Compare And Contrast Samurai And Knights

History is not always what it seems, especially when comparing soldiers on the Hollywood screen and the actual knights in sewerless castles. Knights and Samurai were both part of the feudal system, a system in which a noble in a higher position called a lord or daimyo, has a samurai or knight working under him or her. Samurai and knights did not earn money, but instead rice or small farming lands called fiefs. Knights and samurai were both trained at a young age and armed with various weapons and armor. The European knights wielded longswords, lances and bows, whereas the samurai held two swords. One was to fight, and the other was to commit suicide, in order to not die by enemy hands. Although each soldier was highly trained in combat,
For example: their swords. The blade of the wielded sword dealt more damage, with a half inch more penetration than the longsword, and cut through leather armor, whereas the longsword could not. Also in the video Japanese Katana v.s. European Longsword, it is shown that the single edge of a katana could easily slice through a lock of ice, but the longsword was unable to do much except shave a chunk of ice off. However, the grip of the katana was constantly changing throughout the video, which would lead to various outcomes. If both weapons had been tested under the same circumstances, the result would most likely have been different. Despite the altered results, believing the katana to be superior would still be reasonable due to the drastic differences in results. One such occurrence was the metal armor test. In this test, the two men attempted to break through the armor with each sword and then and stabbed at it. When swung sideways, the longsword bounced off of the armor. As for the katana, both tests yielded remarkably different results. Upon the armor, th katana dented it, and penetrated half of an inch deep when
Knights wore roughly 55 pounds of metal layers, whereas samurai wore many layers of shingle-like metal in an extravagant design. Eleanor Hall describes samurai armor as, “constructed of small overlapping lacquered metal scales or plates tied together with silk cords… It allowed good freedom of movement while offering excellent protection.” (Hall 2). In spite of this heavily protective, loose armor, it still had it’s faults. The silk cords used to bind the metal plates together could make the entire armor terribly heavy. However, since most of the battles took place on land, this was not usually a problem for the samurai. Knights’ armor was still heavier than that of a fully soaked samurai’s, which limited speed and relied primarily on horses for transportation. The samurai is superior in this sense because the samurai was trained for long-ranged fights on horseback, whereas the knight was trained for melee on horseback. This meant that in combat, a samurai would be able to land a hit on the knight before he was able to