BUSHIDO, the unwritten code of laws governing the lives of the nobles of Japan, equivalent to the European chivalry. Its maxims have been orally handed down, together with a vast ac cumulation of traditional etiquette, the result of centuries of feudalism. Its inception is associated with the uprise of feudal institutions under Yoritomo, the first of the Shoguns, late in the I 2th century, but bushido in an undeveloped form existed before them. The word is originally Chinese and was imported into Japan with the rudiments of the "military-knight-deportment" which it represents.
See Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan (19o5) ; also JAPAN: Army.