Hosokawa Gracia

Hosokawa Gracia ( Japanese 細 川 ガ ラ シ ャ / 伽羅 奢 , Hosokawa Garasha ; * 1563 as Akechi Tamako ( Tama) ( 明智 珠 / 玉 ); † August 25, 1600 ( Keichō 5/7/17)) was the third daughter of the Japanese general Akechi Mitsuhide .

She married at age 15 the generals Hosokawa Tadaoki , hence Hosokawa Tadaoki no tsuma (wife of ~), called that in the service of the strongman in the kingdom, Oda Nobunaga had and great merits acquired for the Tango Province had been invested . From this connection come 5 or 6 children. Her family name was not necessarily Hosokawa, as in premodern Japan women did not always take the husband's name.

On June 21, 1582, her father attacked Nobunaga for reasons that have not yet been conclusively clarified. Cornered and seriously wounded, Seppuku committed suicide . Among Nobunaga's loyal followers, Tama was now considered the "daughter of a traitor". Her husband first sent her to the town of Midono ( 味 土 野 ) in the mountains of the Tango Peninsula (today: Kyōtango , Kyōto Prefecture ), where she remained undiscovered until 1584. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the new ruler of the empire, allowed her to be taken to the Hosokawa estate in Osaka , where she was de facto under arrest.

Tama's servant Maria came from a Christian family, and her husband told her about his conversations with his Christian friend Takayama Ukon . In the spring of 1587, Tama managed to secretly visit the Jesuit church in Osaka. A few months later, she heard that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had issued a decree against Christianity. According to tradition, this sparked the decision to be baptized. Since she could not leave the house, she was baptized by her servant and given the name "Gracia". As a highly educated and cultured woman, she not only engaged in Christian teaching, but also began studying Latin and Portuguese.

In 1595 Tadaoki's life was in danger because he was close to Toyotomi Hidetsugu , who had been forced to seppuku because of an attempted plot against his uncle Toyotomi Hideyoshi . Tadaoki told her that if he should die, she must kill herself immediately. After obtaining written information from priests, she informed him that as a Christian she was not allowed to kill herself. Fortunately, the situation calmed down again.

After the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, the forces were again organized around two strong generals who sought hegemony over the archipelago: Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari . When Ieyasu turned east with a large army, which also included Tadaoki, in 1600, Ishida took over the Ōsaka castle, which was considered impregnable . The wives and relatives of many of Hideyoshi's followers lived here. Ishida began taking hostages as a means of leveraging his rivals.

However, when he tried to bring Gracia into his power, she was killed by Tadaoki's vassal Ogasawara Shōsai . Ogasawara then set fire to the property and committed seppuku . The outrage at Ishida's actions not only drove Hosokawa Tadaoki to the Tokugawa Ieyasu camp for good.

According to Japanese sources, Gracia's idea was to have Ogasawara kill her. A Jesuit report, however, said that Tadaoki had instructed his followers to follow suit in the event that his wife's honor was endangered. When this situation occurred, Gracia submitted to her fate.

Tomb of Hosokawa Gracia in Sōzen-ji in Osaka

A Catholic priest had her remains recovered from the Hosokawa house and buried in a cemetery in Sakai . Tadaoki later moved her grave to the Sōzen-ji ( 崇 禅寺 ) temple in Osaka.

Hosokawa Gracia in later works

Gracia appears regularly as a character in Japanese fictional historical works. A website lists her as a figure in over 40 stage works, cinema and television films, etc. from 1887 to 2006. She is also regularly mentioned in popular writings and conversations about the history of her time. One of these works, which has also been translated into English, is Ayako Miura's novel Hosokawa Garasha Fujin (English: Lady Gracia: a Samurai Wife's Love, Strife and Faith ), which follows the actual events pretty closely.

James Clavell used Gracia as a template for the character of Mariko in his novel Shogun , which was later filmed as a television series under the same name . Individual elements of Mariko's story follow Gracia's life pretty closely, although she perishes in a different way and the two characters are generally not comparable.

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• Johannes Laures: Two Japanese Christian Heroes . Bridgeway Press Books, Rutland 1959.
• Ayako Miura, Susan Tsumura (ex.): Lady Gracia. A Samurai Wife's Love, Strife and Faith . Yohan, Tokyo 2004.

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Hosokawa is the family name, Gracia the first name.