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Terminology for figures within the military power structure varied
during specific eras. First used in a Heian period (794-1190) document,
the term samurai derives from a classical Japanese verb, saburau (to
serve), and aptly describes how duty bound warriors to their provincial
leaders. At the same time, the term bushi (literally men, shi, of the martial arts,
bu) was also used to describe warriors, although the word samurai was
used to distinguish armed figures who served the aristocracy.
Under the military rule that ensued from the Kamakura period (1192-1333)
onward, soldiers holding an official rank designated by the shōgun or
the imperial court were considered samurai. After reunification was
achieved in the Edo period (1603-1868), the term samurai was used to
indicate warriors of a comparatively high (upper-class) social status,
although by that time many of these samurai no longer served a
provincial leader 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 shōgun or
overseen on his behalf by a powerful provincial leader, 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. The term daimyo was not
used extensively to refer to provincial leaders until the Warring States
period (1467-1568), when these domain rules began to direct regional
polities.
Before the Edo period the 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 socio-economic
classification with the shōgun at the pinnacle. Rank and class
hierarchies, as stipulated by the shōgunate, were assiduously enforced.
Although the various ranks were based on military terms, most warriors
served the Tokugawa shōgunate as administrators or bureaucrats, not as
military retainers. From the Muromachi period (1336-1573) the samurai
who were released from obligation to a daimyo due to death or loss of
stipend were known as masterless bushi, called rōnin (literally, ‘one who
wanders’). Often dissatisfied with their financial situation and lack of
status, masterless bushi were frequently involved in uprisings such
as the Keian Incident of 1651. The Tokugawa shogunate strove to
reposition these disenfranchised individuals, but many rōnin abandoned
their 'samurai' status or eventually died out.
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