Dbq Essay On Samurai Vs Knight

779 Words4 Pages

The Samurai VS The Knight
Knights and samurais both had the job to serve their country, nation, etc. In short a knight was a warrior who owed loyalty & military service to their lord for land, and a samurai were warriors who also owed loyalty and military service to their daimyo (Lords interpreted in the Japanese feudal system) for land and regular payment. Now even though knights and samurais had some form of power, in Japanese feudalism, the samurais had more power compared to the knights, hence I can conclude that they were more superior, but there’s a lot more to this entire comparison than just that!

Anyhow, let me explain how samurais were more superior than knights.
We need to first understand the difference between Europe’s hierarchical …show more content…

And according to Document E, the samurai’s duty is to be held above all, this shows that being a samurai comes with great responsibility and determination. The values that the samurai obeyed were very important because it helped give them a sense of morality/correct conduct and it helped them stay at such a high status since samurais were on the upper section of the hierarchy. Based on source C, when comparing the two we can see that their training starts very differently. For samurais, they had a combination of physical training, poetry, and spiritual discipline (Confucianism and Zen (禅) …show more content…

This set of principles is called the Code of Chivalry. One has to promise to not commit wicked deeds, to have deep loyalty, and to give mercy to those who are asking it just to name a few of the principles. To transgress these values and to go against knighthood as a whole was a huge disgrace. As I mentioned earlier, European armour and Japanese armour appeared very differently. Another difference they have is how they view death. In Document F, the knights approached death religiously, mentioning “God” multiple times and begging for forgiveness. While the samurai approached death more philosophically and maybe even a bit pessimistically. The samurai's poem talked about how they would have mourned their own death and the other poem mentioned how once you are born you can die the next day, which can be interpreted as how time is so