Site of Yamana Sozen’s Mansion

A modest stone marker in Nishijin is all that remains of the mansion of Yamana Sozen, the daimyo lord whose feud with his son-in-law Hosokawa Katsumoto ignited the Onin War in 1467. That ten-year civil conflict leveled most of Kyoto and weakened the Ashikaga shogunate enough to usher in a long period of instability across Japan. Sozen controlled the western half of the city during the fighting, and the area he held became known as Nishijin, meaning western position, a name the neighborhood still carries today as one of Kyoto's traditional weaving districts. The marker is easy to walk past, but the name itself is the story.