The first part, thirty volumes detailing the period from the reign of Emperor Uda until Michinaga's death, is believed to have been written between 1028 and 1034 by Akazome Emon and/or Fujiwara no Tamenari.
[3] The forty scrolls that comprise the text are written entirely in kana, and include many excerpts from diaries and notes of court ladies.
Twenty-eight of these scrolls are devoted to Michinaga's role in imperial government, while the remaining twelve concern related topics, including other aspects of his life and the lives of other members of his family.
Among these, the Umezawa-bon, the oldest extant complete manuscript, which was transcribed by the mid-Kamakura period, was acquired by Sanjōnishi Sanetaka and passed down to his progeny.
The specifics of Sanetaka's acquisition of the text are detailed in the passages for the fourth and eighth days of the eleventh month of the sixth year of Eishō (1509).