Azuma kagami 吾妻鏡

Archive Unit
  • This material is held at
  • Reference
      GB 59 Or.64.c.40
  • Dates of Creation
      [1610-1620]
  • Language of Material
      Japanese
  • Physical Description
      4 volumes Condition: Good. Minor worm damage in places. Impression: Type rather badly worn in places. Seals of ownership: Large red oblong seal, Bifu naiko tosho 尾府内庫圖書 (seal of a branch of the Tokugawa family) on first page of alternate maki. Manuscript notes: Reading marks in red added sporadically, especially in maki 1-6.

Scope and Content

Variant title: Shinkan azuma kagami 新刊吾妻鏡. Author/compiler: Unknown. Imprint: N.p., n.d. [Keichō / Genna period, c. 1610-20] . No colophon. Description: 51 kan (of 52), originally in 25 or 26 satsu, now rebound in 4 large vols. (western style). Incomplete set, lacking maki 45. 28.3 x 21.2 cm. Fukurotoji. Movable type. Printing frame 23.3 x 18.4 cm. Double-line borders with 'flower petal' fishtail design on hanshin. No vertical rules between columns. Kanbun text, with occasional use of hiragana and katakana (e.g. hiragana-majiri text in maki 4, ff. 1-5). No printed kunten. 12 lines to page, 20 characters to line. Original light brown front covers of maki 1-2, 11-13, 30-31 and 42-43 only, within modern western style half-leather binding (4 vols.). Original blockprinted title slips on covers of maki 1-2 and 11-13 only. Gedai (in sōsho) : Azuma kagami 1 no 2 (etc.) 東鑑一之二 (等). Naidai: Shinkan azuma kagami 新刊吾妻鏡. Hashiragaki: Azuma kagami 東鑑 + maki no. + folio no. Edition: The earliest edition of this work was published in Keichō 10 (1605) by Isogawa Ryōan (Fushundō) 五十川了庵 (富春堂), on the instructions of Tokugawa Ieyasu, and is regarded therefore as a Fushimi-ban 伏見版. It contains the printed kanki: Fushundō shinkan 富春堂新刊 (not in the BL copy) on folio 7 of maki 1, and also a long batsubun and kanki signed by 承兌 (Shōtai, or Jōtai) at the end of the work. The present copy, although it contains the first (blockprinted) folio of this batsubun, does not belong to the Fushimi edition but to the undated edition cited as Type 2 in Kokatsujiban no kenkyū, p. 221, without vertical rules between columns, probably published in Genna period. Contents: A historical account of Japan under the Kamakura shogunate, spanning the 86 years between 1180 (outbreak of the Gen-Pei 源平 wars) and 1266. Compiled from a variety of sources at some time between 1266 and 1301.

Access Information

Not Public Record(s)

Unrestricted

Acquisition Information

Donated to the British Museum by (Sir) Ernest M. Satow 13 June 1885.

Other Finding Aids

Kenneth Gardner, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700 (London and Tenri, 1993).C.Japanese works 和書 9.History and biography 歴史・伝記 a.Early records 古代史

Bibliography

Nihon koten bungaku daijiten 日本古典文学大辞典, vol. 1, p. 58; Kokatsujiban no kenkyū 古活字版の研究, pp. 219-21, 223-5, 400, 698; Kokuritsu kokkai toshokan shozō kichōsho kaidai 国立国会図書館所蔵貴重書解題, vol. 1 p. 20; Kōbunsō kokatsuji-ban mokuroku (see under Edition above).