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The littell doughter of Fidaia Samma is [a] shorne non in this [To\keiji] monestary, only to saue her life, for it is a sanctuary & no justis may take her out. —Richard Cocks’s Diary, entry for 18 October 16161 PAX TOKUGAWA Will Adams (Miura Anjin, 1564–1620)2 arrived in Japan at the western island of Kyu\shu\ in 1600 and is recognized as the first Englishman to set foot in that country . In the same year, at Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) won a decisive victory over his competitors and went on to unify the country under a two and a half century long military regime that bears his family name. By some twist of fate, Adams became friend and adviser to Ieyasu and remained in Japan for the rest of his life. In 1613, Richard Cocks (ca. 1565–1624),3 “the second Englishman in Japan,”4 and whom we met briefly in the first chapter, arrived in Japan to head an English trading post for the East India Company. His decade of administration ended in disaster , partly the result of his own personal inadequacies and partly because of circumstances well beyond his control. He died aboard ship on his return to England, where he would have faced severe legal action. But, fortunately for us, he left a detailed account of his decade in Japan during a time of momentous historic events, both for the country and for our account of the To\keiji. Centuries of political instability finally came to an end with the reunification of Japan by Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598), and Tokugawa Ieyasu during the last decades of the sixteenth century and the early decades of the seventeenth. But peace did not come easily. The details of endless battles and shifting allegiances may delight the epic cinematographer, but the ordinary reader of history can only discern their general outline. The climax of the long, fierce conflict was the burning in 1615 of Osaka Castle,5 where Toyotomi Hideyori (1593–1615), 77 From Sanctuary to Divorce Temple: Abbess Tenshu\ and the Later Kitsuregawa Administrators 5 Hideyoshi’s son and successor, committed suicide after defeat by the forces of Ieyasu. However, the life of “the littel doughter of Fidaia [Hideyori] Samma,” his sevenyear -old daughter, was spared by Ieyasu and placed under the tutelage of To\keiji’s nineteenth abbess, Keizan (d. 1644), of the Kitsunegawa family (which plays an important role in the later history of the convent). Tenshu\ (1608–1645) eventually succeeded Keizan as the twentieth abbess of the To\keiji. Hideyori’s wife, Senhime (1597–1666), who was Tenshu\’s stepmother, also survived the battle and later sponsored a noted “divorce temple” called Mantokuji, at Serada in the Nitta district of Ko\zuke Province (Gumma Prefecture).6 The To\keiji has in its possession a curious relic of this time, a host box lacquered and inset with mother-of-pearl. Since Christianity was severely suppressed less than two decades after the Battle for Osaka Castle, the transfer and possession of Christian artifacts subsequent to the crackdown would have been dangerous for anyone involved. But Tenshu\ could easily have brought it to the To\keiji in 1615. We know that there were a number of Jesuit priests in Osaka Castle during the siege, and we can imagine various circumstances by which the host box might have come into Tenshu\’s hands. Since it was not a consecrated vessel, as some have thought, one of the priests might even have given it to her as a keepsake.7 Cocks and Will Adams visited Edo in 1616, the year after the fall of Osaka Castle , to negotiate trade agreements with the new sho\gun, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1544–1616), and were passing through Kamakura on their return to Hirado. Cocks’s diary continues his account of what he observed: “pagods,” a “nvnry (or rather a stews [i.e., a brothel]) of shaven women [the To\keiji],” and “a might[y] idoll of bras, called by them Dibotes [i.e., Daibutsu],” which he much admired. A recently published Cocks letter is even less flattering of the To\keiji. Also [in the city of Kamakura] there is a pagod or monestary of heathen nvns being shorne all the hair afe their heads, as the papist nvns are. The littel doughter of fidaia Samme is shorne nvn theare & the previlege of the place is such that the Emperour nor no man may take away any woman out of that place by...

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