List of female castellans in Japan

Iwamura Castle, one of the Japan's Top 100 Castles is famous as "the castle of the female castellan" owned by Otsuya no kata.

A list of female castellans in Japanese history.

Definition[]

Ne Castle was owned by Seishin-ni from 1614-1620

The list includes the following persons:

• Women who inherited the leadership of a samurai clan.
• A woman who was named commander of the castle by a Daimyo.
• Due to the death of a male owner, his wife or daughter formally inherit the leadership of the castle.

The list does not include:

• Women who had great political power but were not formally clan or castle leaders.
• Reigning Empresses or Regents
• Women who was the owner of part or compartment of a castle, like Kodai-in who gave the eastern ward of Osaka Castle to Tokugawa Ieyasu.
• Women who received honorable titles, such as Lady Kasuga who was named '' Jōrō Otoshiyori '' (上 臈 御 年 寄) and commanded the Ōoku area of Edo Castle
• Buildings or areas that cannot be considered a Japanese castle.

List[]

Tachibana Ginchiyo was the castellan of Tachibana Castle.

Name	Allegiance	Castle	Reign
Ii Naotora[1]	Imagawa clan	(Tōtōmi Province)	1565-1568
Otazu no kata[2]	None[a]	Hikuma Castle (Tōtōmi Province)	1566-1568
Ii Naotora(2)[1]	Matsudaira clan	Iinoya Castle (Tōtōmi Province)	1568-1572
Lady Otsuya	Oda clan	Iwamura Castle (Mino province)	1572
Ii Naotora(3)[1]	Matsudaira clan	Iinoya Castle (Tōtōmi Province)	1573-1582
Tachibana Ginchiyo	Ōtomo clan	Tachibana Castle (Chikuzen province)	1575-1581
Onamihime[3]	Ashina clan	(Mutsu province)	1582-1588
Ashikaga Ujinohime	（ Later Hōjō clan）[b]	Koga Castle (Shimōsa Province)	1583-1590
Enkyū-ni	Ryūzōji clan	(Chikugo Province)	1584[4]
Yodo-dono	Toyotomi clan	(Yamashiro Province)	1589[5]
Akai Teruko	Toyotomi clan	(Hitachi Province)	1590[6]
Ashikaga Ujinohime(2)	Toyotomi clan→	(Shimōsa Province)	1590-1620
Kōdai-in	Toyotomi clan→ Tokugawa clan	(Yamashiro Province)[7]	1599-1623
Seishin-ni	Nanbu clan	Ne Castle (Mutsu province)	1614-1620[8]

Other evidence of female castellans[]

A sequence of women who acted remarkably as castellans, without being a formal heiress, or female castellans where there is little detail about their administration, area and castle.

Sengoku period (1467–1603)[]

• Akamatsu Tōshōin: She was a de facto Daimyo of the Akamatsu clan. She was a guardian of Akamatsu Yoshimura. After Yoshimura's death, Tōshōin took total control of the clan as the leader in 1521.^[9]
• Jukei-ni: She acted as guardian and adviser to Ujiteru, Yoshimoto and her grandson Imagawa Ujizane. She has spent four generations of daimyos and it is said that she was de facto the last Sengoku daimyo of the Imagawa clan.^[10]
• Ikeda Sen: ''Tōdaiki'' (当代記) describes that she owned lands with a revenue equivalent to 10,000 koku, like a minor daimyo.^[11]
• Myorin: Luís Fróis describes that a woman was the ruler of an area that is currently Ōita city, that woman was probably Myorin. Her son inherited the clan leadership after the death of . Because he was very young, Myorin became the representative head of as a counselor for her son. Cases like these were common in all of Japanese history.^[12][13]
• Munakata Saikaku: In 1586, she was appointed leader of the Munataka clan by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, because of her efforts in the Kyushu campaign.
• Yodo-dono: She formally received Yodo Castle in 1589. After Hideyoshi's death, she acted as guardian of his heir Toyotomi Hideyori. Following the fall of the Council of Five Elders that resulted in the Battle of Sekigahara, Yodo-dono becomes the chief representative of the Toyotomi clan and Osaka Castle.^[5]
• Lady Nata: In Otomo Family Document (大友家文書録) , it is described that she owned lands on the Kunisaki Peninsula, an area run by her family, the .^[14]
• Fujishiro Gozen: She was the female castellan of a minor castle, the Fujishiro-kan (藤代館) in Mutsu Province.^[15]

Notes[]

See also[]

• Onna-musha
• Kunoichi
• Empress of Japan

References[]