Momonoi

The Momonoi were a cadet branch of the Ashikaga house, descended from the Seiwa Genji. In 1225 Ashikaga Yoshikane's son Yoshisuke was appointed steward of Momonoi Manor in Kōzuke, and Yoshisuke's son Yoshitane took Momonoi as his family name.

At the fall of the shogunate in 1333, Momonoi Naotsune and his brother Nobunobu marched with Ashikaga Takauji against the Rokuhara deputies, while a kinsman joined Nitta Yoshisada's assault on Kamakura. During the Nanboku-chō wars the family divided between the Northern and Southern courts.

Naotsune, a famed general and shugo of Etchū, sided with Ashikaga Tadayoshi in the Kannō Disturbance of 1350 to 1352 and remained an enemy of Takauji; his line declined. Other Momonoi served the Muromachi shoguns, and the priest Nichiryū founded Honnō-ji, the temple of the 1582 incident.