Samurai

From their emergence around the early Kamakura Period until their last days during Meiji Restoration, the samurai (warriors) were the highest and most influential class in Japan. This fact alone illustrates the martial nature of Japanese government in feudal times. Any study of Japanese history will reveal that the course of events in the country during this time was overwhelmingly controlled by the warrior class. In studying history, the samurai are always easy to distinguish from other classes because they were the only ones to have two names: both their esteemed family name and their personal name.

Being the most priveleged class, the samurai had both the greatest rights and the greatest responsibilities of any class. Following Hideyoshi's 1588 "Sword Hunt", only the samurai were allowed to carry weapons. The two swords (the katana and the wakizashi) carried on the samurai's left side became symbols of power that the lower classes had no choice but to respect. Should a peasant (that is, a non-samurai) offend a samurai, the latter had the right to punish the offender by death; there is one story told where one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's retainers cut an old merchant clean in two for trying to take advantage of Ieyasu.

Ronin

Ronin is the term used to describe a masterless samurai. During the peaceful centuries of the Edo Period, these grew to great numbers. Many of the ronin used their time constructively, working as writers, Confucian scholars or teachers, martial arts instructors, or as bodyguards. Truth be told, many of the greatest writings and works of art from this period were produced by ronin. One thing they could not do was to take up farming or any of the merchant crafts, as this would be considered a drop in class. As a result, many ronin, being on fixed incomes, became poor and unhappy. This is in stark contrast to the portrait painted by some samurai movies of a romantic lone warrior travelling across the countryside and engaging in swordfighting duels.