In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

We dyned this [day] at a towne called Camacra, w’ch in tymes past (500 yeares since) was the greatest cittie in Japon, & (as it is said) 4 tymes bigger then Miaco or Edo is at pr’sent, and the tono or kyng of that place, called [Yoritomo], was cheefe commander or Emperour in Japon, & the c[h]eefe (or first) that took the authoretie royall from the Daire who was the suckcessor to Shacke. —Richard Cocks’s Diary, entry for 18 October 16161 MINAMOTO YORITOMO AND THE MATSUGAOKA LEGENDS As only the “second Englishman in Japan,”2 and at a time of civil unrest when sober historical fact could not easily be disentangled from popular rumor and exaggeration, Cocks can be excused for his inaccuracies. But in comparing accounts of Kamakura at the peak of its prosperity, several generations after Yoritomo, with what he saw of the ravaged Japan and nascent Edo (later Tokyo) of the early seventeenth century, his remarks were probably not as far-fetched as they may appear today. Politically, if not materially, the military government (bakufu) established at Kamakura in 1192 was the new center of the nation, although in principle the “authoretie royall” still remained with the imperial court (Daire, i.e., Dairi, the “Palace”) in Kyoto.3 Any account of medieval Kamakura might well begin with the insurrections of the Ho\gen (1156) and the Heiji (1159) eras, for here were the first major rumblings of the quake that would shatter the authority of the court and its accompanying social and religious institutions. The military class would then dominate the cultural as well as the political life of the country until the next great social change, the unification of warring factions by Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, and the establishment of the merchant-oriented Tokugawa peace early in the seventeenth century.4 The two insurrections had their origins several centuries earlier. As the members of the imperial clan proliferated, an increasing number of candidates vied for the relatively fixed number of available court positions. The Taiho\ Code of 702 had the foresight to provide that the sixth generation from a sovereign be deprived of its imperial prerogatives and given a family name and ordinary titles of nobility. Two 39 Abbess Kakusan and the Kamakura Ho\jo\ 3 major clans subsequently developed—the Taira (Heike) and the Minamoto (Genji). The main Taira line descended from a great-grandson of Emperor Kammu (737–806) who was given the new surname in 889. From this individual, Taira Tadamochi, descended the rebel Masakado, as well as Kiyomori (1118–1181) and his clan, whose defeat by the Minamoto of Kamakura is told in the epic Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari). In turn the Minamoto clan was gradually superseded by the Kamakura Ho\jo\ regents, and the Odawara Ho\jo\, who controlled the Kanto\ area during the late Muromachi period. Although the Minamoto surname was given to a number of imperial children, the most prominent descendants were in the Seiwa-Genji line from a grandson of Emperor Seiwa (850–880), Minamoto Tsunemoto (894–961), whose posterity included the Kamakura Minamoto (Yoritomo, Yoshitsune, et al.), the Ashikaga shoguns, and the Kamakura branch of the Ashikaga, from which To\keiji’s Kitsuregawa family later derived. As the various clans attempted to extend their political control in several parts of the country, conflicts inevitably arose whose details would tax the endurance of the most patient of readers. To shorten a very long and complicated tale, we begin by observing that the Taira came out the winners from the Ho\gen and Heiji Disturbances . Their leader, Kiyomori, became military dictator to “protect” the interests of the throne and his power extended so far that he was even able to marry off a daughter into the imperial house. (This was Tokuko, wife of Emperor Takakura [1161–1181] and mother of Emperor Antoku [1178–1185], who retired to Jakko\in convent as Kenreimon’in after her son drowned at the decisive Battle of Dannoura.) The leader of the Minamoto faction, Yoshitomo (1123–1160), succumbed during the Heiji Disturbance, but his sons Yoritomo and Yoshitsune survived in exile and obscurity until the tide of fortune turned in their favor. Minamoto Yoritomo (1147–1199) provides our earliest legendary and historical associations with Matsugaoka (To\keiji). After being spared by Kiyomori in 1160, he was exiled to Izu Province (Shizuoka Prefecture), where he met the flamboyant Shingon monk, Mongaku (1120–1199),5 who was banished by Emperor Goshirakawa...

Share