Deal W.E. Handbook To Life In Medieval And Early Modern Japan

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functioning as forerunners to the military lords later

known as daimyo. Samurai had long relied upon

personal connections to recruit members of their

band, while the central government had secured

allegiance of military retainers through a system of

rewards including rank, office, and land grants.

Eventually, government land reserves and available

positions became insufﬁcient to ensure that samurai

vassals (gokenin) would remain loyal to the shogu-

nate and control of provincial estates fell to warrior

alliances that consolidated power over regions in the

provinces. (For more information on shugo, jito, and

gokenin refer to chapter 1: Historical Context.)

From early medieval times, provincial bushidan

were confederations of independent warrior bands

bound by lord-vassal relations and serving different

leaders. In practice, lord-vassal alliances functioned

like ancestral bonds whereby descendants of a vassal

served subsequent generations of the lord’s family,

who in turn provided ongoing support to the vas-

sals. Despite the lack of blood ties, lords and vassals

often conceived of and articulated their relationship

in language suggesting kinship. For instance, vassals

were described as housemen (kenin, or gokenin after

the Heian period) and children of the house

(ienoko). Vassals also sometimes characterized their

lords as father figures although they were not

related.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the shogu-

nate unwittingly hastened dissolution of central gov-

ernment authority by allowing gokenin to attain rank

and wealth previously reserved for aristocrats, even

as military bands also increased their might. At ﬁrst,

rulers valued warrior bands for their military acu-

men and secure regional ties or kinship bonds,

which peasant forces had lacked. However, personal

(or assigned) connections strengthened the commit-

ment between the military retainer, or vassal, and

the regional lord (daimyo). Capitalizing on such

alliances, established daimyo and gokenin were able

to amass signiﬁcant tracts of land far from the capi-

tal, with the assurance that samurai bands could

defend the domains against central government

interference.

Initially such privately trained military groups

were somewhat informal, although by the end of the

Kamakura era, warrior bands became more orga-

nized and essentially constituted private armies. In

response to threats from such forces, the Kamakura

shogunate issued a new code governing gokenin

behavior in 1232, hoping to inspire provincial order

and regulate samurai activity through exhortations

to honor and integrity. Yet such ideals were largely

ignored among warrior classes until the samurai

code was fully articulated in the Edo period. Disor-

der prevailed in the provinces, and samurai chal-

lenged shogunal authority in struggles for personal

property, land, and financial gain—not for honor.

The Kamakura shogunate ﬁnally collapsed in 1333,

and the Ashikaga family assumed power, establishing

the Muromachi shogunate.

Late Medieval Warriors

During the Muromachi and Azuchi-Momoyama

periods (particularly after the imperial schism

known as the Northern and Southern Courts period

ended in 1392), warrior bands continued to increase

in number and to accumulate military resources

such as land, weapons, and training. While aristo-

crats remained isolated amid imperial court formal-

ity in the capital, Kyoto, warriors became a

significant threat to central government authority,

since they resided in the countryside close to

regional lords and farmers who worked the land.

The shogunate was unable to quell localized, small-

scale disturbances and continued to simply ignore

uprisings among warrior vassals. Feuding samurai

wisely seized upon pervasive political instability to

justify violence fomented in the provinces as they

sought to annex land, casting such conﬂicts as war-

fare waged on behalf of the shogun. As provincial

samurai resources and power mounted, the increas-

ingly insolvent Ashikaga government failed to inter-

vene as aristocrats, governors, and constables ceded

land and regional authority to warrior clans.

In the end, neglectful Ashikaga shoguns helped

to empower other warrior families as they competed

for superiority. Kyoto was largely destroyed in the

10-year struggle known as the Onin War (1467–77).

Once hostilities ended in Kyoto, another 90 years of

fighting ensued among warrior vassals and lords

who had constructed decentralized power bases

throughout many regions of Japan. During this era,

H ANDBOOK TO L IFE IN M EDIEVAL AND E ARLY M ODERN J APAN

134

known as the Warring States period (Sengoku jidai,

1467–1568), these territorial lords came to be

known as daimyo, meaning great (dai) name (myo).

Because they exercised local and regional power

without regard for central authority at a time of

incessant war, these lords are often called sengoku

daimyo (warring lords). Despite the name, Warring

States, used for this period, most conﬂicts involved

powerful but peripheral daimyo residing on provin-

cial domains, not authorities serving as central gov-

ernment representatives. Amid the fracturing of

government power, fierce competition developed

among three successive warriors for control over

Japan: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and

Tokugawa Ieyasu. All three worked to unify the

country, although only Ieyasu was able to defini-

tively achieve that aim under the banner of the

Tokugawa shogunate. In the shadow of these three

famous warriors, warrior vassals deposed shogunal

representatives such as shugo and jito in the 15th and

16th centuries in a disruption of central authority

and social hierarchy known in Japanese as gekokujo

(the inferiors overthrowing the superiors).

Despite widespread destruction, the Warring

States period yielded greater respect and resources

for the warrior class, and enabled development of

strategies and technologies that made both warfare

and administration more efﬁcient. Mounted samurai

were joined by foot soldiers (ashigaru) recruited

from the ranks of the peasantry and outﬁtted with

weapons and armor by their wealthy domain lords.

Firearms were also introduced to Japan at this time,

ﬁrst from China and then in the mid-16th century

by Europeans. A standardized system of land valua-

tion and taxation helped rulers maintain control of

their daimyo and vassals and led to a clear articula-

tion of samurai hierarchy through land assessments.

Finally, castle construction became an important

means of defending large land parcels and establish-

ing a lord’s regional status. Thus at the close of the

Azuchi-Momoyama era, charismatic regional lords

such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and

Tokugawa Ieyasu, who once ranked as vassals or

lower themselves, demonstrated that members of

the samurai class merited authority by virtue of mil-

itary acumen, not because of aristocratic connec-

tions or right of succession. Once unified, the

country emerged from more than a century of war-

fare receptive to the mandates of a more effective,

centralized form of government.

Early Modern Warriors

The Tokugawa shogunate officially assumed con-

trol of Japan in 1615, fostering more than 250 years

of peace and imposing nearly complete isolation

from trade as well as conflict with foreign lands.

Warriors were no longer occupied with battles

because the Tokugawa government instituted strict

controls to maintain order in domestic affairs, espe-

cially in the provinces. Soon many samurai became

government bureaucrats, serving the shogunate

both in the capital and outlying regions. Other war-

riors became figureheads who traveled to the capi-

tal to make periodic ceremonial appearances and

offer tribute to the shogun in the name of their

lords. Thus, both daily experience and the social

position of members of the samurai classes were

transformed in the Edo period. Military ability no

longer ensured that the heads of warrior clans could

attain daimyo status, nor did lineage confer wealth

and prestige, as lands were reallocated according to

allegiances and for strategic purposes at the discre-

tion to the Tokugawa ruler. Mounting estate taxes

and tributes due to the shogun began to cause

financial hardship even among elite daimyo, who

could no longer rely upon a network of dutiful vas-

sals and warriors.

The high cost of maintaining favor and position

with Edo rulers increased in the third decade of

shogunal rule, further depleting already dwindling

samurai resources. In 1634, the Tokugawa govern-

ment established a policy of obligatory alternate-

year residence (sankin kotai) in the capital for

samurai and their families. Initially, daimyo were

encouraged to leave family members behind in Edo,

thus making them available as hostages in the event

that warrior lords collaborated in an attack on the

shogun in the capital. Soon, the system also included

compulsory daimyo attendance at court in Edo in

alternating years, ensuring that warriors traveling to

the provinces would lack time, inclination, and

resources to organize factions that might overthrow

the Tokugawa rulers.

W ARRIORS AND W ARFARE

135

Combined with other aspects of Tokugawa rule,

the system of alternate attendance and hostages had

significant consequences for warrior culture. The

sankin kotai system helped to distance regional lords

from their vassals and domains, and ensured that

shogunal rule in the Edo period would not be dis-

rupted by the localized power struggles that charac-

terized the Warring States period. Although samurai

could continue to bear arms in some cases, they suf-

fered reduced stipends due the alternate residence

requirement and the associated burden of frequent

long-term travel, as well as expenses due to social

competition among daimyo for shogunal favor.

Warrior affairs were further restricted due to exten-

sive regulations and taxes imposed on diverse cir-

cumstances—including castle construction and

repair, and intermarriage of daimyo families. Com-

pliance with shogunal edicts was assured using spies

and inspectors. Sankin kotai did have advantages for

warriors of means, since wealthy daimyo had oppor-

tunities to indulge their cultural passions. The

peacetime environment of the shogunal court

spawned increased warrior patronage of leisurely

pleasures such as theater, literature, music, and other

forms of entertainment. Finally, the signiﬁcant sums

spent by the large samurai population enriched the

Edo economy, resulting in a bustling metropolis that

ultimately beneﬁted not only the Tokugawa shogu-

nate, but also the merchant and artisan classes.

Thus, Tokugawa rule revolutionized both the

social position and daily lives of samurai. Many for-

mer warlords were recruited as administrative ﬁg-

ures in the shogunal bureaucracy—a position not so

different from that of courtiers in attendance at the

capital during the zenith of the Heian court. At ﬁrst

it may seem incongruous that the famous Bushido

(“Way of the Warrior”) code was formalized during

this time of peace. Although the Tokugawa shogu-

nate supervised warriors carefully to prevent battles

and challenges to central authority, Edo-period

samurai were expected to follow rigorous moral

guidelines for conduct and to polish their martial

skills in accord with their superior rank. Further,

under Tokugawa rule, emphasis was placed on prin-

ciples of warrior traditions rather than military prac-

tice, and daimyo and samurai were urged to uphold

valor, honor, and duty, even as they were charged

with administration of a peacetime government.

Warrior Rank and Socio-

Economic Position

Throughout the medieval period, warrior hierar-

chies often emulated the lord-vassal networks that

had long formed the basis for Japanese feudal

socioeconomic structure. However, such distinc-

tions were minimized during the era of Tokugawa

peace. As Edo-period shoguns reassigned land

parcels, status and wealth were dictated by proven

loyalty and service to the shogun, and could subvert

centuries-old feudal structures or even older aristo-

cratic ties.

Allegiances between lords and vassals within the

warrior class had been firmly established by the

Warring States period (Sengoku jidai). In accord

with Confucian ideals ﬁrst imported from China in

the seventh through ninth centuries, warrior vassals,

also called military retainers, served lords in

exchange for material and intangible benefits. In

turn, these individual landholding vassals were

bound to their superiors, such as regional rulers or,

in the Edo period, the shogun. A vassal or samurai

could expect tangible rewards such as land or cur-

rency (often in the form of harvested rice) from

superiors in return for service. Other ﬁgures, such as

farmers and peasants, worked land held by regional

rulers and military ﬁgures, in return for protection

and subsistence rights. Infantry members such as

foot soldiers were often recruited from the peasant

and farming classes, and while necessary in military

encounters, these warriors had few privileges, little

income, and low social status, and rarely attained

rank among the ruling samurai.

Despite the growing superiority of self-made

military ﬁgures over aristocrats in the early medieval

era, noble ancestry could confer some status in the

world of the samurai. Warriors that had (or made

claims to) elite lineage were often positioned as ofﬁ-

cers in the loosely organized regional bands that

ﬂourished amid chronic warfare in the Muromachi

and Azuchi-Momoyama eras. However, military

lords who emerged in the late 16th century were

often of humble birth, and figures such as Oda

Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose to power

largely because of their superior strategic abilities

and military resources. Notably, neither Nobunaga

H ANDBOOK TO L IFE IN M EDIEVAL AND E ARLY M ODERN J APAN

136

nor Hideyoshi ever assumed the title shogun—

which had acquired negative connotations due to a

long history of associations with ineffective rulers

representing military aristocracy—perhaps in part

due to their lower social rank.

In the early modern period, some warriors

enjoyed prominence due to long-standing prestige

accorded to the military class by lower-ranked social

groups, such as farmers, merchants, and artisans. Yet

during the more than 250-year Tokugawa peace,

many samurai also confronted decreasing incomes

and languished as nominal bureaucrats. Such ﬁgures

were among the fortunate, for many regional

daimyo were rendered ineffective or were disenfran-

chised under reunification, and warriors who had

once served such men became masterless, since they

were no longer pledged in duty to a lord. Deﬁned by

duty, these samurai without lords (ronin) became

social outcasts and often lived destitute lives because

they had no livelihood or stipend to depend upon.

Others left warrior culture behind and pursued

other professions despite the humiliation of being

stripped of a privileged social position.

Warrior Terminology

Terminology for ﬁgures within the military power

structure also varied during specific eras. While

samurai was not the most common word used for a

soldier during the early medieval period, this term

has become the preferred designation for premod-

ern military ﬁgures in Japan. First used in a Heian-

period document, the term samurai derives from a

classical Japanese verb, saburau (to serve), and aptly

describes how duty bound warriors to their lords. At

the same time, the term bushi (literally men, shi, of

the martial arts, bu) was also used to describe war-

riors, although the word samurai was used to distin-

guish armed figures who served the aristocracy.

Other less common terms such as tsuwamono, musha,

and monofu were used to identify those possessing

martial skills, mostly during the Heian to Northern

and Southern Courts eras.

Under the military rule that ensued from the

Kamakura period onward, soldiers holding an ofﬁ-

cial rank designated by the shogun or the imperial

court were considered samurai. Thus, military ﬁg-

ures serving in ranked positions were first distin-

guished from general infantry through terminology

early in the medieval era. After reunification was

achieved in the early modern period, the term samu-

rai was used to indicate warriors of a comparatively

high (upper-class) social status, although by that

time many samurai no longer served a lord in the

original military sense.

From the Kamakura period, bushi were consid-

ered members of “warrior houses,” or buke, which in

principle were regulated by the shogun or overseen

on his behalf by a powerful lord, later known as a

daimyo. The term buke came to refer generally to

the warrior class and was used more or less inter-

changeably with the term bushi. As noted above,

warrior bands (bushidan), situated on provincial

shoen, came to exert significant influence in the

provinces by the 10th century. Bushidan became pri-

vate armies associated with speciﬁc lords (daimyo)

from the time of the decline of the Ashikaga shogu-

nate in the mid-15th century. The term daimyo was

not used extensively to refer to regional lords until

the Warring States period, when these domain

rulers began to direct regional politics.

The late medieval warrior negotiated a deceptive

world in which rank and hierarchies were not always

clear, and alliances could shift or disintegrate with-

out warning. By contrast, in the Edo period, war-

riors were required to submit to a rigid system of

socioeconomic classiﬁcation with the shogun at the

pinnacle. Rank and class hierarchies, as stipulated by

the shogunate, were assiduously enforced. Under

the Tokugawa shogunate, daimyo, hatamoto (banner-

men), and other titles initially used to describe mili-

tary function indicated social position, stipend

(based on average annual rice consumption), and

consequently, the level of respect due to a member

of the samurai class. Although the various ranks

were based on military terms, most warriors served

the Tokugawa shogunate as administrators or

bureaucrats, not as military retainers. Members of

the warrior classes who were released from obliga-

tion to a lord due to death or loss of stipend were

known as masterless samurai or ronin (literally, “one

who wanders”) from the Muromachi period on.

Often dissatisﬁed with their ﬁnancial situation and

lack of status, masterless samurai were frequently

W ARRIORS AND W ARFARE

137

involved in uprisings such as the Keian Incident of

1651. The Tokugawa shogunate strove to reposition

these disenfranchised individuals, but many ronin

abandoned their samurai status or eventually died

out. For more information on ronin, see the section

below entitled “Values Expressed in Life—Loyalty.”

WARRIOR ETHICS

Bushido: The Way of

the Warrior

The term Bushido literally means “the way (do) of the

warrior (bushi).” In popular usage, Bushido desig-

nates a broad spectrum of traditional Japanese samu-

rai values. However, the term originated long after

the military class rose to power in the early medieval

era, and carries different implications within various

periods. Regardless, the “way of the warrior” was a

critical philosophy and code of conduct for the mar-

tial rulers who transformed military affairs and gov-

ernance in feudal Japan.

The word Bushido was ﬁrst used in Edo-period

Japan to identify the collective values and ideals of

the ruling military class. Although uniformity of

warrior values was promoted by the Tokugawa gov-

ernment, there was no ofﬁcial samurai code. Even

during peacetime, samurai were expected to possess

ardent martial spirit and military acumen as well as

ultimate devotion to a lord, fervent commitment to

duty, and courage to relinquish life in battle or

through ritual suicide if necessary. Paradoxically,

qualities sought in reliable soldiers, such as valor in

battle and duty to superiors, became inextricably

connected with the warrior class only during the

peaceful, centralized, yet restrictive, rule of the To-

kugawa shogunate. Speciﬁc examples of warrior val-

ues are discussed below in the section titled Warrior

Values.

Warrior principles were ﬁrst codiﬁed as a formal

ethical system in the 17th and 18th centuries by the

scholar Yamaga Soko (1622–85), who is credited

with deﬁning the samurai ideal. Although the term

Bushido was not used by Yamaga, he described the

military figure as a moral exemplar committed to

duty and loyalty above all. The Way of the Warrior

functioned effectively, Yamaga noted, as an ethos

perpetuated by the warrior’s lord, who rewarded

samurai service with favor. The mutual dependence

and bond between military retainer and lord was

essential to what scholars after Yamaga called the

Bushido ethic. Once Emperor Meiji was restored as

ruler of Japan in 1868, the samurai class was abol-

ished along with feudal socioeconomics. Still, the

warrior archetype articulated through writings on

Edo-period Bushido continued to serve as a potent

ideal in Japan. In 1899, Nitobe Inazo published

Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1899), a work that charac-

terized warrior ethos as the embodiment of all that

was most admired in traditional Japanese society and

culture.

Despite the cohesive picture of samurai ideals

presented by Edo-period philosophers and histori-

ans, warrior values ﬂuctuated during the feudal era.

During the middle and late Heian periods, warriors

were primarily occupied with family honor, then

loyalty to their lords, and third, personal benefit.

From the end of the Kamakura period, samurai were

less likely to consider honor, moral obligation, or

duty ﬁrst, focusing on professional obligations and

prospects for the future in a time of widespread

social, political, and economic unrest. The Muro-

machi shogunate prompted greater fragmentation of

warrior behavior despite attempts to restore stable,

centralized military rule. Ambitious warriors took

advantage of the breakdown of political authority,

acquiring land or consolidating power in efforts to

improve their socioeconomic position. At the same

time, improved weapons technology and soldiers

who were better prepared for battle made warriors a

more potent threat in the eyes of provincial consta-

bles (shugo), estate stewards (jito), or vassals (gokenin)

appointed by the shogun or court nobles. Often,

provincial samurai were granted or could assume

positions as intermediate vassals, and thus had direct

access to land and power, as well as military might to

ensure their concerns were protected. Thus,

throughout the Muromachi period, self-interest and

opportunism thrived as warriors became increas-

ingly aware of their access to land and power in a

fractured political climate. In reality, medieval

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138

samurai behavior did not necessarily reflect Edo

peacetime ideals of warrior duty and virtue. Other

disjunctions between early modern samurai stan-

dards and the actual role of warriors in the medieval

era are discussed below.

Aspects of the samurai code have been construed

as established principles for warrior conduct dating

to the Heian period, although, as noted above, this

was not always the case. Recently, scholars such as

Karl F. Friday have reexamined the chivalry, cama-

raderie, and ritualized attitudes toward warfare long

seen as hallmarks of early medieval warriors. Friday

and his colleagues propose that warrior lore glori-

ﬁed military values favored in later eras, rather than

reﬂecting the experience of feudal military retainers.

Fundamentally, samurai were professional fighters

who might be reluctant to selflessly sacrifice their

lives to honor their lords. In Edo Japan, the warrior

tradition offered a reminder of past glories for samu-

rai displaced from their professional role by the

peaceful state engineered by the Tokugawa shogu-

nate. In all probability, samurai virtues encompassed

by the term Bushido were defined through such

romantic retrospection rather than contemporary

observation.

Today, many scholars acknowledge that the

samurai heroes who conducted epic campaigns

recounted in medieval tales were intended as enter-

tainment, rather than as historically accurate de-

scriptions of individual ﬁgures. Such warrior tales,

known as gunkimono (sometimes also called gunki

monogatari), first became popular during the 14th

and 15th centuries, and are considered in greater

detail in chapter 8: Language and Literature. Since

the nostalgic allure of these dramatic accounts

helped to shape the ideals embodied in the “way of

the warrior,” notable ﬁgures and tales from warrior

literature are outlined brieﬂy below. Later theoreti-

cians and scholars revisited medieval visions of the

romanticized Japanese samurai as they strove to

forge an ethical code for the military retainer based

on the ideals of the past.

Feudal Society and Bushido

Military ﬁgures inﬂuenced many aspects of politics

and society in feudal Japan. Medieval authority,

economy, and social hierarchies centered on the

lord-samurai retainer relationship. This relation-

ship, much like the dynamic between lord and vas-

sals in feudal Europe, functioned through the lord’s

commitment to provide favor (on), often in the form

of land grants, titles, or prestige, in exchange for ser-

vice (giri) from the warrior retainer. Giri refers to

notions of social obligation and indebtedness in

Japanese culture in general, although contemporary

understanding of this concept was largely inspired

by the feudal dynamics of vassal and lord. More

information on this exchange of debt and favor can

be found in the section “Warrior Values,” later in

this chapter.

The interdependence of medieval lords and their

retainers was critical to the success of the feudal sys-

tem. If samurai overpowered their lords, disorder

ensued, as lords did not anticipate or plan for an

insurrection mounted by their own military forces.

Fostering a moral and behavioral code for samurai

thus served as insurance for a lord, helping to main-

tain a fit, well-prepared, knowledgeable army that

was constantly ready for battle, outfitted with the

best weapons and other resources, and devoted to

duty. In return, virtuous samurai were recognized

for their skill in battle and rewarded for their loyalty.

As noted earlier, by the middle of the medieval era in

the 14th century, armies grew increasingly priva-

tized and professionalized, in part due to this effec-

tive system of reciprocal values.

Military success increased, too, due to the

improved organization of units that trained together

and operated for mutual beneﬁt in peacetime as well

as in battle. Early medieval warrior bands were often

ad hoc conglomerations, even in the presence of

family ties, that gathered for particular campaigns

and disbanded or forged new affiliations shortly

thereafter. By the late 13th century, many feudal

samurai units included both foot soldiers and cavalry

in mixed groups in which infantry were far more

vulnerable to attack. Further, they rarely had the

beneﬁt of having trained together, either as a mixed

group or with comrades using the same weaponry,

whether infantry or on horseback. Achieving victory

in this type of conﬁguration was difﬁcult, especially

without signiﬁcant numbers of infantry and authori-

tative commanders to deploy them, and samurai

armies thus remained relatively inefﬁcient. Further,

W ARRIORS AND W ARFARE

139

a majority of battles in the early medieval era culmi-

nated in private conflicts between elite, mounted

warriors engaged in ritualized maneuvers, rather

than large-scale sieges using specialized units.

Under the command of various locally powerful

daimyo, from the late 14th century and thereafter,

feudal warfare in Japan became more specialized,

more decisive, and less ceremonial.

Although warrior values advocated a distinctive

martial ethic centering on absolute loyalty to a

daimyo, nonetheless, many feudal samurai inter-

preted their vassal-lord relationship as a basic eco-

nomic contract endowed with potential gains for

enterprising individuals. Thus in practice, warrior

loyalties often fluctuated, varying with prevailing

local, socioeconomic, and personal circumstances.

The bonds of honor and service a samurai owed to

his lord could be ruptured, as in the late medieval

dynamic called gekokujo, “the lower [inferiors] over-

turning the upper [superiors].” This enterprise of

warrior culture involved an inversion of Japan’s nor-

mative social and economic feudal order, which

kept land and power in the hands of regional

daimyo.

By the middle of the Warring States era (Sen-

goku jidai, 1467–1568), shugo (provincial con-

stables), jito (estate stewards) and other samurai

vassals, such as gokenin, had overthrown daimyo

and other estate owners, largely due to increased

numbers of well-trained warriors that powered

samurai military bands and mounted challenges

to daimyo military units weakened by incessant

warfare. Such disruptions of long-established

medieval social and political order exemplify the

conflict between individual authority, represent-

ed by various leaders at the imperial, shogunal, or

daimyo level, and institutional power. Amid the

upheaval of the Warring States era, this crisis of

authority was manipulated by skillful vassals and

samurai who were able to benefit from the power

gaps inherent in the Japanese feudal system. From

humble beginnings as loosely organized pro-

fessional military leagues, warrior retainers ulti-

mately gained the upper hand and came to

dominate regional politics in the late medieval era,

and thus the might of the samurai class led to tri-

umph over the established supremacy of regional

daimyo.

Bushido in the Edo Period

In early modern times, the Tokugawa shogunate

achieved reunification and peace and maintained

control of the samurai through an administration

that fostered both a distinctive sense of identity and

a new political role for the ruling military classes.

Along with the shogunate, the enduring Edo-period

peace challenged warriors to redefine their role.

While Edo samurai were considered members of the

ruling class, paradoxically they had little political

power since they subsisted on stipends, which were

distributed by domain lords who were no longer

dependent upon warrior retainers for protection.

With overseas travel limited and peace enforced

along with isolationist policies, samurai were trans-

formed into civil administrators and tributaries who

served the shogun. Many higher-ranking samurai

were charged with oversight of domains or smaller

land parcels on behalf of their lords, particularly as

ruling daimyo were often occupied with ceremonial

responsibilities in the capital stipulated by the

shogunate. The alternate-year attendance (sankin

kotai) policy enforced by the Tokugawa rulers also

meant that some samurai were required to travel fre-

quently with the regional entourages obliged to

appear before the shogunate. All of these activities

helped to prevent potential uprisings within the mil-

itary classes and encouraged samurai to spend any

discretionary income that might otherwise enable

individuals to amass resources to mount a military

threat. Finally, samurai and their families helped to

boost the peacetime economy as they competed

among themselves in efforts to impress their leaders

or the shogunate with their reﬁnement and glamour.

Peacetime and the bourgeois culture that ﬂour-

ished in urban centers encouraged samurai to culti-

vate civil and leisurely pursuits. Several members of

the warrior class turned their attention to literary

arts in efforts to articulate the philosophy behind

martial traditions. Many of these texts extol Bushido

values, such as the will to action, purity of motiva-

tion, steadfast service, and intellectual and political

leadership, that are also Confucian paradigms of

human behavior. Through contact with Korea and

China, Confucian traditions had long influenced

Japanese notions of effective government and soci-

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140

ety. Confucian ideals became more prominent in the

Edo period due to the suitability of such principles

for a military government administrated by func-

tionaries who prized loyalty, and thus notions of ﬁl-

ial piety, above all other virtues. Assisted by the

rhetoric emerging from writers of the military

classes who highlighted similarities between long-

standing Bushido values and Confucian ethics, the

Tokugawa shoguns identiﬁed an effective means of

promoting samurai civil service as representative of

warrior values, even as they were able to suppress

martial aspects of military culture by identifying

these pursuits as civilian arts.

During the Edo period, the shogunate monitored

the warrior elite to ensure that military ethics and

abilities that emerged in the medieval era were trans-

formed into peacetime values and service to the

Tokugawa government. The shogunate approved of

the fundamental samurai ethic of absolute loyalty, as

well as the moral tone of Bushido in general. Such

ideals were primary topics among the military

classes, due to numerous treatises on samurai philos-

ophy composed in the Edo period. For example, in

the first decades of Tokugawa rule, Miyamoto

Musashi (1584–1645) published Gorin no sho (ca.

1643; The Book of Five Rings, 1974). A master swords-

man trained in Zen Buddhism, and a ronin whose

lord had been among those defeated in the Battle of

Sekigahara, Musashi detailed strategies of swords-

manship and exalted victory achieved in the name of

one’s lord as the supreme accomplishment and self-

effacing purpose of a warrior. Upholding ideals of

selﬂess duty provided inspiration to samurai trans-

formed from self-reliant military adventurers to

functionaries dependent upon ﬁxed stipends awarded

by shogunal or domain governments. Linking these

paradigms with Confucian principles gave the war-

rior a higher purpose in peacetime Edo Japan.

The connections between Confucian ethics and

civil responsibility promoted by Miyamoto Musashi

were furthered by Yamaga Soko (1622–85), whose

theories were discussed above in the section titled

“Bushido: The Way of the Warrior.” Unlike his pre-

decessors, Yamaga emphasized the social debt samu-

rai had incurred, as the protective services they had

previously provided were no longer necessary in the

era of Edo peace. Since the warrior’s military service

was his means of livelihood and was critical to Japan,

samurai thus had incurred a responsibility to society

in general, since the stipends earned previously

became a debt that had to be repaid in peacetime. In

repayment of this debt, Yamaga urged samurai to

uphold Confucian values, proposing that the warrior

alone could serve as a model for the virtue of duty

necessary for a harmonious society. The Confucian

tone in Yamaga’s works coincided with the desire of

the Tokugawa shogunate to recognize and reinforce

the contributions of samurai-turned-bureaucrats.

Yamaga also emphasized the importance of the war-

rior’s duty to honor his lord, and above him, the

shogun, as symbolic of the debt all Japanese had to

serve their supreme leader, the emperor, through

whom Japan’s divine origins could be traced. Most

Japanese viewed the emperor as a ﬁgurehead in the

Edo period, although by the mid-19th century, Yam-

aga’s writings became inﬂuential in galvanizing sup-

port for the emperor’s return to power.

Some Edo-period theorists on Bushido placed

more emphasis on the self-discipline required of the

warrior as evocative of the self-effacing samurai tra-

dition of ultimate devotion to one’s lord. Yamamoto

Tsunetomo (1659–1719) is believed to have dictated

the Bushido manual Hagakure (full title Hagakure

kikigaki; “Notes of What Was Heard in the Shadow

of Leaves”; completed 1716) to Tashiro Tsuramoto.

This collection of more than 1,300 anecdotes and

brief reﬂections on the samurai way opens with the

oft-repeated phrase “Bushido is a way of dying.” This

quote summarizes the pervasive theme of Hagakure:

That only a warrior who is ready and willing to per-

ish at any moment can be fully dedicated to his lord.

Another important Edo-period treatise on war-

rior conduct and philosophy entitled Budo shoshinshu

(Code of the Samurai) was compiled by Daidoji Yuzan

(also known as Daidoji Shigesuke, 1639–1730) in the

early 18th century. A native of Yamashiro province

(part of modern Kyoto Prefecture), Yuzan traveled

to Edo to study military strategy under Hojo Uji-

naga (1609–70), and produced this volume in 44

chapters that is now considered a Bushido classic.

Like other Edo-period authors, he sought to pre-

serve the values and techniques central to warrior

heritage, which had become increasingly unfamiliar

to peacetime samurai under Tokugawa rule. Budo

shoshinshu stands apart from other manuals as one

of the most widely circulated volumes about the

W ARRIORS AND W ARFARE

141

warrior code. Yuzan’s text may have seemed particu-

larly accessible compared to other warrior manuals

of the Edo period, since Budo shoshinshu was orga-

nized as a series of lessons delivered by a father to his

son.

Reflections on samurai experience and moral

bearing, like those described above in the work of

Daidoji Yuzan, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Yamaga

Soko, and Miyamoto Musashi, offered warriors a

sense of purpose and integrity, while inspiring pride

in the long tradition of the samurai code. Ultimately,

the warrior elite who had displaced Japan’s tradition

of aristocratic rule with a system of military gover-

nance dominated politics and culture for nearly 700

years. Although the Confucian leanings of Edo-

period warrior treatises advocated the importance of

samurai culture even in peace, economic realities

helped foster discontent among warriors. By the

19th century, many samurai were trapped in a sym-

bolic social role with dwindling resources and little

actual power, resulting in dissatisfaction with shogu-

nal rule. Warriors envisioning a better future for

their country and their heirs began to support the

emperor’s right to serve as Japan’s true ruler, leading

to the dismantling of the Tokugawa shogunate and

the restoration of imperial power beginning with

Emperor Meiji in 1868. While the Meiji Restoration

was largely supported by the samurai classes, ironi-

cally, this landmark political reform marked the end

of both feudal governance and the hegemony of the

warrior in Japan.

The Legacy of Bushido

Advocates of the imperial restoration prevailed and

forced the last Tokugawa shogun to abdicate as the

Edo period drew to a close. With Emperor Meiji

restored as the supreme ruler of Japan, the Tokuga-

wa shogunate and its feudal structure were disman-

tled, and the samurai class was abolished. However,

Bushido remained a powerful tradition and a source

of pride in Japan. Early Meiji industrialization and

Western influence temporarily muted the appeal

of warrior traditions, yet in the wake of the Sino-

Japanese War (1894–95), the way of the warrior

became a more prominent cultural force as an ex-

pression of patriotism that emphasized militarism

and devotion to the emperor. A noted tribute to

warrior ideals titled Bushido: The Soul of Japan (1899)

was written by Nitobe Inazo (1862–1933), a profes-

sor, author, and diplomat, during this time of reﬂec-

tion on the integrity of Japanese culture. Published

as Japan had begun to surge into the modern era,

Nitobe’s portrayal of samurai rectitude as the most

admirable legacy of Japanese culture conﬁrmed the

enduring power of Bushido as both a call to arms

and a call to virtue even in a time of rapid social and

economic reform.

Medieval Warrior Values

The medieval warrior values similar to those

described in detail below were perhaps ﬁrst summa-

rized in the Chikubasho (Bamboo stilt anthology), a

Muromachi-period volume providing moral instruc-

tion for samurai. Completed in 1383 by an Ashikaga

deputy shogun (kanrei) named Shiba Yoshimasa

(1350–1410), the text outlined explicit rules to guide

the behavior of the military class. At the same time,

this work also stressed the importance of cultivating

both the martial arts and the traditional four schol-

arly accomplishments first identified with Confu-

cius’s ideal gentleman: games of strategy, scholarship

through skilled calligraphic copies of the classical

texts, music, and painting. In advocating the “dual

way” of both military abilities and cultural pursuits,

Chikubasho identified the balance of cultural and

martial knowledge sought by the warrior class. At

the same time, this early warrior manual laid foun-

dations for samurai of limited regional authority and

humble origins to achieve social, economic, and

political prominence previously available only to the

cultivated aristocracy.

First and foremost, the samurai was a profes-

sional soldier, and thus was expected to perform

martial duties at the request of his lord in exchange

for remuneration in the form of land, subvassals who

worked samurai ﬁelds and served in his military unit,

and other tangible rewards, such as protection. The

lord-vassal relationship was the primary factor that

determined a warrior’s role and socioeconomic sta-

tus. Since a samurai provided service to his lord by

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142

means of achievement in combat, in both military

encounters and civilian life, warriors were expected

to exhibit discipline and fortitude even off the bat-

tlefield. For example, a well-known Edo-period

anecdote relates the deep disgrace samurai would

experience at betraying hunger through the rum-

bling of an empty stomach, or even by acknowledg-

ing such a basic need. Upholding such stringent

ideals of honor and restraint helped to ensure that

warriors were constantly prepared for battle as well

as other forms of adversity, while cultivating a sense

of group pride and integrity lacking in nonmilitary

circles.

Warriors were expected to cultivate other exem-

plary traits, such as loyalty, prudence, and stability,

along with military leadership. Such appropriate

samurai attributes were ﬁrst expounded in literary

sources dating to the medieval period. Literary

sources highlighted samurai devotion, such as the

vow to commit seppuku (ritual suicide by disembow-

elment; also known as hara-kiri) if faced with dis-

grace, especially when confronting certain enemy

triumph. Willingness to follow one’s lord in death

(junshi) was a related act of ultimate loyalty. Samurai

demonstrated such values when imperial forces

defeated the Hojo clan in 1333, and thousands of

loyal warriors emulated the fate of their Hojo masters

by performing ritual disembowelment, an event

recorded in the Taiheiki (Chronicle of the great

peace), completed by 1374.

Despite the picture of duty painted in historical

accounts like the Taiheiki, loyalty was not an absolute

for the military retainer throughout the medieval

and early modern periods. In principle, a samurai

might owe allegiance to a lord through his obliga-

tion to uphold loyalty and duty, but such a debt

might also derive from material benefits, such as

financial support and other rewards, offered to a

warrior by a daimyo. Although traditionally the

Japanese military class has been characterized as

selﬂess and disinterested in personal gain, in reality

warriors put their own needs ahead of those of their

lords at various times. Certainly samurai were not

immune to the allure of improving their socioeco-

nomic position. Military units often fought on

behalf of a distant lord, and even lofty moral princi-

ples could not prevent samurai bands from enjoying

the spoils of warfare directly, rather than being satis-

ﬁed with token parcels offered by their lords when

redistribution of conquered lands occurred.

As discussed above, theoretically, Bushido princi-

ples required that samurai were chivalrous champi-

ons of the weak and the disadvantaged, and

protectors of the vanquished. However, since samu-

rai had been trained to ﬁght until capture or casual-

ties occurred, they were often ruthless in pursuing

their objectives. From the early medieval era, both

the law and widespread precedents worked to pre-

vent warriors from pursuing private interests

through violent means. In the Kamakura period,

legally, samurai were granted authority only to chas-

tise lawbreakers on behalf of a superior ruler. Many

incidents occurred during the medieval era in which

warriors usurped ruling authority, took advantage of

disorder and military power, or simply extended

their responsibilities in order to achieve personal

gains. Thus, many samurai failed to consistently

demonstrate honorable behavior and loyalty as

extolled in Bushido principles. Eventually, the civil

order established by the Tokugawa shogunate elimi-

nated samurai incentives to pursue personal gain

through military prowess.

Other warrior values attest to connections be-

tween learning, lineage, social status, and righteous

administration ﬁrst introduced to Japan from China,

along with centralized government, during the

Asuka period (552–645). Long seen as the purview

of the ruling class, knowledge and education became

central samurai ideals during the Muromachi era as

Japan experienced renewed Chinese cultural inﬂu-

ence. As in ancient China, learned samurai were

expected to be familiar with standard Chinese texts,

and to master related skills such as calligraphy,

poetry, and principles of strategy. Once the Ashikaga

shogunate was established in Kyoto, the residence of

Japan’s imperial family for nearly 1,100 years and a

city distinguished by its aristocratic elegance and

refinement, military rulers and other members of

the warrior classes sought to establish their cultural

acumen as well as the right to govern the nobility.

The prominent inﬂuence of Chinese culture in the

Muromachi age also contributed to the growing

sense that a military ﬁgure should demonstrate char-

acteristics typical of the superior gentleman, a moral

and cultural ideal ﬁrst identiﬁed by the Chinese sage

Confucius (Kongfuzi), ca. 551–479

B.C.E.

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143