Did Samurai and Dynamo actually follow chivalrous codes like medieval knights...

bushido teaches you to a war criminal

More so than Knights followed chivalry. Bushido was more entrenched and lasted much longer.

But such codes are always the model and not always the practice.

I'd say it was the reverse. Knights were more chivalrous than the Samurai ever bothered with bushido.

I find it really cool the way in Japan samurai were also had an intellectual and spiritual role in society.

I like the idea of dudes going around being hard as fuck, but also being committed to Buddhism/Christianity/Shinto.

Bushido as we know it did never existed. It's something cobbled together from various treatises written at different points in Japan's past for the sake of constructing something resembling chivalry. Yes, Samurai did have codes of conduct and there were chivalrous ideas contemporary with them, but they weren't codified and were followed about as often as western chivalry was by knights, which is to say very rarely.

You seem to be under the delusion that chivalry was something widely practiced in Europe. It wasn't, it was more of an ideal that knights and men in general were supposed to strive toward. Men rarely live up to such high expectations though. Much of the writing of chivalry that survives is not recorded history but rather ideological tracts written by monks. Actual recorded history shows that compassion and honor were usually in short supply in the middle ages. The few rare instances where it showed up were usually lauded by scholars and priests, while most of it is backstabbing and cutthroat politics. Basically just like medieval Japan.

That's what certain Chinese Buddhist sects did for thousands of years before that.

Does someone know if there is actually a collection or guide on chivalry, in the manner of Hagakure or anything like that?

Personally, I only know indirectly about chivalry from reading (high-german) arthurian romances or (even more distorted) from pop-culture.

Chivalry was a meme, it was almost entirely reserved to respect for noble women simply out of formality so that you don't employer isn't offended.

The Edo Period, also called the Tokugawa Era, which lasted for roughly 250 years from the early 17th century to the mid 19th century. It was the longest uninterrupted period of peace Japan ever experienced. This was the time when Samurai were at the zenith of their political and social power, the Shogunate ruled Japan as a police state. And ironically, this age of the samurai was a time where there were no wars for them to fight. The warrior caste could not fulfill their main purpose so they just became glorified landlords, took to imitating the Kyoto court's fascination with the arts and picked up poetry, calligraphy, flower arranging, etc. This is also when sword fetishization started too, because leading into the Edo period Toyotomi Hideyoshi decreed that swords were to be confiscated from everybody except samurai for the good of public order. He also instituted a travel ban so peasants were tied to their domains. This wombo combo of disarming the populace and preventing them from freely moving about the country effectively nipped any chance of a peasant uprising against the new police state in the bud and is probably why the Tokugawa Shogunate reigned unchallenged for 250 years in almost total peace.

Something you might be interested in is the Book of the Knight of the Tower, which was written by an Anjou knight in the 14th century as instruction for his daughters. It's more about how women were expected to behave, but it's very illuminating about standards for behavior at the time for both men and women.

>Knights were more chivalrous than the Samurai ever bothered with bushido.
Aha no. Chivalry existed for like what, 60 years, and wasn't even a code basically just a culture.

>and is probably why the Tokugawa Shogunate reigned unchallenged for 250 years in almost total peace.
By the end though it was near to collapsing, even if the Europeans didnt show up.

Thanks for the recommendation. There is even a german translation with the catchy title:
>Ritter vom Thurn das ist:
>spiegel der tugent und ehrsamkeit der weiber und jungfrawen durch den hochberuehmpten Ritter vom thurn mit schoenen nuetzlichen Biblischen und weltlichen Historien zu unterweisung seiner kinder in Frantzoesischer spraach beschrieben aber jetzundt von neuwem darauß verteutscht und in truck gegeben.

Booktitles in 16th and 17th century were the best.
Anything else?

For contrast maybe try The Chronicles by Froissart, pick an abridged edition if you want to get through it quickly. This is more of a historical record but his commentary on the behavior of his subjects can be illuminating.

Nothing lasts forever. Though its inarguable that western intervention sparked the rebellion. Satsuma was probably going to make a move within a decade or two anyway, but it's debatable if they would have really succeeded, even if they rallied other Tozama to their cause.

There were actually many small farmer revolts during the edo period, which were usually put down quickly with guns.

swordsmanship was fetishized in the edo period but everyone understood the need for spears, guns and group tactics in warfare which is why when instability showed up again militias started to drill those things again, only to replace those tactics with the latest European drill and tactics they could get their hands on.

>There were actually many small farmer revolts during the edo period, which were usually put down quickly with guns.
Hence "mostly peaceful". Tiny farmer revolts are not the same thing as full scale wars. There was also the persecution of Christians. It was not exactly a paradise, it was after all a police state with often brutal enforcers of the peace. But there was no war.

>swordsmanship was fetishized in the edo period but everyone understood the need for spears, guns and group tactics in warfare
Swordsmanship was fetishized largely because it was a privilege to own and wear swords, thanks to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Swords went from being a versatile and serviceable sidearm to being a status symbol, so of course it became natural to emphasize it. Wearing swords became fashionable because it was visibly demonstrating your high status, what made you special. Everything that followed: the elaborate schools of kendo, specially forged blades, the whole mythology of the katana, was built on this initial use as a status symbol.

There were sword schools long before edo, but its true that they became much popular in that period, but so did schools of spearmanship, jujutsu, and other arts that had uses in war but could be refined to a higher degree through peacetime experimentation. The sword being the only weapon you were likely in daily contact with, training with it became paramount where as in earlier times bows and polearms were just as important

Wearing the two swords as a status symbol also predates edo by a few hundred years. Being as a good sword could feed the average person for months if not year or so they were definitely status symbols.

AS for swords many experts look down on late sengoku-era edo blades and prefer older ones which often used more elaborate construction methods and had higher quality controls

>That's what certain Chinese Buddhist sects did for thousands of years before that.
Buddhism didn't exist, especially in China, thousands of years before the time of the samurai.

Here's a thesis about this exact subject,
ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/6869/Thesis_fulltext.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
The guy is a 7th dan kendoka as well.

Nobody has pointed out 'Dynamo'?

Seriously

> Chivalry existed for like what, 60 years, and wasn't even a code basically just a culture.

Why do retards post?

Why not just not post?

Whats a "Dynamo"?

I think OP meant Daimyo

Didn't Hara Kiri deal with this subject?
It's a fantastic movie btw.