Harvard-Yenching Institute

Review: The "Emergence of the Samurai" and The Military History of Early Japan
Author(s): Martin Collcutt
Source: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jun., 1996), pp. 151-164
Published by: Harvard-Yenching Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2719378 .
Accessed: 23/02/2011 18:41

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=hyi. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Harvard-Yenching Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies.

http://www.jstor.org
REVIEW AR TICLE

The "Emergence of the Samurai" and

the Military History of Early Japan

MARTIN COLLCUTT
PrincetonUniversity

Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in EarlyJapan by

KarlF. Friday.Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. Pp. ix +
265. $32.50.
Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan's Military, 500-
1300 by William WayneFarris. Cambridge: Council on East Asian
Studies, Harvard University, 1992. Pp. xv + 486. $37.00.
Warriors of Japan as Portrayed in the War Tales by H. Paul
Varley. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994. Pp. xiii +
276. $43.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.
The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the
Making of Modern Japan by Eiko Ikegami. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1995. Pp. x + 428. $45.00.
The field of early Japanese history has recently been enriched by
the publication of several English language studies of Japan's early
military history, the emergence of the samurai, and samurai cul-
ture. These include Karl Friday's Hired Swords, Wayne Farris's
HeavenlyWarriors,Paul Varley's Warriors as Portrayed
in theWarTales,
and Eiko Ikegami's The Tamingof theSamurai.I will use these books
as reference points in a general discussion of the ongoing debate
over the origins and development of the samurai and the related
151
152 MARTIN COLLCUTT
issues of "feudalization" and the writing of the military history of
early Japan.1
The debate over the emergence of the samurai, commonly
referred to in this early period as bushi, raises a cluster of entwined is-
sues. Thinking about the origins of the samurai calls into question
our understanding of the changing nature of armed force, armed
men, and military organization in early Japan and the ways in
which changes in military matters were shaped by, and reshaped,
Japanese society, economy, and culture in the ancient and medieval
periods. With many questions to be asked and answered, and much
attention recently devoted to the subject of the early samurai, this is
a good opportunity to take stock of this area.
The interpretation of the emergence of the samurai that is still
most widely accepted in Western views of early Japan was essential-
ly shaped by Asakawa Kan'ichi in the early decades of this century,
accepted more or less unchanged by George Sansom, Edwin 0.
Reischauer, and Peter Duus, and modified significantly byJohn W.
Hall, Jeffrey Mass, and other younger scholars. In the prevailing
view the samurai emerged in the mid- and late Heian period, be-
tween the tenth and twelfth centuries, had provincial roots, and
were products of the dislocation accompanying the breakdown of
the Chinese style imperial (Ritsuryo) system.
In Asakawa Kan'ichi's formulation, Japan sought to adopt
Chinese-style institutions after 645 in a great self-strengthening
effort. This effort culminated in the centralized bureaucratic state,
based on Ritsuryo codes, of the Nara period. In the military arena
the reforms produced a peasant-conscript army similar to that of
T'ang China. Fundamentally, however, these Chinese-style institu-
tions were too elaborate and unwieldy for Japan. Land, tax, local
administration, and military systems all deteriorated from the early
Heian period on. Central government weakness was exposed by
warfare and regional rebellion from the early tenth century. With
l The studies by Friday and Farris have already been reviewed individually in some depth
elsewhere. See, for instance, Wayne Farris's review of Friday's book, in JJS 19.2 (1993):
465-69, Karl Friday's review of Heavenly Warriors in MN 48.2 (1993): 261-64, and Jeffrey
Mass's review of Farris's book inJJS 20.1 (1994): 245-50. Ikegami's recent study principally
focuses on the importance of a samurai culture of honor in the shaping of modernJapanese so-
ciety, but introduces new ideas, new texts, and new readings and devotes several interesting
chapters to the early phase of samurai development. Therefore, I take her work into account
here.
 EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI 153

the breakdown of public order in the countryside, provincial fami-

lies armed themselves to defend and advance their private local
interests. They increased their power by reclaiming tracts of land,
intruding into public lands and private estates (sho-en)-themselves
evidence that the central government was losing control-and gain-
ing influence at court by acting as military enforcers in provincial re-
bellions and frontier wars. By 1100 samurai (bushi), organized in
regional bands, were clearly emerging as a major force in the
Japanese military and political arenas. Although the court govern-
ment claimed to control the countryside, the court was little more
than a shell of authority. Central military institutions were ineffec-
tive and the civil aristocracy of the court militarily inept. The
court's abdication of governmental authority left a power vacuum
in the provinces, into which warriors naturally moved. From this
they were drawn into the arena of central politics. According to a
view that owed much to a model of European feudalism, this asser-
tive warrior society in Japan displayed increasingly "feudal" char-
acteristics.
In his enduring study, Governmentand Local Power in Japan, 500-
1700,2John W. Hall modified the Asakawa-Sansom formulation in
several important respects. While he accepted the view that Nara
efforts at establishing a strong conscript army were short-lived, he
rejected the catastrophic view that the Heian court had abandoned
its authority and control over the provinces. He argued that the
courtiers, although losing control, were not such hapless figures as
Sansom had portrayed them. He stressed that the growth of private,
regional military authorities after the tenth century was less a new
phenomenon than a return to what he called familial authority pat-
terns deeply rooted in Japanese life. He seriously qualified the idea
that the militarization of provincial families represented an inevita-
ble breakdown of public order and local control, arguing instead
that local warrior families had merely been coopted into performing
essential military services while still remaining subject to some
control by state authorities or the aristocratic and imperial families.
Hall's views were amplified, modified, and occasionally chal-
lenged in the work of Jeffrey P. Mass, Neil Kiley, and Cameron
Hurst working on different aspects of the "warrior" issue during

2 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.

154 MARTIN COLLCUTT
the 1970s and '80s. Mass's various well-documented studies, for
instance, have been devoted to clarifying the late Heian and
Kamakura stages of warrior development, assessing the strengths
and weaknesses of Taira rule, stressing the power and novelty of
Minamoto Yoritomo's achievement, and defining the accumulating
movement towards "warrior government," while at the same time
recognizing the resiliency of the court. But the researches of Kiley,
Hurst, Bruce Batten, Peter Arnesen, and others have also added to
an increasingly complex picture of warrior emergence and court-
province relations. They have undercut Asakawa's and Sansom's
notions of central government fecklessness, the abdication of in-
fluence over the countryside, and the creation of a power vacuum
that hastened the emergence of warrior power. Instead they have
argued for a still durable, though weakening, framework of central
authority that restricted rather than facilitated the rise of provincial
warriors.
Karl Friday's book, Hired Swords, a revision of his Ph.D. disser-
tation (1989), explicitly rejects the earlier idea that bushi gained
ground in the provinces by default, or courtly inaction. Tracing
some Japanese military institutions from the seventh to the mid-
twelfth century, he argues that, from the beginning of the imperial
state system in the early eighth century on, the court pursued a
policy of increasing its reliance on the martial skills of provincial
fighters while reducing its use of troops conscripted from the peas-
antry. This, he asserts, was not an accidental outcome but a consci-
ous policy aimed at maximizing the court's military efficiency and
retaining the exclusive right to sanction the use of force. In Chapter
1, "The Emperor's Army," he provides a sketch of the formation
and structure of the (Ritsuryo) military, a system based on central
control and direction. In Chapter 2, "Peasants and Professionals,"
he discusses the metamorphosis of the imperial military corpus,
arguing that, while the form may have changed, the essence was
never really lost. He points to changes, made by the court, that,
he believes, improved the overall efficiency of the system. Here he
provides useful discussions of military organization, changes in
military technology, the role of cavalry, the structure and subse-
quent decline of provincial regiments, and the establishment and
character of guards units (kondei, kone:fu) in the eighth century.
 EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI 155
Changes in the mechanics of the state's military apparatus were con-
siderable, but, he argues, the Ritsuryo military had not collapsed;
it was simply evolving. And the principles underlying the changes
remained viable until the medieval age (p. 69). Central to these
changes was the state's reliance on the martial skills of the provin-
cial elite and the lower central nobility, and the diminishing use of
troops conscripted from the peasantry (p. 69).
In Chapter 3 Friday looks at the formation during the Heian peri-
od of warrior bands and networks and their ties to warrior specialists
at court. Over the span of three centuries, with encouragement
from the state, "an order of professional mercenaries" (p. 11),
or a "contract constabulary" (p. 122), of warrior networks emerged
from among provincial elites and the lower tiers of the central nobil-
ity. Here Friday stresses continuity in the practice of skills of
archery and horseback riding between "proto-warriors" of the
eighth century and full-fledged warriors of the tenth century or
after. There is some weakness of argument here because Friday fails
to define "warriors, "proto-warriors," and how one became the
other.
Chapter 5 provides a detailed and technical discussion of the late
Heian military/police system. Friday argues that the court success-
fully upgraded the provincial military and police systems, kept its
contract constabulary under tight rein, and promoted the interests
of the central government by instituting and manipulating the posts
of oryoshi, tsuibushi, and tsuitoshi. The court, he asserts, thereby
became more efficient in dealing with the very law enforcement
problems in the countryside that had been created by the growth of
warrior networks (p. 166). This sounds plausible in theory, but little
evidence of actual conflict resolution is given.
Friday opens new ground in his analysis of military institutions of
the Nara and Heian periods. He offers useful discussions of changes
in military technology. He recognizes continuities between warrior
types over time. He exposes the possibility of interaction between
courtier-warriors and provincial fighters and warrior leaders, and
he shifts the discussion from court inactivity-or reaction to emerg-
ing warriors-to court activity and deliberate policy making in up-
grading and improving military and police systems. These are valu-
able contributions. It is a pity, however, that much of the new
156 MARTIN COLLCUTT
documentary evidence mined by Friday yields only a formal, institu-
tional blueprint, an outline of what might have happened. He as-
serts his thesis rather than demonstrates how policies were carried
out in action. He fails to analyze in sufficient detail the major
provincial enforcement problems to show whether the court's two-
pronged military policy actually worked as it was supposed to. Nor
does he make clear how the court, in creating offices, actually ex-
tended its power to manipulate local warriors on the ground. It is
also a pity that he does not define what is meant by a warrior, or dis-
tinguish between the full-fledged warrior of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries and his ninth- and tenth-century proto-warrior ancestor
(pp. 120, 165). He would have been able to resolve these deficien-
cies by extending the discussion in one or two more chapters. His
book starts and develops an interesting discussion on military histo-
ry and the emergence of the samurai but does not really complete it.
Wayne Farris's Heavenly Warriors,the Evolution ofJapan's Military,
500-1300 is a challenging re-interpretation ofJapan's early military
history and warrior tradition. Claiming novelty for his own ap-
proach, he dismisses, often vehemently, virtually all previous En-
glish language studies, and most Japanese research, as flawed by
slavish advocacy of a "Western analog theory" of Japanese history
derived from a model of European feudalism. He offers, instead, an
eight-stage "evolutionary model" that traces the development of
the military and the origins of warrior rule in Japan from about 500
A.D.
It is the central contention of Heavenly Warriorsthat the twelfth-
century bushi was not a new figure on the Japanese military and po-
litical landscape but had roots that went back seven hundred years.
For Farris, the bushi, like the military specialists known as mononofu
and tsuwamonobefore him, was merely one variant of the Asian-style
mounted archer who predominated in the middle east and the
steppe. It is, therefore, incorrect to speak of an "emergence" of
samurai. They were an outgrowth within a military tradition that
predated the Ritsuryo military system of the Nara period. Samurai
were direct descendants of a professional military developed in the
sixth and seventh centuries and institutionalized by Emperor
Temmu, the "Heavenly Warrior" of the title, in the late seventh
century.
Heavenly Warriorsis both polemical and thought provoking. It is
 EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI 157
detailed and based on extensive reading of Japanese primary and
secondary materials, and Farris's eight-stage model is well fleshed
out in each chapter. The early chapters on the origins ofJapan's mil-
itary, 500-645 (Chapter 1), the military under imperial command,
645-770 (Chapter 2), the wars in the northeast, 770-900 (Chapter
3), the impact of the tenth-century rebellions by Masakado and
Sumitomo (Chapter 4), and the discussion of military institutions in
capital and provinces in mid-Heian (Chapter 5) are informative and
analytical.
Chapter 6, "Warriors and Land, 1050-1150," deals with the
period in which the samurai are generally thought to have
"emerged" militarily, economically, and politically. This emer-
gence, it is usually argued, was accelerated as warrior families built
up large landed estates, gaining the new wealth necessary to become
the rulers of Japan. Through fighting in the northeast, bushi tight-
ened their feudal bonds of personal loyalty and honed a technology
of fighting that emphasized the role of mounted warriors in man-
to-man encounters. According to Farris, in the prevailing Western
analog theory, these developments are viewed as a revolution into
feudalism.
Farris challenges both the novelty of these twelfth-century de-
velopments and the validity of the Western-analog theory. The pre-
eminence of the mounted archer and the organization of warriors
into military houses had been common for centuries. Samurai per-
fected equestrian fighting techniques, but only through minor altera-
tions of past practice. Warriors, he argues, did open some parcels of
land, but usually this merely involved the reopening of parcels that
had fallen into disuse in a period of devastation. Little new arable
was added and warriors did not become large-scale sitting proprie-
tors of landed estates. And while ties of personal loyalty were im-
portant, they did not, he suggests, amount to feudalism. Warriors
remained subject to central government control and direction
through the office of the provincial governor, which was often head-
ed by military aristocrats sent out from the capital.
In the twelfth century, Farris claims, the thrust of warrior ad-
vancement shifted to politics. By this stage in their evolutionary devel-
opment, warriors had refined their technology and organization and
developed distinctive fighting methods and ties of loyalty. They had
a monopoly over brute force, were organized into military houses,
158 MARTIN COLLCUTT
and had a tenuous hold on small economic bases. They were still,
however, mainly a provincial phenomenon. To grasp preeminent
wealth and power, and dominate the imperial court, they needed to
develop political acumen and administrative skills. The first to do
this were Kiyomori and the Ise Taira.
The Taira rise to power and their military organization is dis-
cussed in Chapter 7: "The Quest for Independence and Political
Skills, 1150-1185." Farris views the Taira in unusually positive
terms for advancing the warrior agenda to the political stage center.
His treatment of Yoritomo and the Kamakura Bakufu in the closing
chapter, "Japanese Feudalism Reconsidered 1185-1300," goes
against the grain of recent American research in denying much
originality to Yoritomo as warrior chieftain, political innovator,
institution builder, or leader of a bushi class "feudal revolution."
Confirmation of landholdings and other new developments attribut-
ed to Yoritomo had been practiced, according to Farris, in some
form by the Taira, and, he asserts, no "revolution into feudalism"
occurred in the twelfth century.
Heavenly Warriorshas its flaws. Farris is unduly dismissive of earli-
er English language scholarship, and much Japanese language
scholarship, on the bushi. His repeated, but undifferentiated, criti-
cism of the "Western analog theorists" is a disservice to himself, as
well as to earlier scholars, Western and Japanese. It is unfair, and
inaccurate, to dismiss all post-Asakawa research on the samurai
under the heading "Western analog theory" and to assert that
Western scholarship still clings to the notion that a "revolution into
feudalism" took place in the twelfth century. The views of Asakawa
and Sansom, which can be criticized as too heavily indebted to a
Western feudalization model, have during the past three decades
been modified in a much more complex body of English language
writing on Japan. The concept of feudalism and notions of a descent
into a "feudal revolution" are now hardly used in the scholarly liter-
ature on late Heian Japan. The emphasis of John Hall, Jeffrey
Mass, Peter Arnesen, Cameron Hurst, Neil Kiley, and Karl Friday
has been on the interaction and negotiation among courtly, clerical,
and local warrior interests. To assert that a I'Vestern model of feudal-
ism is the dominant motif in recent research on twelfth century
Japanese society misrepresents that research.
 EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI 159
While many readers will feel that his evolutionary model is novel,
refreshing, and worth exploring, some will feel that it flattens too
much the landscape it surveys. Was Kiyomori or Yoritomo merely a
Masakado or Ritsuryo horseman-soldier writ large? Allowing for
continuities in military technology, fighting methods, and warrior
organization, we are still left with the problem of defining enormous
differences in scale, wealth, court connections, personal ties, politi-
cal power, and regional or national recognition among warriors
over these eight centuries. And surely more was involved in the
domination of the court by warriors during the twelfth century than
the acquisition of a greater degree of political acumen.
These flaws notwithstanding, Farris's revisionism in favor of an
evolutionary model and his adoption of a four-fold definition of war-
riors are stimulating. Farris reminds us that the pattern of the eques-
trian archer was established early and evolved over time, provides
a broad comparative technological and military perspective on the
role of warriors and their consolidation of power, and advances the
military history approach that Friday, too, has opened up. In most
chapters he includes at least one section on military technology or
the conduct of warfare. He also traces changes in military systems
over time and looks afresh at most of the important foreign and
domestic military campaigns between the Nara and early Kama-
kura eras.
Hall, Friday, and Farris have shown little interest in warrior cul-
ture or values. For these aspects of early samurai history we can
now turn to the recent books by Eiko Ikegami and H. Paul Varley.
Ikegami's book basically examines the role of the samurai in the
formation of modern Japanese state. She analyzes the interplay of
honorable competition and honorable collaboration in this process
and views the Edo period taming of the samurai-their transforma-
tion into a hereditary class of vassal bureaucrats-as a key to
Japan's subsequent modern development. Much of her book thus
falls outside the scope of this review. However, the first third of
the book (pp 1-117) deals with the origins of the samurai and the
identification of enduring samurai values.
In tracing the roots of a self-assertive culture of honor among
the samurai, Ikegami goes back to the formation of what she calls
a "'class of semi-autonomous warriors " (p. 117) or a "'socially
160 MARTIN COLLCUTT
autonomous landed elite" (p. 34). She sees the emergence of the samurai
as a "ninth or tenth century phenomenon" (p. 47). For her, one of
the distinguishing marks of the samurai was their specialization (p.
147). While she recognizes that Japan had previously had military
men and military clans, she asserts that "samurai were character-
ized by their more professional military skills and sense of identity
as professional warriors (pp. 47-48), and that, from its origins, the
samurai class was also characterized by a "cult of honor.'"
Although Ikegami adopts the view that samurai emerged after the
tenth century and should be clearly distinguished from earlier mili-
tary types, she expresses dissatisfaction with the focus of much earli-
er research, with what she describes as the traditional "economic
approach" -i.e., the samurai as reclamation landlords armed to
protect their holdings. She is also dissatisfied with what she describes
as the newer military history approach of Friday and Farris (p. 55).
What is needed, she suggests, is a "sociological reconceptualization
of the question" (p. 56): seeing bushi (samurai) not just in terms of
the emergence of a warrior class on horseback (that happened in
Europe, too) but also as a distinct social category of the military,
clearly differentiated from the aristocracy attached to the emperor's
court (pp. 56-57).
It is here, in the separation of samurai from the court, that Ike-
gami introduces the biggest new twist into the debate over bushi
origins. Drawing on the social-historical explorations of the non-
agricultural background of early samurai carried out by such schol-
ars as Takahashi Masaaki and Oishi Naomasa, who in turn drew
on the work of Amino Yoshihiko, she stresses the "non-agricultural
(and non-aristocratic) roots of the early samurai (p. 58). She argues
that this non-agricultural, hunter-like culture developed in the fron-
tier regions-especially the north eastern region, a major source of
horses, swords, hunters, and fighters. Interaction among violent
groups of semi-marginal eastern warriors with even more marginal
tribal Emishi produced the samurai and their culture of honor. The
early samurai, she suggests, were therefore "violent outsiders" to
the agricultural world centering on Kyoto.
In arguing for a consideration of a complex interplay of forces,
institutions, and social conditions in the formation of the early
samurai, Ikegami is surely on the right tracks; but in reducing that
 EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI 161
discussion of origins to a polarity between marginal hunter-gatherer
warriors and pacific agriculturalists, she creates a problem for her-
self:
If the early samurai were originally considered violent outsiders to the agricultural
world, how were they eventually able to gain dominance over agricultural commun-
ities? It is difficult to answer this question concisely because the available docu-
ments are fragmented and ambiguous. Regional and temporal variations also
make it difficult to outline a common pattern. One can speculate, however, that
not only the strength of the protosamurai but also the social conditions in the local
agricultural communities helped to establish a new system of military landed lords.
(p. 61)

Ikegami's difficulty in accounting for the samurai as a takeover

by "outsiders" may serve as a warning that we should not suddenly
abandon those older views that see the samurai emerging from with-
in agricultural society through the formation of military houses
and the interaction of the central government and local military
leaders. Non-agricultural components were also important, to be
sure: the harsh hunting and fighting environment of northeastern
Japan shaped many bushi traditions and provided a reservoir of
fighters, horses, and warrior ideals. However, this environment
alone cannot explain the emergence of warriors as powerful military
houses, involved with the provincial organs of the central govern-
ment, and gaining political clout at court. Ikegami's reconceptuali-
zation introduces new possibilities for grasping the marginal nature
of the early samurai but may make too sharp a distinction between
samurai as hunter-gatherer "outsiders" and central and provincial
administrative institutions that sought both to encourage and re-
strict their activities.
Ikegami also points to the need to use literary texts in order to get
at the early social history and culture of the samurai. She herself
looks briefly at a story from the twelfth-century Konjaku monogatari,
"A Crusade Against Monkey Gods," as a symbolic description of
the "violent process by which the marginal nature of the early
samurai broke through the old enchanted order of the community"
(p. 61).
Warriors rarely speak for themselves in these early centuries. Our
view of their sense of themselves is shaped largely by literature and
diaries produced by and for the nobility in Kyoto. But these works
162 MARTIN COLLCUTT
are revealing of the ways in which other groups and individuals
viewed the customs, role, and activities of military men. H. Paul
Varley analyzes early literary perceptions of the samurai in Warriors
ofJapan as Portrayedin the War Tales. Starting with the tenth-century
Sho-monki,dealing with Taira Masakado's revolt in the Kanto, he
introduces more than a dozen war tales from the ancient and
medieval periods. Through them he shows the interest in warrior
activities and changing images of war and warriors, weapons and
fighting methods, the importance of name, notions of loyalty and
personal bonds, the taking of heads, vendettas, obligation, religious
practices etc.
Varley thus conveys a picture of an evolving ethos of warrior soci-
ety, including the warrior's devotion to the military arts, his great
concern for "name" (implying honor, face, and fame, as well as
pride in family), and his sense of shame, or fear that he might be dis-
honored. Armies described in the Sho-monkiare highly unstable, usu-
ally forming before battles and dissolving after them. Armies at this
stage still included foot soldiers, though they were regarded as un-
reliable and ready to flee when the tide of battle turned against
them. By the time of the Sho-monki the principal fighters are mounted
warriors referred to mainly as tsuwamono.Varley refers to tsuwamono
as warriors. He does not make it clear, however, whether he regards
them as samurai or not.
Most scholars recognize that the Former Nine Years War and
Later Three Years War fought by Minamoto armies in Mutsu-
Dewa in the middle and late eleventh century were crucibles of com-
bat for the evolving warrior order. Much of what we know about
these conflicts derives from two war tales, the Mutsu waki and Oshu-
gosannen ki. Varley finds in these early tales evidence for a develop-
ing ideal of loyalty, a lord-vassal relationship based upon a recipro-
cal relationship of self-sacrifice (kenshin) and compassion (nasake).
Although the picture is fragmented, and partially distorted by the
incorporation of legendary and embellished reports of warrior
prowess, we can discern that chroniclers were conscious of a develop-
ment of a distinctive samurai life style in northeastern Japan in the
tenth and eleventh centuries.
We now have a rich, complex, contentious, and conflicting range
of interpretations on the origins of the samurai and the military
history of earlyJapan. What needs to be done next? Simply reconcil-
 EMERGENCE OF THE SAMURAI 163
ing the various positions, as they stand, is impossible. Future
research in this area will have to test these various positions in
detail, while bearing in mind some of the problem areas they have
exposed.
One set of problems is definitional. There is need for even greater
refinement in understanding the contemporary usage and range of
meaning of such terms as heishi, mononofu, tsuwamono, and bushi.
Researchers owe it to their readers to provide, at some point, a
definition of the "samurai" they have in mind. A narrower defini-
tion-such as hereditary professional warrior, skilled in the use of
horse, bow, and sword, deriving power from extensive provincial
landholdings, leading a warrior band based on ties of kinship or
loyalty-will tend to emphasize distinctions between the Ritsuryo
military men and those of the tenth century and after. A broad-
based definition of the kind that Wayne Farris uses will tend to in-
clude all types of mounted military experts. It may be impossible to
reach agreement, but clearly there is room for clarification of what
is meant by "warrior," or "samurai," or "bushi."
Given that Farris wishes to expose the early history of the war-
rior, his four-part categorization offers certain benefits, but perhaps
he should have expanded that categorization to include the cul-
tural concerns addressed by Ikegami and Varley. It is obviously
important to understand more clearly how fighting men viewed
themselves and were viewed by their contemporaries.
Another set of problems concerns stance and approach. Some of
the differences of viewpoint mentioned above arise from different
research agendas. Where the primary focus is "the emergence of
the samurai" as a social and cultural phenomenon (Ikegami and
Varley) or as a political problem for the Heian government and
prelude to warrior rule (Hall, Mass, and others), the emphasis
tends to be on "change" -variously negotiated-from the Ritsuryo
arrangements. Where the focus is on the writing of a predominantly
military history of early Japan (Friday and Farris) the theme of
"continuity" looms larger. Both enterprises are valid and contrib-
ute to our understanding of Japanese history. Whatever the ap-
proach, we need more information about the shifting relationship
between the court government and its provincial agencies and the
fighting men in the provinces. Friday, Farris, Hall, Mass, and
others agree that the court maintained degrees of local control well
164 MARTIN COLLCUTT
into the twelfth century. They differ in their assessments of the ex-
tent and agency of court influence at any time. I hope that a sharper
picture will emerge as scholars look even more closely at the role of
warrior-families within the court, the court's relationships with
provincial warriors, and the actual interaction of the provincial
governors and their deputies with local military families. Attempt-
ing to explain either the emergence of samurai orJapan's early mili-
tary history without exploring the court-warrior connection, as
Ikegami seems inclined to do, is fraught with difficulty.
The works discussed here also reveal the need for a better under-
standing of the economic history of Japan in these centuries. Is
Farris correct in his contention that economic devastation meant
that warriors could not acquire great wealth through reclamation of
land but were largely limited to the reopening of abandoned parcels
of land? If this was indeed the case throughout the provinces, it must
color our understanding of the warrior chieftains of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. We need more regional studies of the changing
economic life of the age and the acquisition of economic resources
by provincial families.
Finally, we need to be very careful with the term "feudalism"
and the attribution of a "feudal thesis" to the emergence of the
samurai or to Japanese military history. Not only the term itself,
but components such as "vassalage," "fief," and "private" (as
distinct from "public") ties should all be used with caution. The
appropriateness of the term has been called into question, most
vigorously by Farris, but also by Friday and Mass, among others
who have questioned its applicability to Heian Japan. Researchers
will, no doubt, continue to try to expose the actual day-to-day rela-
tions between warrior and warrior, between warrior families and
land, and between warrior families and the court without recourse
to a feudal model that has long been questioned.
Although these books express different points of view and pursue
somewhat different research agendas, taken together they lay out
the framework of early Japanese military history. They help us to
clarify the issues involved and expose those areas demanding fur-
ther research, or "reconceptualization. " Individually and collective-
ly, they enrich our understanding of a major dimension of early
Japan.