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. It ends in 1200, so its last entries catch the court of the boy emperor Tsuchimikado and the retired emperor Go-Toba, the news from Kamakura of Yoritomo's death and the Kajiwara affair, the regent Konoe Motomichi, the Kujo house's Buddhist devotions (Kanezane took the tonsure under Honen in 1202) and the weather, rites and gossip of the capital. The fullest court diary for the two decades before 1200 and the eastern alliance's view of the shogunate; it is sparse in its final year.
About this source
- Title
- Gyokuyo (玉葉), also Gyokukai (玉海)
- Author
- Kujo (Fujiwara) Kanezane (九條兼實)
- Author's dates
- 1149 to 1207
- Written
- 1164 to 1200, as a daily diary
- Language
- Japanese in a Chinese-style written form (kanbun)
- Covers
- 1164 to 1200
- Kind
- Letters
No translation into any Western language. The 1906 to 1907 Kokusho Kankokai edition is free at the NDL; the modern Meiji shoin edition (1993 onward) is under copyright. The entries for 1200 are few and the diary breaks off that year.