Category: Warriors

While it was considered inappropriate for women born into Samurai clans to train in the martial arts, such things were not impossible, especially when weaker clans needed every warrior they could muster. Onna-bugeisha, sometimes erroneously called female Samurai, protected their household from soldiers, bandits and brigands. Some would trained in the yari, others the naginata, […]

As the country entered an enduring phase of stability and peace, without even any real foreign threat, warriors became superfluous. There were a number of peasant uprisings to put down, their lords’ honour to uphold, and a bit of policing, but little work for real warriors. Instead, they became bureaucrats and administrators. Their battles became […]

The warrior class of feudal Japan between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries. The famed daimyo Takeda Shingen introduced the massed cavalry charge and Takeda cavalry were feared throughout Japan. The Samurai, the warrior class of ancient Japan, dominated that country’s political and social structure for centuries. The Samurai came into existence in the early thirteenth […]

The Samurai, the warrior class of ancient Japan, dominated that country’s political and social structure for centuries. The Samurai came into existence in the early thirteenth century with the establishment of a feudal society in Japan. As in medieval Europe, the large landowners dominated the economy in an agricultural society and therefore had sufficient monetary […]