Hosokawa Gracia

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In this Japanese name, the surname is Hosokawa.
The grave of Hosokawa Gracia and Hosokawa Tadaoki, Kōtō-in, Daitoku-ji, Kyoto.

Akechi Tama, usually referred to as Hosokawa Gracia (細川ガラシャ, Hosokawa Garasha), (1563 – 25 August 1600) was a member of the aristocratic Akechi family from the Sengoku period.[1] Gracia is best known for her role in the Battle of Sekigahara; she was considered to be a political hostage to the Western army led by Ishida Mitsunari. She retracted from committing suicide (seppuku) because of her Catholic faith, breaking the code of conduct imposed on women of the samurai class.

She was the daughter of Akechi Mitsuhide and Tsumaki Hiroko, the wife of Hosokawa Tadaoki, and a convert to Catholicism.[2] [3]As the last notable survivor of the Akechi clan, the clan that planned and executed the assassination of Oda Nobunaga, the first "Great Unifier" of Japan, Gracia's death affected both armies. The incident did much damage to Ishida's reputation, which greatly reduced his chances of recruiting more allies, some of whom were also secretly Christians.

Biography

She was named Akechi Tama or Tamako at birth; Garasha, the name by which she is known in history, is based upon her Catholic baptismal name, Gracia.

She married

Osaka, where she remained in confinement.

This monument in Kyoto Prefecture marks the area where Tama lived in hiding from 1582 to 1584.

Tama's maid, Kiyohara Kayo, baptized Maria, was from a

Takayama Ukon. In the spring of 1587 Tama managed to secretly visit the Osaka church; a few months later, when she heard that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had issued a proclamation against Christianity, she was determined to be baptized immediately. As she could not leave the house, she was baptized by her maid and received the Christian name "Gracia". She is said to have studied both Latin and Portuguese and to have read and become fascinated with Thomas à Kempis' The Imitation of Christ
.

In 1595 Tadaoki's life was in danger because of his friendship with Toyotomi Hidetsugu, and he told Gracia that if he should die she must kill herself. When she wrote asking the priests about the plan, they informed her that suicide was a grave sin. However, the danger passed.

castle in Osaka
, the city where the families of many of Hideyoshi's generals resided. Ishida devised a plan to take the family members hostage, thus forcing the rival generals either to ally with him or at least not to attack him.

However, when Ishida attempted to take Gracia hostage, the family retainer Ogasawara Shōsai killed her and then committed seppuku after lighting the mansion on fire. The outrage over her death was so great that Ishida was forced to abandon his plans. Most Japanese accounts state that it was Gracia's idea to order Ogasawara to kill her. However, these accounts were written many decades after the actual death of Gracia. The original Jesuit account written shortly after her death instead states Tadaoki had commanded the servants of his household to kill Gracia if her honor were ever in danger. The servants had seen the attempted kidnapping as such, and acted on this order.[4]

Sakai. Later, her remains were moved to Sōzenji, a temple in Osaka. Gracia also shares a grave with Tadaoki at Kōtō-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji.[further explanation needed
]

In historical fiction

Gracia frequently appears as a character in Japanese historical fiction, both novels and drama. One website lists her as a character in over 40 stage dramas, movies, TV dramas, etc., from 1887 to 2006.[citation needed] She is also frequently referred to in popular writing or talks on the history of the period. Ayako Miura's novel Hosokawa Garasha Fujin (English title: Lady Gracia: a Samurai Wife's Love, Strife and Faith) follows history fairly closely.

Taiga Drama series Ōgon no Hibi. Elements of Mariko's story follow Gracia's quite closely, although the manner of her death is different (Mariko threatens to commit suicide if she is not allowed to leave Osaka Castle and is then killed in a raid on her compound, thereby her death served the original purpose as her threatened suicide, enraging the other hostages) and the two characters do not fundamentally have anything in common. In the 2024 miniseries, Toda Mariko is played by Anna Sawai.[6]

Hosokawa Gracia is one of the main characters in the 1981 movie Samurai Reincarnation.

In music

  • Mulier fortis cuius pretium de ultimis finibus sive Gratia Regni Tango Regina exantlatis pro Christo aerumnis clara was composed by the Austrian composer Johann Bernhard Staudt in 1698.[7]
  • Hosokawa Grazia is a lyric opera in three acts, the first written in Japanese language. It was composed by the Italian
    Vincenzo Cimatti. Represented as a lyric drama in words and songs in 1940, it was then written completely in music and played in the years 1960, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1989, 2004.[8]

Modern references

Gracia appears as a playable character in

Gothitelle.[10] She is an ancestor of Japan's former Prime-minister Morihiro Hosokawa.[11]
The final boss of the Touhou Project fangame Tri Focuser ~ Outside the Traditional World, Tamako Sant'Angelo, was based on her.

The city of Nagaokakyō, Kyoto host the Garasha Festival every November.

She appears as an event final boss in the browser game Touken Ranbu. She is also a prominent figure in the Stage: Touken Ranbu play Kiden: Ikusayu no Adabana, and makes an appearance in the spin-off Video Game Touken Ranbu Warriors.

References

mon
) of the Hosokawa clan
  1. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Hosokawa Gracia" in Japan Encyclopedia, p. 358; 細川ガラシャ
    at Nihon jinmei daijiten; retrieved 2013-5-29.
  2. ISSN 0361-0160
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1-315-23369-7
    , retrieved 30 March 2024
  4. OCLC 1296038
    .
  5. ^ Bernstein, Paul (13 September 1981). "Making of a Literary Shogun". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
  6. ^ "Shogun (2024)". IMDb. Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  7. ^ Johann Bernhard Staudt (1698). Mulier fortis cuius pretium de ultimis finibus sive Gratia Regni Tango Regina exantlatis pro Christo aerumnis clara (in Latin). Viennae: Typis Leopoldi Voigt Universitatis Typogr. Retrieved 15 January 2021. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  8. ^ "HOSOKAWA GRAZIA, in "Bollettino Salesiano"". Biesseonline.sdb.org (in Italian). October 2004. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  9. ^ "Warriors Orochi 3 Character List – Koei Warriors". Koei Warriors. Archived from the original on 8 January 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
  10. ^ "Gracia + Munna – Pokemon Conquest Characters". Pokemon. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
  11. ^ Harry Burton-Lewis. "The Christian Year in Review : Significant Events of 1992". Nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp. Retrieved 15 October 2017.

Further reading

  • J. Laures, Two Japanese Christian Heroes, Rutland, VT: Bridgeway Press Books, 1959.
  • ISBN 978-0860781806
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