Feudalism Systems of Japan and
England
By Rit Nosotro
Thesis Statement
The feudal systems of Japan and England strongly contrasted in the religious
justification which organized behavior
The English and Japanese feudal systems are similar in that they both gave
grants of land for military service, and the social ladders were similar. After that
point, they differ. In the English feudal system, to get grants of land one must
swear an oath of fealty to one's lord, but in the Japanese system that was not
required. The military classes for both feudal systems lived by a code of honor yet
with different goals. They had different monetary gains, and the armor they wore
was different. Japanese peasants (shiki) had a little more freedom than the
English peasants (serfs) because they could own land. Both warrior classes were
inspired to fight by religion but differently, the knights for God’s glory and the
Samurai for their own.
What does the word feudalism even mean? In a broad definition, feudalism is "a
system by which the holding of estates in land is made dependent upon an
obligation to render military service to the king or feudal superior."1 Both
Japanese and English feudal systems were based on the imperative need for a
constantly trained and well equipped military, and a method of repayment for
these military services. Generally speaking, the feudal superior would provide
protection, possibly food, and tenure of land to his subordinates, in return for
military services or agricultural remuneration. Contrary to their English
counterparts, Japanese lords did not require an oath of fealty from their vassals
in return for fiefdoms. Because of not swearing an oath of fealty, Japanese vassals
were far less hindered and controlled by their lords.2 Another divergence in the
two systems consisted in the different religions and beliefs that drove the knights
and samurai to obedience, thereby allowing the systems to function relatively
smoothly. Although comparable in the major essences of overall structure, the
feudal societies of Japan and England differed greatly in the separate
relationships between lord and vassal and the differential motivations of the
military subordinates for service.
After smashing Saxon resistance in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the
Conqueror implemented the Frankish system of feudalism in England. In order
to maintain control of his English acquisition, William doled out all Anglo-Saxon
land to his Norman followers. At the top of his feudal system was himself, the
king, who owned all land in England. While the king kept one quarter of the land
as his personal property, the church received a percentage, and the rest was
leased to trusted noblemen and favorites of the king. Feudal nobility included
barons as landlords, while knights supplied consistent military services for their
lords. Bound by serfdom to small plots of land, the peasant workforce that
provided agricultural labor for landlords was at the bottom of the social, political,
and economic ladder.3
In the late twelfth century, a clan leader named Minamoto Yoritomo founded the
first Japanese shogunate, a feudal government that lasted for seven hundred
years. After defeating a rival Taira clan, Yoritomo was named shogun by the
emperor in 1192. Although the emperor remained the virtual ruler of Japanese
hierarchy, the shogun controlled the real reins of power as supreme military
administrator. Instead of moving to Kyoto, the imperial capital, Yoritomo set up a
centralized government and ruled from his field quarters. Thus his feudal
government earned the Japanese name, bakufu, or tent government.4 In
composing the first primitive feudal society in Japan, Yoritomo paralleled some
methods of William the Conqueror. As a practical means of control, Yoritomo
rewarded his followers with strategic grants of land. Yet unlike William, Yoritomo
did not impose oaths of fealty on landholders. With a social order resembling that
of English feudalism, Japanese aristocracy ruled, samurai provided military
services, and peasants occupied the lowest rung of the feudalistic ladder.
To receive a grant of land, an English nobleman offered homage to his lord on
bended knee, demonstrating his obedience and reverence. Swearing faithfulness
and military and financial support through the customary oath of fealty, the
nobleman knelt and placed his hands between his lord's, thereby becoming his
vassal, or baron. In return, the lord swore a corresponding oath of protection and
granted a fief, usually tenure of land, to his baron vassal.5 In succession, this
baron became a lord, granting pieces of his own fief to vassal knights for the same
oath of fealty. This process by which a vassal could become a lord and grant parts
of his own fief to other vassals was called subinfeudation. By this procedure, a
knight could rent pieces of his own fief to peasants. After swearing oaths of fealty
to provide food and military services to their lord, these peasants became serfs or
villeins. Feudal land and holdings were generally hereditary, passing on to sons
or male cousins.
Unlike English feudalism, Japanese landholders did not have to swear oaths of
fealty to receive fiefs. Instead, the shogun appointed stewards called jito to
oversee the official owners. Similar to the English baron, a lower territorial class
called daimyo became the land holding aristocracy. But because the shoguns did
not exact an oath of fealty from the daimyo, the aggressive daimyo became the
greatest military threat to the shogunate in later years. Resembling English
knights, samurai were the military backbone of the Japanese feudal system.
Japanese peasants, like their European counterparts, served as farmers at the
bottom of the feudal pecking order.4
Both Japanese and English feudal systems were dominated by military strength
controlled by the respective hierarchies. English knights, and their Japanese
equivalents, samurai filled this feudal need for military forces. Samurai derived
their name from a Japanese verb meaning "to serve," which accurately described
their social station as military servants. Although differing culturally, samurai
and knights were comparable in several ways. First, knights and samurai both
lived by codes of honor. Knights were bound by a code of chivalry, and Japanese
samurai by Bushido (the way of the warrior). Still, these codes of honor differed
in their respective focuses. According to the selfless emphasis of their Christian
background, English knights took a chivalrous oath to "protect the weak,
defenseless, and helpless, and fight for the general welfare of all."6 Although
hinging on family honor, the samurai warrior code of conduct stressed "personal
bravery and prowess, honor and loyalty. a hard, Spartan life and avoidance of
luxuries, and expected a samurai to face pain and death with indifference."7
Samurai were greatly influenced by Confucian ideals which emphasized personal
honor and individual loyalty to one's master. Unlike chivalrous knighthood which
addressed only males, the Bushido warrior code included female samurai.
Another difference between the feudal relationships was that an English knight
was directly rewarded with a fief of land by his lord. In contrast, the Japanese
samurai was rewarded for faithful service by a fee of income from his lord's lands.
Also differentially, knights wore heavy chain link armor, but samurai were
protected by light, flexible armor. Both samurai and knights used spears and
swords and fought on horseback.8 hough differing in monetary rewards, armor,
and application of their codes of honor, samurai and knights resembled each
other as the military resources of their separate feudal systems.
Derived from the Latin word servus, meaning servant or slave, the word serf
accurately described the status of English peasants.9 t first, English peasants were
expected to pay exorbitant taxes in cash to the lord in return for the land they
rented. Instead of being sold into slavery when he could no longer pay the
required taxes, the peasant's land, possessions, and labor became the property of
the lord. Legally bound to his feudal lord's land as serfs, a peasant was expected
to provide physical labor, pay a percentage of produce, and work on the demesne,
the lord's own portion of land. In return, the lord protected his serfs from martial
molestation in his manor, or castle.9 Unlike English serfs in proto-slavery, the
occupation of Japanese peasants is better described as shiki: "a separate right or
profit derivable from it that is vested in a person."10 Japanese peasants occupied
a separate cultivator class; some actually owned land while others tilled the
ground. Like English feudalism, Japanese peasants worked their rice fields,
giving a portion of their produce as rent to their landlords. In contrast to English
peasants, Japanese serfs willingly gave up their rights and land to their daimyo
landlords, in order to avoid the high property taxes of Japan.4 Interestingly,
Japanese peasants enjoyed greater freedom than English peasants, since some
could actually own land. Still, thanks to the rise of the elite samurai, serfs in
Japan were locked into a farming class order for several centuries. Ultimately,
both Japanese and English peasants were the backbone of the feudal system
because of the pressing need for farm workers and incessant agricultural
production.
One defining difference between these two feudal systems was their respective
religions, Christianity in England, and Shinto and Buddhism in Japan. Since the
feudal systems were both based on a need for military services, the respective
authorities used religion to inspire their armed forces. Thus, both the medieval
knights and samurai fought for their beliefs. Motivated by pressure from the
Catholic Church, knights fought for the crown and for Christ during medieval
efforts to retake Jerusalem through the Crusades. Differentially, samurai warriors
fought for the Shinto inspired honor of Bushido, for the family and the Emperor.
In other words, knights fought for God's glory and samurai fought for their own
glory. On the battlefield, the religions of Christianity and Buddhism influenced
knights and samurai in divergent ways. The Sixth Commandment from Exodus
20:13, "Do not murder," and the Biblical principal of Genesis 9:5, "For your own
lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning. . ." clearly instructed Christian knights
not to kill themselves, even if humiliated by defeat. But Buddhism teaches the
reincarnation of life leading to ultimate nirvana which is a blissful release from
suffering. So if disgraced by defeat in battle, samurai would "escape" by
committing hara-kiri, the ritual suicide. The final difference between samurai and
knights consisted in who reaped the glory for valiant conduct in battle. While
knights gave honor to God for their victories as part of a long history of JudeoChristian tradition, samurai gave glory to their dead ancestors holding to the
promise of Buddhism.
Throughout the years, the feudalistic systems of both Japan and England were
revised and finally abolished. In Japan's case, feudalism ended as the emperor
Meiji overthrew the shogunate and regained his imperial power in the Meiji
Restoration of 1868. While the government became centralized, immense
reforms occurred as social barriers were overturned and the daimyo were forced
to return their feudal fiefdoms to the emperor.11 But in England, no uprising
ended feudalism abruptly. Instead in 1215, King John signed the Magna Carta
which revised the power of feudal lords, and reevaluated the rights of vassals.
Also, the Crusades contributed indirectly to the downfall of English feudalism.
With the introduction of money circulation after the Crusades, authorities could
pay their subordinates in cash, rather than grants of fief land. England was on an
unstoppable road to eliminating feudalism. By the end of the Middle Ages,
England had switched from human labor, and proceeded almost directly into the
machine labor of the Industrial Revolution.12
Ultimately, these separate feudalism systems were similar in overall organization.
Both feudal societies were based on the tenure of land in exchange for military
service. Both systems were used by Japanese and English rulers to consolidate
and control their realms. And in both systems of feudalism, land held the primary
focus in determining social order; the aristocracy owned the land, soldiers
protected the land and its owners, while farming peasants tilled the land. But
neither society was based on the second commandment of Jesus from Matthew
12:31, "The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no
commandment greater than these." Instead, the rich and powerful of both
systems exploited the peasants, reducing them to near slavery for monetary gain.
Major differences between the two systems occurred in the details of application,
such as the allegiance of a vassal to his lord. English vassals owed loyalty to their
lord and to the king, thereby stabilizing the system. But since daimyo did not
swear faithfulness to the shogun, their fighting among each other and against the
shogunate plunged Japan in civil war for almost four hundred years. This lack of
allegiance perfectly illustrated Matthew 12:25, "Every kingdom divided against
itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not
stand." Another difference consisted of the method of repayment for knights and
samurai. While knights received a fief of land from their overlords for their
military services, samurai collected a salary, not tenure of land. Also, Japanese
peasants differed from English serfs in the amount of freedom they enjoyed. In
conclusion, even though the systems resembled each other superficially,
Japanese and English systems of feudalism proved divergent in actual application
of feudal relationship.
Commentary:
Both feudal systems did not honor the second most important
commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 12:31). For they did
not treat the peasants well by taking advantage of them. It may be that the
Japanese were a little better because the Japanese peasants were given freedom
to own land, but keeping them low on the social ladder was cruel. The knights,
with their code of chivalry, may have been more Christian-like than the samurai,
but many of them may not have truly followed the code. The samurai, on the
other hand, did not live for a Biblical purpose but that is mainly because the only
religions they knew of were Buddhism and Shintoism. Because of that, they did
not know that it is appointed unto man once to die, and afterthat, the judgement.
They thought that life continued on earth in another form and therefore they
thought the suicide of hara-kiri would preserving their honor rather than facing
this particular life with disgrace. The militaristic pride and heathen traditions of
the samurai led to death. In contrast, the Christian traditions of knights and
Biblically based chivalry lead to life.