Review of Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan by Karl F. Friday

In Hired Swords, Karl Friday seeks to dispel many of the incorrect assumptions and beliefs about the warrior class of Nara and Heian Japan. He notes that many earlier authors have argued that the ineffectiveness of the decadent political system in Japan contributed to the ability of the warrior class to seize power. However, most scholars of this time period, including Friday, now dispute this fact, asserting instead that the warrior class had power all along, yet waited to assert it, and that the ruling classes were stable and maintained power throughout this period. Yet this generates something of an anomaly-the relative political power and strength held by the warrior class could have easily been exerted at any time, yet the samurai waited until the twelfth century to do so. His primary questions, then, are why the samurai waited to seize power, and why the court allowed itself to be put "in the potentially (and indeed, ultimately) precarious situation of contracting for its military needs with private warriors." (p. 7)