Before the Higashiyama Palace

Jôdo-ji was a Tendai-sect temple. During the Heian period it was the residence of Enchin (814-89) and known as Jôdo-ji. In the first decade of the eleventh century the twenty-fifth Tendai abbot Myôkyû (the grandson of Emperor Daigo) rebuilt the temple, took up residence there, and was known as the Jôdo-ji abbot.

Toward the end of the Heian period the practice of installing members of the imperial family as the heads of temples became firmly established and even the abbot of the head Tendai temple, Enryaku-ji, was selected from specific branch temples headed by priests of imperial lineage. These specially designated temples were known as monzeki (literally, "of a specific lineage").

Early in the second decade of the thirteenth century the seventy-third Tendai abbot Enki, the head priest of the Enryakui-ji monzeki temple Kongôju-in, took up residence at Jôdo-ji, which then came under the administration of Kongôju-in. Thereafter the head priest of Kongôju-in came to reside permanently at Jôdo-ji, at which living quarters for the aristocratic abbot of the temple were built.

In the Muromachi period (1392-1573), Yoshimi (1439-91), the third son of the sixth Ashikaga shogun Yoshinori (1394-1441), was ordained at Jôdo-ji and, adopting the name Yoshihiro, became the head priest of the temple. Later, however, he was called back to government by his older brother Yoshimasa and became Yoshimasa's advisor and successor as shogun. This led to the Ônin War, during which Jôdo-ji was completely destroyed by fire. Yoshimasa built his Higashiyama villa on the former site of Jôdo-ji.