Minamoto no Sanetomo (1192-1219)

Minamoto no Sanetomo (源実朝, 1192-1219), the third shōgun of the Kamakura shogunate and a notable waka (和歌) poet, was the second son of Minamoto no Yoritomo (源頼朝, 1147-1199), the founder of the shogunate, and his politically astute wife Hōjō Masako (北条政子, 1157-1225). Born in Kamakura, the military capital of Japan, in the very year that the Kyōto court reluctantly granted Yoritomo the title of shōgun, Sanetomo was raised within a regime dominated by martial governance but deeply...