日本中世文武之分途

The Two Paths of Writing and Warring in Medieval Japan

「文」、「武」兩詞反映了統治概念在日本的變遷。最初，唯有朝廷官員才可能擁有這兩項技能。即使在鎌倉幕府──日本於一一八五年誕生的第一個武士政權──成立之後，「手書」和「藏人」，而非「武士」，才是被視為精通文、武兩者的人。在十四世紀期間，具競爭性的概念「公權」成為對鎌倉的繼任政府，亦即足利幕府的描寫，而文武的概念轉而成為意指武書中的專門知識。最後，十七世紀是文武理念再次成為統治隱喻的證人，儘管，於此，專精於文和武被重新定義為德川武士的特權。

The terms 'civil' bun (文) and 'military' bu (武) reflect changing views of governance in Japan. Initially, only members of the court could possess both skills. Even after the rise of the Kamakura bakufu, Japan's first warrior government in 1185, scribes or chamberlains, rather than warriors, were thought to master both bun and bu. During the fourteenth century, a competing concepts of 'public authority' came to describe Kamakura's successor state, the Ashikaga bakufu, while the notions of civil and military came to refer to specialized knowledge of military texts. Ultimately, the seventeenth century witnessed the resurgence of the bun and bu ideal as a metaphor for governance, albeit one where expertise in civilian and military arts became redefined as the prerogative of Tokugawa warriors.