Chinzei Hachiro Tametomo and Oniyashi on a Beach LACMA M

Kudō Shigemitsu (工藤茂光, died 1180) was a Japanese

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 ...

lord and ''

gōzoku , in Japanese, refers to powerful regional families. In historical context, it can refer to powerful non-royal families regardless of their area of influence, in contrast to the Imperial Family. The most powerful ''gōzoku'' families of the Yam ...

'' of the late

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

. He is the founder of the Kanō clan. He is also known as Kudō Mochimitsu.

Life

Kanō Shigemitsu was born in

Izu Province was a province of Japan in the area now part of Shizuoka Prefecture and Tokyo. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Izu''" in . Izu bordered on Sagami and Suruga Provinces. Its abbreviated form name was . The mainland portion of Izu Prov ...

as the fourth son of

Kudō Suketaka Kudō Suketaka (工藤祐隆) was a Japanese feudal lord who was the lord of Kusumi Manor in Izu Province and the 6th head of the Kudō clan. He founded the Itō clan and is an ancestor to the Kanō clan and the Kawazu clan. He was also known ...

(Itō Ietsugu), the sixth head of Fujiwara Nanke's Kudō clan. He was initially called Kanō, but later changed his family name to Kudō-''suke'' (''suke'' being one of the titles for '' kokushi'' officials) as he served as a ''kokushi'' official in his native Izu Province. Shigemitsu reported

Minamoto no Tametomo , also known as , was a samurai who fought in the Hōgen Rebellion of 1156. He was the son of Minamoto no Tameyoshi, and brother to Yukiie and Yoshitomo. Tametomo is known in the epic chronicles as a powerful archer and it is said that he onc ...

to the Imperial Court in 1170, who had looted peasants' food supplies needed for tax payment and abused the people of Ōshima after being exiled there during the

Hōgen Rebellion The was a short civil war fought in order to resolve a dispute about Japanese Imperial succession. The dispute was also about the degree of control exercised by the Fujiwara clan who had become hereditary Imperial regents during the Heian p ...

in 1156. He also subjugated Tamemoto's warriors by taking the command of his army. In 1180, he joined

Minamoto no Yoritomo was the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate, ruling from 1192 until 1199, also the first ruling shogun in the history of Japan.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Minamoto no Yoriie" in . He was the husband of Hōjō Masako ...

's call to arms, but committed suicide after being crippled during the

Battle of Ishibashiyama The was the first in which Minamoto no Yoritomo, who became ''shōgun'' less than a decade later, was commander of the Minamoto forces. The battle was fought on September 14, 1180, in the southwest of present-day Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, ...

Family

Shigemitsu had a son,

Kanō Muneshige Kanō Muneshige (狩野宗茂) was a Japan, Japanese samurai of the Kamakura period. He was the son of Kudō Shigemitsu, the founder of the Kanō clan. He is said to be an ancestor of Kanō Masanobu, the founder of the Kanō school of painting. ...

. Muneshige is said to be the ancestor of

Kanō Masanobu was a Japanese painter. He was the chief painter of the Ashikaga shogunate and is generally considered the founder of the Kanō school of painting. Kano Masanobu specialized in Zen paintings as well as elaborate paintings of Buddhist deities an ...

, the founder of the

Kanō school The is one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting. The Kanō school of painting was the dominant style of painting from the late 15th century until the Meiji era, Meiji period which began in 1868, by which time the school had divided i ...

and the Kanō family, a family of distinguished Japanese painters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kudo Shigemitsu Samurai People of the Heian period 1180 deaths