Stephen Turnbull
Hatamoto: Samurai Horse and Foot Guards 1540–1724
Elite 178 (Osprey, 2010), 64pp. $18.95. ISBN 978-1846034787.
Stephen Turnbull has written numerous books about the samurai and Japanese medieval warfare. This Osprey book, characteristically brief and abundantly illustrated, focuses on the hatamoto, or the personal body guards of the daimyos of the Sengoku (Warring States) and early Tokugawa Periods of Japanese history. They got their name from the space “beneath the flag” (the literal meaning of hatamoto) where they sat with their lord on campaign. Their duties, however, extended far beyond simply guarding their daimyo, as they formed both an elite guard unit of major daimyo armies and a core of trusted subordinates who could take command of independent detachments as well as assume administrative duties. In this, they most closely resemble the familiae, or military households, of medieval European kings and barons.
Indeed, despite the emphasis in the text on the military organization and actions of selected hatamoto, especially those of the Big Three of Japanese unification—Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu (as well as a few of the most famous Sengoku daimyo such as Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen)—probably the most valuable parts of the book relate to the transition from the Sengoku Period to the Tokugawa Era, when major warfare ceased and the samurai generally were transformed into a hereditary caste whose major duties were administrative and cultural rather than military, save for suppressing periodic peasant revolts. Turnbull’s emphasis on the role of the hatamoto in leading this transition—one of the reasons their earlier flexibility as subordinates was so important—helps explain the success of the Tokugawa transition from incessant warfare to a carefully balanced federation of peaceful daimyo domains under Tokugawa hegemony.
In other respects the text is typical Turnbull. The analysis is narrative-driven, with numerous illustrative incidents detailed throughout the text, complemented by the many illustrations, most of which are modern but done in the style of Sengoku screen paintings (the more “realistic” modern representations of hatamoto armor and ceremonial settings are somewhat less successful, in this reviewer’s opinion). That analysis is generally accurate as far as it goes, which is to say that it does not go deeply into the socio-economic structural background of military change. This is especially true of the differences and roles of horse versus foot guards, which tended to be much more a matter of social status than military function. Turnbull tends to take his sources just a bit too uncritically at times, especially in terms of the ideal images of hatamoto and samurai loyalty his sources present. But such weaknesses are not fatal, and this is one in the Osprey series that can serve as a reliable, quick and colorful introduction to a topic that is otherwise not readily available in English-language publications.
