Hōjō Tokimasa

Hōjō Tokimasa (北条 時政^?, 1138 – February 6, 1215) was the first Hōjō shikken (regent) of the Kamakura bakufu and head of the Hōjō clan. He was shikken from 1203 until his abdication in 1205.

The Hōjō clan was, ironically, descended from the Taira clan, which would lose to the Minamoto in the grand civil war known as the Genpei War in the 1180s; however, as a result of their connection to the Taira, the Hōjō were also distant relatives of the imperial family. The Hōjō clan were in control of the province of Izu, which was in the east and quite far away from the center of power in Kyoto and the west.

Not much is known about Hōjō Tokimasa's early life prior to Minamoto no Yoritomo's arrival in Izu. There is no information about his parents and early childhood, mainly because culture was not concentrated in Izu, but rather in Kyoto. Hōjō Tokimasa was born in 1138 into the influential Hōjō clan in the province of Izu.

In 1155, Hōjō Tokimasa married Hōjō no Maki, who became his official wife. Her maiden name is not known. Even the marriage date is not clear, and is based on the birth of their first child, a daughter, Hōjō Masako in 1156. Hōjō Tokimasa, as the head of the Hōjō clan, chose to stay out of the civil strife engulfing western Japan based on court succession disputes between the Cloistered Emperor Toba, his son Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa, and Cloistered Emperor Suzaku, as well as a rivalry between the Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoshitomo and the Taira clan under Taira no Kiyomori.

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