NOVA | Secrets of the Samurai Sword | History of the Samurai (non-Flash) (2025)

Thosewho serve
8th–10th centuries

Theterm "samurai" comes from the Japanese word saburau, meaning "to serve," and was firstused in A.D. 702 to describe mid-to-low-ranking court administrators and,later, armed imperial guards. Their title was mostly metaphorical, referring totheir loyalty to the emperor. By the 10th century, when provincial governorsbegan offering heavy rewards for military service, the samurai as we know themcame into being. The term eventually gained strong aristocratic overtones andbrought great prestige to the samurai's lineage—so much so thatwarriors would recite their ancestry on the battlefield.

Left: A samurai in traditional armor, 1860s

Rivalclans
Mid-12thcentury

Bythe 11th century, powerful military clans had begun vying for power. Twoparticularly strong family groups, the Taira and the Minamoto, stood out fromthe rest and went on to influence Japanese politics for centuries to come. Eachtook part in the Hogen Rebellion of 1156, a civil war fought over the disputedimperial line of succession following the death of the emperor Toba. The conflictresulted in the Taira rising to power to form the first samurai-led governmentin the history of Japan.

Left: Taira no Shigemori, eldest son of the Taira patriarch during the HogenRebellion

TheGempei War
Late12th century

In1180, the Minamoto clan resumed hostilities with the Taira in what became thefirst armed conflict of the Gempei War (so-named for the Chinese reading ofboth clans' names). The war spelled defeat for the Taira and changed therole of shogun—previouslya commissioned military leader hired to dispose of enemies of thethrone—to permanent military dictator. The war also had lastingimplications for the samurai and fostered many of the codes of excellence bywhich these warriors led their lives, including selfless heroism, high personalstandards of conduct, and martial prowess. Even the samurai's understandingof art and poetry can be traced to stories of the Gempei War.

Left: The Gempei War spawned many myths. Here, a samurai battles a great beast.

Windof the gods
13thcentury

Asinfighting increased through the following century, so did the need to defendJapan from foreign invaders. Among them were Genghis Khan's Mongolsuccessors, who attacked Japan in 1274 and again in 1281. The Japanese wereseverely outnumbered each time, but a major storm during the first invasiondestroyed, by some accounts, 200 Mongol ships, while a typhoon thwarted thesecond siege. Together, these storms are known as kamikaze ("wind of the gods"), a term thatwould take on a more sinister definition during World War II when Japanese pilotscarried out suicide attacks. The belief in a protective divine shield—aswell as in Zen Buddhism, which allowed soldiers to overcome their fear ofdying—became essential to the samurai way of life. The warriors believedthey were largely safeguarded from death but needed to prepare for thepossibility in order to perform their best in battle.

Left: An artist's representation of the kamikaze

Wayof the Warrior
14thcentury

Fightingcontinued within Japan, which soon had not one but two rival governments:Emperor Go-Daigo's court to the south versus a new northern courtestablished by the ruling shogunate.From these so-called Nanbokucho Wars, or the "Wars Between theCourts," emerged Kusunoki Masashige, a samurai who would be venerated forcenturies as an exemplar of warrior conduct through his unstinting loyalty tohis lord, Emperor Go-Daigo. Masashige was a brilliant strategist, but in 1336,Go-Daigo refused to accept the warrior's counsel, and the samurai knowinglyundertook what would become a suicide mission. When death at the hands of theopposition became imminent, Masashige and 600 of his troops committed seppuku(ritual suicide) on thebattleground. Being killed by the enemy was dishonorable, but seppuku, a key aspect of the samurai code of honor knownas bushido, allowed warriorsan honorable end.

Left: Masashige's statue outside the Imperial Palace in Tokyo

TheWarring States
15thcentury

TheWarring States period (c. 15th to early 17th centuries) was a time ofwidespread conflict, both physical and social, among the dominant clans ofJapan. Only the strong would survive, and strength lay in assembling largearmies and the most advanced weapons. Foot soldiers learned to use traditionalsamurai weapons such as the bow, while the samurai became adept with the famed katana sword. Although crude Chinese handguns reachedJapan by the early 16th century, the later introduction of the European arquebus and its armor-piercing bullets caused arevolution in warfare. The Japanese soon began producing their own firearms.

Left: A painting depicting one of the period's many brutal battles

Continuingstrife
16thcentury

ToyotomiHideyoshi was the next samurai to change the course of Japanese (and warrior)history. Through a series of successful political and military campaigns, heasserted control over all of Japan by 1591. His power was greater than that ofany previous shogun, but itwouldn't last: Hideyoshi stretched himself thin with attempted conquestsof China and Korea. Two years after Hideyoshi's death in 1598, aprovincial leader, Tokugawa Ieyasu, defeated Hideyoshi's armies and tookcontrol of the recentralized military government. Ieyasu's family lineruled Japan through the mid-19th century.

Left: Toyotomi Hideyoshi rose from peasant stock to lead Japan.

Knightsof Japan
17thcentury

Bythe first few decades of the 17th century, Japan had finally achieved an era ofrelative peace. The samurai had no armies to fight, but they remained theruling class of Japan. Many went on to become administrative bureaucrats. Bushido, the code by which samurai once guided theirlives, became formalized, much like knightly chivalry in Europe when themedieval warrior class became obsolete. A samurai could legally still cut downany commoner who showed him insufficient respect, but his martial days werelargely over. What remained was the samurai ideal of unwavering devotion toone's lord, which survives today in the great value that the Japaneseplace on loyalty.

Left: Samurai fought in the 1868-69 Boshin War, whichmarked the end of the shogunate.

Endof the samurai
19th–20th centuries

Thesamurai maintained their elite status into the mid-1800s, when Westerninfluences began to take hold. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry and hisAmerican fleet sailed into Japanese waters and began to push for tradeconcessions, helping to compel the government by the following year to open its portsto foreigners. Awed by the West's military prowess, the Japanese went onto modernize their forces and did away with many of the samurai's specialrights. Thus, the sword-slashing warrior of yore abandoned his neatly keptponytail for a shaven head and a modern, government-issue uniform. Still, thesamurai's ethos of honor and patriotism lives on in the Japanese spirit.

Left: World War II Japanese soldiers in Western-style uniforms