the governor (kokushi) is a courtier named by the court, often a favourite of the cloistered emperor or of a regent house, who may never go; his deputy (mokudai) and the local officials (zaichō kanjin) keep the office, and the revenue is divided among the governor, the proprietors of the estates and, where one is named, the Kamakura constable (shugo) and stewards (jitō) who keep the peace.

The Chinese grid of the compound has mostly returned to fields [not yet checked against the source]. The governor's name for 1 January 1200 is not known.

Who holds it

Name
not known for 1 January 1200
Title
Governor (kokushi) with his deputy (mokudai) and the local officials
Confidence
low

No governor's list was reachable for 1200.

Lord in 1200

The Shimazu as constable and steward (house tradition); the Konoe as proprietor.

Overlord

the court

How things stand that morning

A provincial seat at work; no event known for 1199 or 1200.

Trade and crafts

Rice and tax goods; local markets.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The campaign board entry and recollection; the site of the kokufu in 1200 is not pinned.

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

On the map: Placed on the campaign board's or the gazetteer's site; the kokufu of 1200 lay within a few kilometres.

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. OMNIA kja regional brief (KJA_BRIEF.md), the campaign's dated traps and realm table
  2. 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.