Early Edo manuscript of the Hogen-Heiji tales

[Gunki monogatari]. Hogen Heiji monogatari [Tales of the Hogen and Heiji Rebellions].

€ 35,000.00

An early Edo manuscript of the paired war tales Hogen monogatari and Heiji monogatari, preserved in six volumes distinguished by their sumptuous gold-decorated covers and endpapers. This copy matters above all for the survival of an evidently deluxe reading manuscript of two foundational narratives of medieval Japanese military literature.

The two texts recount the Hogen disturbance of 1156 and the Heiji rebellion of 1160, conflicts that marked the violent transfer of power from courtly to warrior elites and helped define the narrative tradition later known as "gunki monogatari". Their paired transmission gave readers a continuous account of the crises that prepared the ascent of the Taira and, more broadly, the age of samurai rule.

In manuscripts of this kind, material presentation is inseparable from reception. The gold floral covers and richly worked pastedowns place the set within a cultivated milieu in which classical and medieval tales were copied not merely for preservation, but for display, study, and ceremonious handling. The large format suggests a copy intended for visual presence as much as for private reading. In the early Edo period, when older war narratives were repeatedly recopied, adapted, and recontextualized, such manuscripts served as vehicles through which medieval historical memory remained active within elite literary culture.

A refined survival of Japanese tale manuscript production, uniting literary authority with decorative ambition.