were members of the ''

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

'' class of feudal Japan. ''Yoriki'' literally means ''helper'' or ''assistant''.

Description and history

''Yoriki'' assisted ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' (feudal lords) or their designated commanders during military campaigns in the

Kamakura , officially , is a city of Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. It is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu. The city has an estimated population of 172,929 (1 September 2020) and a population density of 4,359 people per km2 over the tota ...

and

Muromachi period The , also known as the , is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ( or ), which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi ...

s.''Taiho-jutsu: law and order in the age of the samurai'', Don Cunningham, Tuttle Publishing, 2004 P.42
/ref> During the

Sengoku period The was the period in History of Japan, Japanese history in which civil wars and social upheavals took place almost continuously in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kyōtoku incident (1454), Ōnin War (1467), or (1493) are generally chosen as th ...

, as the scale of warfare increased, the organization of armies commanded by was subdivided. The ''daimyō'' commanded the entire army as the commander-in-chief, . Under him, the commanded the main cavalry force, while the commanded the who fought on foot. ''Yoriki'', often from the , assisted the ''samurai daisho'' and the ''ashigaru taishō'' on horseback. In the

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, ''yoriki'' provided administrative assistance at governmental offices. Among different ''yorikis'' were the ''machikata yoriki'', who were in charge of police under the command of the '' machi-bugyō''. Below the ''yoriki'' were the ''dōshin''. In the city of Edo there were about 25 ''yorikis'' working each for the two ''machi-bugyō'' offices. Since their status was , they were originally equivalent to and not allowed to ride horses, but the ''yoriki'' were allowed to ride as a special exception.

References

* Cunningham, Don (2004).
'Taiho-Jutsu: Law and Order in the Age of the Samurai'
'. Tuttle Publishing. p. 43. . Google Book Search. Retrieved on February 26, 2009. Officials of the Tokugawa shogunate Government of feudal Japan {{japan-hist-stub