About the era of Oei (A. D.1400) Chujo Hyogonosuke Nagahide started the Chujo school of swardsmanship, introducing the doctrine of the Zen sect by Jion, a Zen priest into it. Later it prevailed widely in the province of Echizen (now it is Fukui Prefecture), where lived the Toda Family, from whose descendants appeared a large number of masters and experts in succession, as the result of which, the Chujo was called the Toda school before everyone knew it.
The founder of the Toda school was Nagaiye, whose son Kageiye succeeded to him and his three sons, Satoiye, Seigen and Kagemasa handed down the secret of the art. It was especially to Shigemasa who was the adopted son of Kagemasa that the authority of this family reached the climax. I have tried to consider in this monograph the details of the tradition which flourished from the Chujo to the Toda school with the help of documents in connection with the same school.
