The Society for Japanese Studies

Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan by Karl F. Friday
Review by: J. P. Lamers
Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 2005), pp. 466-469
Published by: The Society for Japanese Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25064590 .
Accessed: 08/03/2013 07:12
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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

The Society for Japanese Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Journal of Japanese Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 07:12:46 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

466 Journal of Japanese Studies

31:2 (2005)

Samurai, Warfare and theState inEarly Medieval Japan. By Karl F Friday.

Routledge, New York, 2004. xiv, 236 pages. $33.95, paper.
Reviewed by
J. P. Lamers

Royal Netherlands Embassy inTokyo

In his new book, Karl Friday describes the rise of the Japanese military es
tate from the tenth to the fourteenth century as an evolutionary process, re

jecting the idea thatany "dramatic revolution" led Japan's celebrated samu
rai to dominance.

Friday takes thepoint of view not only thatwar can "create, define and
defend both states and peoples" but also that society and political system
can influence the shape and purposes of warfare. In his chosen time frame,
Friday contends, warfare in Japan gradually extended in scope and intensity,
but essentially remained the same until the end of the fourteenth century.

Given the posited mutual interaction between society and war, this conclu
sion would logically lead us to think that Japanese society did not change
dramatically in the period under study.But in seeming or partial contradic

tion of his own startingpoint, Friday concludes (on p. 166) thatwhile "the
fourteenthcenturywas an era of thoroughgoing social and political change,
with attendant consequences for the conduct of war," at the same timemil
itary "goals and tactics did not change in any fundamental way" (p. 168).
By employing the phrase "early medieval Japan" prominently in his
title,Friday implicitly links his work to a revisionist view of premodern Jap
anese history,pioneered among others by the late Jeffrey
Mass, which posits

that the Japanese warrior class did not reach complete dominance before the
fourteenthcentury and that itdid so largely due to thepolitical convulsions

and

constant

warfare

of

that age.

Yet

Friday

stakes

out what

may

be

de

scribed as a safemiddle ground. Rather than having the Japanese Middle

Ages startonly in the fourteenthcentury and end perforce in themiddle of
the sixteenth,he speaks of an earlymedieval period that lasted from roughly

the tenthto the fourteenthcentury.The latemedieval period falls outside the

scope of his book.

For any study of the antecedents of the Japanese samurai, the so-called
ritsury?military system is a logical startingpoint. In his introduction, and
later in chapter two,Friday outlines how this imported system quickly lost
its efficacy in the changing Japanese situation and how from the eighth to
themiddle of the tenthcentury "the courtmoved from a conscripted, pub
licly trainedmilitary force to one composed of privately trained, privately

equipped professional mercenaries" (p. 6). The ground is familiar here, both
to Friday and to readers of his earlier work.

This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 07:12:46 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

467

Review Section

Concurrent with and contributing to the above development was the

emergence of a provincial warrior elite thatmaintained close tieswith the
central government and its leading court nobles. The provincial warriors can
be divided into twomain categories, one tracing their lineage back to local

chieftains of the prt-ritsury? period, the other being the "descendants of

cadet branches of central court houses?the Minamoto, the Fujiwara, the
Tachibana and theTaira?that had established bases in theprovinces" (p. 9).
Yet the emergence of a warrior order should not be equated with the on
set of feudalism in Japan?as
situation.

ropean
ment,

Friday

the Kamakura

has often been done in parallel with theEu

bakufu,

that even

out

points

should

seen

be

first warrior

Japan's
more

as

an

govern
and

outgrowth

supplement to theolder imperial polity than as an immediate challenge to it.

The balance of power between the civil and military authorities continued
until the end of the fourteenth century, fromwhich time onward warriors
and not courtiers dominated the scene in Japan. At that same juncture, the

preferred battle technique of the earlymedieval samurai,mounted archery,

made way for new strategic and tactical paradigms thatwere focused on
the capture or defense of territoryand based on themassive deployment of
infantry.

Friday analyzes his subject of earlymedieval Japanese warfare fromfive

how war
angles:
were
how
used,

was
war

legitimized,
was
actually

how

armies

fought,

were

raised,

and what

were

which

weapons

the rules

of

the

game, if any. Japanese notions of what constituted just war found theirori
gins inChinese ideas imported during the formation of the imperial state in
the seventh century.There could be no legitimatemilitary conflict outside

the sanction of the emperor and his ministers. Unauthorized military action
was by definition suspect and unjust. The interesting thing in the Japanese
situationwas that the state early on disbanded its conscript army, relying in
stead on privatemilitary resources. Even though the central imperial gov
ernment relinquished control over the actual application ofmilitary force, it
clung to itsmonopoly on the legitimization of war well into the fourteenth
century.
bushi

One
lacked

reason
much

for this, according

sense

to Friday,

of class-consciousness,

was

that early

in other words,

samurai
of

or

social

solidarity.Divided among themselves, they could only be organized into

largermilitary wholes under figures of superior status, normally powerful
provincial leaders or thewarrior aristocrats of the capital known as miyako
no musha. And even when warriors had established theirown mechanisms
formobilization, formalized under theKamakura shogunate, "the essential
premise of central control over the right to violence remained intact" (p. 25).
that the central govern
Itwas finally in theNanbokuch? period (1336-92)
ment's monopoly on the legitimization of violence virtually collapsed, in
themain because there existed two competing structures of imperial au

This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 07:12:46 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

468 Journal of Japanese Studies

31:2 (2005)

thority,theNorthern and the Southern Courts, allowing for almost any fight
to be justified in the name of the state.
The rewards thatmembers of the emerging warrior class desired and ob
tained in returnfor theirmilitary service also bound them closely to the au
thorityof the imperial state. Throughout the early medieval

sought
(p. 55),

of

patronage
"long-term
or more
direct rewards

careers

their

such

as

rank,

court

by

court

period they

powers-that-be"
of

administrative

titles,

fices in local government, and rights to income from land.At the same time,
the early samurai armies were loosely organized coalitions, temporarilyknit
together from small warrior bands, and were mostly not sustained beyond
thepurpose of a specific campaign or expedition.
In discussing theweaponry of early medieval samurai, Friday displays
an impressive technical knowledge. Though perhaps not intentionally,his

treatment goes a long way to debunk the idea that the Japanese mounted
archers practiced "probably themost deadly form of battle known to hu
manity before the advent of gunpowder."1 Their armor was costly and
heavy, their horses littlemore than outsized ponies short on stamina and

speed, and theirbows only effective at very short range. On the battlefield,
the early

bushi

were

to coordinate

unable

any massive

of vio

application

lence. Their duels on horseback, mostly fought individually or in small

groups, oddly resembled "dogfighting aviators" (p. 107). Shaped by politi
cal, organizational, and technological conditions, these tactics allowed war
riors

to pursue

a maximum

their prime

of

objectives

individual

honor

and

to

reputation

degree.

Another idea thatFriday refers to the scrap heap of history is thatearly

medieval Japanese warfare was ritualized and formalized. The behavioral
picture,

according

to Friday,

was

lot

less

romantic

than what

has

com

monly been suggested. Honor was a key driver for Japanese warriors, but
their hunger

for success

was

often

greater

than

their stock

concept

of "unfair

of scruples.

Con

sequently, the early samurai preferably used surprise attacks, lacked

"sportsmanship" in theirconduct ofwarfare, broke truces and promises with
impunity,
custom

and had?in
of ransoming

short?no
prisoners

of war,

who

were

tactics."

for the most

There

was

part

summar

no

ily executed, or a widely accepted moral obligation to "separate non-com

batants from proper belligerents" (p. 155). Friday argues pro reo that the
samurai's capacity for indiscriminate killing arose out of indifference,a gen
eral detachment from life (his own included), rather than from outright cru
elty.The question is, however, does itmatter?

1. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan's Military, 500
1300 (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1995 paperback
edition), p. 10.

This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 07:12:46 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Review Section

469

Overall, Friday's is an excellent treatmentof a hot topic. He has devel

oped a rich picture of "earlymedieval" Japanese warriors and warfare, while
returningat every bend and corner inhis story tohis central thesis of thepo
litical primacy of the imperial court. This consistency of argument makes
for a very solid piece ofwork. In the end, and apart from a number of typos,

thereare only two queries worth raising. First, Friday's qualification of early
Japanese warriors as "mercenaries" does not sit easy with me. It is a term
thatevokes strong connotations of theGerman landsknechts or Swiss troops

active inRenaissance Europe. More important, it is doubtful that the Japa

nese samurai were quite so flexible in theirallegiances as, for instance, the

professional soldiery thatmanned the earlymodern European armies. From

the Japanese sources quoted by Friday, one does not get much sense that
bushi were indeed ready to change sides for a fewmore pieces of silver or
gave up when rewards were not forthcoming.The Japanese did not develop

the businesslike practice of ransoming prisoners?something

thatwould
have been logical for contract fighters. So if the samurai are to be charac
terized as mercenaries, we firstneed to pause and consider what thatmeans.
Second, Friday argues thatmounted archery remained the dominant

battle technique in Japanwell into the fourteenthcentury. In this conclusion,

he is supported by recent publications of other scholars in the field, for in
stance by Thomas Conlan.2 Thus considered, the time frame for this study,
the tenth to late fourteenthcenturies, is rightlychosen as a coherent period.
That much having been said, however, our appetite formore is whetted to
an almost intolerable degree. Friday does sketch the fourteenth-century
developments thatwere to take the Japanese military furthertoward becom
ing an efficientfightingmachine. But fromwhere he ends his narrative, it
still seems a longmarch to themass infantryarmies thatbegan to dominate
Japanese warfare from the Onin War onward and continued to do so
throughout the Sengoku period and beyond. In that sense, I can only regret
thatFriday did not stick to thenotion he earlier voiced inhisHired Swords,3
that the rise of Japan's bushi is "a tale of the thirteenththrough sixteenth

centuries."

2. Thomas Donald Conlan, The State of War: The Violent Order of Fourteenth-Century
Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University ofMichigan, 2003), p. 72.
3. Karl F. Friday, Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power inEarly Japan (Stan
ford: Stanford University Press, 1992), p. 170.

This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 07:12:46 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions