Katana Samurai Swords

Katana, or samurai swords, have a long and distinguished history as both deadly weapons and culture objects. They have existed in Japan for well over 1,000 years, and many scholars and weapons-makers consider the art of katana-making to have peaked during the Muromachi period. At that time, Katana had been in use in Japan for between 500 and 700 years.

A Brief History of Katana, or Samurai Swords

The late 1100s marked the end of the Heian period, often regarded by many to be the high point of Japanese Imperial Court culture. During the Heian period, as the samurai class grew stronger, the development of the Katana as a weapon and as an art form rapidly advanced as well. At the end of the Heian, the warrior class wrestled control of Japan form the nobility and moved the center of Japanese political power to Kamakura, a city that is now about an hour away from Tokyo.

The following centuries saw an increase in the size of the warrior class, the quality of their weapons, and the number of wars in Japan. The Muromachi period, a few hundred years later, was characterized by battles between countless chieftains and small houses involved in border and fiefdom disputes. Due the relatively low presence of iron in Japan, katana-making is naturally expensive; perhaps the increasing number of feudal lords, coupled with the tithes they received from vassals, helped push sword craft to its zenith.

During the later Muromachi, Europeans began arriving in Japan. With them, they brought guns, which quickly diminished the importance of swords in Japan. The sword-making skills of the Muromachi were diminished as well, and though the art of the katana would resume slightly during the Edo period, the glory days were over.