samurai, knights of feudal Japan, retainers of the daimyo. This aristocratic warrior class arose during the 12th-century wars between the Taira and Minamoto clans and was consolidated in the Tokugawa period. Samurai were privileged to wear two swords, and at one time had the right to cut down any commoner who offended them. They cultivated the martial virtues, indifference to pain or death, and unfailing loyalty to their overlords (see bushido). Samurai were the dominant group in Japan, and the masterless samurai, the ronin, were a serious social problem. Under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867), the samurai were removed from direct control of the villages, moved into the domain castle towns, and given government stipends. They were encouraged to take up bureaucratic posts. As a result, they lost a measure of their earlier martial skill. Dissatisfied samurai from the Choshu and Satsuma domains of W Japan were largely responsible for overthrowing the shogun in 1867. When feudalism was abolished after the Meiji restoration, some former samurai also took part in the Satsuma revolt under Takamori Saigo in 1877. As statesmen, soldiers, and businessmen, former samurai took the lead in building modern Japan.

Member of the Japanese warrior class. In early Japanese history, culture was associated with the imperial court, and warriors were accorded low status. The samurai became important with the rise in private estates (shōen), which needed military protection. Their power increased, and when Minamoto Yoritomo became the first shogun (military ruler) of the Kamakura period (1192–1333), they became the ruling class. They came to be characterized by the ethic of bushidō, which stressed discipline, stoicism, and service. Samurai culture developed further under the Ashikaga shoguns of the Muromachi period (1338–1573). During the long interval of peace of the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), they were largely transformed into civil bureaucrats. As government employees, they received a stipend that was worth less and less in the flourishing merchant economy of the 18th–19th centuries in Edo (Tokyo) and Omacrsaka. By the mid-19th century, lower-ranking samurai, eager for societal change and anxious to create a strong Japan in the face of Western encroachment, overthrew the shogunal government in the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Feudal distinctions were abolished in 1871. Some samurai rebelled (see Saigō Takamori), but most threw themselves into the task of modernizing Japan. Seealso daimyo; han.

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