In a ward of Osafune called Hatakeda, the smith Moriie kept a forge in the mid-Kamakura — a collateral Bizen line that signed not "Hatakeda" but "Osafune," so close did it sit to the great Bizen centre. Across Moriie, Sanemori, Mitsumori, and Morishige the school carried a signature all its own: a jihada that stands up in active, textured grain, and an exuberant kawazu-ko chōji — "frog-spawn" clover heads — bursting through a bright, midare-utsuri ground. Moriie's range ran from gorgeously disordered chōji clusters to quiet, austere suguha; by the Nanbokuchō his line had folded back into the Osafune mainstream it grew beside.
The The Bizen Hatakeda School (畠田), active 1230–1370 in Bizen Province across 16 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 18 Jūbun, 17 Jūbi, 14 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 109 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Bizen Hatakeda School (畠田) · 1230 – 1370
Moriie (守家) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Moriie worked at Hatakeda in Bizen in the mid-Kamakura period, and from that place he is called Hatakeda Moriie. The published sources keep the lineage deliberately open: the prevailing account places two smiths under the one name, the first contemporary with Osafune Mitsutada and the second with Nagamitsu, while noting that a clean division of first and second generations on the carved characters alone is difficult and remains a subject for future study, and that some hold there was only a single Moriie. The earliest dated example bears a Bun'ei 9 (1272) date and the name runs on into the Nanbokucho years, so the body of work is broad and a flat reading of one hand is not forced on it.
What the sources do fix is the manner. His workmanship sits close to the contemporary Osafune smiths, yet is set apart by a jigane that tends to stand and by a temper in which the toad-spawn clove is conspicuous: the recurring phrase is that the jigane stands and the kawazuko-choji in the edge is prominent (地がねが肌立ち、焼刃に蛙子丁子が目立つ). The forging is itame, often with mokume and a flowing tendency, the grain standing in places, with fine ji-nie thickly laid, fine chikei entering, and a vivid midare-utsuri (乱れ映り) rising clearly in the ji. This standing, utsuri-lit Bizen jigane is the first half of his fingerprint.
The temper is the part that carries his name. His representative construction is described as a clove laden with the waist-pinched toad-spawn form, an undulating, restless edge (腰のくびれた蛙子丁子を交えた出入りの目立つ焼刃構成). Over the standing jigane he forges a large choji-midare mixed with fukuro-choji (袋丁子) and the kawazuko-choji (蛙子丁子), with ashi and yo entering vigorously, ko-nie attaching, tobiyaki and yubashiri appearing about the monouchi, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running, and a bright nioiguchi. The kawazuko clove is the single most useful point of recognition: Mitsutada and others touch it, but no contemporary makes it so central, so that a blade thick with toad-spawn clove over a standing, nie-drawing Bizen ji reads as Hatakeda Moriie almost on that count.
The boshi the older reading flattened to a plain ko-maru. The corpus is more specific and more varied. It runs midare-komi and settles into a ko-maru, but it frequently turns pointed and sweeps out in hakikake: one tachi is described as turning back midare-komi, pointed at the tip, with hakikake (帽子乱れ込み、先尖りごころとなり、掃きかける), and others show ko-maru with a pointed feeling, or omote ko-maru against an ura that tends to a point. The pointed, brushed turnback is part of the signature, not an exception to it, and it belongs in any honest reading of him.
There is a second register the connoisseur should know. On a group of his later pieces the edge quiets into kataochi-gunome and kaku-gunome over the same standing, utsuri-lit ji, a calmer construction the published sources tie to the late-Kamakura Osafune mainline and to Nagamitsu's dated tanto. These pieces matter beyond their quietness: one signed tanto is read as indispensable for substantiating the proposed lineage of Moriie, Morishige and Motoshige (守家守重元重), and so the calmer Moriie is a documentary key as much as a stylistic one. Even here his hand shows through, in the strongly standing grain, the frequent chikei and the fine ha-nie that the calmer Osafune work does not carry to the same degree.
For the collector Moriie is, for a name of his class, comparatively reachable, though the best of him does not move. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku, and his work runs to Important Art Objects and Tokubetsu-Juyo, held in such collections as the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Seikado Bunko. His blades carry the histories of the great houses: a long-signed tachi reading Bizen no Kuni Osafune ju Moriie (備前国長船住守家) was bestowed by Tokugawa Ieyasu on Okudaira Iemasa and descended in the Okudaira family; another tachi passed through Date Munekage; a kodachi and a tanto descended in the Yamauchi family of Tosa. His signed tanto are genuinely scarce, noted as a rare surviving example of a tanto by this smith (同工の現存稀な短刀の遺例), so the tanto in particular reward patience. A Hatakeda Moriie does appear in public and private hands, and for the Bizen collector a standing, kawazuko-laden ji-ha of his is a strong acquisition.
Moriie (守家) — Mainline · 1232-1233. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The oldest dated work bearing the name Moriie is a tachi of Bun'ei 9 (1272), and around that date the published sources place the first master of the Hatakeda school of Bizen, a contemporary of Osafune Mitsutada in the middle Kamakura period. He is called Hatakeda Moriie because he lived at Hatakeda, hard beside Osafune; yet neither Moriie nor Sanemori and the rest of his school ever signed "Hatakeda-ju" (畠田住), while inscriptions such as "Bizen no Kuni Osafune-ju Moriie saku" (備前国長船住守家造) survive, and from this the published record concludes that Hatakeda was most likely a small place-name within Osafune village itself. The meikan set his line under Moritsune of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school.
Across decades of designations the NBTHK characterizes him in nearly the same sentence each time: his workmanship broadly resembles that of the contemporary Osafune smiths, but generally "the jigane tends to stand, and kawazuko-choji is conspicuous in the tempered edge" (地がねが肌立ち、焼刃に蛙子丁子が目立つところに特色が見られる). The kawazuko, the *choji* whose head swells like frog-spawn, is named "the most characteristic yakiba of Moriie and Mitsutada" (守家・光忠の最も特色ある焼刃); it persists among the juniors of the Hatakeda school and is only rarely seen in Mitsutada's son Nagamitsu. The appraisers read the trait at depth. On one Tokubetsu Juyo tachi where the kawazuko is not especially overt in the *yakiba* itself, they note instead that the valleys of the midare turn kawazuko-shaped toward the edge (刃方に向って谷が蛙子状), and count that, with the standing forging, among the major points of his recognition. On unsigned blades the deciding point is the kawazuko breaking into great clusters midway along the blade, where, the published record states, "lies the point of attribution to Moriie" (蛙子が大房に乱れるところに守家の極めどころがある). Quality alone can carry the judgment: of an ubu, unsigned tachi the commentary writes flatly that work rising to this level of technique "could be no one but Moriie" (これ程までに技術の上がるものは守家以外にはない).
His tachi carry high *koshi-zori*, *funbari* at the base and a *chu-kissaki*; several are long with thick *kasane*, and the designations praise the dignity of the *ubu* examples. The *jigane* is *itame* that tends to stand, with *ji-nie*, and over it a vivid *midare-utsuri* rises; the notes return to that *utsuri* again and again. The temper at full power is a flamboyant *choji-midare* mixing *ko-choji*, *gunome* and pointed elements with the kawazuko, at times large *choji* as well; *ashi* and *yo* enter well, the temper is *nioi*-primary with *ko-nie*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through, *tobiyaki* appear in places, and the *nioiguchi* is bright. The *boshi* runs *midare-komi* or settles toward *ko-maru*. Of a signed Tokubetsu Juyo tachi whose *midare-utsuri* stands vividly and whose deep-*nioi* *choji-midare* carries an exceptionally clear *nioiguchi*, the NBTHK writes a finish that "must be called his masterpiece" (彼の傑作と称すべき).
Beside that flamboyance the published sources recognize a second register, which they call his subdued class (穏やかな部類). A kodachi carries a *hoso-suguha* base mixed with *ko-gunome* and *ko-notare* over a standing *itame* with the finest *ji-nie*, its *nioiguchi* tightening; a ken, a rare survivor in his name, shows tight *ko-itame* and a narrow *suguha* with *yubashiri*-like *tobiyaki* and *nijuba*; and one signed tachi turns wholly small-patterned, its *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome* set over a dense, tightly knit *ko-itame* that the notes single out for praise. The large, boldly cut signature sits even over this quiet manner, and the kodachi so signed is judged a precious document for the relation between his mei and his workmanship. The generations behind the name are an open question, and the sources are candid about it. The standard view posits two, the first beside Mitsutada and the second beside Nagamitsu, yet the same designations state that "a clear division between the first and second generations remains a subject for future research" (初二代の明確な区分は、なお今後の研究課題) and that "some advocate a single-smith theory" (一人説を唱える向きもある). Honma went further, seeing at least three generations within the Kamakura period alone and allowing that more than one hand may have cut the same mei within a single workshop. Large characters on tachi are traditionally read as the first generation, but the record warns that the generations cannot be divided by the size of the characters alone, and it notes that extant signed works of the first generation are comparatively few (比較的に少い). Among the designated works gathered here twenty-two are signed against five unsigned, most with the large two-character mei; on two blades a kao accompanies the signature, a point of documentary value with a parallel in a tanto published in the Kozan Oshigata.
His place in the school map is fixed by Mitsutada. The two worked in neighboring villages in the same years, and the published sources say their manners show much in common; the differences they give are drawn from Moriie's own work, a jihada that stands more often than the Osafune forging, and the kawazuko a degree more insistent in the *yakiba*. That temper passed to the juniors of the Hatakeda line, and the school continued under Sanemori, who signed "Bizen no Kuni Osafune junin Umanojo Sanemori saku" (備前国長船住人右馬允真守造); the Moriie name itself runs on into the Nanbokucho, the latest dated examples reaching the Koan and Kentoku eras.
Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, the top grade of his scale. Twenty-seven designated works stand on record: six Important Cultural Properties, five Juyo Bijutsuhin, and fifteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, three of them at the higher rank. The provenance recorded against nine of his blades runs through the great houses: the Tokugawa, among them Tokugawa Iesato and Tokugawa Kunijun, the Mitsui, the Hosokawa, the Uesugi, the Okudaira and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts, examples rest today with the Kyoto National Museum and the Eisei Bunko, and with the shrines Hie Jinja and Sumiyoshi Taisha; the Important Cultural Properties remain in such custody as cultural patrimony and do not trade. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, fifteen blades in all, held closely and appearing on the market only at long intervals; when one does appear it is most often a Juyo example, and a signed tachi carrying the large two-character mei stands at the very top of what the name can offer.
Sanemori (眞守) — Mainline · 1277-1293. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. In Shoo 2 (1289), Hatakeda Sanemori signed a tachi with the long inscription Bizen no kuni Osafune junin Sama no jo Sanemori tsukuru, adding the yotsume-bishi crest and, a rarity for him, a date. Dated works of the Kenji, Koan and Shoo eras (1275 to 1293) survive, and the published sources state plainly that "his period of activity is clear." He is held to be the son of Hatakeda Moriie, by other accounts his pupil or grandson; it is also suggested that he served as one of Moriie's daisaku smiths, which would explain the scarcity of his own signed blades. Neither Moriie nor Sanemori ever signed Hatakeda-ju, the residence in the mei always reading Osafune, so Hatakeda is understood as a hamlet within Osafune village. His dated pieces fall in precisely the years of Osafune Nagamitsu, and that position, between his father's flamboyance and the composure of the Osafune mainline, is the axis on which everything written about him turns.
His prime manner is a *choji-midare* laced with *kawazuko-choji*, the pinched-waist tadpole *choji* in which, the published sources write, the Hatakeda smiths were "skilled as a specialty" (蛙子丁子を得意として上手). What separates him from the father is scale. The NBTHK's standing formula for him, repeated in more than twenty of his texts, runs: "compared with Moriie, the midare generally tends toward a somewhat smaller pattern" (乱れがやや小模様となる傾向がある). The clusters sit a degree smaller, the rise and fall of the *yakiba* is less pronounced, and the tadpole heads often show plainest on the *ura* side. *Gunome* and *togariba* mix into the *choji*, *ashi* and *yo* enter richly, and the temper is *nioi*-primary with *ko-nie*, the *nioiguchi* described again and again as bright. *Kinsuji* and *sunagashi* work through the *ha* with small *tobiyaki* in places, and the *boshi* runs *midare-komi* or settles *sugu* in *ko-maru*, often with a pointed tendency and light *hakikake*.
The *jigane* carries the school's tell. He forges *itame* mixed with *mokume* that tends to stand, with fine thick *ji-nie* and *chikei*, under a vivid *midare-utsuri*; on the dated Shoo tachi the *utsuri* takes a mottled, *jifu-utsuri*-like state. The standing tendency is milder than in Moriie yet stronger than in the Osafune smiths. Beside it a second class of forging exists, a tightly knit *ko-itame* of great refinement; of one such blade, formerly of the Saijo Matsudaira family of Iyo, the NBTHK writes that it is "the finest among works attributed to this smith" (同工極めの白眉). A school point shows in the *sugata* as well: compared with Mitsutada and the Osafune smiths, the Hatakeda *kissaki* tends to extend, and his tachi keep a high *koshizori* with *funbari*.
The published sources sort his work into three manners: the flamboyant *choji-midare*, *gunome* mixed with *choji*, and a *suguha-cho* class, the latter two generally quieter than the father throughout. The mei divides along the same line. Most blades carry a two-character signature in one of two cuttings: the bold cutting yields flamboyant works resembling Moriie, while the small cutting is "generally close to Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu" (概して長光、景光に近い). The largest-signed and most flamboyantly tempered tachi he had seen, Honma Junji judged "without doubt the work of the first generation" (初代作に相違ない). Long signatures bearing the office title are rare and appear as both Sama no jo and Uma no jo; the Uma no jo tachi carries a *chu-suguha* with shallow *notare*, the rare signed ken a *hoso-suguha* with a *yakizume* *boshi*. Behind the two cuttings lies a deeper question: "it is thought there were two generations of the same name, but distinguishing them by the characters of the mei is at present difficult." The name itself demands care, for smiths signing Sanemori existed in Heian-period Hoki at Ohara and among the Kamakura-period Bitchu Aoe; the NBTHK notes that "their mei and workmanship of course differ in each case."
At his best the question is no longer his father but Osafune itself. The dated Shoo 2 tachi, the published sources write, "at first glance calls to mind a superior work of Nagamitsu" (一見長光の上作を思わせる), and only the slightly standing *jigane* gives the Hatakeda line away. On rank the same sources are frank: "on the whole he does not reach Moriie, and the boshi especially falls short" (総体に守家に及ばず). Yet the same smaller pattern and gentler rise and fall that keep him below the father are what carry his quieter blades toward the Osafune masters. Unsigned attributions therefore rest on his own combination: the tadpole-laced *choji* over a slightly standing *itame* under vivid *utsuri*, the whole one degree calmer than Moriie. In one Tokubetsu Juyo case the appraisal was settled because the *nakago* shape closely matches his extant signed work. Surviving signed tachi are relatively few, and the published sources note that no tanto has been seen (短刀は未見).
Fujishiro rates him Jo-jo saku, and fifty-seven designated works stand on record. There are no National Treasures among them, but six blades are Important Cultural Properties, one transmitted in the Asano family of Aki, and five are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, once held by collectors such as Kuroda Nagamichi and Kurokawa Fukusaburo. Five blades hold the Tokubetsu Juyo rank and forty-one the Juyo, forty-six in the two tiers together. His blades passed through the Kishu Tokugawa family, the Shimazu of Satsuma, the Saijo Matsudaira of Iyo, and the Mori, Kuroda and Maeda houses. Of recorded whereabouts today, examples rest in collections including the Kyushu National Museum, the Hayashibara Museum of Art and the Kurokawa Research Institute. For the collector he is more approachable than the great Osafune names yet still a smith of patience: most of what circulates is osuriage mumei, resting on the smaller-patterned tadpole *choji*, and such a blade appears only from time to time. A signed piece is another matter. The two-character tachi are few, the long-signed and dated works fewer still, and when one of the latter changes hands it is an event, carrying as it does the residence, the office title and the year in the smith's own hand.
Mitsumori (光守) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Jūbi, Jūyō. Mitsumori of the Hatakeda group is a smith of late-Kamakura Bizen, placed by the published reference works around the Shoo era (1288-93). The Jubi-designated Hotta-family tachi carries the judgment plainly: "this Mitsumori is thought to correspond to the smith recorded in the sword-signature books as a Hatakeda-school artisan working around Shoo (1288-93)" (この光守は銘鑑に正応（一二八八～九三）頃の畠田派の刀工とあるもの). The published sources are candid that beyond this his genealogy is not fixed; the *meikan* record neither his dates nor his line clearly. What anchors him instead is his manner. From his rare signed blades, the NBTHK writes, the brilliant *choji-midare* in which *kaeruko-choji* is especially conspicuous readily suggests affiliation with the Moriie line, and the way he cuts his signature corresponds to it as well. He is judged close in particular to the second-generation Moriie, and the few signed pieces hold the attribution of the many unsigned ones in place.
His characteristic hand is a flamboyant, *nioi*-based *choji-midare* led by *kawazuko-choji*, the tadpole-headed clove that is the Hatakeda tell. It rises over an *itame* mixed with *mokume* that tends to stand in the grain, with abundant *ashi* and *yo* working into a temper that varies in height and packs into a dense *midare*. The recurring smith-level sentence in the published commentary fixes the family idiom in one image: the two representative signed works, the Hotta-family *tachi* and the Akimoto-family *orikaeshi-mei* *wakizashi*, "both temper a wide *yakihaba* of *nioi-deki choji-midare*, showing a splendid and ornate manner" (これらは共に焼幅の広い、匂出来の丁子乱れを焼いて華麗な作風を示している). The mumei blades read down from that, their *choji* mixed with *gunome* and pointed teeth, *ko-nie* adhering and the *nioiguchi* bright; on the 50th-session *katana* the NBTHK records that the *hamon* "clearly manifests his distinctive features" and the bright *nioiguchi* carries a superior result.
The *jigane* is an *itame* with *mokume*, in places flowing and standing in the grain, on which fine *ji-nie* gathers in dust-like *mijin* and delicate *chikei* enter. Across it a vivid *midare-utsuri* stands, named first in nearly every entry and, with the standing grain, the surest thing the published sources point to. The 14th-session *tachi*, the earliest in the record, sets the note at once: "the *itame* tends to flow and stand in the grain, and a vivid *midare-utsuri* appears" (板目やや流れごころに肌立ち、乱れ映りあざやかに立つ). Within the *ha*, fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run, and on the busier blades *tobiyaki* are scattered along the *yakigashira*; the *boshi* runs *midare-komi*, turning with a pointed tendency and *hakikake*, or settling in *ko-maru*. The *nioiguchi* tends at times toward a slight *urumi*, a soft, moist quality, yet on the best of them it is bright and clear.
Two registers divide the corpus. The signed register is the most flamboyant: on a closely forged *ko-itame* the temper widens into a *nioi*-based *choji-midare* carrying *fukuro-choji*, *kawazuko-choji* and *juka-choji* together, the *nioi* deep and the *nioiguchi* bright and clear, with *ashi* and *yo* active. The signature is a large, strongly individual two-character *mei* cut in a fine chisel, and on the shortened blades it survives as a *gaku-mei*, the inlaid plaque, or an *orikaeshi-mei*, the folded-back skin of the tang. The published commentary notes of one such piece that it is "cut with a fine chisel yet in a large, bold manner, as is usual for this smith." The prime register is the *o-suriage mumei* attribution: greatly shortened blades whose make and temper fit his signed work so closely that, in the recurring phrase, the appraisal of Mitsumori is drawn from the aspect of the *yakiba* and the workmanship as a whole. The 24th-session *katana* states the reasoning openly, that "the brilliant *choji-midare* in which *kaeruko-choji* is conspicuous accords with the Moriie line, and the manner of signing answers to it too" (蛙子丁子が目立つ華やかな丁子乱れが一見守家系と首肯され、銘振りも相通じるものがある).
Within the Hatakeda group he stands beside his fellow Sanemori, the two read off the same idiom of wide *nioi*-based clove with *kaeruko-choji* and a bright *midare-utsuri*, the manner that runs the school toward the Osafune mainstream. The published sources draw his distinction not by contrast but by what his own blades carry: the *kaeruko-choji* dense in his temper where the old Ko-Bizen hands have none, a *midare-utsuri* that stands on nearly every blade, and an *itame* read a shade more openly than his Hatakeda fellow's. On the 42nd-session *tachi* the NBTHK writes that the *choji*, with the tadpole-style clove mixed in over a *jigane* in which the *midare-utsuri* stands, "well expresses the characteristic features of this smith" (同工の特徴がよく表れている), and even where the lower character of the signature is lost under a *mekugi-ana*, the calligraphy of the surviving "光" and the workmanship leave no doubt of his hand.
Mitsumori is *Jo-jo saku* in Fujishiro's grading. Ten of his blades are designated Juyo and two more are Juyo Bijutsuhin, those two the representative signed works the published sources cite, the Hotta-family *tachi* and the Akimoto-family *orikaeshi-mei wakizashi*. The Hotta *tachi* is recorded in the *Kozan Oshigata* and descended through the Tokugawa shogunal house; both Jubi pieces are now held by the Tokyo National Museum, and one of the signed Juyo *tachi* is, in the NBTHK's words, "of note as one of the few signed works of Mitsumori" (数少ない光守の有銘作として注目される). The provenance recorded against his blades runs through the Hotta and Akimoto houses, the Tokugawa shogunal family, the Akimoto family and the Imperial Family. The two museum-held Jubi pieces are patrimony that does not trade; of the rest, ten stand in the Juyo tier and the signed examples are scarce, so a Mitsumori reaching open hands is uncommon, a blade a collector may encounter from time to time and with patience rather than at will.
Morishige (守重) — Mainline · 1275-1316. Jūbi, Jūyō. Morishige is traditionally transmitted as a swordsmith of the Hatakeda line within the Bizen Osafune school. According to the *meikan* (smith directories), he is recorded as a son of the second-generation Moriie and as the father of Motoshige, with extant dated works bearing era names spanning from Einin and Kagen through Showa, Bunpo, and Gen'o — all corresponding to the closing phase of the Kamakura period. Distinguishing a first and second generation Morishige is considered somewhat forced; in broad terms he should be regarded as a swordsmith of the late Kamakura period. Smiths using the same name succeeded the founder, and they continued working through the Muromachi period under what reference works identify as the Omiya group, so called because the founder is said to have moved from Omiya in Yamashiro. In all cases, however, their signatures state "Bishu Osafune-ju" (resident of Osafune in Bizen Province), making it clear that their place of work remained Osafune. The Muromachi-period generations are recorded from Oan (1368–1375) through to the end of the Muromachi period, with dated examples surviving from the Oei and Bunmei eras.
The Kamakura-period works characteristically display *itame-hada* — at times a dense *ko-itame* mixed with *mokume* — with *midare-utsuri* standing out vividly in the *ji*. The *hamon* is typically a *suguha-cho* basis mixed with *gunome*, into which *ko-ashi* and *saka-ashi* enter; the *nioiguchi* tends toward tightness (*shimari-gokoro*), and *ko-nie* adheres throughout. Some works exhibit *kataochi-gunome* reminiscent of Kagemitsu, revealing a pronounced Osafune character rather than a distinctly Hatakeda manner. Indeed, the presence of *midare-utsuri* in the forging and the *suguha-cho* composition with intermingled *gunome* share aspects in common with the style of the Nagamitsu group, suggesting that by this period the Hatakeda school had for the most part become assimilated into the Osafune tradition. Compared with Moriie, the workmanship tends to be subdued (*sabishii*), with a pronounced *ko-nie* tendency. The Muromachi-period generations, by contrast, are characterized by a more flamboyant, large-patterned *midareba*, featuring *koshi-biraki gunome* mixed with *choji*, accompanied by *tobiyaki*, *kinsuji*, and *sunagashi* — works that at a glance can be mistaken for Oei-Bizen in their showy manner.
Extant signed works by Morishige are exceedingly few, and it has not been possible to exhaustively examine the full range of his workmanship across all generations. Those examples that survive, however, provide valuable source material for understanding the breadth of his working range and the historical relationship between the Hatakeda and Osafune lineages. Several bear date inscriptions that serve as important reference points for the study of this smith. The overall workmanship — from the clarity of the *kane-iro* to the well-applied *ji-nie* and tight *nioiguchi* — demonstrates sound technical accomplishment, and the best examples are noted for being *kenzen* (well-preserved) in both *ji* and *ha*.
Moriie (守家) — Mainline · 1280-1299. Jūyō. Moriie worked at Hatakeda, a hamlet directly adjacent to Osafune village in Bizen, and from that address the published sources call him Hatakeda Moriie. They rank him beside the Osafune founders, naming him as a smith "famed on a level with Osafune Mitsutada," and they place his line across the great middle decades of Kamakura: the first generation in the era of Mitsutada, the second in that of Nagamitsu, beginning with a smith who left a work dated Bun'ei 9 (1272). Among his pieces are long signatures such as "Bizen no Kuni Osafune ju Moriie," and the name continues, through Nanbokucho dates, into several hands. He is one of the close circle around which the Osafune school took its classic form, working the same bright Bizen steel, yet recognized by two features that hold him apart from his neighbors.
The first of those features is the temper. Over and over the published commentary returns to the same tell: that in his *yakiba* "*kawazu-ko-choji* stands out" (焼刃には蛙子丁子が目立つ). This is the waist-pinched, round-headed clove, the frog's-mouth *choji*, and the 44th-session *tachi* is read precisely by it, the commentary noting how the temper "changes here and there into the waist-pinched *kawazu-ko-choji* that is the hallmark of the Hatakeda group" (畠田派の特色たる腰のくびれた蛙子丁子). On his finest signed *tachi* it sits within a flamboyant *choji-midare*, mixed with *gunome*, small *choji*, pointed-feeling *ha* and *ko-gunome*, *ashi* and *yo* entering well, fine *tobiyaki* at intervals, *ko-nie* adhering and the *nioiguchi* bright and clear. *Kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through it. Where the Osafune *choji* of Mitsutada and Nagamitsu swells round and full, Moriie's pinches at the waist, and that pinch is the single most reliable thing a Hatakeda blade carries.
His *jigane* is the second constant. It is an *itame*, often run with *mokume* and tightening toward *ko-itame*, with thick fine *ji-nie*, fine *chikei* entering, and a vivid *midare-utsuri* that stands on nearly every blade, the bright old-Bizen reflection he shares with the school. What he does not share is its quietness: his *jigane* tends to *hada-dachi*, to stand and show its grain. The published sources are explicit on the comparison, observing on the 21st-session *tachi* that, set against Mitsutada, "his *jihada* stands out more" (光忠に比しては地鉄が肌立つものが多い), and on the 39th-session blade that his *ha-nie* is the stronger, "its *ha-nie* even more so" (それ以上に刃沸が強く). The *boshi* answers the temper, running *midare-komi* to a *ko-maru* or pointed turnback with *hakikake*, at times a *sugu*, *yakizume*-like sweep.
His record divides into two registers. The signed *tachi* are his recognized prime, slender to standard in width with high *koshizori* and marked *funbari*, several preserved *ubu*, signed in two characters Moriie or three Moriie-zo. Against these stand the *o-suriage mumei* attributions, *katana* and *wakizashi*, sometimes wide with an *ikubi*-leaning *chu-kissaki*, judged Hatakeda Moriie by that same standing *jigane* and round-headed clove. The 47th-session *mumei wakizashi* the commentary calls "truly a quintessential piece judged as Hatakeda Moriie" (いかにも、畠田守家と鑑せられる典型的な一口); on the 58th-session *katana*, even where the temper grows lively, a faint *kawazu-ko-choji* settles the attribution. Behind both registers stands the school's open scholarly question, which the published sources frame in nearly the same words on entry after entry: there were two generations, perhaps three, the first beside Mitsutada and the second beside Nagamitsu, yet "a clear demarcation between the first and second generations" (初二代の明確な区分は) remains "a subject for future research" (今後の研究課題), and "there are also those who advocate a single-smith theory" (一人説を唱える向き).
What sets him apart from his own neighbors is therefore exactly what the judges name: not a difference of school but a difference of hand within it. His *jigane* stands where Mitsutada's lies tight; his *ha-nie* gathers stronger; his *choji* pinches at the waist where the Osafune masters' runs round. The 56th-session *tachi* is praised as forged "better than is usual for this smith," and the 58th, with its Hon'ami origami, as showing "a tightly forged, meticulous *kitae* even among works attributed to this smith" (同工極めの中でもよくつまった精緻な鍛え). He is the Osafune manner read one degree more austere in the steel and one degree more particular in the clove, the Hatakeda voice within the Ko-Osafune chorus.
For the collector Moriie is a thin but real presence. The Toko Taikan grades his work at the upper-middle of the koto field. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on the books runs entirely through the Juyo tier, fourteen blades across the sessions, eleven of them signed and the rest attributed, one *mumei katana* carrying a 1745 Hon'ami Koyu origami that valued it at fifty gold *mai*. Provenance is barely recorded, a single privately held piece of known whereabouts and no institution named in his own data, so the honest account is that little of him is ever in view at once. A signed, *ubu* Hatakeda Moriie *tachi* comes to light only seldom, and from time to time a *mumei* attribution; a privately held example, with the standing *jigane* and the waist-pinched clove on the edge, is a quiet and notable thing for a collector to encounter, a blade from the circle in which the Osafune tradition first took shape.
Munetsune (宗恒) — Mainline · 1150-1220. Tokujū. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Other smiths
Moritoshi (守俊) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Iesuke (家助) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Morinaga (守長) — Mainline · 1326-1358. Morinaga of Hatakeda left a single firmly dated work, a tanto inscribed Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga on the omote and Shohei 12 (1357), fifth month, on the ura, and that date fixes him in the Nanbokucho generations of Bizen. The reference works compiled in the published record place him in the Hatakeda line of Osafune, recording him as the son of Morishige and, in one account, the grandson of the second-generation Moriie, the Hatakeda master who worked at the hamlet hard against Osafune village. Two generations are given under the name, the first set in the Shochu era of the 1320s and the second in Shohei, and the dated tanto is read as the second of them. He signs in full, Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga, and his signed work is scarce; of the nagamaki-naoshi tachi the published sources say plainly that among signed Morinaga such a piece is without parallel, 「守長の在銘のものは他に比類がない」.
What the published record names first about him is not a Bizen trait at all. His is a vigorous, exuberant midare laden with nie, a temper the sources describe as one that at first glance does not look like Bizen work, 「一見備前物とは思われない盛んな乱」. The pattern is a notare-based midare carrying gunome, with only a little choji mixed in rather than the full clove the Osafune main line ran, and across it the nie gathers thickly, with sunagashi flowing frequently and kinsuji entering the ha. On one of the long blades coarse ara-nie collects and a faint yubashiri drifts above the habuchi; on the dated tanto the temper turns wet and breaks toward nijuba in places. The boshi carries the same restless energy, running into the temper as midare-komi, then sweeping into hakikake and stopping in yakizume, and on the tanto it thrusts up, points, and turns back long. It is this nie-covered, Soshu-toned midare, and not a clove-pattern, that the sources reach for when they place him.
The jigane is the second half of the recognition. He forges an itame, often a large-pattern o-itame, that flows and tends to stand rather than closing into the dense ko-itame of the Osafune masters, and across the standing grain ji-nie adheres. The naginata-naoshi wakizashi adds a faint utsuri standing in the ji, the bright reflection of old Bizen surviving inside a hand that otherwise reads as Soshu, while the open, flowing jigane is the surface against which the heavy ha-nie and the streaming sunagashi are read. Where the Osafune choji-midare wants a tight, lustrous ji to throw up its midare-utsuri, Morinaga wants a more active steel, and the published sources mark both ji and ha as sound and the abundant, well-developed nie as the expression of the so-called Soden-Bizen style, 「所謂相伝備前の作風である」.
His surviving record sorts itself by shape more than by period, since the few dated and datable pieces all fall within the Nanbokucho span. Most of what survives signed is nagamaki-naoshi, the long pole-arm blades shortened into tachi and wakizashi, shinogi-zukuri or shobu-zukuri with the kasane reduced, the sori shallow and the point run out to an o-kissaki, the long signature set toward the mune side of the tang near its end. So consistently do these appear that the published sources venture he may have been especially good at the nagamaki, 「長巻が得意であったのかも知れない」, and add that, since the surviving works are not numerous, his stylistic characteristics cannot be set out in full detail. Against that group stands the one ubu tanto of Shohei 12, hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, its long signature crossing the central mekugi-ana and the date on the reverse, gomabashi carved on the omote, an accomplished piece whose date the sources value as good reference material.
Where the published commentary reaches for a comparison it does not reach toward Osafune. The dated tanto is read as according at first glance with the work of smiths such as Chogi, 「一見長義などの作に通じ」, the Nanbokucho Bizen master whose own manner turned Soshu, and a separate entry, judging this connection from the work itself, sees a tie to the Chogi group. The earliest of the long blades carries the comparison further still: its hakikake-and-pointed boshi is held to bring it close to the group associated with Sa, the Chikuzen line at the heart of the Soshu-influenced Nanbokucho mainstream. What sets Morinaga apart is therefore stated in his own grounded traits rather than borrowed from a rival school. The standing, flowing itame, the nie that covers ji and ha together, the sunagashi and kinsuji running through a notare-and-gunome midare, and the hakikake boshi that ends in yakizume are the features by which the published record knows him, the Bizen thread surviving as a flavor of choji inside an otherwise Soshu-toned hand.
Morinaga is a smith encountered chiefly through the designation record rather than through the market. Four of his works carry the Juyo Token rank across separate sessions, signed every one, among them the nagamaki-naoshi tachi the sources call without parallel and the dated Shohei tanto they prize as reference material; he holds no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property, and the standing of his name rests on that small body of fully signed Juyo blades. Recorded whereabouts are partial, but a Morinaga is held at the Shiogama shrine among the holdings tied to his name. For a private collector the picture follows from the scarcity the published sources themselves describe: with signed work so few, and that little concentrated in the upper designation tiers, a Morinaga is not a blade one expects to find offered, and a signed example coming to market is a rare event rather than a recurring opportunity. When one does appear it is most often a nagamaki-naoshi, the form he is held to have favored, carrying the long Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga signature and the nie-laden Soden-Bizen midare that the published record set down as the constant of his hand.
Morishige (守重) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Sanemori (真守) — Mainline. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Morichika (守近) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Morisuke (守助) — Mainline · 1338-1342. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Moritsune (守恒) — Mainline · 1324-1326. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Tsuneie (經家) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Live·Hatakeda lineage
畠田
The Bizen Hatakeda School
In a ward of Osafune called Hatakeda, the smith Moriie kept a forge in the mid-Kamakura — a collateral Bizen line that signed not "Hatakeda" but "Osafune," so close did it sit to the great Bizen centre. Across Moriie, Sanemori, Mitsumori, and Morishige the school carried a signature all its own: a jihada that stands up in active, textured grain, and an exuberant kawazu-ko chōji — "frog-spawn" clover heads — bursting through a bright, midare-utsuri ground. Moriie's range ran from gorgeously disordered chōji clusters to quiet, austere suguha; by the Nanbokuchō his line had folded back into the Osafune mainstream it grew beside.
The The Bizen Hatakeda School (畠田), active 1230–1370 in Bizen Province across 16 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 18 Jūbun, 17 Jūbi, 14 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 109 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Bizen Hatakeda School (畠田) · 1230 – 1370
Moriie (守家) — Mainline · 1259-1260. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Moriie worked at Hatakeda in Bizen in the mid-Kamakura period, and from that place he is called Hatakeda Moriie. The published sources keep the lineage deliberately open: the prevailing account places two smiths under the one name, the first contemporary with Osafune Mitsutada and the second with Nagamitsu, while noting that a clean division of first and second generations on the carved characters alone is difficult and remains a subject for future study, and that some hold there was only a single Moriie. The earliest dated example bears a Bun'ei 9 (1272) date and the name runs on into the Nanbokucho years, so the body of work is broad and a flat reading of one hand is not forced on it.
What the sources do fix is the manner. His workmanship sits close to the contemporary Osafune smiths, yet is set apart by a jigane that tends to stand and by a temper in which the toad-spawn clove is conspicuous: the recurring phrase is that the jigane stands and the kawazuko-choji in the edge is prominent (地がねが肌立ち、焼刃に蛙子丁子が目立つ). The forging is itame, often with mokume and a flowing tendency, the grain standing in places, with fine ji-nie thickly laid, fine chikei entering, and a vivid midare-utsuri (乱れ映り) rising clearly in the ji. This standing, utsuri-lit Bizen jigane is the first half of his fingerprint.
The temper is the part that carries his name. His representative construction is described as a clove laden with the waist-pinched toad-spawn form, an undulating, restless edge (腰のくびれた蛙子丁子を交えた出入りの目立つ焼刃構成). Over the standing jigane he forges a large choji-midare mixed with fukuro-choji (袋丁子) and the kawazuko-choji (蛙子丁子), with ashi and yo entering vigorously, ko-nie attaching, tobiyaki and yubashiri appearing about the monouchi, fine kinsuji and sunagashi running, and a bright nioiguchi. The kawazuko clove is the single most useful point of recognition: Mitsutada and others touch it, but no contemporary makes it so central, so that a blade thick with toad-spawn clove over a standing, nie-drawing Bizen ji reads as Hatakeda Moriie almost on that count.
The boshi the older reading flattened to a plain ko-maru. The corpus is more specific and more varied. It runs midare-komi and settles into a ko-maru, but it frequently turns pointed and sweeps out in hakikake: one tachi is described as turning back midare-komi, pointed at the tip, with hakikake (帽子乱れ込み、先尖りごころとなり、掃きかける), and others show ko-maru with a pointed feeling, or omote ko-maru against an ura that tends to a point. The pointed, brushed turnback is part of the signature, not an exception to it, and it belongs in any honest reading of him.
There is a second register the connoisseur should know. On a group of his later pieces the edge quiets into kataochi-gunome and kaku-gunome over the same standing, utsuri-lit ji, a calmer construction the published sources tie to the late-Kamakura Osafune mainline and to Nagamitsu's dated tanto. These pieces matter beyond their quietness: one signed tanto is read as indispensable for substantiating the proposed lineage of Moriie, Morishige and Motoshige (守家守重元重), and so the calmer Moriie is a documentary key as much as a stylistic one. Even here his hand shows through, in the strongly standing grain, the frequent chikei and the fine ha-nie that the calmer Osafune work does not carry to the same degree.
For the collector Moriie is, for a name of his class, comparatively reachable, though the best of him does not move. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku, and his work runs to Important Art Objects and Tokubetsu-Juyo, held in such collections as the Tokugawa Art Museum and the Seikado Bunko. His blades carry the histories of the great houses: a long-signed tachi reading Bizen no Kuni Osafune ju Moriie (備前国長船住守家) was bestowed by Tokugawa Ieyasu on Okudaira Iemasa and descended in the Okudaira family; another tachi passed through Date Munekage; a kodachi and a tanto descended in the Yamauchi family of Tosa. His signed tanto are genuinely scarce, noted as a rare surviving example of a tanto by this smith (同工の現存稀な短刀の遺例), so the tanto in particular reward patience. A Hatakeda Moriie does appear in public and private hands, and for the Bizen collector a standing, kawazuko-laden ji-ha of his is a strong acquisition.
Moriie (守家) — Mainline · 1232-1233. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. The oldest dated work bearing the name Moriie is a tachi of Bun'ei 9 (1272), and around that date the published sources place the first master of the Hatakeda school of Bizen, a contemporary of Osafune Mitsutada in the middle Kamakura period. He is called Hatakeda Moriie because he lived at Hatakeda, hard beside Osafune; yet neither Moriie nor Sanemori and the rest of his school ever signed "Hatakeda-ju" (畠田住), while inscriptions such as "Bizen no Kuni Osafune-ju Moriie saku" (備前国長船住守家造) survive, and from this the published record concludes that Hatakeda was most likely a small place-name within Osafune village itself. The meikan set his line under Moritsune of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school.
Across decades of designations the NBTHK characterizes him in nearly the same sentence each time: his workmanship broadly resembles that of the contemporary Osafune smiths, but generally "the jigane tends to stand, and kawazuko-choji is conspicuous in the tempered edge" (地がねが肌立ち、焼刃に蛙子丁子が目立つところに特色が見られる). The kawazuko, the *choji* whose head swells like frog-spawn, is named "the most characteristic yakiba of Moriie and Mitsutada" (守家・光忠の最も特色ある焼刃); it persists among the juniors of the Hatakeda school and is only rarely seen in Mitsutada's son Nagamitsu. The appraisers read the trait at depth. On one Tokubetsu Juyo tachi where the kawazuko is not especially overt in the *yakiba* itself, they note instead that the valleys of the midare turn kawazuko-shaped toward the edge (刃方に向って谷が蛙子状), and count that, with the standing forging, among the major points of his recognition. On unsigned blades the deciding point is the kawazuko breaking into great clusters midway along the blade, where, the published record states, "lies the point of attribution to Moriie" (蛙子が大房に乱れるところに守家の極めどころがある). Quality alone can carry the judgment: of an ubu, unsigned tachi the commentary writes flatly that work rising to this level of technique "could be no one but Moriie" (これ程までに技術の上がるものは守家以外にはない).
His tachi carry high *koshi-zori*, *funbari* at the base and a *chu-kissaki*; several are long with thick *kasane*, and the designations praise the dignity of the *ubu* examples. The *jigane* is *itame* that tends to stand, with *ji-nie*, and over it a vivid *midare-utsuri* rises; the notes return to that *utsuri* again and again. The temper at full power is a flamboyant *choji-midare* mixing *ko-choji*, *gunome* and pointed elements with the kawazuko, at times large *choji* as well; *ashi* and *yo* enter well, the temper is *nioi*-primary with *ko-nie*, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through, *tobiyaki* appear in places, and the *nioiguchi* is bright. The *boshi* runs *midare-komi* or settles toward *ko-maru*. Of a signed Tokubetsu Juyo tachi whose *midare-utsuri* stands vividly and whose deep-*nioi* *choji-midare* carries an exceptionally clear *nioiguchi*, the NBTHK writes a finish that "must be called his masterpiece" (彼の傑作と称すべき).
Beside that flamboyance the published sources recognize a second register, which they call his subdued class (穏やかな部類). A kodachi carries a *hoso-suguha* base mixed with *ko-gunome* and *ko-notare* over a standing *itame* with the finest *ji-nie*, its *nioiguchi* tightening; a ken, a rare survivor in his name, shows tight *ko-itame* and a narrow *suguha* with *yubashiri*-like *tobiyaki* and *nijuba*; and one signed tachi turns wholly small-patterned, its *ko-choji* and *ko-gunome* set over a dense, tightly knit *ko-itame* that the notes single out for praise. The large, boldly cut signature sits even over this quiet manner, and the kodachi so signed is judged a precious document for the relation between his mei and his workmanship. The generations behind the name are an open question, and the sources are candid about it. The standard view posits two, the first beside Mitsutada and the second beside Nagamitsu, yet the same designations state that "a clear division between the first and second generations remains a subject for future research" (初二代の明確な区分は、なお今後の研究課題) and that "some advocate a single-smith theory" (一人説を唱える向きもある). Honma went further, seeing at least three generations within the Kamakura period alone and allowing that more than one hand may have cut the same mei within a single workshop. Large characters on tachi are traditionally read as the first generation, but the record warns that the generations cannot be divided by the size of the characters alone, and it notes that extant signed works of the first generation are comparatively few (比較的に少い). Among the designated works gathered here twenty-two are signed against five unsigned, most with the large two-character mei; on two blades a kao accompanies the signature, a point of documentary value with a parallel in a tanto published in the Kozan Oshigata.
His place in the school map is fixed by Mitsutada. The two worked in neighboring villages in the same years, and the published sources say their manners show much in common; the differences they give are drawn from Moriie's own work, a jihada that stands more often than the Osafune forging, and the kawazuko a degree more insistent in the *yakiba*. That temper passed to the juniors of the Hatakeda line, and the school continued under Sanemori, who signed "Bizen no Kuni Osafune junin Umanojo Sanemori saku" (備前国長船住人右馬允真守造); the Moriie name itself runs on into the Nanbokucho, the latest dated examples reaching the Koan and Kentoku eras.
Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, the top grade of his scale. Twenty-seven designated works stand on record: six Important Cultural Properties, five Juyo Bijutsuhin, and fifteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, three of them at the higher rank. The provenance recorded against nine of his blades runs through the great houses: the Tokugawa, among them Tokugawa Iesato and Tokugawa Kunijun, the Mitsui, the Hosokawa, the Uesugi, the Okudaira and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts, examples rest today with the Kyoto National Museum and the Eisei Bunko, and with the shrines Hie Jinja and Sumiyoshi Taisha; the Important Cultural Properties remain in such custody as cultural patrimony and do not trade. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, fifteen blades in all, held closely and appearing on the market only at long intervals; when one does appear it is most often a Juyo example, and a signed tachi carrying the large two-character mei stands at the very top of what the name can offer.
Sanemori (眞守) — Mainline · 1277-1293. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. In Shoo 2 (1289), Hatakeda Sanemori signed a tachi with the long inscription Bizen no kuni Osafune junin Sama no jo Sanemori tsukuru, adding the yotsume-bishi crest and, a rarity for him, a date. Dated works of the Kenji, Koan and Shoo eras (1275 to 1293) survive, and the published sources state plainly that "his period of activity is clear." He is held to be the son of Hatakeda Moriie, by other accounts his pupil or grandson; it is also suggested that he served as one of Moriie's daisaku smiths, which would explain the scarcity of his own signed blades. Neither Moriie nor Sanemori ever signed Hatakeda-ju, the residence in the mei always reading Osafune, so Hatakeda is understood as a hamlet within Osafune village. His dated pieces fall in precisely the years of Osafune Nagamitsu, and that position, between his father's flamboyance and the composure of the Osafune mainline, is the axis on which everything written about him turns.
His prime manner is a *choji-midare* laced with *kawazuko-choji*, the pinched-waist tadpole *choji* in which, the published sources write, the Hatakeda smiths were "skilled as a specialty" (蛙子丁子を得意として上手). What separates him from the father is scale. The NBTHK's standing formula for him, repeated in more than twenty of his texts, runs: "compared with Moriie, the midare generally tends toward a somewhat smaller pattern" (乱れがやや小模様となる傾向がある). The clusters sit a degree smaller, the rise and fall of the *yakiba* is less pronounced, and the tadpole heads often show plainest on the *ura* side. *Gunome* and *togariba* mix into the *choji*, *ashi* and *yo* enter richly, and the temper is *nioi*-primary with *ko-nie*, the *nioiguchi* described again and again as bright. *Kinsuji* and *sunagashi* work through the *ha* with small *tobiyaki* in places, and the *boshi* runs *midare-komi* or settles *sugu* in *ko-maru*, often with a pointed tendency and light *hakikake*.
The *jigane* carries the school's tell. He forges *itame* mixed with *mokume* that tends to stand, with fine thick *ji-nie* and *chikei*, under a vivid *midare-utsuri*; on the dated Shoo tachi the *utsuri* takes a mottled, *jifu-utsuri*-like state. The standing tendency is milder than in Moriie yet stronger than in the Osafune smiths. Beside it a second class of forging exists, a tightly knit *ko-itame* of great refinement; of one such blade, formerly of the Saijo Matsudaira family of Iyo, the NBTHK writes that it is "the finest among works attributed to this smith" (同工極めの白眉). A school point shows in the *sugata* as well: compared with Mitsutada and the Osafune smiths, the Hatakeda *kissaki* tends to extend, and his tachi keep a high *koshizori* with *funbari*.
The published sources sort his work into three manners: the flamboyant *choji-midare*, *gunome* mixed with *choji*, and a *suguha-cho* class, the latter two generally quieter than the father throughout. The mei divides along the same line. Most blades carry a two-character signature in one of two cuttings: the bold cutting yields flamboyant works resembling Moriie, while the small cutting is "generally close to Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu" (概して長光、景光に近い). The largest-signed and most flamboyantly tempered tachi he had seen, Honma Junji judged "without doubt the work of the first generation" (初代作に相違ない). Long signatures bearing the office title are rare and appear as both Sama no jo and Uma no jo; the Uma no jo tachi carries a *chu-suguha* with shallow *notare*, the rare signed ken a *hoso-suguha* with a *yakizume* *boshi*. Behind the two cuttings lies a deeper question: "it is thought there were two generations of the same name, but distinguishing them by the characters of the mei is at present difficult." The name itself demands care, for smiths signing Sanemori existed in Heian-period Hoki at Ohara and among the Kamakura-period Bitchu Aoe; the NBTHK notes that "their mei and workmanship of course differ in each case."
At his best the question is no longer his father but Osafune itself. The dated Shoo 2 tachi, the published sources write, "at first glance calls to mind a superior work of Nagamitsu" (一見長光の上作を思わせる), and only the slightly standing *jigane* gives the Hatakeda line away. On rank the same sources are frank: "on the whole he does not reach Moriie, and the boshi especially falls short" (総体に守家に及ばず). Yet the same smaller pattern and gentler rise and fall that keep him below the father are what carry his quieter blades toward the Osafune masters. Unsigned attributions therefore rest on his own combination: the tadpole-laced *choji* over a slightly standing *itame* under vivid *utsuri*, the whole one degree calmer than Moriie. In one Tokubetsu Juyo case the appraisal was settled because the *nakago* shape closely matches his extant signed work. Surviving signed tachi are relatively few, and the published sources note that no tanto has been seen (短刀は未見).
Fujishiro rates him Jo-jo saku, and fifty-seven designated works stand on record. There are no National Treasures among them, but six blades are Important Cultural Properties, one transmitted in the Asano family of Aki, and five are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, once held by collectors such as Kuroda Nagamichi and Kurokawa Fukusaburo. Five blades hold the Tokubetsu Juyo rank and forty-one the Juyo, forty-six in the two tiers together. His blades passed through the Kishu Tokugawa family, the Shimazu of Satsuma, the Saijo Matsudaira of Iyo, and the Mori, Kuroda and Maeda houses. Of recorded whereabouts today, examples rest in collections including the Kyushu National Museum, the Hayashibara Museum of Art and the Kurokawa Research Institute. For the collector he is more approachable than the great Osafune names yet still a smith of patience: most of what circulates is osuriage mumei, resting on the smaller-patterned tadpole *choji*, and such a blade appears only from time to time. A signed piece is another matter. The two-character tachi are few, the long-signed and dated works fewer still, and when one of the latter changes hands it is an event, carrying as it does the residence, the office title and the year in the smith's own hand.
Mitsumori (光守) — Mainline · 1278-1288. Jūbi, Jūyō. Mitsumori of the Hatakeda group is a smith of late-Kamakura Bizen, placed by the published reference works around the Shoo era (1288-93). The Jubi-designated Hotta-family tachi carries the judgment plainly: "this Mitsumori is thought to correspond to the smith recorded in the sword-signature books as a Hatakeda-school artisan working around Shoo (1288-93)" (この光守は銘鑑に正応（一二八八～九三）頃の畠田派の刀工とあるもの). The published sources are candid that beyond this his genealogy is not fixed; the *meikan* record neither his dates nor his line clearly. What anchors him instead is his manner. From his rare signed blades, the NBTHK writes, the brilliant *choji-midare* in which *kaeruko-choji* is especially conspicuous readily suggests affiliation with the Moriie line, and the way he cuts his signature corresponds to it as well. He is judged close in particular to the second-generation Moriie, and the few signed pieces hold the attribution of the many unsigned ones in place.
His characteristic hand is a flamboyant, *nioi*-based *choji-midare* led by *kawazuko-choji*, the tadpole-headed clove that is the Hatakeda tell. It rises over an *itame* mixed with *mokume* that tends to stand in the grain, with abundant *ashi* and *yo* working into a temper that varies in height and packs into a dense *midare*. The recurring smith-level sentence in the published commentary fixes the family idiom in one image: the two representative signed works, the Hotta-family *tachi* and the Akimoto-family *orikaeshi-mei* *wakizashi*, "both temper a wide *yakihaba* of *nioi-deki choji-midare*, showing a splendid and ornate manner" (これらは共に焼幅の広い、匂出来の丁子乱れを焼いて華麗な作風を示している). The mumei blades read down from that, their *choji* mixed with *gunome* and pointed teeth, *ko-nie* adhering and the *nioiguchi* bright; on the 50th-session *katana* the NBTHK records that the *hamon* "clearly manifests his distinctive features" and the bright *nioiguchi* carries a superior result.
The *jigane* is an *itame* with *mokume*, in places flowing and standing in the grain, on which fine *ji-nie* gathers in dust-like *mijin* and delicate *chikei* enter. Across it a vivid *midare-utsuri* stands, named first in nearly every entry and, with the standing grain, the surest thing the published sources point to. The 14th-session *tachi*, the earliest in the record, sets the note at once: "the *itame* tends to flow and stand in the grain, and a vivid *midare-utsuri* appears" (板目やや流れごころに肌立ち、乱れ映りあざやかに立つ). Within the *ha*, fine *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run, and on the busier blades *tobiyaki* are scattered along the *yakigashira*; the *boshi* runs *midare-komi*, turning with a pointed tendency and *hakikake*, or settling in *ko-maru*. The *nioiguchi* tends at times toward a slight *urumi*, a soft, moist quality, yet on the best of them it is bright and clear.
Two registers divide the corpus. The signed register is the most flamboyant: on a closely forged *ko-itame* the temper widens into a *nioi*-based *choji-midare* carrying *fukuro-choji*, *kawazuko-choji* and *juka-choji* together, the *nioi* deep and the *nioiguchi* bright and clear, with *ashi* and *yo* active. The signature is a large, strongly individual two-character *mei* cut in a fine chisel, and on the shortened blades it survives as a *gaku-mei*, the inlaid plaque, or an *orikaeshi-mei*, the folded-back skin of the tang. The published commentary notes of one such piece that it is "cut with a fine chisel yet in a large, bold manner, as is usual for this smith." The prime register is the *o-suriage mumei* attribution: greatly shortened blades whose make and temper fit his signed work so closely that, in the recurring phrase, the appraisal of Mitsumori is drawn from the aspect of the *yakiba* and the workmanship as a whole. The 24th-session *katana* states the reasoning openly, that "the brilliant *choji-midare* in which *kaeruko-choji* is conspicuous accords with the Moriie line, and the manner of signing answers to it too" (蛙子丁子が目立つ華やかな丁子乱れが一見守家系と首肯され、銘振りも相通じるものがある).
Within the Hatakeda group he stands beside his fellow Sanemori, the two read off the same idiom of wide *nioi*-based clove with *kaeruko-choji* and a bright *midare-utsuri*, the manner that runs the school toward the Osafune mainstream. The published sources draw his distinction not by contrast but by what his own blades carry: the *kaeruko-choji* dense in his temper where the old Ko-Bizen hands have none, a *midare-utsuri* that stands on nearly every blade, and an *itame* read a shade more openly than his Hatakeda fellow's. On the 42nd-session *tachi* the NBTHK writes that the *choji*, with the tadpole-style clove mixed in over a *jigane* in which the *midare-utsuri* stands, "well expresses the characteristic features of this smith" (同工の特徴がよく表れている), and even where the lower character of the signature is lost under a *mekugi-ana*, the calligraphy of the surviving "光" and the workmanship leave no doubt of his hand.
Mitsumori is *Jo-jo saku* in Fujishiro's grading. Ten of his blades are designated Juyo and two more are Juyo Bijutsuhin, those two the representative signed works the published sources cite, the Hotta-family *tachi* and the Akimoto-family *orikaeshi-mei wakizashi*. The Hotta *tachi* is recorded in the *Kozan Oshigata* and descended through the Tokugawa shogunal house; both Jubi pieces are now held by the Tokyo National Museum, and one of the signed Juyo *tachi* is, in the NBTHK's words, "of note as one of the few signed works of Mitsumori" (数少ない光守の有銘作として注目される). The provenance recorded against his blades runs through the Hotta and Akimoto houses, the Tokugawa shogunal family, the Akimoto family and the Imperial Family. The two museum-held Jubi pieces are patrimony that does not trade; of the rest, ten stand in the Juyo tier and the signed examples are scarce, so a Mitsumori reaching open hands is uncommon, a blade a collector may encounter from time to time and with patience rather than at will.
Morishige (守重) — Mainline · 1275-1316. Jūbi, Jūyō. Morishige is traditionally transmitted as a swordsmith of the Hatakeda line within the Bizen Osafune school. According to the *meikan* (smith directories), he is recorded as a son of the second-generation Moriie and as the father of Motoshige, with extant dated works bearing era names spanning from Einin and Kagen through Showa, Bunpo, and Gen'o — all corresponding to the closing phase of the Kamakura period. Distinguishing a first and second generation Morishige is considered somewhat forced; in broad terms he should be regarded as a swordsmith of the late Kamakura period. Smiths using the same name succeeded the founder, and they continued working through the Muromachi period under what reference works identify as the Omiya group, so called because the founder is said to have moved from Omiya in Yamashiro. In all cases, however, their signatures state "Bishu Osafune-ju" (resident of Osafune in Bizen Province), making it clear that their place of work remained Osafune. The Muromachi-period generations are recorded from Oan (1368–1375) through to the end of the Muromachi period, with dated examples surviving from the Oei and Bunmei eras.
The Kamakura-period works characteristically display *itame-hada* — at times a dense *ko-itame* mixed with *mokume* — with *midare-utsuri* standing out vividly in the *ji*. The *hamon* is typically a *suguha-cho* basis mixed with *gunome*, into which *ko-ashi* and *saka-ashi* enter; the *nioiguchi* tends toward tightness (*shimari-gokoro*), and *ko-nie* adheres throughout. Some works exhibit *kataochi-gunome* reminiscent of Kagemitsu, revealing a pronounced Osafune character rather than a distinctly Hatakeda manner. Indeed, the presence of *midare-utsuri* in the forging and the *suguha-cho* composition with intermingled *gunome* share aspects in common with the style of the Nagamitsu group, suggesting that by this period the Hatakeda school had for the most part become assimilated into the Osafune tradition. Compared with Moriie, the workmanship tends to be subdued (*sabishii*), with a pronounced *ko-nie* tendency. The Muromachi-period generations, by contrast, are characterized by a more flamboyant, large-patterned *midareba*, featuring *koshi-biraki gunome* mixed with *choji*, accompanied by *tobiyaki*, *kinsuji*, and *sunagashi* — works that at a glance can be mistaken for Oei-Bizen in their showy manner.
Extant signed works by Morishige are exceedingly few, and it has not been possible to exhaustively examine the full range of his workmanship across all generations. Those examples that survive, however, provide valuable source material for understanding the breadth of his working range and the historical relationship between the Hatakeda and Osafune lineages. Several bear date inscriptions that serve as important reference points for the study of this smith. The overall workmanship — from the clarity of the *kane-iro* to the well-applied *ji-nie* and tight *nioiguchi* — demonstrates sound technical accomplishment, and the best examples are noted for being *kenzen* (well-preserved) in both *ji* and *ha*.
Moriie (守家) — Mainline · 1280-1299. Jūyō. Moriie worked at Hatakeda, a hamlet directly adjacent to Osafune village in Bizen, and from that address the published sources call him Hatakeda Moriie. They rank him beside the Osafune founders, naming him as a smith "famed on a level with Osafune Mitsutada," and they place his line across the great middle decades of Kamakura: the first generation in the era of Mitsutada, the second in that of Nagamitsu, beginning with a smith who left a work dated Bun'ei 9 (1272). Among his pieces are long signatures such as "Bizen no Kuni Osafune ju Moriie," and the name continues, through Nanbokucho dates, into several hands. He is one of the close circle around which the Osafune school took its classic form, working the same bright Bizen steel, yet recognized by two features that hold him apart from his neighbors.
The first of those features is the temper. Over and over the published commentary returns to the same tell: that in his *yakiba* "*kawazu-ko-choji* stands out" (焼刃には蛙子丁子が目立つ). This is the waist-pinched, round-headed clove, the frog's-mouth *choji*, and the 44th-session *tachi* is read precisely by it, the commentary noting how the temper "changes here and there into the waist-pinched *kawazu-ko-choji* that is the hallmark of the Hatakeda group" (畠田派の特色たる腰のくびれた蛙子丁子). On his finest signed *tachi* it sits within a flamboyant *choji-midare*, mixed with *gunome*, small *choji*, pointed-feeling *ha* and *ko-gunome*, *ashi* and *yo* entering well, fine *tobiyaki* at intervals, *ko-nie* adhering and the *nioiguchi* bright and clear. *Kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run through it. Where the Osafune *choji* of Mitsutada and Nagamitsu swells round and full, Moriie's pinches at the waist, and that pinch is the single most reliable thing a Hatakeda blade carries.
His *jigane* is the second constant. It is an *itame*, often run with *mokume* and tightening toward *ko-itame*, with thick fine *ji-nie*, fine *chikei* entering, and a vivid *midare-utsuri* that stands on nearly every blade, the bright old-Bizen reflection he shares with the school. What he does not share is its quietness: his *jigane* tends to *hada-dachi*, to stand and show its grain. The published sources are explicit on the comparison, observing on the 21st-session *tachi* that, set against Mitsutada, "his *jihada* stands out more" (光忠に比しては地鉄が肌立つものが多い), and on the 39th-session blade that his *ha-nie* is the stronger, "its *ha-nie* even more so" (それ以上に刃沸が強く). The *boshi* answers the temper, running *midare-komi* to a *ko-maru* or pointed turnback with *hakikake*, at times a *sugu*, *yakizume*-like sweep.
His record divides into two registers. The signed *tachi* are his recognized prime, slender to standard in width with high *koshizori* and marked *funbari*, several preserved *ubu*, signed in two characters Moriie or three Moriie-zo. Against these stand the *o-suriage mumei* attributions, *katana* and *wakizashi*, sometimes wide with an *ikubi*-leaning *chu-kissaki*, judged Hatakeda Moriie by that same standing *jigane* and round-headed clove. The 47th-session *mumei wakizashi* the commentary calls "truly a quintessential piece judged as Hatakeda Moriie" (いかにも、畠田守家と鑑せられる典型的な一口); on the 58th-session *katana*, even where the temper grows lively, a faint *kawazu-ko-choji* settles the attribution. Behind both registers stands the school's open scholarly question, which the published sources frame in nearly the same words on entry after entry: there were two generations, perhaps three, the first beside Mitsutada and the second beside Nagamitsu, yet "a clear demarcation between the first and second generations" (初二代の明確な区分は) remains "a subject for future research" (今後の研究課題), and "there are also those who advocate a single-smith theory" (一人説を唱える向き).
What sets him apart from his own neighbors is therefore exactly what the judges name: not a difference of school but a difference of hand within it. His *jigane* stands where Mitsutada's lies tight; his *ha-nie* gathers stronger; his *choji* pinches at the waist where the Osafune masters' runs round. The 56th-session *tachi* is praised as forged "better than is usual for this smith," and the 58th, with its Hon'ami origami, as showing "a tightly forged, meticulous *kitae* even among works attributed to this smith" (同工極めの中でもよくつまった精緻な鍛え). He is the Osafune manner read one degree more austere in the steel and one degree more particular in the clove, the Hatakeda voice within the Ko-Osafune chorus.
For the collector Moriie is a thin but real presence. The Toko Taikan grades his work at the upper-middle of the koto field. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on the books runs entirely through the Juyo tier, fourteen blades across the sessions, eleven of them signed and the rest attributed, one *mumei katana* carrying a 1745 Hon'ami Koyu origami that valued it at fifty gold *mai*. Provenance is barely recorded, a single privately held piece of known whereabouts and no institution named in his own data, so the honest account is that little of him is ever in view at once. A signed, *ubu* Hatakeda Moriie *tachi* comes to light only seldom, and from time to time a *mumei* attribution; a privately held example, with the standing *jigane* and the waist-pinched clove on the edge, is a quiet and notable thing for a collector to encounter, a blade from the circle in which the Osafune tradition first took shape.
Munetsune (宗恒) — Mainline · 1150-1220. Tokujū. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Other smiths
Moritoshi (守俊) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Iesuke (家助) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Morinaga (守長) — Mainline · 1326-1358. Morinaga of Hatakeda left a single firmly dated work, a tanto inscribed Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga on the omote and Shohei 12 (1357), fifth month, on the ura, and that date fixes him in the Nanbokucho generations of Bizen. The reference works compiled in the published record place him in the Hatakeda line of Osafune, recording him as the son of Morishige and, in one account, the grandson of the second-generation Moriie, the Hatakeda master who worked at the hamlet hard against Osafune village. Two generations are given under the name, the first set in the Shochu era of the 1320s and the second in Shohei, and the dated tanto is read as the second of them. He signs in full, Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga, and his signed work is scarce; of the nagamaki-naoshi tachi the published sources say plainly that among signed Morinaga such a piece is without parallel, 「守長の在銘のものは他に比類がない」.
What the published record names first about him is not a Bizen trait at all. His is a vigorous, exuberant midare laden with nie, a temper the sources describe as one that at first glance does not look like Bizen work, 「一見備前物とは思われない盛んな乱」. The pattern is a notare-based midare carrying gunome, with only a little choji mixed in rather than the full clove the Osafune main line ran, and across it the nie gathers thickly, with sunagashi flowing frequently and kinsuji entering the ha. On one of the long blades coarse ara-nie collects and a faint yubashiri drifts above the habuchi; on the dated tanto the temper turns wet and breaks toward nijuba in places. The boshi carries the same restless energy, running into the temper as midare-komi, then sweeping into hakikake and stopping in yakizume, and on the tanto it thrusts up, points, and turns back long. It is this nie-covered, Soshu-toned midare, and not a clove-pattern, that the sources reach for when they place him.
The jigane is the second half of the recognition. He forges an itame, often a large-pattern o-itame, that flows and tends to stand rather than closing into the dense ko-itame of the Osafune masters, and across the standing grain ji-nie adheres. The naginata-naoshi wakizashi adds a faint utsuri standing in the ji, the bright reflection of old Bizen surviving inside a hand that otherwise reads as Soshu, while the open, flowing jigane is the surface against which the heavy ha-nie and the streaming sunagashi are read. Where the Osafune choji-midare wants a tight, lustrous ji to throw up its midare-utsuri, Morinaga wants a more active steel, and the published sources mark both ji and ha as sound and the abundant, well-developed nie as the expression of the so-called Soden-Bizen style, 「所謂相伝備前の作風である」.
His surviving record sorts itself by shape more than by period, since the few dated and datable pieces all fall within the Nanbokucho span. Most of what survives signed is nagamaki-naoshi, the long pole-arm blades shortened into tachi and wakizashi, shinogi-zukuri or shobu-zukuri with the kasane reduced, the sori shallow and the point run out to an o-kissaki, the long signature set toward the mune side of the tang near its end. So consistently do these appear that the published sources venture he may have been especially good at the nagamaki, 「長巻が得意であったのかも知れない」, and add that, since the surviving works are not numerous, his stylistic characteristics cannot be set out in full detail. Against that group stands the one ubu tanto of Shohei 12, hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, its long signature crossing the central mekugi-ana and the date on the reverse, gomabashi carved on the omote, an accomplished piece whose date the sources value as good reference material.
Where the published commentary reaches for a comparison it does not reach toward Osafune. The dated tanto is read as according at first glance with the work of smiths such as Chogi, 「一見長義などの作に通じ」, the Nanbokucho Bizen master whose own manner turned Soshu, and a separate entry, judging this connection from the work itself, sees a tie to the Chogi group. The earliest of the long blades carries the comparison further still: its hakikake-and-pointed boshi is held to bring it close to the group associated with Sa, the Chikuzen line at the heart of the Soshu-influenced Nanbokucho mainstream. What sets Morinaga apart is therefore stated in his own grounded traits rather than borrowed from a rival school. The standing, flowing itame, the nie that covers ji and ha together, the sunagashi and kinsuji running through a notare-and-gunome midare, and the hakikake boshi that ends in yakizume are the features by which the published record knows him, the Bizen thread surviving as a flavor of choji inside an otherwise Soshu-toned hand.
Morinaga is a smith encountered chiefly through the designation record rather than through the market. Four of his works carry the Juyo Token rank across separate sessions, signed every one, among them the nagamaki-naoshi tachi the sources call without parallel and the dated Shohei tanto they prize as reference material; he holds no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property, and the standing of his name rests on that small body of fully signed Juyo blades. Recorded whereabouts are partial, but a Morinaga is held at the Shiogama shrine among the holdings tied to his name. For a private collector the picture follows from the scarcity the published sources themselves describe: with signed work so few, and that little concentrated in the upper designation tiers, a Morinaga is not a blade one expects to find offered, and a signed example coming to market is a rare event rather than a recurring opportunity. When one does appear it is most often a nagamaki-naoshi, the form he is held to have favored, carrying the long Bishu Osafune ju Morinaga signature and the nie-laden Soden-Bizen midare that the published record set down as the constant of his hand.
Morishige (守重) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Sanemori (真守) — Mainline. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Morichika (守近) — Mainline · 1184-1185. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Morisuke (守助) — Mainline · 1338-1342. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Moritsune (守恒) — Mainline · 1324-1326. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.
Tsuneie (經家) — Mainline · 1288-1293. Smith of the Bizen Hatakeda School.