Stephen Turnbull

Walls, walls, and yet again walls, form the framework of every Chinese city. They surround it, they divide it into lots and compounds, they mark more than any other structures the basic features of the Chinese communities. There is no real city in China without a surrounding wall, a condition which is indeed expressed by the fact that the Chinese used the same word cheng for a city and a city wall; there is no such thing as a city without a wall. It would be just as inconceivable as a house without a roof.

Toute étude portant sur les origines de la classe des samouraïs doit explorer deux dimensions. Tout d’abord, elle doit s’atteler à rechercher les preuves ayant trait au début des affrontements sur le sol japonais, puis elle doit chercher le lien entre le recours à une violence maîtrisée dans la société nippone et l’emploi du substantif « samouraï » pour qualifier ceux qui incarnaient ladite violence.

The dramatic and picturesque location of Constantinople on its western shores has therefore ensured that the city should acquire a tremendous symbolic value, giving the site the inevitable romantic associations that have arisen from its position as the ‘bridge between east and west’ or ‘the crossroads of the universe’. It has been such a powerful concept that the image has tended to obscure any serious discussion of the strategic and military considerations that led to Byzantium being chosen as the new capital in the first place. As a result the good points of the strategic and topographical conditions have been exaggerated and the negative points diminished to paint a picture of Constantinople as the ultimate example of perfection attained in the natural strategic defence of a city.

C’est au cours du Xe siècle qu’apparaît pour la première fois le terme « samouraï » – littéralement « celui qui sert » – dans un contexte purement militaire. En effet, si le substantif devait, au départ, désigner les individus chargés de se rendre à la capitale pour servir en tant que gardes, il commença, au fil des ans, à désigner le guerrier qui se mettait au service d’un puissant seigneur, et il ne fallut pas longtemps pour que le substantif se charge d’une forte connotation aristocratique et héréditaire; une connotation qui, à son tour, allait légitimer et valoriser la pérennité du statut de guerrier dans une lignée.

Young Yoshioki wielded an enormous iron-studded wooden club, until, entirely surrounded by enemies and unable to defend himself further, he performed the most dramatic act of suicide in Japanese history. If the story is to be believed, it was done by cutting off his own head.

Ninja fought in ways that samurai would not entertain and in situations and conditions where even the bravest samurai would hesitate to enter.