Yuki Tomomitsu

Yuki Tomomitsu (1168-1254) was an early Kamakura-period gokenin and is regarded as the first head of the Shimosa Yuki clan. He died at 87. A close retainer of Minamoto no Yoritomo, he is recorded in the Azuma Kagami as having served ten times as the sword bearer (gyoken-yaku) at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the most among all gokenin.

He was the third son of Oyama Masamitsu of Shimotsuke, of the Oyama branch of the Fujiwara no Hidesato line; his mother Sangami-ama was the daughter of Yoritomo's wet nurse. In 1180, through his mother's mediation, he submitted to Yoritomo, who served as his eboshi-oya at his coming-of-age ceremony. In 1181 he was chosen as one of Yoritomo's bedchamber guards.

At the Battle of Nogimiya (1183) he fought against the combined forces of Shida Yoshihiro and Ashikaga Tadatsuna and was rewarded with the post of jito of Yuki District. He then served under Minamoto no Noriyori and Yoshitsune from the Battle of Uji River to Dan-no-ura. In the Oshu campaign of 1189 he killed the enemy commander Kongo Betto Hidetsuna at Atsukashiyama and was granted the three districts of Shirakawa in Oshu; he also took part in suppressing the Okawa Kanetō rebellion the following year. At the 1195 Todaiji reconstruction ceremony he was praised for skillfully mediating a brawl among monks. He fought in the Jokyu War, became governor of Kozuke in 1229 and a member of the Hyojoshu in 1235.

Devoted to the nenbutsu from youth, he followed Honen and Shinran, and late in life took vows as Yuki Kozuke Nyudo Nichia and founded Yuki Shomyoji. After the Hoji War (1247) destroyed his acquaintance Miura Yasumura's family, he is said to have gone to Kamakura and wept before Hojo Tokiyori. Some Yuki genealogies claim he was an illegitimate son of Yoritomo, but this is absent from sources such as the Sonpi Bunmyaku and is not historically confirmed.