The Muromachi Family (室町家)
The Muromachi family was court nobility with a family status of the Urin. Kaninke-ryu (the Kanin line) of the Northern House of the Fujiwara clan. A sept of the Saionji clan. The family crest was kara-hana (a kind of Chinese arabesque pattern). The family business was thirteen-stringed koto and so (Japanese harp). The hereditary stipend in the Edo period was 200 koku.
The earls
The branch included the Nishiyotsutsuji family and the Takenaka family.
The family originated with Sanefuji YOTSUTSUJI, the fourth son of Kintsune SAIONJI, in the Kamakura period. The go (family name) was Yotsutsuji.
A distinguished family, the Muromachi family was one of the four Saionji families, the others being the head family, the Toin family, and the Shimizudani family. Yotsuko, the daughter of Kinto YOTSUTSUJI, became a maid of honor of the Emperor Gomizunoo in the beginning of the Edo period and, while in the Emperor's favor, gave birth to a prince (who died young) and a princess (later Bunchijoo), but the births took place shortly before the marriage of the Emperor Gomizunoo to Kazuko TOKUGAWA and thus invoked the wrath of the Edo bakufu (Japanese feudal government headed by a shogun), with the result that she was temporarily expelled from the court.
Kinyoshi YOTSUTSUJI worked hard in the government from the end of Edo period to the Meiji Restoration, and then served as the Governor of Echigo Prefecture, a major in the army, and Kunaigondaijo, and gagaku (ancient Japanese court dance and music) no suke after the Restoration. Kinyasu MUROMACHI. changed the family name from Yotsutsuji to Muromachi. The earlship was given to Kinyasu MUROMACHI in 1884. Kinmoto MUROMACHI served as a member of the House of Lords. Kinfuji MUROMACHI assumed the post of shotencho, the chief of shotenshoku (the section of the Imperial Household Agency handling court rituals), in 1959 and dedicated himself to religious service in the imperial court.