Sanctuary: Kamakura’s Tōkeiji convent

Abstract

SO COMMENTS Richard Cocks (d. 1624), Captain of the English Factory at Hirado, in a marginal note of his diary for the entry of 18 October 1616. Cocks and his employee, Will Adams (Miura Anjin, 1564-1620), had been to Edo to negotiate trade agreements with the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1544-1616), and were passing through Kamakura on their return to the small trading island off the coast of Kyushu (Thompson 1883). It was the year after the battle for Osaka Castle, where Toyotomi Hideyori (1593-1665), Hideyoshi's son and successor, committed suicide after his defeat by the forces of Ieyasu. The littel doughter of Fidaia [Hideyoril Samma was taken to the T6keiji and became its twentieth abbess, TenshG (1608-1645). Tbkeiji, the convent at which Hideyori's daughter became a shorne non, was founded in 1285 by Kakusan Shid5 (1252-1306), widow of the eighth H5j6 regent, Tokimune (1251-1284). A convent in the traditional sense, it has been better known for being a sanctuary for the few unhappy women who managed to be accepted within its confines. Their total number cannot have been very large, but the T6keiji at least served as a symbol of social justice for six centuries until the early Mejii period. Its role gives us insight into one function which religion played for