In 1205, a retainer of
Utsunomiya Yoritsuna, Shioya Tomonari, moved to this area and changed his name to “Kasama”. The original Kasama Castle was completed in 1235, but little is known of the Kasama clan during the
Kamakura period and subsequent
Muromachi period. However, in 1591, Kasama Tsunaie refused the summons of his overlord, the Utsunomiya, to join his forces against the
Later Hōjō clan at the
Battle of Odawara and was dispossessed of his castle. A retainer of the Utsunomiya, Tamanyu Katsumasa initially replaced the Kasama, but in 1598 the castle was taken by Gamo Satonari as part of a 30,000
koku domain. He made many modifications to modernize its layout. Following the
Battle of Sekigahara,
Tokugawa Ieyasu assigned the castle to
Matsudaira Yasushige in 1601. As the headquarters of
Kasama Domain under the
Tokugawa shogunate, the castle was passed to the
Ogasawara clan, Toda-
Matsudaira clan, Nagai clan,
Asano clan,
Inoue clan, Honjo clan, Inoue clan (again), before coming into the hands of the
Makino clan in 1747, who subsequently remained in residence at Kasama until the
Meiji Restoration. ==The castle==