Miyake Clan

The Miyake clan (三宅氏, Miyake-shi) is an important Japanese samurai clan of the Sengoku period and the Edo period. Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the Miyake, hereditary vassals of the Tokugawa clan, are among the fudai daimyo clans.

The Miyake claim descent from the famous warrior Takanori Kojima of the Kamakura period in the 14th century, although the basis for this claim seems doubtful. In the early Sengoku period,

the Miyake were based in the north of Mikawa province and were hereditary enemies of the neighboring Matsudaira clan.

However, in 1558, when Masasadale was the head of the clan, it submitted to the Matsudaira.

Yasusada (1544-1615), son of Masasada, served as general in the armies of Tokugawa Ieyasu. After the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, he was appointed in 1604 as daimyō of the Koromo domain, a fiefdom of 10,000 koku in Mikawa province.

His son Miyake Yasunobu (1563-1632) was transferred in 1620 to the domain of Ise-Kameyama with an income of 20,000 koku.

The Miyakes were transferred back to Koromo where they stayed from 1636 to 1664 and then moved in 1665 to Tahara estate (12,000 koku) in the south of Mikawa province where they stayed until the Meiji restoration.

Yasuyoshi Miyake (1831-1895), the last daimyō of the Tahara estate, served as a kannushi (guji) at the Kunōzan Tōshō-gū shrine during the Meiji government and then was made a viscount (shishaku) in the new kazoku noble organization of the Meiji era.