Asayama

The Asayama were a warrior house based at the Asayama estate in Kandori district, Izumo Province, tracing their lineage to the early Heian period and claiming Otomo descent, later bearing the court-granted surname Katsube. A Kamakura head already appears in documents from shogunal prince Hisaaki and regent Hojo Sadatoki, and Katsube Masatsuna helped fund the rebuilding of Izumo Taisha in 1242 and was appointed its guards officer, emon-no-jo.

Asayama Kagetsura served Ashikaga Takauji in the Nanboku-cho wars and was rewarded with stewardships in Hoki and Izumo; his son Yoshikage received more Izumo estates from Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiakira after kinsmen died in battle. Through Muromachi times the house combined court guard titles with Izumo landholding, until Asayama Toshitsuna became a retainer of Amago Tsunehisa in the early sixteenth century.

With the family's home district wasted by the Sengoku wars, Oda Nobunaga in the 1580s settled them in Yamashiro Province near Kyoto; in 1601 Asayama Yukitsuna became a northern guard of Emperor Go-Yozei, and from 1612 the house served the Kujo nobility as hereditary stewards.