Hino Tomiko

Who They Were

Hino Tomiko (日野富子, ひの とみこ) was the formal wife of Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the eighth shōgun (将軍, しょうぐん — the military ruler who held de facto power under the emperor) of the Ashikaga shogunate, and the mother of his successor, Ashikaga Yoshihisa. She was born in 1440, in the twelfth year of the Eikyō era (永享, えいきょう), during the Muromachi period (1336–1573). Her father was Hino Shigemasa, head of the Hino family, a court noble house with a long record of marrying daughters into the Ashikaga shogunal line. Her mother was Kitakōji Naoko (北小路苗子).

Tomiko lived through the collapse of the shogunate's authority and the outbreak of the Ōnin War (応仁の乱, おうにんのらん), the decade-long conflict in and around Kyoto that historians conventionally treat as the opening of the Sengoku period (戦国時代, せんごくじだい — the "Warring States" era of competing regional lords). She died on 30 June 1496.

Life and Career

Tomiko was first betrothed to Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, the seventh shōgun, but Yoshikatsu died at the age of ten, and the match came to nothing. She instead became the wife of his successor, Ashikaga Yoshimasa. The marriage placed her at the centre of the shogunal household at a moment when the shōgun showed far more interest in the arts — the building of the Silver Pavilion, the patronage of painters and renga poets — than in the business of governing.

In 1465 Tomiko gave birth to a son, Yoshihisa. The timing was decisive. Yoshimasa had already named his younger brother, Ashikaga Yoshimi, as his heir, and Yoshimi had accepted the position. The arrival of a direct son gave the shogunal household two claimants, and the great deputy families — the Hosokawa on one side, the Yamana on the other — ranged themselves behind them. Tomiko pressed her son's claim; Yoshimi's backers pressed his. In 1467 fighting broke out in Kyoto, and the Ōnin War began.

The war lasted until 1477 and reduced much of the capital to ruin. Tomiko's role in the succession dispute is counted among the causes of the conflict. She was not a passive figure in it: she raised money for her son's party, and she is associated with the toll barriers (関所, せきしょ) set up around Kyoto, whose levies she directed toward the succession cause. Her son Yoshihisa was eventually confirmed as heir and became the ninth shōgun in 1473, the year his father formally stepped down. Yoshihisa died in 1489, before he could consolidate his rule, and Tomiko outlived him by seven years.

Why They Matter

The Ōnin War is the hinge on which Japanese medieval history turns. Before it, the Ashikaga shōguns governed, however weakly, from Kyoto; after it, the authority of the central regime was effectively spent, and power devolved to regional daimyō (大名, だいみょう — territorial lords commanding their own military forces) who fought one another for a century. Tomiko's determination to place her own son on the shogunal seat turned a dynastic question into the trigger for that collapse.

Her career also shows how a woman of the Muromachi elite could exercise political power. Denied formal office, she worked through the household, through marriage alliances arranged by the Hino family, through money, and through the succession itself. The Hino had for generations supplied wives to the Ashikaga; Tomiko converted that standing into direct intervention in the highest question of state.

The Name in Japanese

The name is written 日野富子, read in kana as ひの とみこ, and romanised as Hino Tomiko. The family name comes first, as is standard in Japanese.

• 日 — read ひ (hi) here. The character means "sun" or "day". In this name it is part of the surname.
• 野 — read の (no) here. The character means "field" or "open country". Together, 日野 (Hino) is the name of the noble house into which Tomiko was born.
• 富 — read とみ (tomi) here. The character means "wealth", "riches", or "abundance". It is a common element in given names, and the same character appears in 富む (とむ, to be rich).
• 子 — read こ (ko) here. The character means "child". In women's names it functions as a suffix, and it was conventional for centuries; the same 子 ending appears in countless female given names, though it is no longer obligatory.

The reading とみこ is a straightforward kun'yomi (訓読み, くんよみ — the native Japanese reading of a character) plus 子. Note that 日野 as a surname is read Hino, not Nichino or Hijino; surnames frequently use readings that cannot be predicted from the characters alone, which is why Japanese names are usually given with furigana (振り仮名, ふりがな — small kana printed above or beside the characters to show pronunciation).

Legacy

Tomiko's reputation in later Japanese writing is severe. She is remembered as the woman whose ambition over her son's inheritance split the shogunate and brought war to Kyoto, and the toll barriers she ran made her a byword for a ruler's appetite for money. Modern accounts are more measured, treating her as one of several actors — Yoshimasa's indecision and the rivalry of the Hosokawa and Yamana were at least as consequential — but the association with the outbreak of the Ōnin War has never been displaced.

Her son Yoshihisa died in 1489 without an heir of his own, and the shogunate passed to a cousin. Tomiko herself died on 30 June 1496, having seen the office she fought to secure for her son pass out of her line. The war she helped to start outlasted her by a century: the Sengoku period is dated from it, and the reunification of Japan under Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the 1580s and 1590s is measured against the fragmentation that began in 1467.