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古画類聚_古画_肖像_人形服章1_足利尊氏像 / 東京国立博物館

Ashikaga Takauji

The first shogun of the Muromachi shogunate. He contributed to the Kenmu Restoration, in which Emperor Go-Daigo sought to return the imperial house to direct political power, but later switched sides and founded the Muromachi shogunate

1305-1358

       Ashikaga Takauji was the first Muromachi shogun, reigning from 1338 to 1358. He was the second son of Ashikaga Sadauji, and his mother was Uesugi Kiyoko. He was born in the direct line of descent of the Ashikaga family, a branch of the well-known Seiwa Minamoto family, highly regarded by the Kamakura shogunate. He originally bore the given name Takauji. His wife was 登子, read either Toshi or Nariko, the younger sister of Regent Hojo Moritoki.

       In 1331, when Emperor Go-Daigo went to war to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate, he went to Kyoto as a samurai in the shogun's army. Two years later, when Emperor Go-Daigo once more went to war, he again served as a soldier, but this time, in Tanba, he took the side of Emperor Go-Daigo against the shogunate. Why he turned against the shogunate is unclear, but some hypotheses offered include a desire to overthrow the Hojo, the family behind the Kamakura shogunate, or a desire to revive the Minamoto clan. In the lunar Fifth Month of the same year, the emperor's forces attacked Kyoto, the base of the shogunate's forces, destroyed the Rokuhara (the local military commission responsible for security), and established a magistrate's office, in what history calls the Genko War. Emperor Go-Daigo rewarded Takauji for his valor in war and allowed him to style his name, Takauji 尊氏, with one of the characters in the emperor's own name, Takaharu 尊治, even though mentioning the emperor's name was taboo. And yet though the samurai increasingly trusted Takauji, their opposition to Emperor Go-Daigo grew. In the Seventh Month of 1335, in the Nakasendai War, Hojo Tokiyuki (a son of Regent Hojo Takatoki) took up arms in Shinano Province to revive the shogunate, and because this army was bearing down on him, Takauji moved east, and in the Eleventh Month of the same year he switched allegiances and came out against the Kenmu Restoration of imperial power. Takauji defeated the army under Nitta Yoshisada at Hakone, and in the First Month of 1336 he even entered Kyoto, but he was defeated by the army under Kitabatake Akiie and fled to Kyushu. He eventually rebuilt his army, and in the Fifth Month of the same year he defeated the forces of Kusunoki Masashige and others at Minato River in Settsu Province and succeeded in entering Kyoto, where in the Eighth Month he supported the ascension of Emperor Komyo of the Northern Court to the throne. In the Eleventh Month Takauji established his administrative policies in the Kenmu Code and launched the Muromachi shogunate. Then in the Eighth Month of 1338 he was appointed Barbarian-Subduing Generalissimo, more commonly referred to as the shogun. In spite of all this, Emperor Go-Daigo, who had escaped to Yoshino, did not recognize Emperor Komyo, sent out calls to the provinces for the overthrow of Takauji, and set up the rival Southern Court, thus beginning the period of Northern and Southern Courts.

       The Muromachi shogunate, from its beginning, was led by two individuals: Takauji and his younger brother Tadayoshi. Yet there was friction between Takauji's steward, Ko no Moronao, and Tadayoshi, so much friction that in 1350 (year 1 of the Kanno era), in an incident called the Kanno Disturbance, Tadayoshi took up arms to punish Moronao. This conflict between Tadayoshi and Moronao later developed into a larger conflict between Takauji and Yoshiakira (Takauji's son) on the one side and Tadayoshi and Tadafuyu (Takauji's illegitimate son and Tadayoshi's adopted son) on the other. Even Southern Court forces and provincial military governors joined in the strife to create a full-blown upheaval. Takauji's army defeated Tadayoshi's army, and in 1352 Tadayoshi died suddenly, but Tadafuyu and his allies continued to resist. Then, while dealing with all this strife, Takauji died of illness in 1358. His posthumous Buddhist name is Toji-in, and his grave is located at Toji-in in Kyoto. Muso Soseki, his devoted follower, described Takauji as a shogun who was brave, merciful, and selfless. For the repose of samurai who died in battle, Takauji, together with his brother Tadayoshi, built Ankoku Temples and Risho Pagodas throughout the country, and for Emperor Go-Daigo's salvation, he built Tenryu Temple in Kyoto.

嘉元3年(1305)に生まれる
建武3年(1336)湊川の戦いに勝利。同年、「建武式目」を制定(室町幕府開府)
暦応元年(1338)征夷大将軍となる
観応元年(1350)尊氏の弟、直義が挙兵(観応の擾乱)
延文3年(1358)没
元弘3年(1333)鎌倉幕府に反旗を翻す
嘉元3年(1305)に生まれる

Related People, Things and Events

Books

Related Works

Portraits of Takauji

Old documents related to Takauji

Gankyo sutra transcriptions arranged by Takauji Ashikaga

Ukiyo-e paintings, etc.

Tadayoshi, younger brother of Takauji

Videos

Past Exhibitions

TitleshusaiPlaceopenclose
栃木県立博物館2012/10/132012/11/25
栃木県立博物館2012/7/282012/11/25

Institutions Holding Related Materials

  • The National Diet Library (NDL), founded in 1948, is the library which belongs to the Diet. The NDL assists the activities of the National Diet. The Library collects and conserves materials and information both from Japan and abroad, serving as a foundation of knowledge and culture and providing library services to administrative and judicial entities and Japanese citizens.

  • As Japan’s representative museum, Tokyo National Museum collects, preserves, displays, and researches the cultural properties of Asia with a focus on Japan, and also provides educational programs.

  • Kyoto National Museum collects, preserves, displays, researches and provides educational programs focusing on cultural properties from Heian- through to Edo- period Japan, when the capital was located there.

  • Kyushu National Museum explores how Japan’s history of cultural exchange with the rest of Asia has impacted the formation of its culture. To that end, we engage in the collection, preservation, exhibition, and research of cultural properties, in addition to providing educational outreach to the local community.

  • The National Archives is an organization for preserving, as historical materials, public records and archives of importance transferred from state organs, and providing them for public use, with the aim of achieving appropriate preservation and use of such public records and archives that are kept in the National Archives or state organs as historical materials.

  • GSI, being the competent authority of the Survey Act, conducts national surveying and mapping activities, which provide a basis for the land management.

  • Keio Museum Commons [KeMCo] functions as a "hub" of Keio's cultural assets, which spans a variety of fields including art, archaeology, literature, history, and medicine, and the educational and research activities behind it. At KeMCo, we aim to create a place where various communities can interact and generate new discoveries and ideas based on cultural properties (objects) in an environment where digital and analogue technologies are fused together.

  • The Art Research Center was established in 1998. Since then, the Center’s mission has been not only to conduct historical and social research and analyses of both tangible and intangible human cultural properties such as visual and performing arts and craftsmanship, but also to record, organize, preserve, and disseminate the research outcomes. To make the vast amount of database of resources on Japanese culture kept at the Art Research Center available to joint researchers in and outside of Japan, while providing the hitherto accumulated digital archiving and database management technologies as the basis for research project activities to promote information archiving and the circulating of joint research on knowledge. Through these undertakings, the Center aims to “become a world class research center” in the field of Digital Humanities.

  • 京都亀岡保津川下り(保津川遊船企業組合)

    元弘3年(1333)足利尊氏は篠村八幡宮で祈願後、京都・六波羅探題を攻撃した。

  • 京都市右京区に所在。足利尊氏を開基とし、夢窓疎石を開山として開かれた。

  • 京都市北区にある臨済宗天龍寺派寺院

    夢窓疎石を開山として足利尊氏が衣笠山の南麓に創建。のち等持寺をあわせ、足利将軍家歴代の菩提所となる。

  • 足利尊氏の鎌倉の邸宅跡に建てられたといわれている。毎年春と秋に限定公開されている。所在地は神奈川県鎌倉市。

External Links

  • 足利尊氏像と伝えられてきたが、近年疑問とされ、尊氏に仕えた高師直とする説がある。

  • 足利尊氏の生涯と足利家に伝わった日本刀を紹介している。東建コーポレーション監修。

  • 尊氏の自筆とされる柳原資明宛の書状を見ることができる。宮内庁書陵部所蔵の資料が検索できる。

References

  1. サンプルページ「足利尊氏」の項。
  2. サンプルページ「足利尊氏」の項。
  3. サンプルページ「足利尊氏」の項。
  4. 日立デジタル平凡社,平凡社