The Clear Mirror (Masukagami) is an account of Japanese history from 1180 to
1333 presented by an anonymous male author, almost certainly a court noble
writing around the third quarter of the fourteenth century, who employs two
anonymous (and fictional) voices to relate his tale: that of an improbably aged
feminine narrator -- a nun of apparent cultivation, now withered and tooth-
less -- who has purportedly either witnessed the events described or learned of
them through other sources, including what she describes as unsubstantiated
rumors; and that of an implied male author, vocal on occasion, who records
the old woman's words. ¹

The nun begins and ends her remarks concerning 1180, the first year covered
in her tale, with the birth of the future Emperor Go-Toba ² on the fifteenth
day of the seventh lunar month in the fourth year of the Jishō era ( 1180).
Go-Toba's birth was a symbolic event, and there were also other reasons, dis-
cussed below, for choosing 1180 as a point of departure for a historical work.
Important to an understanding of the author's intentions, however, and of
his notion of historiography, is what the nun ignores in her treatment of that
year--namely, the start of the Gempei War ( 1180-1185), a nationwide con-
flict that led to fundamental alterations in the Japanese polity, creating new
relationships central to the history of the Kamakura period ( 1185-1333).

Not the least important of those relationships was the one between a post-
Gempei military establishment in Kamakura and Retired Emperor Go-Toba,
the governing power in Kyoto. Chafing under limitations imposed on his au-
tonomy by the warriors in Kamakura, Go-Toba resorted to the use of force
against them -- the Jōkyū Disturbance of 1221 -- failed disastrously, and died
in exile. The nun tells the story of his life in some detail, but her concerns are
in large measure apolitical; we hear much more about his admirable charac-
ter, his interest in poetry and music, and his emotions in exile than about his

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