The is a Japanese aristocratic kin group. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2003)
"Nijō," ''Nobiliare du Japon'', p. 58
retrieved 2013-8-13. The Takatsukasa was a branch of the

Fujiwara clan The was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)
"Takatsukasa-ke"
in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 937. and one of the

Five regent houses The Five Regent Houses (五摂家; ''go-sekke'') is a collective term for the five families of the Fujiwara clan that monopolized the regent position of '' Sekkan'' in Japan from 1252 until 1868. The five houses are Konoe, Takatsukasa, Kujō, I ...

, from which

Sesshō and Kampaku In Japan, was a regent who was named to act on behalf of either a child emperor before his coming of age, or an empress regnant. The was theoretically a sort of chief advisor for the Emperor, but was in practice the title of both first secre ...

could be chosen. The family crest of Takatsukasa is

peony The peony or paeony () is any flowering plant in the genus ''Paeonia'', the only genus in the family Paeoniaceae. Peonies are native to Asia, Europe, and Western North America. Scientists differ on the number of species that can be distinguish ...

History

The Takatsukasa family was founded by Fujiwara no Kanehira (1228-1294), who was the sixth son of

Konoe Iezane , son of Motomichi, was a court noble (''Kugyō'') of the early Kamakura period. His sons include: Takatsukasa Kanehira, and Konoe Kanetsune. In 1206 when Kujō Yoshitune died, he became the head of the Fujiwara family and Sesshō. The same ...

; he was also the first to take this family name, named after the section 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 ...

in which the household resided. The Takatsukasa family, for the first time, died out in the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

following the death of Tadafuyu, 13th head of the family, in 1546. Later in 1579, with the assistance of

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods. He was the and regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. He is sometimes referred as the "Demon Daimyō" and "Demo ...

, the third son of Nijō Haruyoshi took the name

Takatsukasa Nobufusa was a court noble (''kuge'') of the early Edo period. Born to Nijō Haruyoshi and adopted by Takatsukasa Tadafuyu, he revived the lineage of the Takatsukasa family. In 1606, he was appointed Kampaku, a regent position which he left two years ...

and revived the household. Nobufusa's daughter Takako married

Iemitsu was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who acted as his political adviser and was at the forefront of shogu ...

, the third

Tokugawa shōgun The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. In 1884, Hiromichi, the head of the Takatsukasa family, became a prince in the

kazoku The was the hereditary peerage of the Empire of Japan, which existed between 1869 and 1947. It was formed by merging the feudal lords (''Daimyo, daimyō'') and court nobles (''kuge'') into one system modelled after the British peerage. Distin ...

system. In 1950, Princess Kazuko, the third daughter of

Hirohito , Posthumous name, posthumously honored as , was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, from 25 December 1926 until Death and state funeral of Hirohito, his death in 1989. He remains Japan's longest-reigni ...

(the Emperor Showa) married

Toshimichi Takatsukasa , son of Prince Nobusuke, was a Japanese researcher of railways and trains. Ancestry Son of Prince Nobusuke, a politician and ornithologist who later became head priest of the Meiji Shrine, and (1897-1976), a descendant of Tokugawa Yoshinao, ...

, but the couple had no children.

Family Tree

First Creation (1252-1546)

Second Creation (1579-present)

Takatsukasa-Matsudaira (Yoshii) family

The was a cadet branch of both Takatsukasa and the Kishū-Tokugawa family, founded by , the youngest son of

. Because of his sister's marriage to the ''

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 Iemitsu was the third ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa dynasty. He was the eldest son of Tokugawa Hidetada with Oeyo, and the grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Lady Kasuga was his wet nurse, who acted as his political adviser and was at the ...

since 1623, Nobuhira moved to

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 ...

in 1650; Iemitsu welcomed his brother-in-law and granted him the rank

hatamoto A was a high ranking samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the Shōgun, shogunates in History of Japan, Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred ...

. Arranged by Iemitsu's successor

Tokugawa Ietsuna was the fourth ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa dynasty of Japan who was in office from 1651 to 1680. He is considered the eldest son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, which makes him the grandson of Tokugawa Hidetada and the great-grandson of Tokugawa Ieyasu. ...

, in 1653, Nobuhira married Matsuhime, the second daughter of

Tokugawa Yorinobu was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the early Edo period. Born under the name Nagatomimaru (長福丸), he was the 10th son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, by his concubine Kageyama-dono. On December 8, 1603, Yorinobu received the fief of Mito, then rated at 2 ...

; as a close relative of the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty which produced the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 during the Edo period. It was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of ...

, Nobuhira was later allowed to adopt the family name Matsudaira by the next year. During the era of

Meiji Meiji, the romanization of the Japanese characters 明治, may refer to: Japanese history * Emperor Meiji, Emperor of Japan between 1867 and 1912 ** Meiji era, the name given to that period in Japanese history *** Meiji Restoration, the revolution ...

, the family name was changed to Yoshii (吉井), named after the family's fief

Yoshii Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan, located in Kōzuke Province (modern-day Gunma Prefecture), Japan. It was centered on Yoshii ''jin'ya'' in what is now part of the city of Takasaki, Gunma. Yoshii was ruled thro ...

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 ...

References

External links

Takatsukasa ''kamon'' at Harimaya.com
{{Authority control Japanese clans Fujiwara clan