Bushido, the Code of Honor

Bushido (武士道, Bushidō?), meaning "way of the warrior," is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of life, analogous to the European concept of chivalry. Bushido developed between the 11th to 14th centuries. The ethical and moral foundations of Bushido were formalized into Japanese Feudal Law during the opening years of the Tokugawa shogunate for the members of the Samurai class. According to the Japanese dictionary Shogakukan Kokugo Daijiten: "Bushido is defined as a unique philosophy (ronri) that spread through the warrior class from the Muromachi (chusei) period."

Inazo Nitobe (1862 - 1933), author of Bushido: The Soul of Japan describes Bushido as an unwritten code: "...Bushido, then, is the code of moral principles which the samurai were required or instructed to observe. It is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or savant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed, and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart. It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military