The Daidōji clan (大道寺氏) were a

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese

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 ...

kin group in the

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)
"Daidōji," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 4
retrieved 2013-5-3.

History

The Daidōji were descendants of the

Taira The was one of the four most important clans that dominated Japanese politics during the Heian period of Japanese history – the others being the Minamoto, the Fujiwara, and the Tachibana. The clan is divided into four major groups, named ...

. Daidōji Masashige was the governor of

Suruga Province was an Provinces of Japan, old province in the area that is today the central part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Suruga bordered on Izu Province, Izu, Kai Province, Kai, Sagami Province, Sagami, Shinano Province, Shinano, and Tōtōmi Province, Tōtōm ...

with an annual income of 180,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. One koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about of rice. It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1,000 gō. One ''gō'' is the traditional volume of a single serving of rice (before co ...

''. In 1590, his forces were defeated by

Maeda Toshiie was one of the leading generals of Oda Nobunaga following the Sengoku period of the 16th century extending to the Azuchi–Momoyama period. His preferred weapon was a yari and he was known as "Yari no Mataza" (槍の又左), Matazaemon (又左 ...

. In 1591, Masahige killed himself ('' harakiri''). The Daidoji clan is one of the Japanese clans. Its origin is considered to be Daido-ji Temple of present Ujitawara-cho, Tsuzuki County,

Kyoto Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Kyoto Prefecture has a population of 2,561,358 () and has a geographic area of . Kyoto Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the northeast, Shiga Prefecture ...

. The Daidoji family was believed to have moved to Senbon Shaka-do Temple of

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

. The Daidoji clan who had served the

Owari domain The Owari-Han, also known as the Owari Domain, was a significant feudal domain in Tokugawa shogunate, Japan during the Edo period. Situated in the western region of what is now Aichi Prefecture, it covered portions of Owari Province, Owari, Mino ...

was originally a vassal of the Gohojo clan. After the fall of the

Hojo clan Hojo or Hōjō may refer to: Hojo or HoJo: *Howard Johnson's, a U.S. chain of restaurants and hotels *A nickname for a number of people named Howard Johnson *A nickname for Howard Jones (British musician), an synthpop singer, musician and songwr ...

, Daidoji Shigenao, the second son of Daidōji Masashige who worked as the top at Kawagoe-jo Castle and governed 180 thousand koku crop yields, served the

Maeda clan The was a Japanese samurai clan who occupied most of the Hokuriku region of central Honshū from the end of the Sengoku period through the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Maeda claimed descent from the Sugawara clan through Sugawara no Kiyotom ...

Kaga Province was a province of Japan in the area that is today the south and western portion of Ishikawa Prefecture in the Hokuriku region of Japan. Kaga bordered on Echizen, Etchū, Hida, and Noto Provinces. It was part of Hokurikudō Circuit. Its ...

and then began to serve Matsudaira Tadayoshi with two thousand Goku crop yields. Matsudaira Tadayoshi was the fourth son of

Tokugawa Ieyasu Tokugawa Ieyasu (born Matsudaira Takechiyo; 31 January 1543 – 1 June 1616) was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, which ruled from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was the third of the three "Gr ...

and had been given 490 thousand koku crop yields in Owari Province. When Shigenao served Tadayoshi, he lived in the castle in Kiyosu, and in the vicinity of the site of his residence is still called

Aza Daidoji Aza or AZA may refer to: Places *Aza, Azerbaijan, a village and municipality *Azadkənd, Nakhchivan or Lower Aza, Azerbaijan *Aza, medieval name of Haza, Province of Burgos, Spain *Aźa, a Tibetan name for the Tuyuhun kingdom *Aza, a Hebrew romani ...

, Kiyosu-machi, Kiyosu City, Aichi Prefecture. After Tadayoshi's death, although Owari was given to Ieyasu's ninth son

Tokugawa Yoshinao was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. Biography Born the ninth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu with his concubine, Okame no Kata. His childhood name was Gorōtamaru (五郎太丸). While still a young child, he was appointed leader ...

, Shigenao continuously served Yoshinao. After the Siege of Osaka, 500 koku crop yields were added, and he had 2500 koku in all.

Notable clan leaders

* Daidōji Shigeoki * Daidōji Masashige

References

Japanese clans {{Japan-clan-stub