distinguish from the samurai—although the latter have enjoyed a much
more favorable reputation than their religious counterparts. They were
both a product of the larger trend of privatization of rulership and land
that took place from the tenth and eleventh centuries on, satisfying the
need for protection of private possessions for their patrons, who included
imperial descendants and other nobles as well as the ranking temples. In
fact, the akusô (evil monks) and the samurai have quite appropriately been
described as a pair of twins that emerged from the sociopolitical develop-
ments of the Heian (792–1185) period. Oddly enough, whereas the samu-
rai often are depicted as valiant and glorious heroes, the military men in
monk outfits are still seen as villains.
Further evidence of the similarity between the samurai and the sôhei
can be found in their general usage of weapons. Both carried swords for
close encounters and were skilled with the bow and arrow as well. In ad-
dition, even though militarily inclined clerics might wear religious robes, it
was not uncommon to find armor under the monk garments. Helmets also
were used, as was the bandanna (hachimaki). However, contrary to their
samurai counterparts, the belligerent monks remained primarily foot sol-
diers, becoming experts with the naginata(a kind of halberd, with a curved
blade at the end of a long pole). Although the naginata earned a reputation
in one-on-one combats, it was especially effective in combating mounted
warriors, indicating that it was originally a preference of lower-ranking
soldiers. Eventually, the naginata came to stand as one of the foremost sym-
bolic weapons of armed monks, and a handful of temple-based martial art
schools in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came to specialize in its
usage. Another attire unique to the sôhei was a hood that many wore to
conceal their identity, allowing lower-ranking monks to overcome hierar-
chical differences among the clergy. As a result, the religious forces came to
be regarded as more unified than they actually were, especially since the
hoods were frequently used to signify armed monks in chronicles and pic-
ture scrolls from the early fourteenth century.
The dual character of the religious forces disintegrated during the high
point of the second warrior government, the Ashikaga bakufu, in the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, but the most influential temples
continued to thrive and hold their own against the warrior class. Behind
this survival, we find new nonaristocratic military leaders heading their
own forces within the monasteries, reflecting the final elimination, in favor
of military authority, of the ancient style of rulership based solely on social
status. The new composition of the monastic communities thus mirrored
developments in society in general, as warfare and violence reached new
heights during the chaos of the Sengoku period (1467–1573). While tem-
ples that did not adjust to these circumstances were quickly absorbed by re-662 Warrior Monks, Japanese/Sôhei