STORYWALK
Masako and Yoritomo: A Capital Built by Two
Kamakura began with a single married couple
Hear each place’s story in English — about a minute per chapter, right where it happened. An iPhone app.
Before you walk, a word from Masako.
I am Hojo Masako. I was the wife of Minamoto no Yoritomo, once an exile in Izu, and in time I came to be called the "Nun Shogun," of all things.
The town you are about to walk is where the Kamakura period began, in 1180, as the Heian age was drawing to a close. Here, my husband and I built Japan's first capital of the samurai. Our love began as a match across a difference in rank, one my parents opposed. I blush a little to say it, but even so, I chose him.
Together we made a capital and raised our children, and in time I outlived both my husband and my sons. Even so, I held this town to the end, and that story of some 45 years survives, all of it, in a small area you can walk from Kamakura Station.
There is a path my husband is said to have built for me while I was carrying our child. Why does that path seem to narrow the closer it gets to the Hachiman shrine? At the shrine where our capital began, what came to an end? And the residence we lived in—where is it now? And when my husband went before me, what did I pray for, the wife he left behind? Please find the answers in those places themselves. I hope these familiar sights become, for you, the town where two people lived.
Once you take your first step, the wind of some 800 years ago will walk quietly beside you.
From the station, up the raised path to the shrine and beyond.
Start at JR Kamakura Station, East Exit and walk the chapters in order.
Walk in the order of the numbers. On the day, the app guides you to each next chapter.
5 chapters
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01 ・ 5 min walk from the stationDankazura at the Second Torii
1182 — A path a husband gave his wifeThis path was built for the sake of a single baby not yet born.
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02 ・ 15 min walk from the last chapterTsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine
1180 — Where the couple's capital beganWhen Yoritomo made this shrine the heart of the capital, a husband and wife's story became a city.
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03 ・ 10 min walk from the last chapterOkura Bakufu Site Monument
1180-1225 — Where a married couple made their homeOn this spot, where an elementary school now stands, the couple's residence once stood.
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04 ・ 3 min walk from the last chapterTomb of Minamoto no Yoritomo, Hokkedo Site
1199 — To the husband who went firstDying 26 years before Masako, her husband rests atop a small hill overlooking the capital.
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05 ・ 20 min walk from the last chapterJufuku-ji Temple
1200 — A widow's prayerThe year after losing her husband, why did Masako build a temple on the site of her father-in-law's old residence?
Stand there, and you’ll hear it.
Do you remember this raised path? It was the first year of Juei—1182 by the Western calendar. My husband, Lord Yoritomo, laid a road running straight from Yui-no-ura to the Hachiman shrine, and down its middle he had earth heaped up and edged with curbstones called kazura-ishi. I was carrying a child then, and when I was told he had built it as a prayer that the baby would be born safely... honestly, I blushed a little. That he would turn such tender care toward me.
The rest is in the app. Chapter one is free.
People in this story
Time, fees and getting there
- Start
- JR Kamakura Station, East Exit
- Time
- 3 km on foot, about 1.5 hours
- Admission
- Temple fees: donation only
- Getting there
- About 55 min from Tokyo Station on the JR Yokosuka Line to Kamakura
SourcesNon-fiction, based on official sources.
Kamakura City Tourism Association ／ Kamakura City (official site) — Hokkedo site ／ Agency for Cultural Affairs — Cultural Heritage Online
Hear this story where it happened.
iPhone app — coming soon. Chapter one is free.