Talk:Samurai

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 14 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ANavalArch. Peer reviewers: Kasedori.

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Women samurai

Women weren't actually allowed to be samurai. Samurai is a masculine term, which means women couldn't be samurai. Women became Onna-bugeisha instead. Joshwada (talk) 01:38, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Japanese doesn't have grammatical gender. Unsure what you mean? The Japanese article at ja:武士 also explicitly states that the term bushi ("warrior") is not gendered, and that there were women who served as bushi. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 02:10, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Samurai are a class, the wives and daughters of samurai are samurai. At least in certain periods Tinynanorobots (talk) 08:56, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Samurai or bushi

Given that samurai in Japan is never, ever used,and bushi is, samurai should redirect to bushi, not vice versa.

Frank (Urashima Tarō) (talk) 05:39, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Don't know where you get that Samurai is never used in Japan. It's used all over Japan if you travel around. Whole museums with it in the name, districts named the Samurai District etc. Canterbury Tail talk 17:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

And even if it were true that "samurai" was never used in Japanese (which is not true), this is the English wiki. In English, "bushi" is almost never used. Tsuka (talk) 15:52, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Link to one of the most famous animes featuring samurai should be listed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurouni_Kenshin

I think Rurouni Kenshin should be listed as well, especially since it happens during the transition of the samurai dominated era to the western era, with manga, anime, and live action films. It portrays a stylized view not often seen in most material, and similar to the setting in The Last Samurai. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.39.156.254 (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Samurai are most interesting warriors. With thir battle prowess and capabilities for both ranged and close-assault attacks, they are a formidable force. Their armor is highly useful and even represents their wealth. Samurai were wealthy japanese warriors and therefore had the best training, armor, and weapons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh421 (talk • contribs) 18:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Asuka and Nara Period Misinformation

Officials of and under the sixth rank were called simobito, or "people on the ground", as opposed to tenjoubito, "people in the audience hall", for those fifth rank and above. Samurai seems associated with the verb saburau meaning "to attend". Uses of the word 侍 was not associated with Samurai until the Kamukura period; previously, it referred to a range of attendants including secretaries and notaries, but not samurai as we know it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Y11971alex (talk • contribs) 06:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 5 December 2018

209.156.232.194 (talk) 14:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

samurai often used the stars to tell when to atack

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 14:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 November 2019

Please delete this duplicate word in the section "History" "of all all the classes during the Meiji revolution they were the most affected" 81.96.15.89 (talk) 10:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done: please see Special:Diff/927415876. Thanks, NiciVampireHeart 10:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Clarify

At some point, samurai were forbidden from joining the military or serving in government. Has this changed?

Kortoso (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2020

Under section "Women" there is a tense disagreement in the fourth sentence of the second paragraph. The sentence should maintain the past tense of the rest of the article. (i.e. "A woman could divorce her husband if he did not treat her well or if he was a traitor to his wife's family.") Ideally, a citation would also be introduced. 142.118.156.185 (talk) 16:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done, I tweaked the tense as indicated and added {{citation needed}} to that paragraph. Thanks, ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 17:22, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

the "first" samurai

according to the guardian the "first samurai" in history was Taira no Masakado: "The tale of the ‘first samurai’ whose severed head still terrorises Tokyoites today is the story of the city itself" & "Eventually those rebels seized power for themselves through victory in combat, and Masakado was anointed the 'first samurai'." where does this source fit in the article? thank you Grandia01 (talk) 05:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Myths and Reality

The myth and reality section of the article could use some further elaboration to some points it has already made, and some minor corrections.

Firstly, samurai never followed any sort of stable rigid "honor code" prior to when Bushido was written long after the samurai were gone. Of course there were guidelines as to how a warrior should train, what kind of skills and tactics they should learn, and basic etiquette, but these were far from any sort of ritualized honor code. It should be further emphasized that samurai, especially the earliest samurai clans (particularly during the Heian Period) behaved no better than pillaging bandits. They also functioned as tax collectors, and were hired to routinely squash rebellions. Samurai committed quite a few atrocities as well, like the Enryaku-ji Massacre, and were also quite treacherous/brutal towards one another (Minamoto No Yoritomo executing his brothers Yoshitsune and Noriyori, The battle of Sekigahara, and pretty much any other significant historical event revolved around betrayal or slaughter just like anywhere else.) Samurai were largely self-interested, and their only real motivation was to gain land, power, and income, nevermind "honor" This is a good source for further information (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6xgz4p2d60) --MountedSamurai (talk) 18:22, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Came here to say this. Personal philosophies, either clan or self-imposed, existed — but they were nor universal nor monolithic, as described in the Bushido article itself with 5 different sources. The way the section is currently written is prone to misinterpretations. Queen of Wa, friend of Wei (talk) 01:32, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Hereditary

There is an ongoing discussion on the page for Yasuke concerning an inaccurate definition of the word "samurai". The term was repeatedly removed from his article because someone wanted to define the samurai as hereditary, despite it not being in the dictionary definition or any of the cited sources—and despite the fact that virtually every source refers to Yasuke as a samurai.

This article includes him in the "Foreign Samurai" section, but there were similar (unsourced) edits added there to cast doubt on his status, and the main intro to the article also included the word "hereditary"—again without citation.

I've removed these erroneous additions. natemup (talk) 11:54, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Responded on user talk page. This is simple user disruption, not related to article content. That samurai status was hereditary is so widely attested in reliable sources that it is practically a given within this field of scholarship. What's more, the matter of non-samurai in the Sengoku/Azuchi-Momoyama being granted or claiming samurai status is unrelated to this, as (if such status was successfully held onto until things settled down in the Edo period) this samurai status would be passed onto their descendants—hence, hereditary. There is no need to bring up obscure figures who do not even seem to have had family names: Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a well-documented example of this phenomenon. As the "someone" (or, rather, one of the five or six someones) alluded to above, I find this bizarre claim about the use of the word "hereditary" in the definition of samurai being the core of my argument frankly bizarre, and making what one is almost certainly aware is an unconstructive edit to a highly visible "core" Wikipedia articles in order to "win" content disputes on obscure side articles is totally unacceptable, and (ironically given this) is borderline vandalism. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:58, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Question, what is to be made of this statement within the article:

• The Sengoku jidai ("warring states period") was marked by the loosening of samurai culture, with people born into other social strata sometimes making a name for themselves as warriors and thus becoming de facto samurai.

The argument over on the other page, mentioned above, is I believe someone of this so-called "de facto samurai" grouping. Should this wording in this article be modified? I suppose there are two ways to conceptualize at this, either

• (1) as an asterisk on the lead's definition
  • "Samurai (侍) were the hereditary* military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the 12th century to their abolition in the 1870s." *with brief exception during the Sengoku period.
• or, (2) as an asterisk on this "de facto" group (which is how the article is right now)
  • thus becoming samurai.* *de facto, or otherwise "not true" samurai

I am not proposing footnote or anything, just thinking about what assumptions are being made in definition. — Goszei (talk) 08:24, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

On most any Wikipedia page, you would not put in the front of the lead a claim not found, supported, or sourced in the rest of the article—especially one that has such obvious exceptions and that is thus absent in the dictionary. It makes way more sense to mention later in the lead or in the article that samurai were more or less hereditary at a certain point. And it remains a fact that the Yasuke section has been modified by you-know-who with original research. natemup (talk) 11:23, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I will note that not only "hereditary" but also words like "clan" and "family" appear dozens of times throughout this article. And no, if you were at all interested in Japanese history you would know that, throughout the history of Japan, with a few brief interludes, occupation and social class were, as a rule, hereditary. Moreover, this is completely irrelevant to the topic you are interested in since the buke title being hereditary has nothing to do with whether a non-buke can be granted the hereditary title and pass it down to his descendants. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:46, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

BTW, yes, this article does have insufficient sourcing in places (maybe throughout the article -- I haven't read it), and yes, it would technically be "original research" to look at all the early references to the so-called "Yasuke", assume they all refer to the same person, extrapolate from the fact that he is never identified as a samurai in any way that he was not a samurai, and add that extrapolation to the article, but no one has actually added such a claim to this article, it is substantially worse to insert positive historical claims based on dubious sources however "secondary" they are (as you have been doing), and you have just accused yet another user, Belevalo, of sockpuppetry without any evidence. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:03, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I have added a string of WP:LEDECITEs. This is not a controversial statement, and it is supported by both sourced and unsourced content in the article body, so my edit should be reverted as soon as possible. @Natemup: Are the sources I have added sufficient to convince you? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

BTBTW, I don't like Goszei's proposed compromise either, since (i) the origins of "the samurai" in earlier periods are a bit vague (the famous ones were all of, or claimed to be of, imperial descent, but the rank and file soldiers who we call samurai and were closer in rank to that word's original meaning?) and (ii) "Sengoku" under the current definition employed by the Wikipedia article is not what that used by most mainstream encyclopedias (including Japanese Wikipedia) and therefore will probably need to be changed; the specific person under discussion, "Yasuke", did not arrive in Japan until after the end of the Sengoku period, and his documented activities all took place in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, while popular Japanese consciousness has always assumed Miyamoto Musashi "became a samurai" at the beginning of the Edo period. During all of these periods, it was assumed that "samurai" status, once gained, would be hereditary: the most notable example of this is neither Yasuke nor Musashi but Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

This topic is in desperate need of an RfC. natemup (talk) 14:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Ha! Your funeral. You haven't presented a single source in support of your position. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:35, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@Natemup: Would you mind explaining this? I Ctrl+Fed both Edo and Edo period for "Duus" and "hereditary" and couldn't find what you were referring to: are you talking about a different article? Anyway, if you have not actually consulted the cited source but are instead copying information from within Wikipedia, it is inappropriate to include an inline citation of a separate source: you have been citing Wikipedia, not Duus. Courtesy pinging @Goszei and Nishidani: What do you two make of this? (Sorry for bothering you with this, Nishidani; you're the one experienced Japanese history editor who I trust to disagree with me if you think that I'm wrong. Others might just assume that I'm right given my "qualifications" in this area, agree with me without looking into the matter carefully, and thus cause a concern of canvassing.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Edo Society. It's a single word, so I think it's within the rules. natemup (talk) 02:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The Edo society article says Positions within the samurai class were largely hereditary (emphasis added). This appears (to me as someone with a general awareness of pre-modern Japanese history but who has not read Duus) to refer to posts like chamberlain, master of arms, etc., not to shi status itself (which is referred to as being hereditary several times throughout the article). Do you understand how this is different from what your edit says? Anyway, citing a poorly-sourced article based almost exclusively on a source discussing a different period of history is even worse than citing just the average Wikipedia article. I will revert you in nine hours if you do not provide a source that actually supports your claim. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

And in what sense does what "appears" to be the case to you qualify as grounds for a revert? It appears to be the case to me that idiosyncratic edits have damaged this and other articles that previously referenced non-hereditary samurai. Should I proceed with such edits? natemup (talk) 02:44, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It appears to be the case to me that idiosyncratic edits have damaged this and other articles I could not agree more.[1][2][3] In all seriousness, the first "samurai" of which we have record are members of warrior clans of imperial ancestry, primarily the Minamoto and Taira. Later various figures of uncertain origin who may have originally been commoner peasants emerged and claimed to be of Minamoto or Taira ancestry, and if they managed to gain and hold on to political/military power, they invariably passed this down to their descendants. The fact that some or most of such individuals almost certainly were not of imperial or noble ancestry is irrelevant, since they claimed to be and they passed their status to their descendants. You have not cited a single reliably-sourced instance of someone possessing non-hereditary "samurai" status. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

The Scotsman returns. RfC. natemup (talk) 02:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Please refrain from racial/ethnic hatred. Yes, I am a descendant of the ancient Scotti, but I do not see how that is at all relevant, and moreover it is incredibly offensive to refer to contemporary Gaelic-Irish as "Scotsmen" even if you are referring to the aforementioned etymological connection: you are, according to your user page, no more ethnically Japanese than I, and failing some kind of "blood" connection to the people under discussion (whether or not one considers that relevant), the racial/ethnic background of us as editors is completely irrelevant. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:30, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Unless you have some other reason to suspect that they know about and are dismissive of your personal background, I think it's safe to assume they're referring to No true Scotsman, which, as far as I know, is not generally interpreted to be ethnically hateful. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

My ethnicity is disclosed on my user page, here. I previously asked Natemup not to talk about "Scotsmen" and focus on content here. I was not familiar with the phrase No true Scotsman, but having now checked the linked Wikipedia article (thank you, by the way), I fail to see how it is relevant here; if anything, Natemup is indicting himself, since he obviously [has] not publicly retreat[ed] from the initial, falsified assertion that "samurai" status was not hereditary, he has now offer[ed] a modified assertion that [the "samurai" status was only "sometimes" or "often" hereditary] (I admit I'm fudging a bit here: the burden is not on me to demonstrate that Natemup is himself completely guilty of the exact logical fallacy he has baselessly accused me of), and the "no true Scotsman" thing is itself using rhetoric. Yeah, there's a lot of fudging there, but I'm not the one making the positive claim here: none of this applies to my assertion, backed up by all reliable sources that address the matter, that in pre-modern Japan social class and occupation were, with few exceptions, hereditary, and that "samurai" status should be presumed to be the same pending at least one source that indicates otherwise. (I am not, mind you, presuming anything: I've read hundreds of sources supporting this assertion, and cited four inline[4] that I had to cherry-pick because Natemup was rejecting any source that didn't explicitly use the exact words "hereditary military aristocracy".) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It is probably relevant that stipends were hereditary too. I think though the aristocracy part might be disputable, because many samurai were rather low ranking, and the Court Aristocracy also existed. It really depends on how you define the relevant English terms. Anthony Cummins says that the Samurai were gentry and that only some were noble. There also appears to be the distinction between hereditary and hired samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:38, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

The WP:LEDECITEs seem to still be necessary, so I've restored them, moved slightly to follow "nobility", since most of them also explicitly support not only "hereditary" but also "military nobility". I personally hate LEDECITEs in general, especially in cases like this where they expose, to this article's roughly 3,000 daily visitors, the fact that there is a dispute among Wikipedians (or, rather, between one Wikipedian and everyone else) regarding a fact that is uncontroversial outside of Wikipedia and was even uncontroversial here until a few weeks ago. The formatting is largely a result of me not wanting to format four templates for an ultimately temporary solution, but it also serves the purpose of keeping the lead "clean" of any more than one number and two square brackets; I would like to see this "dispute" resolved as quickly and cleanly as possible and the LEDECITEs (which I have formatted as a single citation of four ELs) removed or WP:COMMENTed out. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:13, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Typo needs to be fixed

The word “predecessor” is misspelled in the first paragraph, but I don’t have the ability to edit it. Kashmirton (talk) 00:51, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out. Canterbury Tail talk 01:18, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Disagreement with Japanese sources

The English Wikipedia article here and the Japanese Wikipedia articles at ja:侍 and ja:武士 diverge in worrisome ways. The English article starts off by conflating "samurai" and "bushi", two distinct groups in Japanese history, and claiming that this munged-together group has been around since the 1100s. The Japanese sources I've looked at instead describe the "samurai" as a hereditary nobility class, and the "bushi" as a warrior or soldier class. There was apparently overlap, but these were distinct groups.

Considering the subject matter, I find the Japanese content more credible. Notably, the Japanese article at ja:武士 explicitly states that the word "samurai" is not synonymous with "bushi".

As additional evidence of the distinction between the two terms, the 1603 Nippo Jisho entry for "saburai" (archaic form of modern samurai; see here, left column, halfway down) defines the term as follows:

• Saburai. Fidalgo, I, homem honrado.

"Nobleman, [that is], honored/honorable person."

Distinct from any "warrior" or "soldier" sense. I cannot find any instance of the term guerreiro ("warrior") in the Nippo Jisho, but it does have other entries defined as soldado, Portuguese for "soldier". I've copied the Nippo Jisho entry headline on each bullet point, with my transliterations, translations, and comments on the following two lines.

• Buxi. Soldado.

武士. Soldier.

The "buxi" spelling is the then-current Portuguese orthography for bushi. Entry in the right column, halfway down: https://books.google.com/books?id=TFJAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Mononofu. Soldados.

武士. Soldiers.

Both bushi and mononofu are spelled the same way in kanji. Entry in the left column, fifth from the bottom: https://books.google.com/books?id=TFJAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA166#v=onepage&q&f=false

• Muxa. Taqei mono. Soldado armado.

武者. 武い者. Armed soldier.

Entry in the left column, fourth from the top: https://books.google.com/books?id=TFJAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA172#v=onepage&q&f=false

It would appear that our English-language article is in need of an overhaul. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 02:08, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

My understanding...Samurai, originally meant "the man who serve" indicate specific class of bushi. Shodaifu(諸大夫) was the upper class, like daimyo and perhaps shogun, aristocrats of Japan. Samurai "served" shodaifu, and were themselves seen as noble people. Bushi of lower lank, such as kachi(徒士) were not samurai. They wore katana but were prohibited to ride horses, to meet and talk to their lords directly. After Edo period ends, people gradually confuses the term bushi with samurai, and even most of modern Japanese people can not say the difference between them because they use this two words interchangeably. They will be embarrassed knowing that lower bushi were not samurai. It is too dissociated from modern meaning of the term, the article should be arranged carefully, I think.Sacchisachi (talk) 16:32, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

@Sacchisachi: Agreed that there seems to be much conflation of bushi and samurai in both English and Japanese after the end of the Edo period.

Historically, the word first appears as saburai (possibly saburafi in the phonetics of that time) in the early 900s, if this entry of the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten is anything to go by. It also appears that these early samurai might not have necessarily been bushi at all, and instead were fifth- or sixth-ranked nobility serving in the imperial household and other higher-ranking houses.

As you note, the article could use some careful rearranging. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• The Bushido article repeated this same factual mistake, but in a way that was less structurally integrated into the rest of the article -- so I was able to just fix the text directly, as in this diff. Might be a useful reference for fixing this Samurai article. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:00, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Fidalgo means gentleman or nobleman, but both those words have connotations of warrior, although it isn’t the same thing as soldier. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:49, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Separate section needed for claimed foreign samurai

Under the heading "Foreign samurai" the lede states "Several people born in foreign countries were granted the title of samurai." What follow are five paragraphs with one or more persons described in each. William Adams and Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn are both well attested-to by contemporaneous documentation. But the two names mentioned after them -- Yasuke and Giuseppe Chiara are decidedly not. The claim made for Chiara is rather fanciful -- that he married the widow of a samurai and thereby assumed her late husband's status as such. That is completely ahistorical. I have never been able to find any evidence that such a profound ascension in a person's caste status could automatically occur through marriage. As a vassal-at-arms to a daimyo, being a samurai was a position of great responsibility and considerable power, and one could not simply "marry into it". More often, things went in the opposite direction; a samurai could be disgraced and his entire family could lose their status.
The second claim -- that of Yasuke -- is no less problematic, since there is absolutely no contemporaneous record of him having been a samurai. He was a weapons-bearer to the daimyo, but he was not permitted to carry the daishō, nor is there mention of him having any of the other privileges that went with being a samurai (such as kiri-sute gomen -- the legal right to kill a commoner who insulted them). According to the article on Yasuke, he "was given his own residence and a short, ceremonial katana [dubious – discuss] by Nobunaga. Nobunaga also assigned him the duty of weapon bearer." The source cited for this is "...a variant text of the Shinchō-ki (信長記) owned by Sonkeikaku Bunko (尊経閣文庫), the archives of the Maeda clan" -- something not accessible via the internet, and therefore not possible to verify. I am not interested in disputing whatever claims are made in inaccessible sources, but even taking them as gospel, the source conspicuously does not claim that Yasuke was a samurai; it describes him as a "weapon bearer" who was granted a residence and possibly a short sword.
As it is dubious that these last two persons were actually samurai, they would not belong under a heading which describes "people born in foreign countries...granted the title of samurai". If they must be listed at all, they should be below a sub-heading labeled "Claimed foreign samurai" or some similar distinction from verified ones. Bricology (talk) 03:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed -- a "samurai" in historical terms was not simply someone in Japan who was allowed to walk around with a sword, it included specific rights and duties and hereditary status. This is notably missing from any account of Yasuke that I've read, likewise for Chiara.

Looking at the JA WP article for Chiara at ja:ジュゼッペ・キアラ, I see the following:

...そのまま岡本三右衛門の名を受け継いだ。幕府からは十人扶持を与えられたが、切支丹屋敷から出ることは許されなかった。

... and thus he took on the name of Okamoto San'emon. The bakufu granted him a stipend of ten person's-worth of rice, but he was not allowed to leave the Christian yashiki [a specific manor or enclave in Edo where various Christians were effectively imprisoned].

He was never a samurai if he was imprisoned in the Christian enclave. So far as I can tell, he stayed there until he died.

Also notably, the JA WP article on Chiara does not include the word samurai anywhere (no instances of the kanji 侍, nor does it describe Chiara as taking on the status of the former bearer of the name Okamoto San'emon.

Granted, the JA WP itself is not a reliable source, but for purposes of a quick look around, it provides a decent starting point for our analysis.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:29, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

In my very personal opinion (only for reference, not sourced, but these are common-sense matters).

Social Structure in the Edo period

There is the upper-hand pyramid social structure figure. But this may give large misunderstanding. Rather the following scheme is preferable.

---

Ruling Class in the Edo Period

-	Kuge Lord (公家領主)	Buke Lord (武家領主)
-	Emperor and his Court	(Various Daimyo) 諸侯・諸大名		Head Tokugawa Daimyo (Shogun and Bakufu)
-	Sekkanke (摂関家)	Outsider Daimyo (外様)	Insider Daimyo (譜代)	Tokugawa family Daimyo (親藩)	Hatamoto (旗本)	Bugyō
-	Upper class Kuge Houses	Upper class Bushi (上士, Jōshi)		Upper class Bushi	Upper class Gokenin	Yoriki
-	Lower class Kuge Houses	Lower class Bushi (下士, Kashi)		Lower class Bushi	Lower class Gokenin	Dōshin
-	(Komono - Servants)	(Komono 小者 - Servants of Buke)			(Komono)	(Komono)

• Emperor is a kind of Daimyou, special Daimyo in the Edo period. Kuge lord have almost no power and have very poor income.
• Komono, that is, Servants of Kuge and Buke are not included both in Kuge and Buke, they are common class peoples.

Common Class in the Edo Period

-	Gun-bu (郡部) - Kōri area	Toshi-bu (都市部) - Machi (Town area)
(Lord)	Nanushi (名主)	Machi-Nanushi　(町名主)
(Officers)	Mura Yakunin	Machi Yakunin (町役人)
Occupation	Farmers (農民)	Merchants (商人)	Craftsmen (職人・工人)	Special*
Chief	Shōya (庄屋)	Shōka no Aruji (主人)	Oyakata, Kashira, Tōryō etc.	(various titles)
Upper class	Jikanō (自家農)#	Bantō (番頭), Tedai (手代)	Hira Shokunin (平職人)
Lower class	Kosakunō (小作農)#	Minarai (見習い), Decchi (丁稚)	Minarai Shokunin (見習い)
Non-registered	Mushuku (無宿)*
Lowest, Untouchable	Hinin (非人)

• Special: As special occupations, Isha (doctor), Shrine and Temple peoples, Scholars etc are. They have special position among the Edo social order. Nearly, sometimes, between ruling class and common class. When they are in jail, they are treated specially, like bushi class people.
• (#) Jikanō is a farmer who has his own land. But Kosakunō hasn't his own land, in other word, he is a peasant. Kosakunō lend land from Shōya.
• Mushuku(nin) : All the peoples in the Edo period, in principle, are a member of some social community. Even Hinin are a member of the Hinin community. But a common class person who does not belong to any social community is mushuku-nin (person belonging to no community). There are many bushi who hasn't his master and has no roku. These bushi are called rōnin. Rōnin are not Mushuku-nin.
• Common class peoples even could become lower class bushi. And lower class bushi sometimes were demoted to common class people.

---

Samurai in the right usage, are Upper Class Bushi or higher. Lower class Bushi (Kashi) are generally not Samurai. But common peoples call lower class bushi as O-samurai-sama, etc. In one standard, Samurai should have 150 koku (rice salary per year) or higher. Usual lower class bushi has roku (income per year) of 15 to 50 koku per year. In principle, Samurai should have his own horse. Yoriki (与力) is high class officer in Machi-bugyōsho. Yoriki was originally 寄騎 (yoriki). For instance, 彼らは与力二騎と同心五名であった is "They are two horse Yoriki and five person Dōshin". In the case of Yoriki, "Bushi and his horse" ia considered as One Yoriki. This is the same as Samurai. Samurai is the unit of "Bushi + Horse". Bushi who usually rides on horse is Samurai.

(Famous 4 social classes in the Edo period are Shi-Nō-Kō-Shō (士農工商), but it is not "Ji-nō-kō-shō". Not Samurai (侍), Nōmin (農民), Kōjin (工人), Shōnin (商人). Bushi (武士), Nōmin, Kōjin (Shokunin), Shōnin.

In this criteria, Yasuke is not Bushi, of course, not Samurai. Chiara is Bushi, but not Samurai in the right usage of terms (10-nin-buchi is too small roku as Samurai status). --Flora fon Esth (talk) 02:56, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Ultimately this comes down to, what do multiple reliable sources say? If multiple reliable sources say they're samurai, then they're samurai. If the reliable sources disagree on this then we can say that. At the end of the day our interpretation and research is not relevant to the topic only what the reliable sources state. Canterbury Tail talk 12:22, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

@Canterbury Tail: Granted, so long as we are clear (both in our understanding and in our description in the article) about how such RSes define the term "samurai". There has been much confusion on this score, and that is where a lot of the ambiguity lies.

For instance, according to a looser (more recent) definition of samurai as "a pre-modern Japanese warrior", then Yasuke was a samurai. According to the definition in currency at the time Yasuke was in Japan, as "a member of a hereditary nobility, with specific status, rights, and responsibilities", then no, Yasuke was not a samurai. Any RS that talks about Yasuke as a samurai must be evaluated for how they are defining the term.

See also the #Disagreement_with_Japanese_sources thread above. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on samurai terminology

Comments needed concerning the historical figure Yasuke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yasuke#Request_for_comment_on_samurai_terminology natemup (talk) 03:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Overhauling this page

I have edited this page some, and I think it could use some fixing. Especially with the small section I put about ninja leaders being samurai.

The creator of the video does claim to have a history PhD, but I would like sources from a book about this and for the section to be expanded.

I also have a question. Did I cite the video correctly? I would like to know what the way to in-text cite a video, TV show, or film is for future edits on other pages. I could not find it. GoutComplex (talk) 17:39, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Arts content

In the arts section of this article, the first paragraph is of St Francis Xavier. Besides being initially unclear who “Francis” is, this should be moved to the religion section and updated with a full name reference. Thoughts? I did not want to arbitrarily edit this article as I have no connection to it other than as a reader. Fax10 (talk) 15:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Error in weapons section

In the weapons section there is a photograph captioned 'antique Japanese Katana'. The image is almost certainly of a Tanto, a dagger length blade. As per the main page on Japanese swords, a Tanto is any blade under 1 shaku (about 30cm) long. A Katana is over 2 shaku (60cm) long. The blade in the image is undoubtedly not 60cm long, although it is not impossible it is marginally over 30cm long which would make it a wakizashi. But its far too thick for a wakizashi so I am certain it is a Tanto.

Either way, it is definately not a Katana. Can someone with edit power fix this, or find a different image of a Katana from the main page. 82.21.177.242 (talk) 21:52, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually it's a wakizashi. Though technically it's still a katana as in the strictest sense as katana is simply the Japanese name for a single edged sword with no specificity to length etc, not a particular type of sword as westerners have attached to it. What westerners call a katana is actually a uchigatana. Canterbury Tail talk 23:48, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

May I suggest that the word katana has a different meaning in English than in Japanese? Some Japanese sources in English use "Japanese Sword" for this reason. I have heard that katana is just the word for sword, so a European sabre would also be a katana. I believe the terminology has also changed in Japanese. However, in English there is an established classification system. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Edo period

I have removed the hierarchy chart, which is completely wrong. Such a hierarchical chart dividing peasants, craftsmen, and merchants into classes is based on an old academic theory from decades ago, and it has become clear in recent years that peasants (hyakushō), craftsmen, and merchants (chōnin) were equal in Japan. Such hierarchical charts have already been removed from Japanese textbooks.[5][6][7][8]--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 08:28, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Successive shogun held the highest or near-highest court ranks and outranked most court nobles.[9]--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 11:49, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I was surprised to see that various pages still describe explanations based on the pyramid-shaped social hierarchy chart of the Edo period, which is based on theories from more than 30 years ago. Even elementary and junior high school students know that samurai, peasats, craftsmen, and merchants are not a social hierarchy if you are Japanese. I think many Japanese probably know that it is an occupational classification, although it is possible that people in their 40s and older who are not interested in history may not have updated their knowledge. Of course, the Japanese Wikipedia version of the ja:士農工商 page mentions at the top of the page that it is a mistake to say that it is a pecking order.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 19:39, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Culture

Removed statements that have nothing to do with samurai culture. In addition, these descriptions give inappropriate weight to the actions of some samurai at one time and their evaluation, and the source and the explanation based on it are quite inaccurate. For example, the explanation based on this source is inappropriate because it synthesizes information about tsuji-giri, a crime committed during the Sengoku period, and kiriste-gomen, a right of samurai in the Edo period that required various conditions for its execution.　In addition, the description of "commoners and their village cultures, where pacifist movements flourished" is a strange explanation when it comes to historical facts. Furthermore, there is no source for the statement that the general public compared the actions of ninja and samurai and judged both as dishonorable. The general public's cultural views of the ninja were formed in the Edo period, beginning in the 17th century, and to describe them in combination with the behavior of the samurai during the Sengoku period is an inappropriate synthesis of information. In any case, this is not something that should be written in the section on samurai culture, so it has been deleted.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 18:41, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I have also removed some of the explanations in the Sengoku period section that contain the same thing as above. The user[10] who made these edits was repeating explanations on various pages that were not in the sources at all, or were perverted, or based on improper weighting, or synthesized information, and the same was true of the posts in the Sengoku period and Culture sections of this page. Since the Sengoku period section already states that the samurai code was loose during this period and that there were repeated instances of infighting within clans and betrayal of the lord by the samurai, it is perfectly acceptable without the explanation of the incorrect or improper source citation added by this user.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 10:54, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Establish a clear distinction between Bushi and Samurai

(Reposting this from Talk:Yasuke due to being related here, apologize if this is the wrong way to do it. I know the distinction is made in the Wikipedia article, but the term still gets confusion due to its use in other articles, see Yasuke and William Adams (pilot)).

For those who don't study Japanese history, it should be established that the Japanese language is highly contextual, where the same kanji symbols can mean different things based off of how they're pronounced as an example. Samurai, Bushi, and Ashigaru are terms that have been used interchangeably in the Japanese language, but they mean different things based off of the context. It would not be fair at all to use modern, loose definitions of "samurai" when they do not apply in its historical usage of the term.

It's already been said in this Talk Page that the concept of bushi and samurai are very distinct, but I don't think it offers enough explanation for those unfamiliar with the system. Therefore I think it should be a mission for Wikipedia to solidify this distinction by using the strict definitions that are based off of the historical tradition of the Japanese nobility during this time.

To be more clear: The warrior aristocratic class known as the samurai began to rise in power with the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate under the Minamoto lineage. Every single clan claims to be a descendant of an imperial lineage, whether it be the Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara, or smaller noble families like the Tachibana. This goes the same for samurai as well: The most popular example of a peasant becoming a samurai, Toyotomi Hideyoshi well established himself as a trusted retainer of Oda Nobunaga after the Battle of Okehazama and was given many privileges, but Nobunaga had never made him a "samurai". He officially became a samurai when he married his wife One, who came from a Minamoto background.

A "samurai" is not a rank. It is a social class, and there are plenty of examples of lords and samurai, such as Imagawa Yoshimoto, who did not practice martial arts extensively like warriors would typically do. Imagawa Yoshimoto was very well versed with practicing renga poetry and mastering tea ceremony, and spent little time on martial arts.

There seems to be no actual example of a warrior being "promoted" to samurai anywhere; even William Adams could be argued as not actually being a samurai, because he was given the rank of Hatamoto, which is more of a rank than a social status like how a samurai is, and also that the Japanese woman he married was not from any noble lineage (And this is particularly the case following Toyotomi Hideyoshi who ironically made it harder for peasants to rise to the status of samurai). Arguably - unless they have been adopted into a samurai lineage or married someone from that lineage (I can only speak for Yasuke and William Adams, let me know if I'm wrong on others) - "foreign born samurai" have never existed; they were all "bushi".

Fiefdom isn't enough to consider someone a samurai either, jizamurai (name is confusing of course) are land-owning "peasant" warriors, specifically warriors who are NOT samurai, these people were still subjects to samurai above them. If we want to get technical, William Adams would be considered a jizamurai, but not a samurai. It doesn't matter how many privileges you are given, how much you are paid, or how much land you have, you can't be a samurai unless you are part of a samurai lineage.

William Adams is a particular case because from what I know, the Japanese don't seem to care for him either just like they do with Yasuke, at least before 2020. The thing with Yasuke is that he only became mainstream since 2020/2021 which is where all this sparked interest came from, and then the pop articles that claim he was a "samurai" when he was not. Unless there is any proof that Yasuke had married a Japanese noble woman, he cannot and will not ever be considered "samurai", no matter how many battles hes in, the most he can claim is "bushi", same case for William Adams. The reason why this matters so much is because the Japanese feudal system was obsessed with ancestral claims and ties, and titles that they could claim based off of that. Ieyasu changed his surname from Matsudaira to Tokugawa so he could claim to be a descendant from the Niita clan, a legendary clan that destroyed the Hojo regents and paved the way for the Ashikaga to take control. This was so he could have a stronger claim on the title of Mikawa-no-kami or "Lord of Mikawa [Province]".

The imperial court, despite being weakened during this period, was still very influential and that never really went away; these clans relied on the imperial court to give them these prestigious titles to further their own legitimacy, and sometimes they had to change names, be adopted into influential families (Toyotomi Hideyoshi threatened the Konoe clan of their destruction if they did not adopt him, he did this so he could claim Kampaku, the "Emperor's Chief Advisor" or regent), or make political marriages. The imperial court may not have had military power to back up demands, but they had the de jure legitimacy for it as backed by the Emperor.

The idea that the social structure fell apart during the Sengoku period is blatantly made up. It's simply the result of the conflation of the word "samurai" in place of the word "bushi", which are both synonymous but also distinct in the Japanese language. It is partially the fault of the Japanese language for being a very convoluted language, but it is also the fault of the English language for not recognizing this as such. These words have meanings and cannot be changed to fit a narrative.

Therefore, I ask that it be a mission for Wikipedia to make these two terms distinct in order to establish the true nature of our understanding of Japanese history, much of it is incredibly misunderstood in the English language and this is just one of many examples. Hexenakte (talk) 16:25, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

As a Japanese, I can say that most Japanese and even experts today do not make a clear distinction between samurai and bushi. Although detailed definitions vary from period to period, bushi originally referred to people who made their living by fighting with weapons, and of these, the relatively high-ranking bushi who served the nobility or the shogunate were called samurai. However, during the Edo period, when most bushi served the shogun or daimyo of various domains, and bushi and the lower social classes of townspeople and peasants were more strictly classified, the line between the definitions of samurai and bushi became blurred, and the terms have since been used interchangeably. Since the definitions of samurai and bushi differed in the Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo periods, writing a distinction between samurai and bushi would be incomprehensible to most people. Therefore, unless the exact definitions of samurai and bushi, which differ from period to period, can be clearly explained to readers, we should be cautious about writing about the two terms strictly separately.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 06:40, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I have added a new explanation of the definitions of Samurai and Bushi in the Terminology section. It would be very difficult to explain the exact difference between samurai and bushi in every period section, and even if we could, most readers would probably be confused. Therefore, I decided that it would be best for the reader to have the definitions of the two terms explained in the first section of the page.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 08:33, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I can only really speak for the Sengoku period, but during this time where the caste system supposedly fell apart I just do not find to be true. The de jure caste system was always present, but it was just de facto easier to take advantage of where you could join noble families or get titles for much easier than would be in the past. For example, the Imperial Court during this period was very poor and in need of money, so they were willing to sell court titles in exchange for money to lords and samurai alike, when they were not likely to do this in the past. The example I listed with Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Konoe family also highlights this. If anything, I find evidence of a pattern showing that every known samurai has some connection to an imperial lineage (Minamoto, Taira, Fujiwara, Tachibana, etc). I don't think this is fair to diminish.

The fact that a warrior caste is recognized yet the term referring to it (samurai) is constantly changing and used synonymously for any soldier/warrior (Bushi, Ashigaru, Retainer, Hatamoto) is bound to lead to confusion, when these terms can mean completely different things depending on the context. This can lead to the idea that there was no caste system in some periods when this is just wrong. I could not find a samurai who did not join or was not part of a noble family, but only the contrary (examples have been named to me such as Konishi Yukinaga, Katakura Kojuro, and the Kuroda clan, these all have some noble connection whether through claim as a descendant or adoption/marriage (for Yukinaga's case under Toyotomi)). And it makes sense for a feudal society, since Europe largely operated like this too, so I don't understand why there's opposition to this? Everything points towards nobility. I think the confusion lies with this broader definition or idea of a samurai, which is why it is seemingly changing between periods, but it really isn't. Hexenakte (talk) 16:32, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you have sources that say that all samurai were noble? I have seen historians refer to this idea, on YouTube etc. but in actual printed books it is sometimes contradicted, or just ignored. It seems also that originally Bushi had a higher meaning than samurai. Samurai not being limited to the servants of court nobles, but also their vassals. Turnbull, Cummins and Deal all say that early samurai served gokenin. Granted, that made them indirect retainers of the Shogun.

There is also disagreement among authors regarding the semantic shift the term took. Wert is the outlier, saying that samurai had negative connotations of servitude till the 17th century. Turnbull says that samurai had achieved its military meaning in the 13th century, but still had connotations of servitude. The term only later gained elite connotations. Cummins says that the distinction between samurai and bushi had already dissolved by the 12th century.

Even with the lack of agreement between these authors, it seems that there are doubts about the idea of samurai originally indicating just servants of the nobles and that only those with imperial descent were samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Samurai not being limited to the servants of court nobles, but also their vassals. Turnbull, Cummins and Deal all say that early samurai served gokenin. Granted, that made them indirect retainers of the Shogun.

Just one thing to consider, knights serve other high nobles/aristocrats in Europe, but are considered noble themselves, albeit lesser nobility. The same thing can be said that it is what it means to be a samurai; when I say that samurai are part of nobility, they are lesser/petty nobility. Dr. Deal, who you mentioned, does talk about this, and has stated that the samurai tend to have ancestral ties to the Gen-pei-to-kitsu imperial clans, and this can be corroborated if you take a look at any Wikipedia page on any samurai clan (i.e. Oda clan: "According to the official genealogy of the Oda clan, after Taira no Sukemori was killed in the Battle of Dannoura in 1185, Taira no Chikazane, the son of Sukemori and a concubine, was entrusted to a Shinto priest at a Shinto Shrine in Otanosho in the Echizen province. This Chikazane became the founder of the Oda clan.", the Oda have ancestral ties to the Taira).

From Anthony J. Bryant, an academic scholar specializing in Japanese history, language, and armor, his Modes of Address article on his personal blog (this succeeding his most recent publications), he states the following:

There may be some who question the use of court titles for those who portray samurai. It must be remembered, though, that samurai received court titles and appointments. If they did not, they would not have been able to hold office or govern provinces. While a daimyô was lord of his fief, he was also the court-appointed governor of the province, for example (even if that court approval was merely a “rubber stamp” imposed by the hegemon du jour). This is why I don’t approve of co-opting such titles as “busho” (= general) and using it for knights. This is a job description, not a title of nobility. Regardless of what office or rank one held in Japan, the font of aristocratic honor was the throne, not the camp of the shôgun. One other advantage is that the court rank system remained in effect and virtually unchanged throughout our Period, while military hegemonies came and went applying titles and offices willy-nilly as they saw fit. It is worth noting that when the shôgun held formal courts, he did so in the court robes commiserate with his court rank held from the emperor. (Emphasis mine)

One must understand that the imperial court nobles, the kugyo, are in much higher court rank than the samurai. Forgive me as I am still looking for academic sources going into the Court Rank system in more detail than Deal and Bryant, but the JA wiki,[11] it specifically states that under the court rank system, the shodaibu (aristocracy below Kugyo, fourth and fifth court rank) were served by samurai of sixth court rank, so by all means, under a court ranking system, samurai would be considered lesser nobility. It goes on to state this as well:

Technical officers who did the practical work of military art were divided into these two statuses and the military aristocracies such as Seiwa-Genji (Minamoto clan) or Kanmu-Heishi (Taira clan) and so on, who were staying in Kyoto, were in the shodaibu status and the majority of local bushi were in the samurai status. In local societies, the zuryo who reigned in kokuga (provincial government office) was in the shodaibu status and those who served them and formed the dynasty were in the samurai status. We can see a part of these situations in the description, where distinctively, 'samurai' refers to nobility and 'bushi' a military officer, in the Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam (Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, published 1603-1604) during the early 17th century, some centuries after the time of bushi's emergence.

I did mention this before, but the Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam dictionary mentioned in the article is here,[12] and the term used "Saburai" (侍, historical pronunciation) was defined as "a nobleman or person to be respected". Keep in mind, this was published right before the complete establishment of the Edo period and thus before the Edo class structure, as no terms such as Kachi (徒士, bushi who did not have the privilege of riding on horseback; non-samurai warrior)[13][14] was found in it.

It is of the understanding, from the Heian period all the way to the Edo period, that ancestral ties - whether you're born into it or granted it by adoption/marriage (granted a surname) - to these four imperial clans is what grants nobility. It is why that in spite of the weakening of the Imperial Court during the Sengoku period, that their Court rank system under the Ritsuryo code persisted while other legal enforcements had fallen. It is why Toyotomi Hideyoshi, being a peasant ashigaru from the beginning, was able to rise in status because of his later ties into these ancestral families, as he married a noblewoman One (Minamoto lineage), granted a surname by Oda senior vassals (Taira lineage), adopted into the Konoe family (Fujiwara lineage), and was given his own namesake outside of the Genpeitokitsu by imperial proclamation by the Emperor (Toyotomi).[15] Toyotomi Hideyoshi could not rise in status without those noble ties and titles.

Once again, I apologize as I am still looking for academic sources that describe this in more detail (as I assume most of this is in Japanese, very lacking on the English side of academia), but I promise that I will keep looking. But as far as I know, this is more than enough to prove that being a samurai had to have some form of noble ties, but these sources are not necessarily for use for the Wikipedia article, but for understanding the complex situation with the samurai class in the talk page, so do understand this is not meant to be WP:SYNTH. Hope this helps. Hexenakte (talk) 16:09, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, it helped me to understand what you are saying. I think the issue of nobility regarding Japan is confusing, because sometimes samurai are called a military nobility, but there is also the court nobility, but as you said, the two mixed. There are also the families that descended from the emperor, but not every member had a court title.

I have heard some say that imperial descent was a requirement to be a samurai at a certain point, but I can’t find anything like that in the writing. I think the samurai clans that are notable are more likely to have a connection to an imperial lineage. Samurai status is uncontroversially a status analogous to nobility in the Edo period, although I believe gentry is a better word (Fidalgo could also be translated as untitled noble or gentleman). However, some sources claim that there was a larger difference between low ranking samurai and high ranking samurai, as between low ranking samurai and some peasants. At least in the Edo period.

I would be cautious about reading too much into Brandt´s comments about the Court being the font of honour. He is writing in context of the SCA and talking about how to adopt Japanese names for their system, based creatively on European history. The Court was the font of honour for court titles, but it seems that depending on time and place either the shogunate, magnates and even lesser lords could grant certain offices that were connected to status. A lot of status and actual power was tied to land ownership, which could be confirmed by important magnates, and offices such as Shugo and Jito were granted by the Shogunate. I am not sure if the simple rank of samurai needed the rubber stamp approval of the Imperial Court. It seems that in the Edo period that Daimyos could make their own samurai, or at least grant the right to wear two swords and a surname. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

There are also the families that descended from the emperor, but not every member had a court title.

One thing I want to point out is the difference between court rank and court title. Court ranks are simply just a bracket that a specific member falls in in accordance with their status, and court titles are more specific in regards to their purpose. For example, Daimyo A and Daimyo B are both of Go-i (Fifth Rank), meaning they are allowed to enter the Imperial Court, but Daimyo A has the title of Satsuma-no-kami (Lord of Satsuma) while Daimyo B does not. This means that Daimyo A has legitimate claims over Satsuma Province. I will put out an example below that will put this better in perspective.

I have heard some say that imperial descent was a requirement to be a samurai at a certain point, but I can’t find anything like that in the writing. I think the samurai clans that are notable are more likely to have a connection to an imperial lineage. Samurai status is uncontroversially a status analogous to nobility in the Edo period, although I believe gentry is a better word (Fidalgo could also be translated as untitled noble or gentleman). However, some sources claim that there was a larger difference between low ranking samurai and high ranking samurai, as between low ranking samurai and some peasants. At least in the Edo period.

It's a bit more than that, like I said, Toyotomi Hideyoshi came from a peasant background but was able to rise to a noble status because of his marriage (Minamoto), adoption in both under Oda's vassals (Hashiba; Taira) and the Konoe kuge family (was granted Fujiwara temporarily), and eventually granted his own namesake by the Emperor himself (Toyotomi). He did not have blood ties to these descendants, but more so legal ties, which is enough to consider him as noble by then. I think many people miss this part when they bring up Toyotomi as a reason why the nobility structure somehow wasn't a thing under the Sengoku period? You also have to consider how these academics use the word "samurai" when they make a distinction between "low ranking" and "high ranking" samurai; are they including ashigarus? Are they (in the context of the Edo period) including kachis - who did not have the privilege to ride on horseback - and mixing them with Kishi, who did have privilege to ride on horseback? When they say samurai, do they actually mean bushi in general? This is why English isn't exactly the best authority to stick on this matter, because many English academics conflate these words with inconsistent regard, likely due to their perceived little importance. And I think this is why the Court rank system is given little attention as well because of the Imperial Court's perceived little importance during the Sengoku period, so it certainly does not help.

I would be cautious about reading too much into Brandt´s comments about the Court being the font of honour. He is writing in context of the SCA and talking about how to adopt Japanese names for their system, based creatively on European history. The Court was the font of honour for court titles, but it seems that depending on time and place either the shogunate, magnates and even lesser lords could grant certain offices that were connected to status. A lot of status and actual power was tied to land ownership, which could be confirmed by important magnates, and offices such as Shugo and Jito were granted by the Shogunate. I am not sure if the simple rank of samurai needed the rubber stamp approval of the Imperial Court. It seems that in the Edo period that Daimyos could make their own samurai, or at least grant the right to wear two swords and a surname.

You are correct he is speaking in the context of the SCA, however that specific quote I mentioned he did point out that even the shogun had to wear court robes in accordance with his own court rank, as under the de jure court structure, the Emperor was still at the top. In a lot of cases, interaction with the Imperial Court was necessary to further one's position or legitimacy, such as for example, Tokugawa Ieyasu had to change his name from Matsudaira to Tokugawa in order to have legitimate claims as Mikawa-no-kami (Lord of Mikawa), the Wikipedia article on him simplifies it as such:

In 1567, Ieyasu started the family name "Tokugawa", finally changing his name to Tokugawa Ieyasu. As he was a member of the Matsudaira clan, he claimed descent from the Seiwa Genji branch of the Minamoto clan. However, as there is no proof that the Matsudaira clan were descendants of Emperor Seiwa, The Emperor initially did not approve the appointment, citing the lack of a precedent for the Serada clan of the Seiwa Genji clan being appointed as Mikawa no Kami. Ieyasu then consulted with imperial noble Konoe Motohisa through mediation of a Mikawa native and abbot of Kyo Seiganji Temple. Due to Motohisa's efforts, Yoshida Kaneyoshi discovered a genealogical document in the Manri-koji family that was a precedent, saying, "Tokugawa (belongs) to Minamoto clan, as another offshoot of the Fujiwara clan," and a copy was transferred to him and used for the application. Then after passing several steps, Ieyasu gained permission of the Imperial Court, after writing a petition, and he was bestowed the courtesy title Mikawa-no-kami (Lord of Mikawa) and the court rank of Junior 5th Rank, Lower Grade (從五位下, ju go-i no ge).

We can see that of course the daimyo regularly interacted with the Imperial Court, but there is little (at least in English) documentation of the petty noble samurai, who are reportedly given the rank of Roku-i (Sixth Rank), and I am not currently aware of how one would go about that. I still need to delve into this, as I suspect this information is buried in Japanese-only sources, so this may take time. Nevertheless, it shows that even under the Sengoku period, that the nobility structure was preserved, and that the samurai were apart of it. It's often why surnames are used as a justification for why someone is a samurai, which while it may be a gross simplification of the matter, it is accurate to an extent, as all samurai have a surname. This isn't to say that all those with surnames are samurai, but it helps to narrow it down.

This is indeed a very complicated matter that cannot be solved simply by looking at English sources alone, especially those that don't use the proper definitions of the terms they are using to refer to very specific concepts such as the samurai class. I do appreciate you taking the time to tackle this issue with me. Cheers! Hexenakte (talk) 18:45, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the place for authoritative definitions nor for original research, both of which you are advocating for here. This is a fundamental misuse of the platform and should be strongly opposed by those that want Wikipedia to retain its consensus-driven nature and goals. Please refrain from bad faith discourse due to current events (the Assassin's Creed raciality controversy over Yasuke) intended to shape public opinion, and stick to summarizing and collating information from properly cited reliable sources, as per WP rules. 74.104.130.145 (talk) 12:06, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see what I am saying is in bad faith, and it has nothing to do with the AC game, it has to do with wrongfully conflating terms to individuals such as Yasuke who were never samurai, this is real person with real history. There is no evidence to suggest this, the most that we can attribute to Yasuke is that he was an attendant for an unknown role, as it does not specify what kind of tools he carried (it could range from weapons to armor to food to lanterns, there were many different roles for different attendants), so a Kosho (小姓, page) title is inappropriate since no such title is mentioned in any of the primary sources that talk about Yasuke. There is also no evidence to suggest that he was a trained warrior or that he was suppose to fight, the only incident where he is confirmed to be fighting is in Honno-ji, but we don't even know the specific details of what happened, and once again isn't proof that he was a full-time warrior, even attendants could fill in combative roles as described in Zōhyō Monogatari (I can't find a link to it so apologies for that, but there is a English translated section on it in "Samurai War Stories: Teachings and Tales of Samurai Warfare" if you want to check), they just weren't trained or armored like Bushi. Keeping it up in the air that he was a samurai or a warrior is lying by omission, and that is in bad faith.

So instead of providing commentary on the lack of evidence (since that was the issue last time), his actual title should be changed accordingly to "attendant" or "attendant retainer" since it is factual based off of the evidence we do know about him, and it makes it more clear as to where he stood rather than the interchangeably used terms of Bushi, Samurai, Retainer (as a standalone title), Hatamoto, etc. Hexenakte (talk) 16:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

You are stating your analysis and conjecture, some times referred to as synthesis, which is original research and not permitted in the article text, and you have provided no reliable sources to support any of your claims, which are required in the article citations. This is not a space for a conversation about our insights into Japanese culture or the samurai, and to reiterate, the purpose of Wikipedia is not to be the bastion of unassailable truth or the final word on any topic or question, only to provide a concise and unbiased overview of scholarly consensus on the subject matter with properly curated links to that information. If you are unfamiliar with Wikipedia mission and standard practices, I retract the accusation of bad faith, but you are not engaging withe article constructively at this point. 74.104.130.145 (talk) 19:56, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I apologize if I have not clarified the sources, for the record I am using the primary sources that already list on the Yasuke article, and these are the only primary sources that speak of him that can be verified. I do not think it is correct to use the pop articles that describe him as a samurai, and when opening those links up, they do not provide a definition of what a samurai is nor do they have the source text that supports it, only unsubstantiated claims. [16] [17] These two in particular make the claims that Yasuke was a Kosho (小姓, page) or that he was considered a bodyguard based off of speculation of his description that "[He] has the strength of more than ten men." But this isn't proof of his role within the missionary group, which the first article admits it's purely speculation.

Moreover, for the first article, it claims that Yasuke was a tachi-bearer (太刀持ち, long sword-bearer), and in both articles it claims that he was a Kosho (小姓, page), without any quotes from the primary sources. It is clear they are reading these primary sources, but they seem to be doing it very poorly, because looking at the excerpt from the Shincho Koki on the Yasuke article, it says something completely different, stating that "He was sometimes made to carry Nobunaga-sama's tools." There's no specification of what tools he carried, and there is no title of Kosho mentioned anywhere, so it is inappropriate to attribute this title to him.

As for the claim that he did not necessarily have to be a warrior to fight; I listed the Zohyo Monogatari, which describes the composition of these standing armies and the servants and attendants that had followed, there are sections that describe attendants actively engaging in combat, particularly those unarmored, but may have their own weapon, I just do not have the source on hand with me right now so it's hard for me to post it as a hyperlink. In order to determine that he was a warrior, he must have been trained as one, most likely an ashigaru, but there is no mention of this.

All I am arguing for is that speculative claims should not be acceptable as evidence for what role Yasuke had. Instead of relying on the lack of evidence to explain that he wasn't a samurai, we should be using the evidence at hand to describe that, from the primary sources themselves listed on the article, the only role he had was that he was an attendant, and we don't even know what kind of attendant since it never specified. Are these claims considered controversial? I am looking directly at the source texts itself that are already readily available on the article page and they do not support the claims that he was a samurai, nor a warrior, nor a page or weapon-bearer. This is even more so on his jp:弥助 Japanese article that there is no mention of Kosho (小姓), but they do call him an attendant (従者). There is also mention of him being a missionary bodyguard (宣教師の護衛) but the references are from pop articles [18] [19] that don't mention anything about being a bodyguard or escort, but do say that he oversaw Nobunaga's seppuku as an assistant to decapitate him, but this is an absurd claim that has no basis, since this is never mentioned in Luis Frois' Annual Report to the Jesuits, nor any of the other primary sources, and I think its common understanding that Nobunaga committed seppuku alone being the last man standing, but I am running short on time and would have to get back on that later.

One other article [20] that describes an excerpt from Luis Frois' History of Japan, an African man firing a cannon off the Kyushu coast in the Battle of Okitanawate, however, several problems with this inclusion as a justification; 1) The Battle was in 1584, 2 years after Yasuke's disappearance after Honno-ji, 2) The identity is never made, and 3) it describes that the Arima daimyo had several Africans and Indians to assist his army. So really, it was completely irrelevant. I am not sure why these articles are cited as reasons for him being a missionary bodyguard or escort, but they do not prove anything.

That being said, the one verifiable role that Yasuke had was that he was an attendant. I don't think it is fair to say that the sources I use are unreliable when they are strictly focused on the primary sources, albeit I did not address the unreliable sources directly in this section, that I admit, and I apologize for that. If you feel I left anything out that I haven't already addressed, please tell me and don't assume I mean anything ill will. Hexenakte (talk) 21:33, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

The Yasuke article is improperly using primary sources, and is currently undergoing an edit war. I would suggest revisiting this in about 6 months, when the dust has settled and both pages are appropriately edited. It is likely the Yasuke article will remain a high-visibility and heavily policed article, so you'll get a good look at how a controversial subject should be handled on Wikipedia. 74.104.130.145 (talk) 02:19, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

While I am largely a bystander to the whole discussion and I understand one of the established principles of Wikipedia is to use secondary sources where applicable, one should also consider that many secondary sources fall into:

- Not clearly attributing statements made to specific evidence in primary sources (which are also attached to the Yasuke article, as pointed out by @Hexenakte). Opinion: as a fellow researcher this is a sign of poorly documented research.

- Making claims which contradict primary sources referenced in them. See: some of the claims made by Lockley.

- Referencing with mention or generally echoing statements made previously by other secondary sources.

- Making novel statements which are suppositions, not backed by either primary or secondary sources.

Regarding the original discussion of bushi vs samurai, I would consider it worthwhile (perhaps at a later time, considering the current discourse around Yasuke) to disambiguate between these terms also in English and demonstrate the scope of the disambiguation as they are not perfectly synonymous. Of course, per Wikipedia's principles:

- The disambiguation needs to be backed by sources, not original research.

- Wikipedia articles in other languages can't be used as direct references. However, perhaps the sources listed there or a general approach to the problem could be used as inspiration? 212.186.235.146 (talk) 09:20, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Regarding Yasuke's specific role in respect to Nobunaga, it would make sense to add it to the Yasuke article in a separate section, not here, once the general discussions about him being called a samurai are finally over. Additional sections of Lockley's and Girard's book are mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#c-Gitz6666-20240709150100-Reliability_of_Thomas_Lockley. They may shed extra light on the problem. SmallMender (talk) 15:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Thinking about "bushi" vs "samurai" and the fact that these two terms are still often used interchangeably, what about a disambiguation on the term "samurai" itself, for instance by having 2 articles - one to define the hereditary social class and one to capture a loose definition of a fighting profession in medieval Japan. Would this be justifiable?

I think the disambiguation could solve the following problems:

- Bushi (warrior) could reference the warrior samurai page instead of the general article

- The disambiguation would mirror the one used on the Japanese Wikipedia pages

- With suitable secondary sources it would be demonstrable that the hereditary samurai social class existed prior to and during the Sengoku Jidai period. Some authors like Lockley which go more into detail on what constituted a samurai do make the distinction.

- For historical figures where there is discussion (without possibility for resolution) on which definition of "samurai" is meant and there is no indication the historical figure belonged to the samurai social class, the regular warrior samurai article could be used.

- The warrior samurai page could include references to various ranks of warriors such as Ashigaru, who some historians also classify as samurai. SmallMender (talk) 07:52, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I think a disambiguation would be helpful. English-speaking historians of Japan use both terms. There seems to be a consensus that they are interchangeable in the Edo Period, and the difference isn’t clear in the Sengoku period. They did mean two different things in earlier periods. That is the main problem, a lot of sources speak about samurai mix the different periods up, and a lot of the sources are from the Edo period. Looking at google books, a lot of what I found about samurai rank is actually about the Meiji Restoration. In the Edo period, that is when the two swords are restricted to and mandatory for samurai, and when they are given Kiri-sute gomen as a legal right, and that right was given to the lowest umbrella making samurai. There is still a lot of difference between a lower samurai and a high one in the Edo period. So we have the different periods and different terms. Tinynanorobots (talk) 18:13, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I am having a hard time finding secondary sources that talk about the difference between bushi and samurai, or the meaning of samurai in earlier periods, requiring imperial or aristocratic descent. The best that I could find are YouTube videos from historians discussing it. For example, while discussing if Yasuke is a samurai, Anthony Cummins discusses explicitly the changing meaning of the word, and to a certain sense the consequences of it. Frederick Cryn says that in the strictest sense of the word, samurai applied to those of imperial or aristocratic descent, but was also starting to be applied to high ranking bushi. Then Cummins says that in the Edo period, even a 25 Koku retainer was considered a samurai. I am not sure how best to put that into the article here. Tinynanorobots (talk) 08:38, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I can’t read the Japanese page for Bushi. Do you think it could be translated into a English Wikipedia page in case we split the two? I am beginning to think it would be difficult. So much of the English language literature, and not just pop history, use Samurai when they should use Bushi. A lot of persons that are probably too high ranking to be called samurai, are called samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:31, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it could be used as a general inspiration, but the English article requires a pretty deep cleanup independently.

As mentioned before, in its current form it is too long so certain topics which can be tackled in some isolation, like lists of historical sites, historical figures, etc. should be moved to separate articles, starting from low hanging fruits first.

The References section is also incredibly long and it could probably be trimmed down if there are multiple sources for the same claim or some sources are noticeably less notable than others. Perhaps some sources don't even directly state what is claimed in the article? SmallMender (talk) 17:00, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke was never sworn as a Samurai.

Stop spreading misinformation. Don Basura (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

He was indeed a samurai (servant below him, a lord above him; he even would share a dinner table with Nobunga at times), and most importantly regardless of editor opinions is considered one by reputable sources and historians, and there are no reliable sources that contradict this. Symphony Regalia (talk) 11:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

He was not. Japanese historians do not consider him one, Japanese sources do not say he was one, and Lockley’s book is riddled with fictional narrative & embellishment from 1-2 pages of historical documentation on Yasuke at best. You have also been trying to edit/troll the Japanese wiki page on Yasuke (which does not say he was a samurai 侍), to no avail, and have been called out for using multiple proxies to further your trolling.

https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8E%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88:%E5%BC%A5%E5%8A%A9 24.205.146.71 (talk) 19:27, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Per RFC concensus he was. Per definition of the term samurai regarding that time period as evidenced by the article you are currently on. He was.

If you have any sources that prove wrong the sources provided on this article about the conflation of the term during that period. You are more than welcome to provide them. 216.138.9.189 (talk) 03:46, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think samurai were sworn. There was a blood oath, but I have read that not everyone signed one, and I don’t think it was what made one a samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 18:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke has an RfC

Yasuke has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. RomeshKubajali (talk) 23:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Honor Section under "Philosophy"

The current quotes cited in the Honor section are deeply racist and subjective, offering no insight into samurai philosophy, yet are presented in a way that they come across as evidence that the author is using to prove a point. The section simply ends with this disparaging comment towards other Asian warriors. These statements are the prejudiced and bigoted ramblings of some random European and bear no academic merit whatsoever. This approach to commentary throughout Wikipedia of using prejudiced remarks from Europeans hundreds of years ago in order to describe very real and very complex cultures of non-Europeans and presenting these statements as evidence of anything is highly disturbing. There are more than enough accounts from samurai themselves or even Japanese scholars which will give a reader a semblance of truthful insight into samurai philosophy. Finally, the end quote in that section spills over from Orientalizing Japanese people to insulting the honor of Chinese, Korean, and Filipino people. The only thing this quote reveals is that the person who said it was racist. Frost Rarely (talk) 22:22, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The quote comes from St. Francis Xavier who was notable as among the first Catholics to document their time in Japan. There is a time and place to quote him, and do so in ways which are appropriate to the subject, but here I do agree that it seems strange to quote Xavier since:

1. This is more apt for a history section on other pages, rather than a philosophy section.

2. The quote seems to be referring to the Japanese people broadly, but nothing in regard to Samurai.

3. There are certainly other primary sources worth quoting with secondary findings to bolster the claim.

In that light it does seem a little like a case of Orientalism. Chivalry is a good example to look towards as a page dedicated to establishing a similar conception of honor for knights in Medieval Europe. I think something as changing with the era as a social role/rank/military status should have its own page detailing its development over time, with only a brief summary of here. The main difficulty would be that unlike chivalry, there is no English word for the Samurai conception of honor, but I would hope someone more versed in the academic texts to write such a thing would be aware of the appropriate japanese term since 'Samurai Honor' would not be an ideal title. Relm (talk) 02:23, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2024

samurai were land owners 2601:247:8202:8E60:190D:6D75:44DD:8355 (talk) 01:13, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Jcoolbro (talk) (c) 23:21, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Terminology

The explanation that "It was not until the 17th century that the term gradually became a title for military servants of warrior families" is incorrect; even before the 17th century, servants in the service of shogun and daimyo families were called samurai. Also, the explanation "a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a samurai" is not useful information because it does not provide a specific definition of "a warriors of elite status. Therefore, this explanation has been removed.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Some books like the African Samurai (2019) by Thomas Lockley implicitly make the distinction that there existed a nobility class of samurai alongside the ad hoc conscripted "samurai" warriors of Sengoku Jidai, however the same book also claims the general definition of "samurai" was more fluid and the distinction was not strict.

What would be helpful to demonstrate "It was not until the 17th century that the term gradually became a title for military servants of warrior families" is not correct is a secondary source (or a set of therefore) which show samurai families existed prior to 17th century and then apply Wikipedia:DUE accordingly. SmallMender (talk) 07:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree with this revert by SLIMHANNYA. The removed text

Originally, the word samurai referred to anyone who served a lord, even in a non-military capacity. It was not until the 17th century that the term gradually became a title for military servants of warrior families, so that, according to Michael Wert, "a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a 'samurai'"

is supported by

• Wert, Michael (2021-04-01), "Becoming those who served", Samurai: A Very Short Introduction (1 ed.), Oxford University Press, pp. 4–11, doi:10.1093/actrade/9780190685072.003.0002, ISBN 978-0-19-068507-2, retrieved 2024-07-05

which qualifies as WP:SCHOLARSHIP - Michael Wert is a subject-matter expert [21], his book is on the topic of this article and is reputably published by OUP.

SLIMHANNYA's view that Wert is incorrect is not supported by sources and would be original research in any case. The fact that Wert does not give a specific definition of "a warriors of elite status" is immaterial: Wert says that elite warriors (i.e. samurai in one sense of the term) would not have used the word "samurai" to describe themselves before the 17th century. Arguably this is WP:DUE in the "Terminology" section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:11, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Several authoritative Japanese encyclopedias state that before the 17th century, in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods, samurai referred to high-ranking bushi (上級武士).[22] So the source you present, that it was an insult to call elite warriors samurai before the 17th century, is a non-mainstream academic theory. The encyclopedia says that during the Kamakura period, samurai directly under the shogun were called gokenin, and it also says that during the Sengoku period, the word "samurai" became synonymous with the word "bushi". In other words, bushi who served warrior families such as shoguns and feudal lords were also called samurai. Therefore, it is a non-mainstream theory that the title "samurai" gradually came to refer to military servants who served the warrior families in the 17th century. These are basic facts for Japanese interested in history. It is certain that even before the Edo period in the 17th century, the title samurai referred to military servants in the service of the warrior families. Japanese scholars do not know what heretical theories foreigners hold. Therefore, Japanese scholars do not refute false theories, and I cannot immediately find a source where a Japanese scholar directly contradicts the source you posted. Isn't it an abuse of the rules to apply the Wikipedia rules by the book and publish clearly heretical theories and false information? There are far too many sources and descriptions in the English Wikipedia that seem reliable to a foreigner without systematic and detailed knowledge of Japan, but strange to a Japanese like me.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 12:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

If that's the case, we shouldn't exclude a point of view from the article simply because it seems "heretical" from the perspective of mainstream Japanese history (assuming you have in-depth knowledge of Japanese historiography). We should include all significant points of view if they are not WP:FRINGE. So let's do this the right way: instead of removing well-sourced material, let's find sources that directly contradict or corroborate Wert and try to broaden the discussion in terms of sources and editors. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 12:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

The Wert source you provided is a fringe theory and should be deleted. The explanation I showed, taken from several authoritative Japanese encyclopedias, is the mainstream theory. The explanation that samurais served shoguns in the Kamakura period and that the term samurai became synonymous with bushi in the Sengoku period has already been stated in the text.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 12:55, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

In the text of the temporary law enacted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1591, just before the beginning of the 17th century, the word "samurai" refers to the wakatō (若党), the lowest-ranking bush or the highest-ranking part-time bushi.i[23][24][25] Wart may have argued, based on this article of the law, that it would be insulting to refer to the elite warriors before the 17th century as samurais. In other words, he may have extended the exceptional meaning of "samurai" in the Azuchi-momoyama period to apply to the word "samurai" in all periods before the 17th century. Perhaps he misunderstood because he lacked systematic and detailed knowledge.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 21:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for you recent edits to the article. I didn't check the sources, but it seems to me that the text you added is consistent with Wert's claim and acutally corroborates it. Since During the Azuchi–Momoyama period (late Sengoku period), "samurai" often referred to wakatō (若党), the lowest-ranking bushi or the highest-ranking part-time bushi (the text you added), it's quite likely that a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a 'samurai' (Wert's thesis). The article is consistent and the "Terminology" section is now more informative. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:36, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

No, the description of wakatō (若党) that I have presented clarifies the error in Wert's description. Since wakatō existed in the 16th century during the Azuchi-Momoyama period, we can see that the explanation that samurai gradually came to refer to military servants who served warrior families from the 17th century onward is incorrect. And in your writing, the problem is that the Heian period explanation of a person serving the nobility even in a non-military role is followed by an incorrect 17th century explanation. Even if the 17th century description is correct, you mislead the reader by omitting the description from the 12th to the 16th century. The description you want to keep alive should be deleted because it does not match the multiple sources that define the term "samurai" at different times. According to several sources, samurai were servants of warrior families before the 17th century. From the Kamakura period in the 12th century to the Muromachi period in the 15th century, samurai served the shoguns of the highest-ranking warrior families. During the Sengoku period of the 15th and 16th centuries, the definition of samurai was expanded to become synonymous with bushi. In other words, lower-ranking bushi who served the warrior family of the senior bushi were also called samurai. In the late 16th century, during the late Senghoku period, the definition of samurai was expanded to include wakatō, the lowest-ranking bushi who served the senior bushi. You have failed to provide a valid rebuttal to these facts. --SLIMHANNYA (talk) 10:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I honestly don't understand what rebuttal you are asking me to provide. You say that "lower-ranking bushi who served the warrior family of the senior bushi were also called samurai" and you say that "In the late 16th century ... the definition of samurai was expanded to include wakatō, the lowest-ranking bushi who served the senior bushi". These statements are fully compatible with Wert's claim that "a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a 'samurai'". I don't see any inconsistency. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Please, answer my question. And please stop deliberately changing the subject. I have shown through multiple sources that samurai served warrior families such as shogun, daimyo, and high ranking bushi before the 17th century. I used wakatō, who existed in the 16th century, as an example. In other words, I am saying that your explanation that "It was not until the 17th century that the term gradually became a title for military servants of warrior families" is incorrect.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 10:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. I did not deny that "samurai served warrior families such as shogun, daimyo and high ranking bushi before the 17th century". Why do you say that I (or Wert) denied this? What Wert says is that the term referred to anyone who served a noble, even in a nonmilitary capacity - so it was basically a synonymous of "servant". Then, Wert says, the term gradually became a title for military servants of warrior families (my emphasis) and by the 16th century it referred to lower-ranking "military servants", i.e. low-ranking bushi, so that a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a 'samurai'. As I said, this is not "my explanation" - these are verbatim quotes from a reliable source. So if you don't agree, you should either provide high quality secondary sources that contradict these claims (and you have provided none), or start a thread on WP:FTN, or both. If you like, I can ping some editors who have a keen interest in Japanese history, who are familiar with the Japanese language, and who can help us better understand this point of contention. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I think there is an issue here of period terminology and modern terminology used to describe the period. Sometimes there is a conflict between the two. For example, Knight comes from a word that means boy. In German, the same root became to mean a servant. So, historians speak about William the Conquerors knights, although they might not have used that word. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:52, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

In terms of sources that might contradict or support Wert, I've recently read through Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan by Dr. William E. Deal.

In this book, he writes Below gokenin was the samurai class. Although we tend now to think of the term samurai (literally, “one who serves”) as a generic term for warrior, during the Kamakura period samurai referred to a specific social ranking. Samurai, though less powerful than gokenin, also commanded subvassals who were loyal to them. Like gokenin, samurai were cavalry soldiers. (Page 110) as well as Under the military rule that ensued from the Kamakura period onward, soldiers holding an official rank designated by the shogun or the imperial court were considered samurai. Thus, military figures serving in ranked positions were first distinguished from general infantry through terminology early in the medieval era. After reunification was achieved in the early modern period, the term samurai 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 considered 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 interchangeably 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 private armies associated with specific lords (daimyo) from the time of the decline of the Ashikaga shogunate 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 without warning. By contrast, in the Edo period, warriors were required to submit to a rigid system of socioeconomic classification with the shogun at the pinnacle (Page 137)

I added emphasis to the relevant sections. Brocade River Poems 07:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Good catch! That source and contents could be used to further enrich (at least) the terminology section. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I also found another book that says It was also the case that domains in financial trouble sold titles or perquisites of samurai rank, although Howell points out that high status was rarely sold" and that Some domains went so far as to print price lists...Non-cash contributions also counted, as local villages elites might be rewarded with military status for long service, for example. Or alternatively, through official service, they might acquire the privilege of bearing certain paraphernalia denotative of military rank, such as family names and swords

There's also this definition Gokenin. Direct vassals of a shogun. In the Kamakura period, term for some 2,000 samurai families who became hereditary vassals of Minamoto no Yoritomo and received land (ando) or became jitō or shūgo. The gokenin served as the shogun's personal guard and constituted the basis of his army. In the Muromachi period, the gokenin were divided into two classes, those under direct control of the shogun, the hōkōshū, and thuse under a shugo, the jitō-gokenin. During the Edo period, the gokenin were the shogun's lowest-ranked direct vassals, below the hatamoto, and did not have the privilege of being received by the shogun.

More also from the Routledge Handbook of Pre-Modern Japanese History that says Warrior identity remained fluid and open until the early modern unification, with villagers, shrine workers, pirates, and others all claiming the mantle of samurai ("we who serve") as a marker of status. As warfare became endemic and violence a way of life, "samurai" became conceptually tied to violence, but the term did not become equated with a "warrior class" until the early modern period" (Page 139)

But that's about the extent of where my research has taken me thus far. Brocade River Poems 09:12, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

My understanding was that the Imperial Court originally used Samurai to mean their servants, who were high ranking bushi, but also had non-military duties. Only when they coordinated the fight against the Ainu did they expand the term to other high ranking bushi. Gokenin were originally the direct vassals of the shogun. The hatamoto rank was added in the Edo period. Other lords also had direct vassals and rear vassals, but they could and did organize them as they pleased.

I think the idea that "samurai" was an insult is highly questionable. I am not sure if it qualifies as a theory. It is so against what everyone else says, it should be checked. Wert is an expert on early modern Japan, so in this case he is speaking outside his area of expertise. Tinynanorobots (talk) 18:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

According to Turnbull in Weapons of the Samurai, Samurai had already taken on military connotations by the 12th century. In the Genpei War, the samurai weren’t the highest ranking Bushi, but rather their followers. Then in the 13th century the Gokein were direct landowning vassals of the Shogun, who were then served by samurai who fought on foot. Only in the Sengoku period did the meaning of samurai expand both up and down. This seems to match with what Wert is saying, if not as extreme. This suggests that originally and for a long time, samurai weren’t the highest ranking Bushi, but the second-highest ranking bushi. Gotekin were originally a type of "lord", but eventually became modestly ranked samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Confusing

This article is confusing, it uses a lot of Japanese terms that are defined by other Japanese terms. Sometimes the writing is also unclear. Example:

"During the Azuchi–Momoyama period (late Sengoku period), "samurai" often referred to wakatō (若党), the lowest-ranking bushi or the highest-ranking part-time bushi, as exemplified by the provisions of the temporary law Separation Edict enacted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1591. This law regulated the transfer of status classes:samurai, chūgen (中間), komono (小者), and arashiko (荒子). These four classes and the ashigaru were chōnin (町人, townspeople) and peasants employed by the bushi and fell under the category of buke hōkōnin (武家奉公人, buke servants)"

So are wakato the lowest ranking bushi or high ranking part-time bushi or both? What is part-time Bushi mean? What are chugen, komono and arashiko? and how do these groups fit in with wakato and bushi? And this article is saying the samurai were townspeople and peasants. That can’t be right, that must be an error. It would be nice if some of these terms had wikipedia articles, I can’t even find some definitions with google.

It seems in general that the term "Samurai" covered a multiple level of ranks. It would help to know about these ranks. The article suffers also from mostly being about Japanese military history, as opposed to being about samurai in particular. The major problem is it doesn´t explain the distinctions between the different categories that is lists. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I see the whole section to which the mentioned paragraph belongs contains quite some citations, but it would probably help to move the citations which exemplify/clarify the terms you highlighted closer to the individual claims in the article. SmallMender (talk) 09:50, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Most of the citations are in Japanese. I can’t read Japanese. I read the English language source, and it doesn’t really fit in context. Morillo is talking about the difficulties of translating military terms, and his point is that samurai doesn’t describe military function but rather social function. A Samurai might be a horse archer, but he can also fight on foot with a musket. The rest of the paragraph focuses on the social context of samurai. https://www.japanesewiki.com gave me some of the meanings of the terms. It is really about the (military) household of bushi or samurai. According to Morillo, Bushi means warrior class and not the generic term for warrior. So ashigaru and bushi could both be samurai. If I understand japanesewiki.com correctly, then samurai referred to servants. What we think of as samurai are the servants of the Daimyo, but the servants of the samurai were either also called samurai or were the samurai. So possibly, the high status warriors are the Bushi, who were servants of the Daimyo or Shogun, but they also had their own servants, who weren’t Bushi, but were samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 10:56, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I understand the confusion. I had a look at Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English sources, but there is no requirement to specifically insert the original text of the source + translation, unless it's a quotation or a discussion about the source itself.

Regarding the general confusion, I think the article might be due for a clean-up and perhaps it might make sense to first sort out the individual "sub-types" of samurai like ashigaru + add articles or sections into Samurai where appropriate for the other ranks and then proceed to the main article.

My long-term plan is to help as well, however I am still learning the ropes by working with smaller articles. I could help tackling the samurai "sub-types", though. SmallMender (talk) 11:30, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

During the Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods, wars were fought on a large scale, requiring the bushi (samurai) to hire townspeople and peasants as fighters and porters on annual contracts. The townspeople and peasants temporarily employed by the bushi fell into the category of bukehōkōnin (servants of the buke), of which the highest rank was wakatō, and others were ashigaru, chūgen, komono, and arashiko. Wakatō and ashigaru were fighters, while the others were porters. Since only wakatō were considered bushi, wakatō were the lowest-ranking bushi. The law of 1591 refers to the wakatō as "samurai". In other words, the townspeople and peasants temporarily employed by the bushi were also "samurai" at that time. The description of the highest-ranking part-time bushi was incorrect and has been removed. My point was that the wakatō had the highest status among the bukehōkōnin (servants of the buke).--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 05:45, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I strongly recommend that how the definition of "samurai" has changed over time be written in one section. If the different definitions of "samurai" in different periods are divided into separate sections for each period in the History section, most people will not be able to understand how the definition of "samurai" has changed over time.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 06:07, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree, I would go further and say that the history section focuses too much on general Japanese history and not on the changing defintion of a samurai.

hereTshould be a short summary of the changes, and then each section should go into detail.

Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Article size

This article is too big in a way that makes it disorganized and therefore both difficult to read and to maintain. WP:TOOBIG I did a size check with prosesize and found that it has 14,170 words, putting it close to the "Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed" category. At the same time it could go more in depth in some areas. A lot of the sections could be their own article, and many are. We don´t need to list every Japanese weapon, foreign samurai or charts about military formations. The history part as written reads as if it is the general history of Japan more than the history of samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Samurai are best described as members of a warrior class.

Samurai are best described as members of a class. That the samurai make up a class is in a lot of sources, including Morillio, although he seems to have a minority view on the social component of samurai. Calling them soldiers is problematic, because they were retainers and not professional soldiers, additionally many didn’t fight. Their classification as a warrior class is based on how they saw themselves. Not all combatants were samurai, and not all samurai were combatants. I am not sure all samurai were retainers. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I think there could be some WP:OR or WP:SYNTH issues with this (a class is not necessary the same as "the warrior class"). Can you list the exact sources?

I think this description could exclude a lot of people who qualify, and/or include people who may not qualify, as opposed to the current one which makes the relationship to a lord clear. Symphony Regalia (talk) 10:53, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

The description of samurai as definitionally those "who served as retainers to lords (including daimyo)" is patently incorrect: the very existence of rōnin, as masterless samurai, means that one does not need to serve a lord in order to be a samurai. Moreover, those who were daimyō or even shōgun were themselves of the samurai social class, despite not serving as retainers to another lord.

Your re-addition of the quoted text is therefore logically and historically incorrect. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

First, it looks like you are just vetoing change again, and that you are demanding I have sources, while providing none of your own. I think we need to discuss every point of the changes I made, because you reverted all of it.

Samurai are not soldiers. The exact definition of soldier varies, but they are often seen as professional warriors, professional meaning paid. In books such as The Soldier in Later Medieval England[26], spend a lot of time discussing the problems with using the word soldier and then do it anyway. However, that book is discussing high ranking vassals, retainers, indentured recruits, hired mercenaries and feudal levies. We are discussing samurai/bushi, which seemed to mostly have been retainers, but many had non-military duties, and may have included the lords themselves. Furthermore, I haven’t seen a source that defines them as soldiers.

As has been discussed elsewhere on this talkpage, this article treats Bushi and Samurai as the same thing, as do many English language works. Bushi is often translated as warrior. For a long time, I thought this meant that Bushi was the generic term for fighter, but it isn’t. It indicates a warrior by virtue of his class. Samurai armies also contained armed peasants, but the peasants weren’t Bushi. When using a source, it is important to be aware of how they are using the word Samurai. Morillo treats Samurai and Bushi as two different things, and is specifically talking about the Sengoku period.

As far as serving a lord, samurai and bushi are much older terms than daimyo. The bushi predated the Heian period, and many were lords themselves. I am not sure when exactly daimyo came into being, but they seem to have been most important in the Sengoku and Edo periods. Then there is the question of if the Shogun is a daimyo. Granted, Webster makes this mistake and in the first definition, defines the Samurai as serving a daimyo and following Bushido. That is very much an Edo period definition and very much flawed. Webster's second definition; as a military aristocracy, is better.

The idea that you don’t know that Samurai are a warrior class, astounds me. The fact that you except that the samurai could be a class, but that they might not be a military class baffles me. What kind of class do you think they should be? I think this thing almost falls into common knowledge. Sure, there are some people who think that samurai are simply swordsmen that follow a code, but there are also people who don’t know that the Pope is catholic. Bushi is a social class defined by warrior status. How explicit of a source do you need for that? Tinynanorobots (talk) 07:09, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

@Tinynanorobots, samurai and bushi in the context of this article are terms specifically describing phenomena in the history of Japanese society. Relying on English-language dictionaries for these terms thus seems misguided, as the English terms and the Japanese terms are likely to have some mismatch: not least as the meanings of these terms changed over time.

For instance, during the Edo period, the only people who could serve in any capacity as bushi (professional warriors) were definitionally restricted to members of the samurai social class — no one else was legally allowed to carry weapons of war. This led to the common conflation of these two terms, which persists in much modern non-academic usage. However, during earlier time periods, bushi and samurai were not synonymous: when we first see the emergence of the samurai social class in the Heian period, these were petty nobility of the fifth or sixth imperial ranking, generally working as household staff of higher-ranking noble families and often not operating in any military or warrior role.

----

Regarding Morillo (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281209156), on page 178, he explicitly states (bolding mine):

Finally there is the term samurai. This noun derives from the verb saburau, to serve, and it is again a social marker, though it marks social function and not class. [...]

This claim that "samurai" is not a social class does not agree with other things I've read, nor does it agree with our article text. Consequently, I think Morillo is the wrong source to use as a reference in the second paragraph of our page, which describes "samurai" as a class. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:55, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that Webster’s is a poor source. It can give us an idea of what samurai means in common usage, but especially the first definition is terrible. I thought Symphony might like it, though, and the second definition explicitly says that the samurai are a military class.

I like the big point that Morillo is making, but I have the same thoughts about his understanding. I also think the article he wrote is quite old, so he may have changed his understanding. His understanding seems based off of the etymology, and therefore he overlooks the semantic shift the word underwent by the time of the Senguko period. The other sources we have in the article also seem to conflict about what exactly the term samurai meant and when it changed its meaning. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:52, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Foreign-born Samurai Section

I propose we move the entire foreign born samurai section and merge it with List of foreign-born samurai in Japan This article is too long, and we don’t and don’t need a list section. Tinynanorobots (talk) 11:27, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Support in case this is a merge proposal for reasons mentioned. Related to this, the Samurai#Famous samurai section could be moved/merged elsewhere as well. SmallMender (talk) 11:54, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Were all Samurai retainers?

The question is simple, but I believe the answer is complicated. Of course, Ronin are famous for being masterless samurai (although, they often had a master, but it was contract work). However, the samurai of Iga are said to have got rid of their overlord and therefore had no lord. My guess is that because they had land and weren’t reliant on a stipend, they could remain. Furthermore, high ranking lords are called samurai, especially in the context of samurai clans. It is also unclear what lord means. A mounted samurai had his own samurai as a retainer. Does that make him a lord? Tinynanorobots (talk) 22:29, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the sources are overall clear on this. They are not synonyms, but scholars seem to agree on the requirement of a relationship to a lord. Not all in service of lords were samurai, but all samurai became one in the context of service to a lord. Also, you cannot become a ronin without previously having had a lord. Symphony Regalia (talk) 01:14, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you have at least one source from a scholar on this? A lot of sources refer to Oba Nobunaga as a samurai, was he a retainer? Also, because Bushi is stated as a synonym, then everything in the lead should fit the definition of Bushi as well as Samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:58, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

You'd get blood out of a stone before getting a reply regarding this. This user was recently site blocked from the Japanese wiki for brute forcing edits in the Japanese Yasuke page, sockpuppetry, harassing other users who were against their behaviour via false accusations and maliciously reverting edits of said Japanese users.

This user was previously under an RfC and a site block request. During the duration of both instances, this user made no attempt to defend themselves, ignoring both requests for comments, while continuing edits on the English side of things, only the socks gave replies to both incidences. The fact that this user is still allowed to freely edit articles, while still being hostile and with no improvement to their behaviour after 5 blocks (2 for EN, 3 for JP) for misconduct is rather mind boggling. 14.192.210.103 (talk) 03:17, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, the user keeps reverting my edits, and has behaved aggressively, and I don’t know what to do about it. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:11, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

None of this is true.

14.192.210.103 is a high risk, blacklisted proxy IP with a fraud score of 89/100 which leads me to believe this is an involved editor spreading false allegations. Symphony Regalia (talk) 08:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, then this should be reported. False accusations like this shouldn’t be tolerated. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, a few that brooch this topic are.

• Nihon shi jiten. Ōbunsha, 旺文社. (Shohan. 3-teiban ed.). Ōbunsha. 2000. 家臣団.
• Sekai daihyakkajiten 2 世界大百科事典 第2版. Heibonsha 平凡社. 2006. 家中, 家来.
• Vaporis, Constantine Nomikos (14 March 2019). Samurai An Encyclopedia of Japan's Cultured Warriors
• Morillo, Stephen. “Milites, Knights and Samurai: Military Terminology, Comparative History, and the Problem of Translation

Example from Morillo: the term refers to "a retainer of a lord - usually ... the retainer of a daimyo" and that the term samurai "marks social function and not class", and "all sorts of soldiers, including pikemen, bowmen, musketeers and horsemen were samurai". Symphony Regalia (talk) 09:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I have already pointed out the problem with Morillo, if you could provide me with quotes and translations for the other sources, that would help. Thanks. Tinynanorobots (talk) 11:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

A lot of sources refer to Oba Nobunaga as a samurai, was he a retainer Legally, yes. Daimyo were retainers ostensibly to the Emperor, but in practice to the Shogunate. Nobunaga even installed a puppet Shogun in Ashikaga Yoshiaki at one point. When Nobunaga abolished the Ashikaga Shogunate, he still retained the court position Udaijin per Osamu, Wakita (1982), "The Emergence of the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan: From Oda to Tokugawa", The Journal of Japanese Studies, 8 (2): 343–67, doi:10.2307/132343. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 02:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it is misleading, to make part of the definition of the samurai that they were retainers. Apparently, multiple Japanese words are translated as retainer or vassal, but they can describe different relationships. Especially because Japanese feudalism is not like European feudalism and less contractual. Part of what Conlan talks about in Largesse and the Limits of Loyalty is that the gokenin weren't contractually required to provide military service, but that they were rewarded for their service. There were also non gokenin, especially in the earlier eras. I think it is wrong to describe all samurai as retainers serving lords, because a lot of them were lords themselves, and the "retainer" status more a formality. The lowest bushi had at least some genin. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:53, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the main point, against mentioning being retainers in the lead, is that the lead refers to bushi as well as samurai. I think that samurai probably had the connotation of retainer, but many bushi weren’t retainer. Also, saying that they were retainers serving a lord is misleading for some periods. A lot of different Japanese terms are translated as vassal or retainer. However, often the retainers/vassals acted autonomously. Gokenin were vassals, but they often acted in their own interest, switched sides and served cadets fighting against the Shogun. I am not even sure who was their lord on paper. https://www.academia.edu/43024373/Conlan_Largesse_and_the_Limits_of_Loyalty Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I have been reading The Taming of the Samurai, which appears to be a standard work on samurai. It describes Samurai as landed lords, not servants of lords. Granted, this is under the context or being under the protection of higher ranking nobles, but still, they are not defined by their service, at least in the early periods. It seems that you are relying on the Edo Period definition of samurai. Tinynanorobots (talk) 07:15, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Samurai were often made lords, but this does not necessarily preclude the relationship to one. E.Q The members of the Tokugawa clan and fudai daimyo were appointed to posts at the top of the ruling structure, such as karō and bugyō. On the other hand, former retainers (kashin) of the local lord class (zaichi ryōshu-sō), who had served under Tokugawa clan, were appointed as tozama daimyo and kunimochi daimyo.

Might help if you have an exact quote. Symphony Regalia (talk) 09:09, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

See, you are talking about the Tokugawa period, where yes it was true that pretty much all samurai were retainers that served daimyo. However, this was different in earlier periods. Part of this is confusing because bushi and samurai are used interchangeably, but that is also an Edo period thing. In the Heian period, for example, the word samurai was barely used, but was originally referred to specific warriors with court rank. So a Gokenin, in the Edo period, would be a samurai ranking below a hatamoto, but in the 14th century, he would be a land holding lord that owed service to the court, but would effectively choose which side he would fight on. At the same time, the gokenin wouldn’t be considered a samurai. This is why it is important to look at the context of the paragraph that you are editing. Tinynanorobots (talk) 11:47, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

"the Samurai clearly emerged as a class of landed lords" https://www.google.de/books/edition/The_Taming_of_the_Samurai/CL_8DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samurai+were+landed++lords&pg=PA53&printsec=frontcover

"Before the unification of Japan around 1600 under Tokugawa, samurai were in essence landed military lords..." https://www.google.de/books/edition/Irregular_Armed_Forces_and_their_Role_in/D2YWVkj25zEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samurai+were+landed++lords&pg=PA126&printsec=frontcover

Here are some other links:

https://www.google.de/books/edition/State_Formation_Property_Relations_the_D/MHlACwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=samurai+were+landed++lords&pg=PP16&printsec=frontcover

This one is interesting, it doesn’t even mention the word retainer, but it does talk about the various words and meaning for samurai. Clearly, in English, samurai refers not just to retainers, but to high ranking lords. https://www.google.de/books/edition/History_of_the_Samurai/qXvgDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

"Provincial figures, particularly those without the office of jitōō, favoured the term gokenin as a social marker. This means honorable houseman, and became the aspired status for descendants of those who had been known as zaichōō kanjin. Unlike the clearly defined holders of jitōō offices, a select group whose holdings were invariably formalised by the possession of documents of investiture or wills from previous jitōō holders, gokenin were determined on an ad hoc basis by protectors [shugo], who were responsible for policing the provinces and maintaining order. These protectors created a list of all prominent locals in a province, and those on the list became gokenin. With this designation came responsibilities, for those so named had to perform guard duty, or repair dykes, arrest criminals, or otherwise help to keep a province at peace." https://www.academia.edu/42268590/The_Rise_of_Warriors_During_the_Warring_States_Period

So gokenin were local lords, who were tied to a specific overlord, but rather switched allegiances based on their own interest. Granted, Conlan also says that the "dependent followers" aka retainers of the gokenin were called samurai. This lines up with what Turnbull has said. The issue is, that as the article is written, bushi and samurai are treated as the same thing. There isn’t even agreement on what samurai means in the sources. Most English language sources don’t make the distinction. Tinynanorobots (talk) 12:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It is difficult to find a source that says that not all samurai/bushi are retainers, but I have collected some sources that define samurai, and they don't mention retainer. They either say member of the warrior class or a warrior. There are also books about samurai that don't even contain the word "retainer". Finally, there are sources that mention samurai as retainers, but put it clearly in the Tokugawa period. I will list the sources:

• World History Encylcopedia: "The Samurai (also bushi) were a class of warriors that arose in the 10th century in Japan and which performed military service until the 19th century."
• Britannica: "samurai, member of the Japanese warrior caste. The term samurai was originally used to denote the aristocratic warriors (bushi), but it came to apply to all the members of the warrior class that rose to power in the 12th century and dominated the Japanese government until the Meiji Restoration in 1868."
• Samurai, A Concise History by Michael Wert doesn't mention retainer.
• History of the Samurai, Legendary Warriors of Japan by Jonathan Lopez-Vera doesn' mention retainers either
• Once and Future Warriors: The Samurai in Japanese History by Karl Friday refers to samurai as warriors in the first few lines. Only later, when talking about the changes during the Tokugawa period does he say "The samurai thus became a legally-defined, legally-privileged, hereditary class, consisting of a very few enfeofed lords and a much larger body of stipended retainers". From the context of the article, it is clear that previously many "samurai" were land holding warriors, and while vassals of the shogunate, they didn't "serve lords" outside of occasionally following them into battle. Other sources that I have already posted argue even further that these warriors were autonymous, and would either stay home or choose to follow whichever Shogunate offical they wanted. Tinynanorobots (talk) 08:19, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Kotobank as a source

I see that as a source, Kotobank is cited a lot. It seems to not actually be a source, but rather an collection of sources. Therefore, I think we shouldn´t use it. Any thoughts? Tinynanorobots (talk) 13:14, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

For quick references in Talk discussions I think it should be acceptable, however for specific in-article terms and translations, a dictionary sourced in Kotobank should rather be used. SmallMender (talk) 07:06, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I counted 17 citations that use Kotobank, If no one has an objection, I will begin to remove them later this week. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:24, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds great! From my side I will take a look at other articles which also use Kotobank and add proper dictionary links. SmallMender (talk) 17:17, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 August 2024

Kitex2002 (talk) 05:36, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Why do you want it to be protected? I was actually leaning towards removing the section. Tinynanorobots (talk) 05:44, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

This reply appears to be in the wrong place? PianoDan (talk) 20:37, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Samurai Museums: Samurai Museum Berlin - Peter Janssen Collection

 Done PianoDan (talk) 20:39, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Yasuke has an RfC

Yasuke has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Brocade River Poems 02:31, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Feudal Japan

Is feudal Japan the right term? There is some criticism of the term, although still in use. It seems also to be defined as the time that samurai existed, so it is a bit circular to say that Samurai/Bushi are warriors in Feudal Japan. It also covers several periods. Other terms(Pre-modern, medieval etc.) seem to be more common in sources. Here are some sources:

https://www.academia.edu/11191366/_Feudal_Japan_Historiographical_Construction_or_Historical_Reality

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00664.x Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:19, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

If possible, what about using specific period names if reliable sources give period names or even approximate dates? That is what I tried doing in other articles. SmallMender (talk) 07:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Given that samurai as a class were abolished in the Meiji Restoration I think it's an appropriate term that covers the relevant eras. Symphony Regalia (talk) 07:53, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

If you click Feudal Japan, you are redirected to the wikipage where it says the feudal period was from the Kamakura period till 1600. Other sources give the time period as from the Kamakura to the Meiji Restoration. Our article has the Samurai/bushi originating in the Heian period. Do you see the problem? We also have the date range in the next sentence. I get the feeling that you keep reverting my edits because they are my edits, and it has effectively become so that I always need your approval to make a change. Tinynanorobots (talk) 08:17, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Other sources give the time period as from the Kamakura to the Meiji Restoration

This seems to be the generally accepted definition among scholars (I would not go by how the section headers are structured in the History of Japan article). Academia generally marks the Meiji Restoration as the end of the feudalism in Japan, as that is when the feudal systems were actually abolished. Some sources will say until the 17th century, but many say until the 19th century. The next sentence disambiguates it.

Is there a particular issue with the term? Something like "pre-modern Japan" is also an option, but "feudal" is more descriptive as the function of samurai were tied to the feudal structure of society itself.

Our article has the Samurai/bushi originating in the Heian period. Do you see the problem?

This article has predecessors/foundations originating in the Heian period, but samurai as we know them originating in the Kamakura period, which lines up quite nicely.

I get the feeling that you keep reverting my edits because they are my edits, and it has effectively become so that I always need your approval to make a change.

Not at all. You've made a large number of changes to the article, and I encourage you to do so. Please do.

For the most part the only changes I've touched have been what appears to be an attempt to brute force through first sentence changes concerning retainer usage. Symphony Regalia (talk) 09:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I see the lead has changed, but now it doesn’t match the sources. The sources treat the Heian period warriors as samurai. Which is typical. Only some academic sources just refer to them as bushi or samurai. I am not sure what "Samurai as we know means". The Kamakura is the beginning of the Shogunate, and when scholars have said that the Samurai became the ruling class. However, this has been disputed in more recent scholarship. That is, the Shogunate was an important change for the military class and allowed them to have more power. However, the power shift from the Imperial Court to the Shogunate was gradual, and more gradual than usually depicted in the pop history books.

What does brute force mean? This is why I feel like you are watching over my edits, and I have to always seek your approval. That is not a reason that actually has to do with the article. It is that you suspect I made the change for the wrong reason. You revert my edit, because I keep trying to make it. I try and discuss it. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:26, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The origin of Bushi/Samurai

I found an interesting source for the origin of Bushi. It is an undergraduate dissertation, and although not perfect, it has the advantage of comparing the opinions of different scholars.[[27]] It is a good starting point, and it lists sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:35, 14 November 2024 (UTC)