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7 - The medieval peasant
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- By Nagahara Keiji, Hitotsubashi University, Suzanne Gay
- Edited by Kozo Yamamura
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Japan
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 27 April 1990, pp 301-343
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Summary
Historians generally date the medieval period in Japanese history as starting at the end of the twelfth century when the Kamakura bakufu was established, marking the emerging dominance of warrior government over aristocratic rule. In peasant history, however, the latter half of the eleventh or early twelfth century, however, is a more appropriate point of division between the ancient and medieval periods. The shōen system of land control had extended throughout Japan around that time, bringing entirely new conditions for the peasants and making them henceforth truly “medieval.” The introduction and development of the shōen system had a much greater impact on the living conditions of peasants in Japan than did the founding of the Kamakura bakufu nearly a century later. The shōen system, therefore, is of great significance in peasant history and is the central defining characteristic of the medieval period.
The momentous changes for the peasants brought about by the shōen system must be understood in the context of the earlier conditions pertaining to the land of the ritsuryō system in the eighth century. Under the ritsuryō system, the central government claimed ownership of all land; cultivators were allotted paddies on an equitable basis; and taxes were collected according to specific categories of goods; for example, grain, labor, and silk. But these conditions began to break down rapidly early in the tenth century and had disintegrated entirely by the time the shōen system had spread throughout Japan in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.
6 - The decline of the shōen system
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- By Nagahara Keiji, Hitotsubashi University, Michael P. Birt
- Edited by Kozo Yamamura
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Japan
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 27 April 1990, pp 260-300
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Summary
The shōen system of landholding, one of the most important institutions for organizing the economic life of medieval Japan, was transformed at the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth centuries. The transformation occurred when Minamoto Yoritomo, who established the Kamakura bakufu, created the offices of shugo (military governor) and jitō (military estate steward), introducing a new layer of tenurial rights into the shōen hierarchy in 1185. Following the Jōkyū disturbance of 1221, the shogunate confiscated the lands of the nobles and warriors who had taken part in the incident and appointed its loyal retainers (gokenin) as jitō to these lands. Both of these events served to establish firmly a lord–vassal relationship within the proprietary rights structure of the shōen system and marked the beginning of a long process that saw the emerging dominance of warrior authority and the declining power of the central proprietor over the land, its revenues, and inhabitants.
The appointment of jitō by the Kamakura bakufu was intended to supplement rather than supplant the land rights and political authority of the shōen proprietors who traditionally possessed full fiscal and administrative power over these “private lands.” This policy did not completely deny the shōen as a form of land proprietorship, nor did it mean that the jitō acquired exclusive proprietary rights on the shōen to which they were appointed. In fact, the Kamakura bakufu struggled to preserve the shōen system and to prevent the jitō from extending their authority beyond the scope intended by the bakufu.