Kuze Family (久世家)
The Kuze family was a Tosho-ke (the hereditary lineage of Court nobles occupying relatively high ranks) (new family) of the Murakami-Genji (Minamoto clan) line. The family carried the family grade of Urin. The family had 200 koku.
The family was established when, in 1619, land was distributed to the Simokuze village located in the surburbs of Kyoto and owned by the Koga family, that is, when Michinori KUZE, the second son of Atsumichi KOGA, the nineteenth head of the Koga family, received this land. The first head of the family was Michinori KUZE and his Seishitu (legal wife) was Fukuhime, the third daughter of Tadataka HOSOKAWA.
The noble families that branched from the Koga family include, besides Kuze family, eight families: the Nakanoin family, Rokujo family (Murakami Genji), the Iwakura family, the Chigusa family, the Higashikuze family, the Umetani family, the Otagi family and the Uematsu family.
Michihiro KUZE, the eighth head of the family, played an active role in the Kobu Gattai (integration of the imperial court and the shogunate) at the end of the Edo period and was the adressor of opinions to the Emperor between August 1860 and April 1867 (except the period from September 1862 to December 1863).
In 1884, Michiaki KUZE, the child of Michihiro, was given the title of viscount. Michiaki is also known for his efforts to protect the Kemari (a type of football played by courtiers in ancient Japan) which declined in the Meiji period.