Viking Samurais - The exciting fact-based story
VikingSamurai´s – the connection to the modern world, which we are very proud of!
For more than 5,000 years, the civilized part of the world has been governed and administered largely with the same hierarchical management structure and administrative tools.
This applies from the Persians to the Egyptians to Alexander the Great's Greco-Macedonian Empire to the Romans to the Chinese to Caliphates. They were very large empires with more or less centralized control with an emperor or king at the top.
In Europe, most of the countries and thus their history as we know it today were founded and created in the last 1,000+ years. It happened through war and peace, lies, deception, political games and marriages.
To maintain control over lands and a king could not be everywhere, but needed help. He rewarded his faithful and loyal warriors, politicians and bishops with lands and titles of nobility, which they vouched for with their lives.
The same thing happened in Scandinavia. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland became nations and countries. Sometimes as separate countries, other times as united nations in the Nordics under the same overlord, who was most often Danish. It did not end until the 16th century, but lasted for periods of 500+ years.
The Nordic kingdoms in the formative phase are known worldwide for one thing: the Vikings!
The Vikings were a trading people, but also a trading people who could back up their arguments as some of the world's best warriors of their time. It gave some vital advantages which were very lucrative, both in knowledge as explorers, as with lands. The Vikings discovered the USA and at their peak had power over large areas of land in addition to the North, also England, parts of Germany, France, Russia etc.
1219 Denmark
Viking society was divided into distinct social strata. At the top of society were the magnates, in the middle the peasants and at the bottom the slaves. In the Viking Age, honour, family and lineage were paramount, and society was bound together by traditions and norms. If the norms were broken, one lost honor and society's recognition. Personal honor was achieved through special qualities such as physical courage, skill, generosity and not least camaraderie. In Christian times, church and bridge building were also added as good qualities.
The Vikings were ruled by powerful magnates and kings. The term king was not then used in the same way as it is today, because in the Viking Age there could well be several kings at the same time. A king was simply a leading magnate who was considered by the other magnates as "first among equals". The kingship was not automatically inherited, you had to fight for it. This often led to internal disputes, where several people could claim at the same time that they were the rightful king of the country.
It is only around the year 960 that we can say with certainty that Denmark became Denmark. Before the Viking Age, Denmark was divided into several kingdoms in a patchwork of chiefdoms and petty kingdoms.
1219 Denmark
With Gorm the Old, the royal power in Denmark seems to have been consolidated. King Gorms and his descendants have ruled Denmark right up to the present day. Therefore, our Queen Margrethe 2nd has a common family tree with Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra
A centralized royal power also meant a centralized management structure under the king, which was especially important in tandem with conquests of new and old lands and the control of these.
This meant the development of a nobility that was loyally subject to the royal power. In the beginning it was untitled lords (chiefs), barons and earls/counts. Later, the need developed for several titles of nobility and a distinction was made between high nobility and low nobility. The high nobility were those with titles such as; Baron, Vicount/Vicomte, Earl/Count, Marquis/Marquis, Duke/Prince. The lava part consisted of the untitled nobility with letters of nobility, knights etc. The development of the different needs also meant the development of a warrior aristocracy (who had to provide men for an army) and a court aristocracy (political), who most often fought against each other for power and sometimes also against the king.
The king's weapon was most often banishment, beheading or imprisonment and deprivation of all power, honor and titles. But he could also undermine the old powerful aristocracy and untie a century-old Gordian knot by – creating a new aristocracy. It happened in Denmark in 1671, where noble titles were sold if you had enough land (county barons and county counts), several times in France depending on whether a king or emperor was in power, in Russia depending on which Czar (emperor) ruled, In England depending on which winning civil war side you were on, and many other countries with nobility.
The development of king-emperor power and nobility in Europe can be directly compared to Japan, - with the cultural and size differences that were and are now.
1219 Denmark
Today, no king-Emperor or nobility has absolute power or constitutional privileges. It disbanded around World War II or many years before. In Denmark it is over 100 years ago (1919) and in Japan just over 70 years ago (1947). The nobility still have their family's often illustrious history and impact on their country's historiography, but their titles of nobility are titular and without power or substance, - except what the people and the press choose to attribute to them.
Shindenkan has a direct connection to this history and even at the very highest level and even historically significantly older than Shindenkan's more than 1,000 years of world heritage: Yakami Shinsei-ryu.
Through today's titular nobleman Yamana-Itotani Sensei, the connection to this prehistory goes back more than 2,600 years. It is also cultural history, but also part of Japan's history, which you can now be involved in and be a part of.
