From Sōshū to the capital. Hasebe Kunishige — by tradition one of Masamune’s ten great disciples — brought the Sōshū flame to Kyoto in the mid-Nanbokuchō period: thin, wide hirazukuri blades tempered in hitatsura over the whole body. His masterwork, the Kokuhō Heshikiri Hasebe, took its name from Oda Nobunaga pressing it through a shelf to cut the man hiding beneath; with Kuninobu the line stands as Yamashiro’s last great medieval school.
The The Yamashiro Hasebe School (長谷部), active 1330–1400 in Yamashiro Province across 13 documented smiths: 1 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 6 Jūbun, 4 Jūbi, 6 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 85 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Yamashiro Hasebe School (長谷部) · 1330 – 1400
Kunishige (國重) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. His National Treasure is the meibutsu Heshikiri Hasebe, the wakizashi long held by the Kuroda of Fukuoka, and the published sources reach for it when they want to fix his standing: among the unsigned works whose quality "compels assent to a direct connection with Masamune" (正宗との直結を首肯せしむる), the Heshikiri stands first. Hasebe Kunishige is the head of the Hasebe school, the Soshu tradition carried out of Sagami and resettled in Kyoto, at Gojo-bomon Inokuma, and he is counted in the old reckoning among the Masamune-juttetsu. The published record now favours a route for the school in which its "home province was Yamato" (本国は大和), that it matured in Soshu, and that it settled last in the capital; the Yamato substrate is exactly what shows through the Soshu manner in his steel. With the Nobukuni school the Hasebe are named as the pair that represent the Yamashiro smiths of Nanbokucho, and within his own line Kunishige and Kuninobu, transmitted as his younger brother or his pupil, are the two representative hands.
The hand the published sources describe and then repeat almost word for word, text after text, is set against the Sagami smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, who worked the same flamboyant hitatsura in the same years. Soshu hitatsura takes choji and gunome as the base of its hamon, and its boshi "thrusts up and returns with a pointed tendency" (突き上げて尖りごころに返る); Hasebe builds instead from notare mixed with gunome, and his boshi is "large and round" (帽子が大きく丸く), the return burned far down so that it runs straight on into the muneyaki. That much is the surface of the kantei. Beneath it lies the single sharpest tell, which the texts name in nearly every entry: in the forging a masame strain "uncommon in Soshu shows conspicuously toward the edge side and the ridge side" (相州には少ない柾気が刃寄りと棟寄りに著しく), the Yamato grain surfacing where Sagami work shows none. To these the published sources add the very thin kasane of his construction as a habitual trait.
His jigane is itame, standing out across the surface, the ha-yori and mune-yori flowing into nagare and masame, with thick ji-nie and chikei entering; on the broadest pieces it carries a jifu-like tone. Over it the temper is notare mixed with gunome, ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi deep, ko-nie thick, kinsuji and sunagashi running frequently and long, until tobiyaki, yubashiri and muneyaki worked over ji and mune carry the whole into hitatsura. The boshi runs midare-komi with hakikake, rounded, the return burned far down. The carvings are bonji and suken, gomabashi, and grooves cut near the mune. The form is the period itself: hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, wide in mihaba, thin in kasane, sunnobi with a shallow sori, which the published sources read as the very build of a Nanbokucho hira-zukuri wakizashi.
The work divides into four manners. The mainstream is the wide, thin, sunnobi hira-zukuri wakizashi and tanto with the full hitatsura just described. Beside it the texts expressly flag a quieter, rarer pole: his style "takes hitatsura as its type, but rarely" (皆焼をもって典型とするが、稀に) one sees a suguha or a shallow large notare, the edge fraying into hotsure and nijuba, the tobiyaki only slight; of one such piece a published source remarks that the workmanship "at a glance suggests an upper-rank Soshu hand" (一見相州伝上工を思わせる), and notes that this is not uncommon for Kunishige. His tachi-length work survives almost wholly as o-suriage mumei katana, the attribution carried by a kinzogan-mei the texts read as the brush of Hon'ami Mitsutsune; on these the hamon is a florid gunome-midare with ko-notare and a choji-like element, the mune tempered overall. Last is the body of signed work: most pieces carry Hasebe Kunishige in five characters near the centre of the nakago, the kuni-gamae at times enclosing gyoku or o, and the differing signatures with the spread of dates lead the published sources to an old theory of several smiths of one name working as a succession of generations. Reliably signed tachi are the rarest of all; the texts call "surviving examples of signed tachi extremely few" (有銘の太刀の遺例は極めて稀), prizing the handful that remain, slender and older in tone, as study material.
What sets him apart is best read against the Sagami pair he worked beside, and it is his own grounded traits that draw the line. His notare-and-gunome hamon, his round boshi with its long return into the muneyaki, and above all the masame at the ha-yori and mune-yori separate him from the choji-and-gunome hitatsura and pointed boshi of Hiromitsu and Akihiro. The published sources read his quality high in the tradition: the kinzogan katana of the shogunal house they acclaim as "a superior piece attributed to this smith, overflowing with vigour" (覇気横溢した同工極めの優品), and the rare tachi as showing the high-rank Soshu-den character at its best. The Heshikiri itself, an o-suriage blade whose original signature survives as a gaku-mei, is cited again and again as the work whose excellence confirms the Masamune connection, the foundation of his place among the juttetsu. His dated pieces begin at Bunwa 4 (1355), the reliably oldest, which the published sources call "the touchstone of Hasebe study" (長谷部研究のつけ石); an older Jowa-dated tachi exists but is held still to need research, so the Bunwa 4 piece anchors the chronology, with later dates running through Enbun, Joji, Oan and into Eiwa.
He is Jo-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, with a Toko Taikan valuation of 1,000. The weight of designation behind his name is heavy: his one National Treasure, the Heshikiri Hasebe, sits above three Important Cultural Properties and Important Art Objects, and beneath them forty-seven blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved as heritage and never to trade; the institutional holders recorded against his name include Atsuta Jingu, the Tokyo and Kyoto National Museums and the Tokugawa Art Museum. His o-suriage kinzogan katana descend in the Tokugawa shogunal house, recorded as shogunal transmissions. The denrai roll runs through the daimyo houses: a Juyo wakizashi was received by the founding lord Honda Yasutoshi "when Shogun Hidetada made his official visit to Zeze Castle on the fourteenth day of the ninth month of Genna 3" (元和三年九月十四日、将軍秀忠が膳所城御成り) and descended in the Honda house thereafter; a Jubi tanto of Enbun 2 passed in the Naruse house, lords of Inuyama; and the Heshikiri itself was long held by the Kuroda of Chikuzen. Several of his Juyo blades carry Hon'ami origami. What a private collector may realistically encounter is one of the wakizashi or tanto of the tradeable tier, and even those reach the market only from time to time; a signed Hasebe Kunishige is a landmark when one appears, and the National Treasure and the great daimyo pieces are held, not traded.
Kuninobu (國信) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Hasebe Kuninobu worked in Kyoto in the Nanbokucho period, his dated blades running Enbun and Joji, and with the school head Kunishige he is named in text after text as one of the two principal representatives of the Hasebe group. The school is the Soshu tradition carried into Yamashiro: contemporaneous with the Sagami smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, known for flamboyant *hitatsura*, the Hasebe smiths produced equally brilliant full-temper work, their residence traditionally given as Gojo Bomon Inokuma, though no surviving blade is signed "resident of Yamashiro." The *Kosei Koto Meikan* records Kuninobu as the son of the first-generation Kunishige and the younger brother of the second, while several published commentaries, finding his dated work confined to Enbun and Joji, read him simply as Kunishige's contemporary; the brother and pupil accounts are both chronologically sound. Recent scholarship holds the school's home province to be Yamato, the route the published sources set down as "home province Yamato, brought to full development in Soshu, and at last settled in the capital."
What the published record gives as Kuninobu's own, within a manner he shares almost wholly with the founder, is a single point in the temper. Whereas Soshu *hitatsura* is built on *choji* and *gunome*, Hasebe work takes *notare* and *gunome*, and the commentaries return, blade after blade, to one clause: "in Kuninobu's case in particular the *notare* turns angular, or takes on an arrow-nock (*yahazu*) character." His *gunome* squares off and runs to a forked-arrow shape more readily than the founder's, the angular teeth linked by a low *ko-notare*. The carvings are a second mark of his hand: *bonji*, *kurikara*, a *sanko* ken, *gomabashi* and *suken* on the wide faces of his blades, one Juyo commentary stating outright that "this kind of carving is, within the group, almost limited to Kuninobu." The third tell is the *boshi*, large and round, its return burned long down the *mune* until it joins the *muneyaki*, the chief separation named from the pointed, thrusting *boshi* of the Sagami pair.
The forging is *itame*, the grain standing, mixed with *mokume* and flowing into *masame* and *nagare* toward both edge and back; *ji-nie* lies thick and *chikei* enter freely. Over this the temper is *notare* carrying *gunome*, the *nioiguchi* deep, *nie* thick, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* frequent, *tobiyaki* and *muneyaki* worked across the *ji* and *mune* until the whole rises to *hitatsura*. The flowing *masame* near the *ha* and *mune* is the feature the published sources call rare in Sagami and count among the school's surest hallmarks, the Yamato substrate showing through the Soshu manner, beside the period's extremely thin *kasane*. The typical form is the *hira-zukuri* wakizashi or tanto with *mitsu-mune*, wide in *mihaba* and *sun-nobi*, the imposing build of the Nanbokucho height, of which the *meibutsu* Atsuta Kuninobu at Atsuta Jingu is named the standard.
Beside this mainstream the published sources note two extremes of scale, "extremely large pieces of more than a *shaku*, and conversely small ones in the six- or seven-*sun* range," and a quieter register they treat as exceptional for him. In several smaller tanto the temper is a low *ko-notare* mixed with *ko-gunome* rather than full *hitatsura*, the *nie* still thick and *sunagashi* still running; in one the *hada* departs from his usual standing grain into a tightly forged, clear *ko-itame* that recurs on one of his rare tachi. Tachi-length work is scarce. A few signed tachi survive, slender with high *koshizori* and a small *kissaki*, tightly forged in *ko-itame*, several tempered in a *chu-suguha* with *gunome* rather than *hitatsura*, a manner set apart from Kunishige, signed Hasebe tachi being scarcely ever seen. To these are joined his *shinogi-zukuri* shortened blades: *o-suriage mumei* katana judged Kuninobu by build, and a *gaku-mei* wakizashi whose original signature is preserved on the cut-down tang, once a very long *hira-zukuri* wakizashi shortened in the manner of the Bizen Osafune smiths Kanemitsu and Morikage. One tachi, differing in both signature and workmanship from the usual Enbun-dated pieces, leads the published record to suppose more than one generation of the name.
His work is read by the points that set the school apart from Sagami and Kuninobu apart from the founder. Against Hiromitsu and Akihiro the separation is substrate and *boshi*: the Hasebe *hitatsura* rises over a *masame*-bearing *itame* the Sagami pair lack, and turns back large and round rather than pointed. Against Kunishige, whose workmanship the commentaries call so close a difference is hard to find, the separation is the angular, arrow-nocked *gunome*, the richer carving, and the longer-burning return, the marks named when settling an unsigned blade. One older commentary frames the limit of his hand plainly, allowing that "his technique cannot reach so far as the *meibutsu* Heshikiri Hasebe," yet adding that he excelled in the dark, moist *nureba* temper, working exceedingly close to Kunishige. Within Yamashiro the Hasebe stand with the Nobukuni school as the representative Nanbokucho smiths of the province; the school further includes Kunihira, Munenobu and Shigenobu.
Kuninobu is *Jo-jo saku* in Fujishiro's grading, and his record carries weight: three Important Cultural Properties and three Tokubetsu Juyo, with thirty-three Juyo beneath them, thirty-six in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers. Of his roughly forty-one designated works on record, almost all are signed, an open hand unlike the largely mumei Soshu masters. The signed tachi nicknamed Karakashi descended in the Uesugi house, counted among the thirty-five swords selected by Uesugi Kagekatsu, with a late-Muromachi *aikuchi* uchigatana mounting. A Juyo wakizashi was presented to the fourteenth shogun Tokugawa Iemochi by the Owari Tokugawa house at Nagoya castle in Keio 1, recorded in its *sayagaki*; another tachi was dedicated at Shizutani Shrine for the Ikeda lord Terumasa; and one tanto, published in the Tsuchiya oshigata, "is transmitted as a treasured blade of Katsu Kaishu." His tachi carry Hon'ami origami of Genroku 5 and Enpo 8. The Important Cultural Properties, including the Atsuta wakizashi, are heritage held by shrine and museum and do not trade; recorded holders include Atsuta Jingu, the Kyoto National Museum, Itsukushima Jinja and the Sano Art Museum. The signed wakizashi and tanto in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers are what a private collector may realistically encounter, and even these reach the market only rarely, a secure Hasebe Kuninobu a landmark when one appears.
Kunihira (國平) — Mainline · 1336-1340. Jūyō. Hasebe Kunihira (長谷部国平) was a swordsmith of the Hasebe group, active during the Nanbokucho period. He has traditionally been regarded as a son of the first-generation Kunishige and a fellow disciple of Kuninobu. The residence of the Hasebe smiths is conveyed as Gojo Bomon Inokuma in Kyoto; however, no extant works bear the inscription "resident of Yamashiro Province." Recent scholarship advances the view that the group's original province was Yamato, that it reached full maturity in Sagami under the influence of the *Soshu-den*, and that it ultimately settled in Kyoto. Alongside the Soshu smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, the Hasebe group displayed a brilliant and flamboyant manner centered on *hitatsura* workmanship, and within this lineage Kunishige and Kuninobu stand as the representative figures. Surviving works by Kunihira are extremely few, with dated examples from the Enbun and Joji eras.
Kunihira's wakizashi typically exhibit wide *mihaba*, thin *kasane*, and slightly extended proportions, displaying the bold *sugata* of the Nanbokucho period. The *kitae* shows *itame-hada* with standing grain and a tendency toward *nagare* and *masame*, with *ji-nie* and *chikei* forming throughout. In his characteristic mode, the *hamon* features angular *gunome* alternating with *notare*, developing into hitatsura through *yubashiri*, *tobiyaki*, and *muneyaki*. His tachi, by contrast, presents a *suguha*-based temper intermingled with small *midare*, well covered in *nie* with *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* -- an extremely rare form within the Hasebe group as a whole.
The NBTHK observes that Kunihira's workmanship shares an "unbroken kinship" with Kuninobu, particularly in the handling of the hamon, and that his pieces make known "the high level of this smith's skill." His tachi is noted as possessing "high documentary value" for its resemblance to the tachi by Kuninobu in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. Each surviving work is described as especially precious for being a rare extant example, and the dated pieces further enhance their significance as reference material for the Hasebe lineage.
Kunishige (國重) — Mainline · 1345-1350. Jūyō. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Munenobu (宗信) — Mainline · 1384-1394. Jūyō. Hasebe Munenobu (長谷部宗信) was a Yamashiro smith of the Nanbokuchō period, traditionally transmitted as the son of Kuninobu of the Hasebe group. The Hasebe school, contemporaneous with the Sōshū smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, became particularly known in the mid-Nanbokuchō period for a brilliant style specializing in flamboyant *hitatsura*. As representative makers of the group, Kunishige and Kuninobu are cited, and Munenobu stands among a small number of smiths in the lineage for whom signed examples survive, alongside Kunihira and Shigenobu.
Hasebe work is distinguished from Sōshū *hitatsura* by several diagnostic features that the NBTHK consistently identifies. Where Sōshū hitatsura typically bases its *hamon* on *chōji* and *gunome* with the *bōshi* tending toward a pointed return, Hasebe work characteristically hardens a hamon based on *notare* mixed with gunome, upon which *tobiyaki*, *yubashiri*, and *muneyaki* are superimposed. The bōshi tends toward *ko-maru*, with the return carried long as *yakisage* so that it connects into muneyaki. Another distinguishing characteristic is a *masame*-like tendency standing out near both the edge side and the back side of the forging — something relatively uncommon in Sōshū work. The extremely thin *kasane* evident in the construction is likewise a notable feature of the period's Hasebe workmanship. Within the hitatsura, further variation such as *nijūba*, *sunagashi*, and *yahazu-ba* imparts a powerful feeling overall.
Munenobu's surviving works, principally *tantō* in *hira-zukuri*, clearly reflect their Nanbokuchō-period character. The thinly built construction, the shallowly undulating yet fundamentally gentle temper with plentiful *nie*, and the ko-maru bōshi finishing with *hakikake* are all customary features of the group that Munenobu faithfully expresses. The NBTHK has noted that the manner of the signature on the tang — its distinctive character spacing and calligraphic style — accords with the traits of this school, and that his works well express the characteristic traits of the Hasebe group.
Shigenobu (重信) — Mainline · 1368-1375. Jūyō. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Other smiths
Kageshige (景重) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Kunishige (國重) — Mainline · 1370-1372. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1379-1381. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Teijun (定順) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Tsuneyoshi (常慶) — Mainline · 1573-1592. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Live·Hasebe lineage
長谷部
The Yamashiro Hasebe School
From Sōshū to the capital. Hasebe Kunishige — by tradition one of Masamune’s ten great disciples — brought the Sōshū flame to Kyoto in the mid-Nanbokuchō period: thin, wide hirazukuri blades tempered in hitatsura over the whole body. His masterwork, the Kokuhō Heshikiri Hasebe, took its name from Oda Nobunaga pressing it through a shelf to cut the man hiding beneath; with Kuninobu the line stands as Yamashiro’s last great medieval school.
The The Yamashiro Hasebe School (長谷部), active 1330–1400 in Yamashiro Province across 13 documented smiths: 1 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 6 Jūbun, 4 Jūbi, 6 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 85 Jūyō.
Phase 1 · The Yamashiro Hasebe School (長谷部) · 1330 – 1400
Kunishige (國重) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Kokuhō, Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. His National Treasure is the meibutsu Heshikiri Hasebe, the wakizashi long held by the Kuroda of Fukuoka, and the published sources reach for it when they want to fix his standing: among the unsigned works whose quality "compels assent to a direct connection with Masamune" (正宗との直結を首肯せしむる), the Heshikiri stands first. Hasebe Kunishige is the head of the Hasebe school, the Soshu tradition carried out of Sagami and resettled in Kyoto, at Gojo-bomon Inokuma, and he is counted in the old reckoning among the Masamune-juttetsu. The published record now favours a route for the school in which its "home province was Yamato" (本国は大和), that it matured in Soshu, and that it settled last in the capital; the Yamato substrate is exactly what shows through the Soshu manner in his steel. With the Nobukuni school the Hasebe are named as the pair that represent the Yamashiro smiths of Nanbokucho, and within his own line Kunishige and Kuninobu, transmitted as his younger brother or his pupil, are the two representative hands.
The hand the published sources describe and then repeat almost word for word, text after text, is set against the Sagami smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, who worked the same flamboyant hitatsura in the same years. Soshu hitatsura takes choji and gunome as the base of its hamon, and its boshi "thrusts up and returns with a pointed tendency" (突き上げて尖りごころに返る); Hasebe builds instead from notare mixed with gunome, and his boshi is "large and round" (帽子が大きく丸く), the return burned far down so that it runs straight on into the muneyaki. That much is the surface of the kantei. Beneath it lies the single sharpest tell, which the texts name in nearly every entry: in the forging a masame strain "uncommon in Soshu shows conspicuously toward the edge side and the ridge side" (相州には少ない柾気が刃寄りと棟寄りに著しく), the Yamato grain surfacing where Sagami work shows none. To these the published sources add the very thin kasane of his construction as a habitual trait.
His jigane is itame, standing out across the surface, the ha-yori and mune-yori flowing into nagare and masame, with thick ji-nie and chikei entering; on the broadest pieces it carries a jifu-like tone. Over it the temper is notare mixed with gunome, ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi deep, ko-nie thick, kinsuji and sunagashi running frequently and long, until tobiyaki, yubashiri and muneyaki worked over ji and mune carry the whole into hitatsura. The boshi runs midare-komi with hakikake, rounded, the return burned far down. The carvings are bonji and suken, gomabashi, and grooves cut near the mune. The form is the period itself: hira-zukuri with mitsu-mune, wide in mihaba, thin in kasane, sunnobi with a shallow sori, which the published sources read as the very build of a Nanbokucho hira-zukuri wakizashi.
The work divides into four manners. The mainstream is the wide, thin, sunnobi hira-zukuri wakizashi and tanto with the full hitatsura just described. Beside it the texts expressly flag a quieter, rarer pole: his style "takes hitatsura as its type, but rarely" (皆焼をもって典型とするが、稀に) one sees a suguha or a shallow large notare, the edge fraying into hotsure and nijuba, the tobiyaki only slight; of one such piece a published source remarks that the workmanship "at a glance suggests an upper-rank Soshu hand" (一見相州伝上工を思わせる), and notes that this is not uncommon for Kunishige. His tachi-length work survives almost wholly as o-suriage mumei katana, the attribution carried by a kinzogan-mei the texts read as the brush of Hon'ami Mitsutsune; on these the hamon is a florid gunome-midare with ko-notare and a choji-like element, the mune tempered overall. Last is the body of signed work: most pieces carry Hasebe Kunishige in five characters near the centre of the nakago, the kuni-gamae at times enclosing gyoku or o, and the differing signatures with the spread of dates lead the published sources to an old theory of several smiths of one name working as a succession of generations. Reliably signed tachi are the rarest of all; the texts call "surviving examples of signed tachi extremely few" (有銘の太刀の遺例は極めて稀), prizing the handful that remain, slender and older in tone, as study material.
What sets him apart is best read against the Sagami pair he worked beside, and it is his own grounded traits that draw the line. His notare-and-gunome hamon, his round boshi with its long return into the muneyaki, and above all the masame at the ha-yori and mune-yori separate him from the choji-and-gunome hitatsura and pointed boshi of Hiromitsu and Akihiro. The published sources read his quality high in the tradition: the kinzogan katana of the shogunal house they acclaim as "a superior piece attributed to this smith, overflowing with vigour" (覇気横溢した同工極めの優品), and the rare tachi as showing the high-rank Soshu-den character at its best. The Heshikiri itself, an o-suriage blade whose original signature survives as a gaku-mei, is cited again and again as the work whose excellence confirms the Masamune connection, the foundation of his place among the juttetsu. His dated pieces begin at Bunwa 4 (1355), the reliably oldest, which the published sources call "the touchstone of Hasebe study" (長谷部研究のつけ石); an older Jowa-dated tachi exists but is held still to need research, so the Bunwa 4 piece anchors the chronology, with later dates running through Enbun, Joji, Oan and into Eiwa.
He is Jo-jo saku in Fujishiro's grading, with a Toko Taikan valuation of 1,000. The weight of designation behind his name is heavy: his one National Treasure, the Heshikiri Hasebe, sits above three Important Cultural Properties and Important Art Objects, and beneath them forty-seven blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved as heritage and never to trade; the institutional holders recorded against his name include Atsuta Jingu, the Tokyo and Kyoto National Museums and the Tokugawa Art Museum. His o-suriage kinzogan katana descend in the Tokugawa shogunal house, recorded as shogunal transmissions. The denrai roll runs through the daimyo houses: a Juyo wakizashi was received by the founding lord Honda Yasutoshi "when Shogun Hidetada made his official visit to Zeze Castle on the fourteenth day of the ninth month of Genna 3" (元和三年九月十四日、将軍秀忠が膳所城御成り) and descended in the Honda house thereafter; a Jubi tanto of Enbun 2 passed in the Naruse house, lords of Inuyama; and the Heshikiri itself was long held by the Kuroda of Chikuzen. Several of his Juyo blades carry Hon'ami origami. What a private collector may realistically encounter is one of the wakizashi or tanto of the tradeable tier, and even those reach the market only from time to time; a signed Hasebe Kunishige is a landmark when one appears, and the National Treasure and the great daimyo pieces are held, not traded.
Kuninobu (國信) — Mainline · 1334-1338. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Hasebe Kuninobu worked in Kyoto in the Nanbokucho period, his dated blades running Enbun and Joji, and with the school head Kunishige he is named in text after text as one of the two principal representatives of the Hasebe group. The school is the Soshu tradition carried into Yamashiro: contemporaneous with the Sagami smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, known for flamboyant *hitatsura*, the Hasebe smiths produced equally brilliant full-temper work, their residence traditionally given as Gojo Bomon Inokuma, though no surviving blade is signed "resident of Yamashiro." The *Kosei Koto Meikan* records Kuninobu as the son of the first-generation Kunishige and the younger brother of the second, while several published commentaries, finding his dated work confined to Enbun and Joji, read him simply as Kunishige's contemporary; the brother and pupil accounts are both chronologically sound. Recent scholarship holds the school's home province to be Yamato, the route the published sources set down as "home province Yamato, brought to full development in Soshu, and at last settled in the capital."
What the published record gives as Kuninobu's own, within a manner he shares almost wholly with the founder, is a single point in the temper. Whereas Soshu *hitatsura* is built on *choji* and *gunome*, Hasebe work takes *notare* and *gunome*, and the commentaries return, blade after blade, to one clause: "in Kuninobu's case in particular the *notare* turns angular, or takes on an arrow-nock (*yahazu*) character." His *gunome* squares off and runs to a forked-arrow shape more readily than the founder's, the angular teeth linked by a low *ko-notare*. The carvings are a second mark of his hand: *bonji*, *kurikara*, a *sanko* ken, *gomabashi* and *suken* on the wide faces of his blades, one Juyo commentary stating outright that "this kind of carving is, within the group, almost limited to Kuninobu." The third tell is the *boshi*, large and round, its return burned long down the *mune* until it joins the *muneyaki*, the chief separation named from the pointed, thrusting *boshi* of the Sagami pair.
The forging is *itame*, the grain standing, mixed with *mokume* and flowing into *masame* and *nagare* toward both edge and back; *ji-nie* lies thick and *chikei* enter freely. Over this the temper is *notare* carrying *gunome*, the *nioiguchi* deep, *nie* thick, *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* frequent, *tobiyaki* and *muneyaki* worked across the *ji* and *mune* until the whole rises to *hitatsura*. The flowing *masame* near the *ha* and *mune* is the feature the published sources call rare in Sagami and count among the school's surest hallmarks, the Yamato substrate showing through the Soshu manner, beside the period's extremely thin *kasane*. The typical form is the *hira-zukuri* wakizashi or tanto with *mitsu-mune*, wide in *mihaba* and *sun-nobi*, the imposing build of the Nanbokucho height, of which the *meibutsu* Atsuta Kuninobu at Atsuta Jingu is named the standard.
Beside this mainstream the published sources note two extremes of scale, "extremely large pieces of more than a *shaku*, and conversely small ones in the six- or seven-*sun* range," and a quieter register they treat as exceptional for him. In several smaller tanto the temper is a low *ko-notare* mixed with *ko-gunome* rather than full *hitatsura*, the *nie* still thick and *sunagashi* still running; in one the *hada* departs from his usual standing grain into a tightly forged, clear *ko-itame* that recurs on one of his rare tachi. Tachi-length work is scarce. A few signed tachi survive, slender with high *koshizori* and a small *kissaki*, tightly forged in *ko-itame*, several tempered in a *chu-suguha* with *gunome* rather than *hitatsura*, a manner set apart from Kunishige, signed Hasebe tachi being scarcely ever seen. To these are joined his *shinogi-zukuri* shortened blades: *o-suriage mumei* katana judged Kuninobu by build, and a *gaku-mei* wakizashi whose original signature is preserved on the cut-down tang, once a very long *hira-zukuri* wakizashi shortened in the manner of the Bizen Osafune smiths Kanemitsu and Morikage. One tachi, differing in both signature and workmanship from the usual Enbun-dated pieces, leads the published record to suppose more than one generation of the name.
His work is read by the points that set the school apart from Sagami and Kuninobu apart from the founder. Against Hiromitsu and Akihiro the separation is substrate and *boshi*: the Hasebe *hitatsura* rises over a *masame*-bearing *itame* the Sagami pair lack, and turns back large and round rather than pointed. Against Kunishige, whose workmanship the commentaries call so close a difference is hard to find, the separation is the angular, arrow-nocked *gunome*, the richer carving, and the longer-burning return, the marks named when settling an unsigned blade. One older commentary frames the limit of his hand plainly, allowing that "his technique cannot reach so far as the *meibutsu* Heshikiri Hasebe," yet adding that he excelled in the dark, moist *nureba* temper, working exceedingly close to Kunishige. Within Yamashiro the Hasebe stand with the Nobukuni school as the representative Nanbokucho smiths of the province; the school further includes Kunihira, Munenobu and Shigenobu.
Kuninobu is *Jo-jo saku* in Fujishiro's grading, and his record carries weight: three Important Cultural Properties and three Tokubetsu Juyo, with thirty-three Juyo beneath them, thirty-six in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers. Of his roughly forty-one designated works on record, almost all are signed, an open hand unlike the largely mumei Soshu masters. The signed tachi nicknamed Karakashi descended in the Uesugi house, counted among the thirty-five swords selected by Uesugi Kagekatsu, with a late-Muromachi *aikuchi* uchigatana mounting. A Juyo wakizashi was presented to the fourteenth shogun Tokugawa Iemochi by the Owari Tokugawa house at Nagoya castle in Keio 1, recorded in its *sayagaki*; another tachi was dedicated at Shizutani Shrine for the Ikeda lord Terumasa; and one tanto, published in the Tsuchiya oshigata, "is transmitted as a treasured blade of Katsu Kaishu." His tachi carry Hon'ami origami of Genroku 5 and Enpo 8. The Important Cultural Properties, including the Atsuta wakizashi, are heritage held by shrine and museum and do not trade; recorded holders include Atsuta Jingu, the Kyoto National Museum, Itsukushima Jinja and the Sano Art Museum. The signed wakizashi and tanto in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers are what a private collector may realistically encounter, and even these reach the market only rarely, a secure Hasebe Kuninobu a landmark when one appears.
Kunihira (國平) — Mainline · 1336-1340. Jūyō. Hasebe Kunihira (長谷部国平) was a swordsmith of the Hasebe group, active during the Nanbokucho period. He has traditionally been regarded as a son of the first-generation Kunishige and a fellow disciple of Kuninobu. The residence of the Hasebe smiths is conveyed as Gojo Bomon Inokuma in Kyoto; however, no extant works bear the inscription "resident of Yamashiro Province." Recent scholarship advances the view that the group's original province was Yamato, that it reached full maturity in Sagami under the influence of the *Soshu-den*, and that it ultimately settled in Kyoto. Alongside the Soshu smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, the Hasebe group displayed a brilliant and flamboyant manner centered on *hitatsura* workmanship, and within this lineage Kunishige and Kuninobu stand as the representative figures. Surviving works by Kunihira are extremely few, with dated examples from the Enbun and Joji eras.
Kunihira's wakizashi typically exhibit wide *mihaba*, thin *kasane*, and slightly extended proportions, displaying the bold *sugata* of the Nanbokucho period. The *kitae* shows *itame-hada* with standing grain and a tendency toward *nagare* and *masame*, with *ji-nie* and *chikei* forming throughout. In his characteristic mode, the *hamon* features angular *gunome* alternating with *notare*, developing into hitatsura through *yubashiri*, *tobiyaki*, and *muneyaki*. His tachi, by contrast, presents a *suguha*-based temper intermingled with small *midare*, well covered in *nie* with *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* -- an extremely rare form within the Hasebe group as a whole.
The NBTHK observes that Kunihira's workmanship shares an "unbroken kinship" with Kuninobu, particularly in the handling of the hamon, and that his pieces make known "the high level of this smith's skill." His tachi is noted as possessing "high documentary value" for its resemblance to the tachi by Kuninobu in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum. Each surviving work is described as especially precious for being a rare extant example, and the dated pieces further enhance their significance as reference material for the Hasebe lineage.
Kunishige (國重) — Mainline · 1345-1350. Jūyō. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Munenobu (宗信) — Mainline · 1384-1394. Jūyō. Hasebe Munenobu (長谷部宗信) was a Yamashiro smith of the Nanbokuchō period, traditionally transmitted as the son of Kuninobu of the Hasebe group. The Hasebe school, contemporaneous with the Sōshū smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, became particularly known in the mid-Nanbokuchō period for a brilliant style specializing in flamboyant *hitatsura*. As representative makers of the group, Kunishige and Kuninobu are cited, and Munenobu stands among a small number of smiths in the lineage for whom signed examples survive, alongside Kunihira and Shigenobu.
Hasebe work is distinguished from Sōshū *hitatsura* by several diagnostic features that the NBTHK consistently identifies. Where Sōshū hitatsura typically bases its *hamon* on *chōji* and *gunome* with the *bōshi* tending toward a pointed return, Hasebe work characteristically hardens a hamon based on *notare* mixed with gunome, upon which *tobiyaki*, *yubashiri*, and *muneyaki* are superimposed. The bōshi tends toward *ko-maru*, with the return carried long as *yakisage* so that it connects into muneyaki. Another distinguishing characteristic is a *masame*-like tendency standing out near both the edge side and the back side of the forging — something relatively uncommon in Sōshū work. The extremely thin *kasane* evident in the construction is likewise a notable feature of the period's Hasebe workmanship. Within the hitatsura, further variation such as *nijūba*, *sunagashi*, and *yahazu-ba* imparts a powerful feeling overall.
Munenobu's surviving works, principally *tantō* in *hira-zukuri*, clearly reflect their Nanbokuchō-period character. The thinly built construction, the shallowly undulating yet fundamentally gentle temper with plentiful *nie*, and the ko-maru bōshi finishing with *hakikake* are all customary features of the group that Munenobu faithfully expresses. The NBTHK has noted that the manner of the signature on the tang — its distinctive character spacing and calligraphic style — accords with the traits of this school, and that his works well express the characteristic traits of the Hasebe group.
Shigenobu (重信) — Mainline · 1368-1375. Jūyō. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Other smiths
Kageshige (景重) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Kunishige (國重) — Mainline · 1370-1372. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1264-1275. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1379-1381. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Nobuyuki (信行) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Teijun (定順) — Mainline · 1394-1428. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.
Tsuneyoshi (常慶) — Mainline · 1573-1592. Smith of the Yamashiro Hasebe School.