Ishidō

The Ishidō were a branch of the Ashikaga family of Shimotsuke. Their founder Yorishige, a grandson and adopted son of Ashikaga Yasuuji, took the name Ishidō in the mid-thirteenth century, probably from an estate named for a stone monument.

The clan's prominence came in the Nanboku-chō wars. Yorishige's son Yoshifusa was named supreme commander of Ōshū in 1337. Recalled in 1345, he quarrelled with Shogun Takauji and withdrew to Kamakura to serve Takauji's brother Tadayoshi. In the Kannō Disturbance he and his son Yorifusa fought on Tadayoshi's side; Yorifusa afterwards held out with the Southern Court until he surrendered in 1364 and took holy vows.

Yoshifusa's other son Yoshimoto briefly seized Taga in 1354 before Shiba Iekane drove him out. A later kinsman appears in shogunal service during the Ōei War of 1399, after which the Ishidō vanish from the records.