AH Challenge: European 'Samurai'

Rekjavik

Yes, I am aware that Samurai can easily be described as 'Japanese Knights' and that would make this WI redundant.

However, I don't like things being viewed so simply. The point of this WI is to create a cast of European warriors that act as a form of 'military nobility'. How can European Knights become much more similar to Samurai in terms of organization, culture and legacy. The POD is up to you.

The idea of European 'martial arts' in particular fascinates me. What kind of 'martial arts' would these likely be?

Bonus points if these new Knights are not carbon copies of OTL Samurai, and maintain a distinct European cultural element to them.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Rekjavik said:
Yes, I am aware that Samurai can easily be described as 'Japanese Knights' and that would make this WI redundant.

However, I don't like things being viewed so simply. The point of this WI is to create a cast of European warriors that act as a form of 'military nobility'. How can European Knights become much more similar to Samurai in terms of organization, culture and legacy. The POD is up to you.

The idea of European 'martial arts' in particular fascinates me. What kind of 'martial arts' would these likely be?

Bonus points if these new Knights are not carbon copies of OTL Samurai, and maintain a distinct European cultural element to them.
Click to expand...

I really don't see how they're going to survive, the problem with Samurais is that they're landless gentleman-knights*, while the landless European equalant (inheirenceless sons of the nobility) was specialists killers, they learned to kill and nothing else, and they were a lot better at it, if some kind of Samurais is created in Europe, they would end up dead rather fast.

*trained in a lot of cultural activities beside the martial.
 
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sunsurf

Lesser sons of European nobility, who don't expect to inherit much or anything, might spend some time in a monastery from age 10-20, say. They learn a set of skills. Then they spend a set number of years as soldiers for somebody, and after that term of years is up they go back to a monastery and learn another set of skills, and become teachers, employed as such somewhere.
In the late Middle Ages, somebody like Marco Polo brings back knowledge of martial arts which is adopted and adapted by some monastic order and is incorporated into the above scenario...how's that?
 

Deleted member 1487

Europe had its own fighting arts that were essentially allowed to become extinct, as they were no longer really needed. Savate was, despite the myth to the contrary, descended from the Vikings that when bored on voyages would 'fence' with their legs. Eventually this evolved, but his is just one example. There are fighting manuals from the 15 and 1600's, one of which by a guy named Talhofer that I own. It shows all kinds of throws and some kicks as well, but was primarily involving weapon fighting techniques that rival anything that existed in the east.

Too bad there are only a handfull of people that are trying to revive some of these old methods of fighting, but I know of at least one school that a very dedicated individual opened in California that teaches renissance fighting techiniques. Interesting topic
 

Adamanteus

Rekjavik said:
Yes, I am aware that Samurai can easily be described as 'Japanese Knights' and that would make this WI redundant.

However, I don't like things being viewed so simply. The point of this WI is to create a cast of European warriors that act as a form of 'military nobility'. How can European Knights become much more similar to Samurai in terms of organization, culture and legacy. The POD is up to you.

The idea of European 'martial arts' in particular fascinates me. What kind of 'martial arts' would these likely be?

Bonus points if these new Knights are not carbon copies of OTL Samurai, and maintain a distinct European cultural element to them.
Click to expand...

What you're proposing is OTL.

Knights were the equivalent of Japanese samurai in Europe. Their roles were identical. They were a military nobility who served a feudal house, and in return received payment in land. Like the samurai, their manner often took on religious connotation, since their whole existence was spent honing military skill. Like the samurai, the knights practiced a kind of martial arts. The only reason the samurai became so refined is because they were isolated longer from guns than knights. By the 16th century, guns made the knight largely obsolete in Europe. The same thing happened to Japan in the 19th century, after it renounced 300 years of isolationism.

The cultural legacy of the samurai you refer to is mostly a product of the Tokugawa Shogunate. After Japan was unified in 1603, samurai essentially were out of a job, as there were no more enemies to fight. So Bushido became more of a cultural pursuit for its own sake.
 

tormsen

So to get European knights to better resemble Japanese samurai in terms of sophistication, would delaying the use of gunpowder in the West do it?
 
Herr Frage

Herr Frage

Hmm, you would need a period of peace and stbilty like the Peace of the Shogun Era era in which the warrior nobility gets bored and dabbles in other mattrs more than actual combat.
 

Adamanteus

tormsen said:
So to get European knights to better resemble Japanese samurai in terms of sophistication, would delaying the use of gunpowder in the West do it?
Click to expand...

Exactly. If we use Japan as the model, it would have to be a period in which warfare became unnecessary due to internal peace and lack of meaningful threats abroad. Japan could be isolated for 300 years because it was internally cohesive and as an island, it had little fear of invasion. You would have to get all or most of Europe unified under a single state in the Middle Ages.
 
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