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32-705: The Tokugawa Go-san-ke ( 徳川御三家 , "the Three Houses of the Tokugawa" ) , also called simply Go-san-ke ( 御三家 , "the Noble Three Houses" ) , or even San-ke ( 三家 , "the three houses" ) , were the most noble three branches of the Tokugawa clan of Japan : Owari, Kii, and Mito, all of which were descended from clan founder Tokugawa Ieyasu 's three youngest sons, Yoshinao , Yorinobu , and Yorifusa , and were allowed to provide

64-564: A shogun died without a living heir, both the heads of gosanke (except Mito-Tokugawa family ) and gosankyō had priority to succeed his position. Many daimyōs descended from cadet branches of the clan, however, retained the surname Matsudaira ; examples include the Matsudaira of Fukui and Aizu . Members of the Tokugawa clan intermarried with prominent daimyo and the Imperial family. On November 9, 1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu ,

96-537: A " mon ", the "triple hollyhock " (although commonly, but mistakenly identified as "hollyhock", the "aoi" actually belongs to the birthwort family and translates as " wild ginger "— Asarum ), has been a readily recognized icon in Japan, symbolizing in equal parts the Tokugawa clan and the last shogunate. The symbol derives from a mythical clan, the Kamo clan, which legendarily descended from Yatagarasu . Matsudaira village

128-637: A museum of its own, and has given its properties of historical value to museums, such as the Wakayama Prefectural Museum . Effectively extinct The 15th head of the Mito House is Mr. Narimasa Tokugawa ( 徳川斉正 , Tokugawa Narimasa ) (born in 1958). From July 2009 he is also the director of Mito 's Shōkōkan Tokugawa Museum ( 彰考館徳川博物館 ) . He presently works for Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd . A Tokyo resident, he commutes to Mito on weekends. In modern Japanese,

160-504: A shōgun in case of need. In the Edo period the term gosanke could also refer to various other combinations of Tokugawa houses, including (1) the shogunal, Owari and Kii houses and (2) the Owari, Kii, and Suruga houses (all with the court position of dainagon ). Later, Gosanke were deprived of their role to provide a shōgun by three other branches that are closer to the shogunal house:

192-584: Is also a patrilineal descendant of Tokugawa Yorifusa , the youngest son of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 2007, Tsunenari published a book entitled Edo no idenshi (江戸の遺伝子), released in English in 2009 as The Edo Inheritance, which seeks to counter the common belief among Japanese that the Edo period was like a Dark Age , when Japan, cut off from the world , fell behind. On the contrary, he argues, the roughly 250 years of peace and relative prosperity saw great economic reforms,

224-673: The Gosankyō . Even after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the abolition of the Edo-period system of administrative domains ( han ) the three houses continued to exist in some form, as they do into the 21st century. After he established his shogunate, Ieyasu proceeded to put members of his family in key positions. Ninth son Yoshinao was nominated daimyō of Nagoya ( Owari Province ), tenth son Yorinobu daimyō of Wakayama ( Kii Province ) and eleventh son Yorifusa daimyō of Mito ( Hitachi Province ). From this allocation of fiefs came

256-598: The gosankyō , installing two sons and a grandson as their heads. The gosanke provided the model for the gosankyō. However, while Yoshimune granted lands to the gosankyō , the lands were not consolidated into coherent han , but instead were scattered in various places; the total holdings were also smaller than those of the gosanke. Eventually, one of the gosankyō houses, the Hitotsubashi house, produced two shoguns, once in 1787 ( Tokugawa Ienari ) and again in 1866 ( Tokugawa Yoshinobu ). Third in seniority among

288-699: The Gosanke was the Mito branch . Its founder was Tokugawa Yorifusa , the eleventh son of Ieyasu. Their fief was the Mito Han in Hitachi Province , with its castle in Mito and lands rated initially at 250,000 koku , and later (1710) at 350,000. Eleven men headed the house, including Tokugawa (Mito) Mitsukuni . The Mito House was not allowed to provide a shōgun, but only his vice. It did manage however to produce one when one of its sons, Tokugawa Yoshinobu ,

320-565: The Matsudaira clan , after he pacified Mikawa . This decision was made after he counseled by his senior vassal Sakai Tadatsugu to abandon their allegiance with the Imagawa clan. He also strengthened his powerbase by creating a military government system of Tokugawa clan in Mikawa which based from his hereditary vassals Fudai daimyō . The system which called " Sanbi no gunsei " (三備の軍制) with

352-619: The "1977 trinity" in America, refers to the leading Japanese machines in the early home computing era . Tokugawa clan Minamoto no Yoshishige (1135–1202), grandson of Minamoto no Yoshiie (1041–1108), was the first to take the name of Nitta. He sided with his cousin Minamoto no Yoritomo against the Taira clan (1180) and accompanied him to Kamakura . Nitta Yoshisue, 4th son of Yoshishige, settled at Tokugawa (Kozuke province) and took

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384-467: The 15th and the last shogun of Tokugawa, tendered his resignation to Emperor Meiji . He formally stepped down ten days later, returning governing power to the Emperor, marking the end of the ruling power of the Tokugawa shogunate . In 1868, Tokugawa Iesato (1863–1940, from Tayasu family) was chosen as the heir to Yoshinobu as the head of Tokugawa clan. On July 7, 1884, Iesato became a prince, just like

416-495: The Edo period: when the seventh shōgun died heirless in 1716, and when the thirteenth shōgun died heirless in 1858. The three houses had the highest rank among the shinpan , the daimyōs who were relatives of the shōgun. After the Meiji Restoration , under the kazoku system, the heads of the three houses became marquesses . In 1929 the head of the Mito House was elevated from marquess to duke . The senior one

448-571: The Matsudaira clan, including Nobumitsu, took the surname Kamo no Ason (Kamo) , and the Matsudaira clan's hollyhock crest also suggests a connection to the Kamo clan, so some have pointed out that they were actually vassals of the Kamo clan. Tokugawa Ieyasu himself signed the letter of assurance to the Suganuma clan in 1561, shortly after independence from the Imagawa clan, as "Minamoto no Motoyasu" ("Suganuma Family Genealogy" and "Documents Possessed by Kunozan Toshogu Shrine") The clan rose to power at

480-417: The Mikawa province. Nobumitsu's great-great-grandson Matsudaira Kiyoyasu made his clan strong, but was assassinated. In 1567, Matsudaira Motonobu—then known as Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616)—grandson of Kiyoyasu, was recognized by Emperor Ōgimachi as a descendant of Seiwa Genji ; he also started the family name Tokugawa. According to historical documents from the same period, some of the three generations of

512-605: The clan are partly administered by the Tokugawa Memorial Foundation . After the death of Ieyasu, in 1636, the heads of the gosanke (the three branches with fiefs in Owari , Kishū , and Mito ) also bore the Tokugawa surname, so did the three additional branches, known as the gosankyō : the Tayasu (1731), Hitotsubashi (1735), and Shimizu (1758) family, after the ascension of Tokugawa Yoshimune . Once

544-537: The eighth of the fifteen Tokugawa shōguns , Yoshimune (1684–1751). Yoshimune established the Gosankyo to augment (or perhaps to replace) the Gosanke , the heads of the powerful han (fiefs) of Owari , Kishū , and Mito . Two of his sons, together with the second son of his successor Ieshige, established the Tayasu, Hitotsubashi, and Shimizu branches of the Tokugawa. Unlike the Gosanke , they did not rule

576-494: The end of the Sengoku period . as their political influences and territories they controlled expanded during this period, they developed many new offices such as many magistrate official such as Kōriki Kiyonaga , Amano Yasukage , Honda Shigetsugu , and many others, to control their new territories and vassals. In 1566, as Ieyasu declared his independence from the Imagawa clan, he reformed the order of Mikawa province starting with

608-544: The growth of a sophisticated urban culture, and the development of the most urbanized society on the planet. Tsunenari formed the Tokugawa Memorial Foundation in 2003 to preserve and administer the historical objects, art, armor and documents that have been passed down in the Tokugawa family over the generations, display them for the general public and provide assistance to academic research on topics concerning historical Japan. The Tokugawa's clan symbol, known in Japanese as

640-446: The heads of some of other notable Japanese noble families, known as Kazoku . The 1946 Constitution of Japan abolished the kazoku and the noble titles, making Iesato's son, Iemasa Tokugawa , no longer a prince. Iemasa had a son Iehide, who died young, so he was succeeded by one of his grandsons, Tsunenari . Tsunenari is the second son of Toyoko (eldest daughter of Iemasa) and Ichirō Matsudaira (son of Tsuneo Matsudaira ), and he

672-513: The museum and realty management. The 19th head of the Kii House is Ms. Kotoko Tokugawa ( 徳川 宜子 , Tokugawa Kotoko ) (born in 1956). Although she is not married and has no children, she was chosen as head of the clan because there were no other direct descendants. An architect, she owns and operates her own construction company in Ginza , Tokyo. Unlike the other two, the Kii House does not have

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704-523: The name of that place. Their provincial history book did not mention Minamoto clan or Nitta clan. The nominal originator of the Matsudaira clan was reportedly Matsudaira Chikauji , who was originally a poor Buddhist monk. He reportedly descended from Nitta Yoshisue in the 8th generation and witnessed the ruin of the Nitta in their war against the Ashikaga . He settled at Matsudaira (Mikawa province) and

736-430: The names of the houses they founded, officially called Owari House of Tokugawa ( 尾張徳川家 , Owari Tokugawa-ke ) , Kii House of Tokugawa ( 紀伊徳川家 , Kii Tokugawa-ke ) , and Mito House of Tokugawa ( 水戸徳川家 , Mito Tokugawa-ke ) ). Ieyasu gave them the right to supply a shōgun in order to ensure the presence of successors to the Tokugawa shogunate in case the main line should become extinct. This occurred twice during

768-548: The previous daimyō was transferred. Fourteen members of the Tokugawa clan headed the fief during the Edo Period. It was the only family to directly produce successors to the shōgun, once in 1716 with Tokugawa Yoshimune and again in 1858 with Tokugawa Iemochi . The fifth Tokugawa daimyō of Kii was Yoshimune , who later became shōgun and appointed a relative to head the Kii Han . Yoshimune established three new houses,

800-632: The royalists, whose cause is symbolized by the Imperial throne's chrysanthemum symbol. Compare with the red and white rose iconography of English Wars of the Roses , as imagined by Walter Scott earlier in the 19th century, in Anne of Geierstein (1829). Gosanky%C5%8D The Go-san-kyō ( 御三卿 , "the Three Lords") were three branches of the Tokugawa clan of Japan . They were descended from

832-466: The shogunate and of the han system, the house was headed successively by 17 men. Its seniority notwithstanding, the Owari were the only one not to provide a shōgun. Second in seniority was Kii or Kishū House. The founder was Tokugawa Yorinobu , the tenth son of Ieyasu. Yorinobu was daimyō of the Kishū Han with its castle at Wakayama and a rating of 555,000 koku . He entered Wakayama in 1619 when

864-608: The structure divide the governance into three sections: To the end of the Edo period they ruled Japan as shoguns . During the Edo period There were fifteen Tokugawa shoguns . Their dominance was so strong that some history books use the term "Tokugawa era" instead of "Edo period". Their principal family shrine is the Tōshō-gū in Nikkō , and their principal temples ( bodaiji ) are Kan'ei-ji and Zōjō-ji , both in Tokyo . Heirlooms of

896-593: The word gosanke is used to refer to "the strongest three" or "the most famous three" in various contexts. For example, the Imperial Hotel , Hotel Okura , and Hotel New Otani Tokyo are often referred to as one of the three great hotels ( 御三家 , gosanke ) of Tokyo. The Otani Hotel was built in the Kioi district of Tokyo, where the Tokyo residence of the Kii House was located. The " 8-bit gosanke ", similarly to

928-402: Was adopted by his wife's family. Their provincial history book claimed that this original clan was Ariwara clan. Because this place is said to have been reclaimed by Ariwara Nobumori, one theory holds that Matsudaira clan was related to Ariwara no Narihira . Matsudaira Nobumitsu (15th century), son of Chikauji, was in charge of Okazaki Castle , and strengthened the authority of his family in

960-672: Was adopted by the Hitotsubashi (one of the Kii House's three Gosankyō ) in 1848 and became the last shōgun as a member of that house. The 22nd head of the Owari House is Mr. Yoshitaka Tokugawa ( 徳川 義崇 , Tokugawa Yoshitaka ) (born 1961), who in 2005 succeeded his late father, becoming director of the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya. A Tokyo resident, he commutes to Nagoya during weekends. His main activities are

992-482: Was located in Higashikamo District , Aichi Prefecture . Although Emperor Go-Yōzei offered a new symbol, Ieyasu continued to use the symbol, which was not related to Minamoto clan . In jidaigeki , the symbol is often shown to locate the story in the Edo period. In works set in during the Meiji Restoration movement, the symbol is used to show the bearer's allegiance to the shogunate—as opposed to

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1024-462: Was the Owari branch . The first of this line was Tokugawa Yoshinao , ninth son of Ieyasu. He and his heirs were daimyōs of the Owari Domain ( Owari Han ), with its headquarters at Nagoya Castle . The fief had a rating of 619,500 koku , a koku being the quantity of rice necessary to feed one person for a year (about 180 liters), and was the largest of the three. Before the abolition of

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