samurai, warfare and the state in early medieval japan

8/10/2019 Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan

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The Society for Japanese Studies

Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan by Karl F. FridayReview by: J. P. LamersJournal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 2005), pp. 466-469Published by: The Society for Japanese StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064590.

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2/5

466

Journal

of Japanese

Studies

31:2

(2005)

Samurai,

Warfare

and

theState in

Early

Medieval

Japan.

By

Karl F

Friday.

Routledge,

New

York,

2004.

xiv,

236

pages.

$33.95,

paper.

Reviewed

by

J.

P.

Lamers

Royal

Netherlands

Embassy

in

Tokyo

In

his

new

book,

Karl

Friday

describes

the rise of the

Japanese military

es

tate

from the tenth to

the fourteenth

century

as an

evolutionary

process,

re

jecting

the

idea

that

any

dramatic

revolution

led

Japan's

celebrated

samu

rai to dominance.

Friday

takes

the

point

of view

not

only

that

war 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

fourteenth

century

was an era

of

thoroughgoing

social and

political change,

with

attendant

consequences

for the

conduct of

war,

at

the

same

time

mil

itary

goals

and

tactics

did

not

change

in

any

fundamental

way

(p.

168).

By employing

the

phrase early

medieval

Japan prominently

in his

title,

riday implicitly

links his work

to

a

revisionist view of

premodern Jap

anese

history,pioneered

among

others

by

the late

Jeffrey

ass,

which

posits

that the

Japanese

warrior class did not reach

complete

dominance before the

fourteenth

century

and

that itdid

so

largely

due

to

the

political

convulsions

and

constant

warfare

of that

age.

Yet

Friday

stakes

out

what

may

be

de

scribed

as a

safe

middle

ground.

Rather than

having

the

Japanese

Middle

Ages

start

only

in

the

fourteenth

century

and end

perforce

in

themiddle of

the

sixteenth,

he

speaks

of

an

early

medieval

period

that

asted from

roughly

the tenth

to

the fourteenth

century.

The late

medieval

period

falls

outside

the

scope

of his book.

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

tenth

century

the

court

moved from

a

conscripted, pub

licly

trained

military

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.

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3/5

Review Section 467

Concurrent

with and

contributing

to

the above

development

was

the

emergence

of

a

provincial

warrior

elite

thatmaintained close ties with the

centralgovernment and its leading courtnobles. The provincial warriors can

be divided into

two

main

categories,

one

tracing

their

lineage

back

to

local

chieftains of the

prt-ritsury?

period,

the other

being

the

descendants of

cadet

branches of central

court

houses?the

Minamoto,

the

Fujiwara,

the

Tachibana

and the

Taira?that had established bases

in

the

provinces

(p.

9).

Yet the

emergence

of

a

warrior order should

not

be

equated

with

the

on

set

of feudalism

in

Japan?as

has often been done in

parallel

with

theEu

ropean

situation.

Friday points

out

that

even

Japan's

first warrior

govern

ment, the Kamakura

bakufu,

should be seen more as an

outgrowth

and

supplement

to

the older

imperial polity

than

as an

immediate

challenge

to

it.

The balance

of

power

between

the civil and

military

authorities

continued

until

the

end

of the fourteenth

century,

from

which time

onward warriors

and

not

courtiers dominated the

scene

in

Japan.

At that

same

juncture,

the

preferred

battle

technique

of

the

early

medieval

samurai,

mounted

archery,

made

way

for

new

strategic

and

tactical

paradigms

that

were

focused

on

the

capture

or

defense of

territory

nd based

on

themassive

deployment

of

infantry.

Friday analyzes

his

subject

of

early

medieval

Japanese

warfare

fromfive

angles:

how

war was

legitimized,

how armies

were

raised,

which

weapons

were

used,

how

war was

actually fought,

and what

were

the rules of the

game,

if

any.

Japanese

notions of what constituted

just

war

found theirori

gins

in

Chinese 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

situation

was

that the

state

early

on

disbanded its

conscript

army,

relying

in

stead

on

private

military

resources.

Even

though

the

central

imperial

gov

ernment

relinquished

control

over

the actual

application

of

military

force,

it

clung

to

its

monopoly

on

the

legitimization

of

war

well into

the fourteenth

century.

One

reason

for

this,

according

to

Friday,

was

that

early

samurai

or

bushi lacked

much

sense

of

class-consciousness,

in

other

words,

of

social

solidarity.

Divided

among

themselves,

they

could

only

be

organized

into

largermilitary

wholes under

figures

of

superior

status,

normally powerful

provincial

leaders

or

thewarrior aristocrats of the

capital

known

as

miyako

no

musha.

And

even

when warriors had established their

own

mechanisms

for

mobilization,

formalized under theKamakura

shogunate,

the essential

premise

of central control

over

the

right

to

violence

remained intact

(p.

25).

It

was

finally

in

the

Nanbokuch?

period

(1336-92)

that

the central

govern

ment's

monopoly

on

the

legitimization

of violence

virtually

collapsed,

in

themain because

there existed

two

competing

structures

of

imperial

au



4/5

468

Journal

of Japanese

Studies

31:2

(2005)

thority,

heNorthern and

the Southern

Courts,

allowing

for

almost

any

fight

to

be

justified

in

the

name

of

the

state.

The rewards thatmembers of theemergingwarrior class desired and ob

tained in

return

for their

military

service

also bound them

closely

to

the

au

thority

of the

imperial

state.

Throughout

the

early

medieval

period they

sought

long-term

patronage

of their

careers

by

court

powers-that-be

(p.

55),

or

more

direct rewards

such

as

rank,

court

titles,

administrative

of

fices

in

local

government,

and

rights

to

income from

land.At the

same

time,

the

early

samurai

armies

were

loosely organized

coalitions,

temporarily

knit

together

from

small warrior

bands,

and

were

mostly

not

sustained

beyond

thepurpose of a specific campaign or expedition.

In

discussing

the

weaponry

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

the

most

deadly

form of

battle known

to

hu

manity

before

the advent of

gunpowder. 1

Their

armor was

costly

and

heavy,

their

horses little

more

than

outsized

ponies

short

on

stamina and

speed,

and theirbows

only

effective

at

very

short

range.

On

the

battlefield,

the

early

bushi were unable to coordinate

any

massive

application

of vio

lence. Their duels

on

horseback,

mostly fought

individually

or

in

small

groups,

oddly

resembled

dogfighting

aviators

(p.

107).

Shaped

by politi

cal,

organizational,

and

technological

conditions,

these

tactics

allowed

war

riors

to

pursue

their

prime objectives

of individual

honor

and

reputation

to

a

maximum

degree.

Another idea

that

Friday

refers

to

the

scrap

heap

of

history

is

that

early

medieval

Japanese

warfare

was

ritualized and

formalized.

The behavioral

picture,

according

to

Friday,

was a 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 of

scruples.

Con

sequently,

the

early

samurai

preferably

used

surprise

attacks,

lacked

sportsmanship

in their

onduct of

warfare,

broke

truces

and

promises

with

impunity,

and had?in

short?no

concept

of

unfair

tactics.

There

was no

custom

of

ransoming

prisoners

of

war,

who

were

for the most

part

summar

ily

executed,

or a

widely

accepted

moral

obligation

to

separate

non-com

batants from

proper

belligerents

(p.

155).

Friday

argues

pro

reo that the

samurai's

capacity

for

indiscriminate

killing

arose

out

of

indifference,

gen

eral detachment

from

life

(his

own

included),

rather

than

from

outright

cru

elty.

The

question

is,

however,

does it

matter?

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.



5/5

Review Section

469

Overall,

Friday's

is

an

excellent

treatment

f

a

hot

topic.

He has devel

oped

a

rich

picture

of

early

medieval

Japanese

warriors and

warfare,

while

returning t everybend and corner inhis storytohis central thesis of thepo

litical

primacy

of the

imperial

court.

This

consistency

of

argument

makes

for

a

very

solid

piece

ofwork. In the

end,

and

apart

from

a

number of

typos,

there

re

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

that vokes

strong

connotations

of

theGerman

landsknechts

or

Swiss

troops

active in

Renaissance

Europe.

More

important,

it

is doubtful that the

Japa

nese

samurai

were

quite

so

flexible

in

their

allegiances

as,

for

instance,

the

professional soldiery thatmanned theearlymodern European armies. From

the

Japanese

sources

quoted by Friday,

one

does

not

get

much

sense

that

bushi

were

indeed

ready

to

change

sides

for

a

few

more

pieces

of

silver

or

gave up

when rewards

were

not

forthcoming.

The

Japanese

did

not

develop

the businesslike

practice

of

ransoming prisoners?something

thatwould

have been

logical

for

contract

fighters.

So

if

the samurai

are

to

be

charac

terized

as

mercenaries,

we

firstneed

to

pause

and

consider what

that

means.

Second,

Friday

argues

that

mounted

archery

remained

the dominant

battle

technique

in

Japan

well into the fourteenth

century.

In thisconclusion,

he is

supported by

recent

publications

of other scholars in

the

field,

for

in

stance

by

Thomas

Conlan.2

Thus

considered,

the

time frame for this

study,

the

tenth

to

late

fourteenth

centuries,

is

rightly

chosen

as a

coherent

period.

That much

having

been

said, however,

our

appetite

for

more

is whetted

to

an

almost intolerable

degree. Friday

does sketch

the

fourteenth-century

developments

that

were

to

take the

Japanese military

further

oward becom

ing

an

efficient

fighting

machine. But

from

where he

ends his

narrative,

it

still seems a

long

march to themass

infantry

rmies that

began

todominate

Japanese

warfare from the

Onin

War

onward and

continued

to

do

so

throughout

the

Sengoku period

and

beyond.

In

that

sense,

I

can

only

regret

that

Friday

did

not

stick

to

the

notion

he

earlier voiced inhis

Hired

Swords,3

that the rise of

Japan's

bushi

is a tale of the

thirteenth

through

sixteenth

centuries.

2.

Thomas

Donald

Conlan,

The

State

of

War:

The

Violent

Order

of

Fourteenth-Century

Japan

(Ann

Arbor:

Center

for

Japanese

Studies,

University

of

Michigan,

2003),

p.

72.

3. Karl F.

Friday,

Hired Swords:

The

Rise

of

Private Warrior

Power in

Early Japan

(Stan

ford: Stanford

University

Press,

1992), p.

170.


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