Hatamoto

A hatamoto (旗本^?, "under the banners") was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as gokenin. However, in the Edo period, hatamoto were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa house, and the gokenin were the lower vassals. There was no precise difference between the two in terms of income level, but hatamoto had the right to an audience with the shogun, where gokenin did not. The word hatamoto literally means "at the base of the flag", and is often translated into English as "bannerman". Another term for the Edo-era hatamoto was jikisan hatamoto (直参旗本^?), sometimes rendered as "direct Shogunal hatamoto", which serves to illustrate the difference between them and the preceding generation of hatamoto who served various lords.

The term hatamoto originated in the Sengoku period. The term was used for the direct retainers of a lord; as the name suggests, the men who were grouped "at the base of the flag". Many lords had hatamoto; however, when the Tokugawa clan achieved ascendancy in 1600, its hatamoto system was institutionalized, and it is to that system which is mainly refer to now when using the term.

...
Wikipedia