Maeda Toshimasa (d.1560) entered the service of Oda Nobuhide, who nominally ruled Owari Province from his seat at Kiyosu Castle.

He began his career as a page, rising through the ranks a member of the akahoro-shū (赤母衣衆), under Nobunaga's personal command and later became an infantry captain (ashigaru taishō 足軽大将).

[1] After Nobunaga's death, he pledged fealty to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his territories were expanded to cover all of the three provinces of Noto, Kaga and Etchū, with a kokudaka of well over a million koku.

His eldest son Maeda Toshinaga participated in the Battle of Sekigahara and built Kanazawa Castle; he also was recognised as daimyō of Kaga Domain under the Tokugawa shogunate.

After the start of the Meiji period, the former heads of the various branches of the Maeda clan were made peers under the kazoku peerage system.