Nagai Munehide (長井宗秀)
Munehide NAGAI (1265 - December 20, 1327) was a person in the Kamakura Period.
He was a son of Tokihide NAGAI and born in the year when his father became hyojoshu (a member of Council of State). He became Hikitsukeshu (Coadjustor of the High Court) and Kunai no Gon no Taifu (provisional senior assistant minister of Imperial Household Ministry) at the age of 18, and became Ossotonin (the head of legal institutions of Kamakura bakufu and Muromachi bakufu) in May 1293, when he was 29 years old. He was appointed to Shisso in October 1293 (in old lunar calendar) when Sadatoki HOJO abolished the court system Hikitsukeshu and established Shisso to seize the authority of final judgments and to shift the shogunate government from the council system to Tokuso (the patrimonial head of the main branch of the Hojo clan) dictatorship.
There were only two Shisso who were not the Hojo clan, among the seven Shisso, and he was the second youngest following Sadatoki HOJO, indicating that he was an important member of the Sadatoki HOJO regime. Two years later, he became Yoriaishu (a member of the top decision making organ) and a restored hyojoshu. It is considered that he had joined Yoriaishu in May 1293. After that, he held an important post of the bakufu or the Tokuso family until he resigned Nanaban hikitsuke tonin (the seventh head of the legal office) on March 15, 1309.
There is an article of OE no Hiromoto praising Munehide NAGAI in "Azuma Kagami" (The Mirror of the East). Moreover, the December 5, 1232 entry of the "Azuma Kagami," written at the same time as Oe's article, records that 'important documents and kikigaki (accounts of what one hears) from Kyoto in and after the Juei and Genryaku eras, petitions of people, records of suits from warrior families from within the capital (Kyoto), from the southern capital (Nara), from Mt. Hiei, as well as the shikimoku (legal codes in itemized form, used during medieval Japan) of articles of the works of absentee proprietors and lords of private estates in and after the Bunji era, and documents and letters on details of war exploits (or distinguished service) of eastern warriors in the Battles against the Taira clan' were all scattered to the winds, so Yasutoki HOJO had these documents collected and handed over to Munehide NAGAI. In addition to the abovementioned facts, the estimated compilation date of the "Azuma kagami" also suggests that Munehide NAGAI was probably one of the its compilers.