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About the school

Hokke School法華派

Bingo province, in the late Kamakura into the Nanbokuchō and Muromachi periods, hosted a cluster of workshops that the setsumei repeatedly set apart from the better-known Mihara line. The reference work *Kokon Meizukushi Taizen* is cited again and again as locating the Hokke (法華) line among the makers of Ashida District (葦田郡), a genealogy presented as distinct from the so-called Mihara tradition, with Sukekuni (助國) named as its founding progenitor. The fuller designation is Hokke Ichijō (法華一乗派), and several setsumei record that the smiths styled themselves with the surname-like "Ichijō," signing variously "Hokke Ichijō," "Hokke saku," "Ichijō saku," or simply the single character "Ichi" (一). One account traces the founder Ichijō to a son of Mihara Masaiye, framing the group as a branch of the Mihara or Kokubunji sphere even as the workshop record treats it as its own hand. The setsumei name a roster of these makers: Ichijō, who left a *kodachi* signed "Ichijō saku" and a joint *tachi* by Ichijō Morie and Ichijō Moriyuki dated Chōroku 3 (1459); Kaneyasu, Yukiyoshi, Shigeie, and Nobukane, whose Ōei-era *tantō* survives signed; Shigeyasu (重安, and the homophone 重康), Shigeyoshi (重吉), Suetsugu (季次), Yoshitsugu (吉次), Kanetsugu (金次) of the Kusado settlement, and Chikatsugu (親次), several of whom the appraisers assign to Bingo on the strength of a "Bishū-jū" residence and a Nanbokuchō date. Read across the corpus, a shared manner emerges. The *kitae* is *itame* mixed with *mokume*, frequently running into *nagare* or tending toward *masame* near the edge, with conspicuous *hada-dachi* (standing grain); *ji-nie* and *chikei* gather, and a *shirake-utsuri* or whitish *utsuri*-like cast stands out, the steel often described as somewhat blackish. The *hamon* is a low, restrained *suguha* or *suguha-chō* carrying connected *ko-gunome* and *gunome*, with *ashi* and *yō*, *nioi*-dominant temper with *ko-nie*, and a *nioiguchi* that inclines toward *shizumi* (a sinking, subdued quality), at times softening to *urumi*; *hotsure*, *uchi-noke*, *kuichigai-ba*, *kinsuji*, and *sunagashi* recur within the *ha*. The *bōshi* divides into two recognized manners the setsumei themselves contrast: a *yakizume* finish that reads as a *Yamato-den* temperament, and a tip that grows slightly *togari* and turns back with a long *kaeri*. Within this vocabulary the hands diverge. The signed Ichijō *kodachi* and the Chikatsugu *tachi* lean to a *ko-midare* with *ko-chōji* that the appraisers liken to neighbouring Aoe and *Bizen-den* work, while Shigeyasu and Shigeyoshi run to wider *sun-nobi hira-zukuri* with aligned *yakigashira* and abundant *nie*, so the group is presented as distinct hands sharing a province rather than one unified workshop. For kantei the setsumei offer concrete separators. The Yamato temperament, the *shirake* ground, the standing grain, and the *shizumi* *nioiguchi* mark the work off from mainline *Bizen-den*, whose *chōji* and clear *utsuri* the Hokke blades only echo through the Aoe-flavoured examples. Against Mihara, the appraisers note that the Hokke *jiba* evokes Mihara but the *nie* in both *ji* and *ha* runs one step stronger, and the *bōshi* turns back more deeply; the "Ichijō" surname usage and the linked *ko-gunome* of the midsection further fix the attribution. Provenance and documentary weight cluster around dated, signed pieces: the Chōroku 3 Ichijō Morie and Moriyuki *tachi* of unusual length, made for a commemorative demand; Shigeyasu's Ōan and Sadaji dates and the *naginata-naoshi* recording Jōji 4, Ōan 1, and Ōan 2; the Meitoku Kanetsugu associated with Kusado Sengen (草戸千軒), the buried medieval town excavated near the Kusado smiths. A *mumei* Ichijō *katana* carries a Hon'ami Kōchū *origami*. The standing of the school in the register rests on this evidentiary spine: a Bingo line, Yamato-inflected and Mihara-adjacent, whose signed and dated survivals let the appraisers read a coherent provincial character without collapsing its several smiths into a single lineage.

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