Uesugi Norizane

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Uesugi Norizane (上杉 憲実; 1410-1466) was a Japanese samurai of the Uesugi clan who held a number of high government posts during the Muromachi period.

Shugo (Constable) of Awa province, he was appointed Kantō Kanrei (Shogun's deputy in the Kantō region) in 1419, as an assistant to Kantō-kubō Ashikaga Mochiuji. He was then appointed Kamakura-kubō (representative of the shogunate in Kamakura) soon afterwards. When Mochiuji rebelled against the shogunate, and attacked Norizane directly, Norizane complained to the shogunate, and fled to Kōzuke province. He returned to Kamakura in 1439, following Mochiuji's death. Norizane, Kantō Kanrei, now controlled the Kantō in the absence of a Kantō-kubō; from then on, the Kanrei was the Shogun's direct deputy, the kubō serving only as an empty title.

Norizane left his post to his brother Uesugi Kiyotaka soon afterwards, and became a Buddhist monk. Over the course of his life, he patronized the Ashikaga Academy and helped to expand its library.

[edit] References

• Frederic, Louis (2002). "Japan Encyclopedia." Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Sansom, George (1961). "A History of Japan: 1334-1615." Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.