was a mid-

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

, and the tenth ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Sendai Domain The , also known as the , was a domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1600 to 1871. The Sendai Domain was based at Aoba Castle in Mutsu Province, in the modern city of Sendai, located in the Tōhoku region of ...

in the

Tōhoku region The , Northeast region, , or consists of the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. This traditional region consists of six prefectures (): Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi, and Yamagata. Tōhoku retains ...

of northern Japan, and the 26th hereditary chieftain of the

Date clan The is a Japanese samurai kin group.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)"Date", ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 5 retrieved 2013-5-5. History The Date fam ...

Biography

Narimune was the posthumous second son of Date Narimura; his mother was a concubine and he was born at the clan's Sodegasaki residence in

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

. His childhood name was Norisaburō (徳三郎) later Shōjirō (総次郎). In 1804, he was moved to the clan's primary residence in Edo, and he came down with

chickenpox Chickenpox, also known as varicella ( ), is a highly contagious disease caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), a member of the herpesvirus family. The disease results in a characteristic skin rash that forms small, itchy blisters, which ...

the same year, but recovered. In 1809, his elder half-brother, Date Chikamune was highly disfigured by

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

, and went into seclusion until his death in 1812. During this period, Narimune appeared in all official functions in his place. He was adopted as Chikamune's heir in 1812, and changed his name to Date Munezumi. Later that same year, after Chikamune died, he was received in formal audience by ''

Shōgun , officially , was the title of the military rulers of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, except during parts of the Kamak ...

Tokugawa Ienari Tokugawa Ienari (, 18 November 1773 – 22 March 1841) was the eleventh and longest-serving ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan who held office from 1787 to 1837.Hall, John Whitney ''et al.'' (1991) ''Early Modern Japan'', p. 21./ref> ...

, who presided over his ''

genpuku is a public holiday in Japan held annually on the second Monday of January under the Happy Monday System. It is held in order to congratulate and encourage all those who have already reached the age of maturity between April 2 of the previou ...

'' ceremony, and who granted him a ''

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

'' from his name. He also received the Court rank of Junior Fourth, Lower Grade and

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but is rather used by custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some context ...

s of ''Mutsu-no-kami'' and ''Sakonoe-shōshō'' as had been held by his father. In 1814, he was wed to the daughter of Tokugawa Harutomi, ''daimyō'' of Kii Domain. He fell ill in June 1819 and died a month later at the age of 22. As he had no male heir, the son of Tamura Murasuke, ''daimyō'' of Ichinoseki Domain was posthumously adopted as his heir.

Family

* Father: Date Narimura * Mother: Onobu no Kata (1779–1800) * Wife: Tokugawa Nobuko (Shinkyou’in) (1795–1827) * Concubine:Tsuda-dono * Concubine: Watanabe-dono * Children (mother unknown): ** 1st son: Makomaru, died in childhood ** 1st daughter: Shibahime, married Date Nariyoshi, daimyo of Sendai Domain

References

* Papinot, Edmond. (1948). ''Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan''. New York: Overbeck Co.

External links

Sendai Domain on "Edo 300 HTML"
(3 November 2007) {{DEFAULTSORT:Date, Narimune 1796 births 1819 deaths Tozama daimyo Japanese Buddhists Date clan People of the Edo period