Asakura

The Asakura were a samurai clan whose home was Asakura in Tajima Province, where in the late Heian period Kusakabe Munetaka first took the Asakura name. A branch entered Echizen in the Nanboku-chō wars, serving the Shiba and becoming one of their deputy-governor houses.

In the Ōnin War the seventh head Asakura Toshikage switched from the western to the eastern camp in 1471, overcame the rival Kai family, united Echizen and built Ichijōdani Castle; his seventeen-article house code made him the first Sengoku daimyō of the line. The Asakura then ruled Echizen and campaigned into neighbouring provinces.

The eleventh head Yoshikage sheltered the fugitive shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiaki but refused to march on Kyoto. His wars with Oda Nobunaga alongside the Azai ended in defeat at Anegawa in 1570 and the burning of Ichijōdani in 1573, when Yoshikage killed himself. A branch served the Tokugawa as hatamoto.