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Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan by Karl F. Friday
Review by: J. P. Lamers
Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 2005), pp. 466-469
Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064590 .
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31:2 (2005)
jecting the idea thatany "dramatic revolution" led Japan's celebrated samu
rai to dominance.
Friday takes thepoint of view not only thatwar can "create, define and
defend both states and peoples" but also that society and political system
can influence the shape and purposes of warfare. In his chosen time frame,
Friday contends, warfare in Japan gradually extended in scope and intensity,
but essentially remained the same until the end of the fourteenth century.
Given the posited mutual interaction between society and war, this conclu
sion would logically lead us to think that Japanese society did not change
dramatically in the period under study.But in seeming or partial contradic
tion of his own startingpoint, Friday concludes (on p. 166) thatwhile "the
fourteenthcenturywas an era of thoroughgoing social and political change,
with attendant consequences for the conduct of war," at the same timemil
itary "goals and tactics did not change in any fundamental way" (p. 168).
By employing the phrase "early medieval Japan" prominently in his
title,Friday implicitly links his work to a revisionist view of premodern Jap
anese history,pioneered among others by the late Jeffrey
Mass, which posits
that the Japanese warrior class did not reach complete dominance before the
fourteenthcentury and that itdid so largely due to thepolitical convulsions
and
constant
warfare
of
that age.
Yet
Friday
stakes
out what
may
be
de
For any study of the antecedents of the Japanese samurai, the so-called
ritsury?military system is a logical startingpoint. In his introduction, and
later in chapter two,Friday outlines how this imported system quickly lost
its efficacy in the changing Japanese situation and how from the eighth to
themiddle of the tenthcentury "the courtmoved from a conscripted, pub
licly trainedmilitary force to one composed of privately trained, privately
equipped professional mercenaries" (p. 6). The ground is familiar here, both
to Friday and to readers of his earlier work.
467
Review Section
ropean
ment,
Friday
the Kamakura
bakufu,
that even
out
points
should
seen
be
first warrior
Japan's
more
as
an
govern
and
outgrowth
how war
angles:
were
how
used,
was
war
legitimized,
was
actually
how
armies
fought,
were
raised,
and what
were
which
weapons
the rules
of
the
game, if any. Japanese notions of what constituted just war found theirori
gins inChinese ideas imported during the formation of the imperial state in
the seventh century.There could be no legitimatemilitary conflict outside
the sanction of the emperor and his ministers. Unauthorized military action
was by definition suspect and unjust. The interesting thing in the Japanese
situationwas that the state early on disbanded its conscript army, relying in
stead on privatemilitary resources. Even though the central imperial gov
ernment relinquished control over the actual application ofmilitary force, it
clung to itsmonopoly on the legitimization of war well into the fourteenth
century.
bushi
One
lacked
reason
much
to Friday,
of class-consciousness,
was
that early
in other words,
samurai
of
or
social
31:2 (2005)
thority,theNorthern and the Southern Courts, allowing for almost any fight
to be justified in the name of the state.
The rewards thatmembers of the emerging warrior class desired and ob
tained in returnfor theirmilitary service also bound them closely to the au
thorityof the imperial state. Throughout the early medieval
sought
(p. 55),
of
patronage
"long-term
or more
direct rewards
careers
their
such
as
rank,
court
by
court
period they
powers-that-be"
of
administrative
titles,
fices in local government, and rights to income from land.At the same time,
the early samurai armies were loosely organized coalitions, temporarilyknit
together from small warrior bands, and were mostly not sustained beyond
thepurpose of a specific campaign or expedition.
In discussing theweaponry of early medieval samurai, Friday displays
an impressive technical knowledge. Though perhaps not intentionally,his
treatment goes a long way to debunk the idea that the Japanese mounted
archers practiced "probably themost deadly form of battle known to hu
manity before the advent of gunpowder."1 Their armor was costly and
heavy, their horses littlemore than outsized ponies short on stamina and
speed, and theirbows only effective at very short range. On the battlefield,
the early
bushi
were
to coordinate
unable
any massive
of vio
application
to pursue
a maximum
their prime
of
objectives
individual
honor
and
to
reputation
degree.
according
to Friday,
was
lot
less
romantic
than what
has
com
monly been suggested. Honor was a key driver for Japanese warriors, but
their hunger
for success
was
often
greater
than
their stock
concept
of "unfair
of scruples.
Con
and had?in
of ransoming
short?no
prisoners
of war,
who
were
tactics."
There
was
part
summar
no
1. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan's Military, 500
1300 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1995 paperback
edition), p. 10.
Review Section
469
thereare only two queries worth raising. First, Friday's qualification of early
Japanese warriors as "mercenaries" does not sit easy with me. It is a term
thatevokes strong connotations of theGerman landsknechts or Swiss troops
centuries."
2. Thomas Donald Conlan, The State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century
Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University ofMichigan, 2003), p. 72.
3. Karl F. Friday, Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power inEarly Japan (Stan
ford: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 170.