Kasama Castle

Overview

Kasama Castle (笠間城, Kasama-jō) is a fortification in the city of Kasama, in central Ibaraki Prefecture, north-east of Tokyo. Its documented history begins in 1219, the first year of the Jōkyū era (承久, jōkyū), which places its foundation in the Kamakura period (1185–1333). The castle remained in use for centuries afterwards and was primarily active in the Edo period, when it served as the seat of Kasama Domain (笠間藩, Kasama-han), a feudal territory whose lord was headquartered there. In its final phase the castle belonged to a junior branch of the Makino clan, and it is listed among the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles (続日本100名城, Zoku Nihon Hyaku Meijō), a 2017 selection of notable sites compiled by the Japanese Castle Foundation.

History

The castle's origin is dated to 1219, the opening year of the Jōkyū era. That date sits in the Kamakura period, when political power had shifted from the imperial court in Kyoto to the warrior government at Kamakura, and local strongholds across the Kantō region were being fortified by warrior houses. Kasama lies in the Kantō plain, and the site was chosen for a hilltop position with wide views over the surrounding country.

Through the Edo period (1603–1868) the castle functioned as the administrative and military centre of Kasama Domain. Domain and castle changed hands repeatedly in the early Edo period, as the Tokugawa shogunate reassigned lords between territories. By the end of the Edo period the castle was home to a junior branch of the Makino clan, the family that held Kasama Domain at the close of the period. The castle's long record of occupation, from its Kamakura-period foundation to its Edo-period role as a domain headquarters, is what defines it: a fortification primarily active in the Edo period that had already stood for more than three and a half centuries by the time the Tokugawa order began.

What Stands There Today

Kasama Castle is a hilltop site, and the surviving evidence of the fortification is in its earthworks and layout rather than in standing buildings. The castle is recognised in the Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles, the list of 100 additional sites chosen in 2017 to follow the original Top 100. Its inclusion reflects the site's value as a preserved example of a domain castle, and it draws visitors interested in the shape of the defences and the views from the hill over Kasama.

The Name in Japanese

The castle's name is written 笠間城. Its kana reading is かさまじょう, and its romaji is Kasama-jō.

The name breaks down into three characters:

• 笠 — read かさ (kasa) in this word. It means a broad conical hat, the kind worn as protection from rain or sun. The character is a bamboo radical (⺮) over the phonetic component 立.
• 間 — read ま (ma) in this word. It means an interval, a space between things, or a gap. In place names it very often marks a stretch of land or a space between two features, and it appears in hundreds of Japanese toponyms.
• 城 — read じょう (jō) in this word. It means castle or fortress. This is the standard character for a Japanese castle, and it appears in the name of almost every one of them.

The first two characters together, 笠間, are the place name Kasama, the city where the castle stands. The final character, 城, is the classifier that turns the place name into the name of the fortress built there. The pattern — place name plus 城 — is the ordinary way Japanese castles are named, and learning to spot 城 is one of the most useful reading habits for anyone working through Japanese historical texts.

A note on the reading of 城: on its own the character is read しろ (shiro), and that is the everyday word for a castle. When it follows a place name in a compound, as here, it shifts to the Sino-Japanese reading じょう (jō). The same character also appears in the word 城下町 (じょうかまち, jōkamachi), the "castle town" that grew up around a fortress — a term worth knowing, because Kasama's own town layout grew around this hill.

Visiting and Context

Kasama sits in Ibaraki Prefecture, in the Kantō region, and the castle hill is a short distance from Kasama Station. The site is a landscape of earthworks and views rather than reconstructed buildings, so the visit rewards an eye for the shape of the ground: the lines of the defences, the drop of the slopes, and the position of the hill relative to the town below.

Kasama is also known for its pottery, Kasama ware (笠間焼, Kasama-yaki), a ceramic tradition that grew up in the town and remains its best-known craft. For readers of Japanese, the castle's name offers a compact lesson in how place names and castle names are built: a local toponym, 笠間, joined to the castle character 城, read jō in the compound and shiro on its own. The same three characters, read かさまじょう, are the name a visitor will see on signs throughout the town.