Ashikaga Clan

The Ashikaga clan was a Japanese samurai family. It is a branch of the Genji clan. The family descended from the Kawachi-Genji branch of the Seiwa-Genji clan and, as members of a shogunate family, served as vassals of the Kamakura shogunate. During the Muromachi period, the main line of the family ruled Japan as the Ashikaga Shogunate. The family is sometimes referred to as the Genji-Ashikaga clan to distinguish it from the unrelated Ashikaga branch of the Fujiwara clan, which was founded by the descendants of FUJIWARA no Hidesato.

Origin

In the Heian period, MINAMOTO no Yoshikuni (a bureaucrat with the title Shikibu no Tayu), who was the third son of MINAMOTO no Yoshiie (also known as Hachimantaro Yoshiie) and head of the Kawachi-Genji clan, owned the Ashikaga fief in Shimotsuke Province (now Ashikaga city, prefecture Tochigi) and the descendants of his second son, Yoshiyasu, took the name Ashikaga. This is also the origin of the Nitta clan