ABSTRACT
From the tribulations of Princes we now turn to the opposite end of the social spectrum. So far, the Japanese peasant has hardly been mentioned in our history, but as the fourteenth century gives way to the fifteenth it is this neglected and despised class of humanity that first demands our attention. The peasant farmer lived his life against a constant background of warfare in which he took little part. As war-fare became a more professional business during the Wars between the Courts the idea of the ‘samurai-farmer’ began to disappear. The high-ranking samurai, at any rate, did nothing but fight, and the lowest ranking peasant did nothing but till the soil. In between the two extremes was a wide and shadowy borderline of small landowners who, when not campaigning, had to cultivate their lands for reasons of sheer economic necessity. The more prosperous sort of peasant, may well have been wealthier than a neighbouring ‘ji-samurai’, as the small landowners were called, and would not be averse to carrying arms. At this time the status of the samurai was by no means rigid, and the opportunities for upward social mobility and promotion in military rank were there for anyone who had the drive and ability to seize them.
