Hōjō Tokimasa
1st Shikken of the Kamakura shogunate (1138-1215)
Hōjō Tokimasa (北条 時政; Japanese pronunciation: [hoː.(d)ʑoː (|) to.kʲiꜜ.ma.sa], 1138 – February 6, 1215) was a Japanese samurai lord who was the first shikken (regent) of the Kamakura shogunate and head of the Hōjō clan. He was shikken from 1203 until his abdication in 1205, and Protector of Kyoto from 1185 to 1186.
Background
The Hōjō clan is alleged to have been descended from the Taira clan. The Hōjō clan based themselves in a northern part of the Izu Province, which was in the east (Kanto region) and quite far away from the imperial center of power in Kyoto.
Early life
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. Tokimasa was born in 1138 into the influential local magnate Hōjō clan in the province of Izu. It is believed that his father was either Hōjō Tokikata or Hōjō Tokikane.
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 Emperor Sutoku--who would be deposed in the fallout of the Hōgen Rebellion. This also facilitated the rivalry between the Minamoto clan under Minamoto no Yoshitomo and the Taira clan under Taira no Kiyomori.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q589811. VIAF identifies the subject as 107465397. The Library of Congress control number is no2010031742. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1138, 1215, 1203 and 1205.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hōjō Tokimasa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.