This page is an attempt to synthesize the information available to us on where the Oda family come from. There available information is quite confusing, and there are are several different theories for how to put all of the facts together. None of the current theories can be considered at this point to be the 100% factual version. I would love to hear from anyone who has better information or can help to sew some of these facts together.
The search for Oda Nobunaga's roots quickly turns frustrating. There were no centrally maintained birth, death, and marriage records from this time in Japanese history. So information has to be gleaned from contemporary accounts, letters, public announcements, and similar documents. Many historians have analyzed these records and filled in the gaps as they see makes sense; other historians have used these secondary sources to create the narrative that in turn makes sense to them. This creates a patchwork of assumptions, facts, interpolations, and sheer guesses. Even events which are pretty well established have different dates on them - did the Shiba family move to Owari in 1398, or 1400?
On top of that we have the fact that Nobunaga himself seems to have altered the official family story in order to suit him. So, what follows is my current best attempt to make sense of all of this.
The official Oda family tree that has been passed down - which includes Nobunaga's adjustments - shows the family to be descendants of the Taira clan. The Taira were one of the families in Japan who vied for political and military power for most of Japanese history. The "4 big clans" in Japanese history were the Minamoto, the Taira, the Fujiwara, the Tachibana. These four families are referred to as a group as GenPeiTouKitsu 源平藤橘 .
Specifically Oda Nobunaga claimed to be descended from "Oda" Chikazane 親真. Chikazone is said to be the son of Taira Sukemori, 平資盛 (1161-1185), who was the second son of Taira Shigemori (1137?-1179)平重盛, who was the first son and heir of the very famous Taira Kiyomori 平清盛 (1118-1181).
The official story is this: Taira Sukemori was killed at the Battle of Dan-no-Ura in 1185. This appears to be an actual historical fact. The Battle of Dan-no-Ura was the decisive battle in the long-running war between the two most powerful clans in Japan, the Taira and the Minamoto. The Taira clan were wiped out; the Minamoto victorious. This final victory by the Minamoto clan made them the clear de facto rulers in Japan; a fact which was formalized when the Emperor named the Minamoto clan leader Minamoto Yoritomo as Shogun. This was the start of what is commonly called the Kamakura Bakufu.
Upon his father Sukemori's death in the battle, Chikazane (too young to participate in the battle? i.e., less than 12-13 years old?) set out in the world.
One interesting point here is the dates. Sukemori would have been about 24 years old at the time of Dan-no-Ura. At the time this was age enough to be fully an adult with years of battle experience, and have plenty of children. But if Chikazone were about 10-11 years old this would mean he was born when Sukemori was something like 13 years old. It's not outside the realm of possibility but it makes the story a little less plausible. Of course it is also possible that Chikazone was a very young child - or perhaps even still unborn - at the time of the battle and was still being taken care of by someone else, perhaps his pregnant mother.
At any rate, according to this version of the family history, Chikazane next found himself at the Tsuta Estate in Oumi (modern-day Shiga Prefecture). There he was taken care of by a major local family. Later he was adopted by a Shinto Priest of the Tsurugi Shrine located on the Ota Estate in Echizen, modern Fukui Prefecture.
Incidentally the Tsurugi Shrine still exits today.
In 1233, Chikazane set down his roots and changed his family name to his new home, "Ota". The pronunciation of the family name changed at some point to "Oda", although the same kanji characters continue to be used to write the name. Later he became a priest himself and took on the monk's name Kakusei 覚盛. Chikazane died on March 18, 1260. Assuming he was 10 years old at the time of the Battle of Dan-no-Ura, he must have been something like 85 years old at the time of his death.
Nobunaga later continued to point to the Tsurugi Shrine as the shrine of his ancestors. More on this below.
This story is recounted in one well known source of Nobunaga's life and times, the so-called "Ho'an Shinchou Ki". This is one of the two most basic books on Nobunaga's life; the other being the "Shinchou Kouki". These are the basic facts that have come to be considered the "official" background story of Oda Nobunaga's family.
This whole episode illustrates a very interesting point about names. We can see from this episode that one man has used at least 3 different names (Taira Chikazane, Ota/Oda Chikazane, Kakusei), and probably had at least one more name that he was given at birth - his birth name. I plan to write a little bit more detail about this aspect of names on the site in the near future.
But, the Odas before Nobunaga -- and even Nobunaga himself -- claimed to be descended from the Fujiwara clan.
The earliest known document in Nobunaga's own hand was written in 1549, when he was just 14 or 15 years old - or 16 years old in the old Japanese way of counting ages. It is a written document known as a seisatsu 制札, given to the "Eight Villages of Atsuta". A seisatsu is a series of orders posted like a physical bulletin board, which apply to a specific geographic area. They usually contained clauses which prohibited the burning and looting of that area, prohibited armies from camping around the area, and similar orders. In other words they represented "protection" to that place by the local big shot.
Interestingly, this particular document is signed Fujiwara Nobunaga 藤原信長. This document - in fact a small wooden sign which would have been posted in a prominent place near the local Shrine - was unfortunately destroyed during World War II airraids. A copy aparently exists, however, The text of the seisatsu can be found at this site (in Japanese).
Nobunaga's father Nobuhide is thought to have died in 1552, though (like many things to do with Nobunaga) different theories exist. So at this time, Nobunaga had not yet even taken over the reigns of his immediate family. It therefore seems natural to believe that he had signed the order with the name that he and his father had been using - that is, his "True" name.
The question might come up why would he sign anything Fujiwara, or Taira for that matter, instead of using his family name "Oda"? This has to do with how Japanese names were put together at the time. Something I plan to discuss in more detail here.
There are other similar documents created by his contemporary family members and ancestors. So what's going on here? Nobunaga himself was responsible for a switch of the official family history. It is probably the case that the Oda were minor descendants of the Fujiwara, but Nobunaga changed the story to show that he was descended from the most famous members of the Taira clan. The reasons for this change appear to have been political and, perhaps to some degree, superstitious. More on this topic a few paragraphs down the page here.
But there are even more theories out there about the true roots of the Oda. For instance, it has also been speculated that the Oda clan were in fact locally very powerful, and were the rightful owners of the Ota Estate land. In this theory, they set themselves up as imperial caretakers in order to be able to live on the land without risk that it would be taken away from them by force by another powerful family.
Another possibility is that a Shinto priest of the Tsurugi Shrine took on the name Ota/Oda. In this theory, the mother is a Taira, but the father was of the Inbe 伊部 clan, who were Shinto priests based at the Tsurugi shrine. Their son - our friend Chikazane - took the name Ota from the temple.
It's even possible that some combination of these theories are true at the same time. For instance, among one generation of children, a second or later son of the caretaker family might have been a Shinto priest in the Tsurugi shrine, and taken on a new name to start his own family line.
In Theory #2, the Fujiwara theory, it's claimed that Nobunaga was from the Fujiwara clan but later changed his story to connect him to the Fujiwaras. Why would Nobunaga have wanted to change his family tree? What gain could be had from doing such a thing?
Briefly, as Nobunaga grew in stature, it became clear that he was intending to wrest power from the current power structure, the Ashikaga Shogunate. The Ashikaga were said to have descended from the Minamoto clan. This was a very prestigious heritage, because Minamoto is the oldest family name in Japan, having been granted directly from the Emperor. At this time there was a concept that the two most powerful families -- Taira clan and the Minamoto clan -- each gained influence and power in alternating fashion, taking it back and forth from each other: Taira - Minamoto - Taira - Minamoto. This concept was called the GenPei Koutai Shisou, or "Concept of Alternating Minamoto (Gen) and Taira (Hei/Pei)".
Again, the Ashikaga were said to be of the Minamoto line. The Minamoto clan had been in asendancy since the Battle of Dan-no-Ura in 1185. So Nobunaga's claim to be of the Taira can easily be seen as a public statement of his intent to overtake the Ashikaga. The signal would have been easily understood by the political classes at the time. It's also possible that Nobunaga believed that it was necessary for his ancestors to have been the Taira, in order for the world order to change.
And, it is also possible that the Oda were, in fact, descended from the Taira, and that previously it had been expedient for the family to claim to be of the Fujiwara. There's really no way to tell.
Besides the fact that Nobunaga himself used the name Fujiwara at early stages of his life, there is one more compelling piece of evidence that seems to clinch the victory of the Fujiwara Theory. In 1393 Fujiwara Nobumasa 藤原信昌 and his son, Masahiro 将広, left a kind of will and testament called an 置き文 oki-bumi at the Tsurugi Shrine. These two had just had the shrine refurbished. This oki-bumi, or will, included a promise to the shrine that they would never charge taxes on the shrine, and that their family would look after the repairs of the shrine in the future.
It is now generally accepted that this Fujiwara Nobumasa was the true ancestor of Nobunaga -- although he does not appear in any of the official family histories. The logic goes like this: Fujiwara Nobumasa was obviously a powerful man from a powerful family in Echizen, or else he would not have the power to tax the shrine (or the power to chose not to tax the shrine). He also had to have been powerful in order to come up with the resources to refurbish the shrine and commit his family to its ongoing upkeep. It is only this kind of powerful family that could have become the local vassals of one of the most powerful families in the country, who were the Shogun's direct representative in Echizen - the Shiba.
And we do know that at some point in time, the Oda family had come to be connected to the Shiba family. The Shiba family were the 守護 shugo, or governors on behalf of the Shogun, of Echizen. The Oda were what is called a 被管 hikan, or direct vassal, of the Shiba. There are no records of exactly when this relationship started. However, in the 1393 oki-bumi, it appears that the relationship had already started.
For one thing, we have the names involved. The kanji used for the "Masa" 将 of "Fujiwara Masahiro" was also used in the name the Shiba's current leader, Shiba Yoshimasa 斯波義将. It can be supposed that the son had been granted the use of the character as a reward for fine service to the Shiba. This practice was very common at the time, and we see similar patters through the next several generations of Shiba and Oda leaders. The "hiro" portion 広 of Masahiro was used by successive generations of Oda family leaders.
A second hint is that in the text of the oki-bumi document itself there are references to the son Masahiro being busy "in the service of his lord" 奉公無隙之間. This can be interpreted due to the nuances of the original Japanese to refer to working for the Shiba.
Said in other words - it can be interpreted that the Fujiwaras who had agreed to take care of the Tsurugi Shrine were indeed members of the Oda family. This may also be why Oda Nobunaga himself continued to publicly announce and maintain his connection to the Shrine - he might have felt obligated by the oki-bumi of his ancestors from 150 years before his birth.
In the official family history, the story is that Taira Chikazane was adopted by a Shinto Priest at the Tsurugi Shrine, located within the Ota Estate in Echizen. The Ota Estate was a particular type of imperial land called a shou-in in Echizen. He then took the name "Ota" which changed into Oda at some point.
In the Fujiwara theory, we don't know exactly why, but we know that Nobunaga's ancestors looked after the Shrine and left an Okibumi there.
In some of the minor theories, there are other connections to the Tsurugi Shrine. The Inbe theory has Chikazane as a priest at the Shrine. Other theories have him as a second son or minor branch of the line of priests at the shrine - the Inbe.
In any event, there are still lots of unanswered questions. But as of 1393, 明徳４年, things start to come into focus. There is a large and very interesting political context around this date which has to do with two concurrent Dynasties of emperors vying for power in Japan. This epoch is known as the North-South Dynasty period, or NanBokuTyou Jidai 南北朝時代. This period of political upheaval formally ended in 1392. I describe that period in brief on this page.
In 1398 (Ouei 5 応永５年) Shiba Yoshishige 斯波義重 (1371-1418) was appointed the shugo of Echizen. At the time the Shiba family were already shugo, or Governors, of Echizen and of Shinano provinces. In March 1400 (Ouei 7) the Shiba received from the Shogun two additional provinces. The new provinces were Owari and Totomi (Tohtoumi). On the other hand the province of Shinano was taken away. This shuffling was one minor result of a complicated policical struggle called the Ouei Rebellion (応永の乱). This is a fascinating episode, but going into details might take another whole website. This is a huge trap of Japanese history - searching for the roots and causes of some events can take you down paths that go back hundreds of years!
When did the Oda family begin to serve the Shiba?
Does the fact that the Odas served one of the most powerful families in Japan in fact indicate that the Oda family was somehow powerful - lending credibility to the "landowner" and/or "Fujiwara" theories?
Who is Oda Tsunemasa 常昌? Is he the person in 1400 who was first appointed Shugo-dai for Owari?
Anyway, at first Shiba Yoshishige delegated the responsibility for his new territory Owari to one of his vassals, Kai Masanori 甲斐将教. However within a couple of years he passed responsibility for Owari over to another of his vassals, Oda Tsunematsu, giving him the title Vice Governor (Shugo-Dai). Tsunematsu's name first appears in historical documents (the Daigo-Ji Bunsho - The Daigo Temple Documents) as the Shugo-Dai of Owari in 1403 so this transfer of power happened sometime between 1400 and 1403.
Incidentally, the Daigo Temple still exists today.
Tsunematsu in turn delegated this delegation to his relative (brother?) Oda Tsunetake as "Deputy Vice Governor" (Mata Shugo-Dai). Tsunetake actually appears slightly earlier - 1402 - in local documents. So we know that the Oda had some presence in Owari very early.
It is very likely that Tsunetake was entrusted with day-to-day management of Owari because the official Governor, Tsunematsu, was in fact a direct secretary of Shiba Yoshishige. Because of his duties with Yoshishige, he was probably physically with Yoshishige at almost all times in either Echizen or in the capital city, Kyoto, attending to court. Tsunematsu was thus not able to attend to the affairs of Owari and left the day to day running of the realm to his deputy / relative Tsunetake.
What all of this tells us is that sometime around 1400, give or take a couple of years, the Oda family moved into Owari, under the auspices of the Shiba. The Oda continued to be the direct rulers of Owari for the next 130 years or so, when Nobunaga was born. However, it appears that Tsunetake was the one and only "Deputy Vice Governor".
Interestingly, from this very early point in time, the clan was basically split into two factions. At first it was the Tsunematsu and Tsunetake arrangement. But Tsunetake appears not to have left a powerful heir. The split in the family lived on through Tsunematsu's own sons. The Oda family split into two main branches - the Yamato-no-Kami branch and the Ise-no-Kami branch. This is actually pretty confusing in the record and I'm trying to pin down precisely the way this worked. But the important fact for following the main story is the fact that these two branches of the family continued as rivals from the very beginning.
We see how the Oda came into Owari and broke into two main branches. The family history - and the history of Owari - is more clearly documented from this point on. At the same time the story starts to get complex, with plenty of twists and turns. I'm still reading alot on this topic, trying to polish up my notes little by little as time permits. I have begun to post here a brief history of the next chapter, which is the period between roughly 1400 and Nobunaga's birth in 1534.
We only know what's passed down to us
Ancient History
Theory #1: The Party Line - The Taira Theory
Theory #2: The Leading Candidate - The Fujiwara Theory
Theory #3: All others, including the Inbe Theory
Why the Switch? - GenPei Koutai Shisou
The Oki-Bumi
All Roads Lead to the Tsurugi Shrine
Coming into Focus
The Next Chapter: Clear - but Complicated
