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ahorbinskiBibliographic Data: Sato, Elizabeth. “The Early Development of the Shōen.” In Medieval Japan: Essays in Institutional History, ed. John W. Hall and Jeffrey P. Mass. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988 [1974]: 91-108.
Main Argument: Shôen emerged beginning in the 8thC CE; most early shôen, however, came from the ritsuryo category of "land available for reclamation," in which the reclaimer's nominal right of proprietorship for two to three generations was granted in perpetuity. Although they emerged at the same time as the ritsuryo government began to revert to patrimonial power and extra-legal customs began to supersede the state's laws on paper, shôen were not initially part of this process. Those early shôen that did become later shôen did so through the commendatory process, in which original proprietors commended the estate to a central proprietor so as to avoid encroachment from the state's provincial officers.
Argument, Sources, Examples Two factors are crucial in analysis of the shôen: when they were developed and the land itself. "Although in later times rights to income from land became more important than the land itself, in the early stages of shôen development, the reverse was true: in order to produce income, land first had to be developed" (95). The early shôen, moreover, was "a relatively compact unity that could be handled by a simple administrative structure" (96). Finally, "tax immunity, then, was not necessarily a defining characteristic of the early shôen, although most entities that were called such by their holders eventually received at least a partial exemption from taxation. Those that did not simply failed to survive" (ibid). The point, however, is that "lands were granted for reclamation before they received tax immunity" (ibid). Beginning in the early ninth century, however, as landholding rights on the ground changed, shôen emerged as an institution for proprietary control over the land, which became complete when an estate's proprietor acquired not only tax immunity but also immunity to entry by government officials. The shôen survived as an institutional form because it offered a great deal of flexibility--different rights and privileges could be granted to different members at all levels (shômin-shôke-ryôke-honke) based on their particular circumstances, and "it was possible for changes to take place at one level without substantially affecting the other levels" (107). Moreover, "it was possible for the income of the shôen to be widely distributed. Shiki [income rights] could change hands through sale, inheritance, or donation without disturbing the function of the shôen as an economic unit" (ibid). This flexibility was reciprocal, in that cultivators and proprietors could change without disturbing the others without threat to the shôen itself: "as an economic system, the shôen offered advantages to all of its constituents" (108).
Bibliographic Data: Kiley, Cornelius J. “Provincial Administration and Land Tenure in Early Japan.” In The Cambridge History of Japan vol. 2, ed. Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 236-340.
Main Argument: Kiley traces the transition from, essentially, the ritsuryô to the shôen system from the 9th to 12thC. This transition can be roughly divided into three phases; in the first, in the 9th and 10thC, rural notables of a type that Kiley calls "petty gentry" inserted themselves into the ritsuryô state as, essentially, tax farmers, acting as intermediaries between official tax collectors and the tax renderers themselves [though communal rendering of tax goods was not new; see Yoshie]. In the second, in the 11thC, "provincial governments were, without permission from the capital, beginning to license certain holdings as the specially chartered possessions of their 'cultivators,' endowed with specific tax preferences" (243). In the third, in the 12thC, what are known as "mature shôen" began to emerge, partly through the administration of Shirakawa, who as retired emperor promulgated many edicts ostensibly registering and curbing shôen but in actuality mostly confirming their rights of immunities in toto (since at this point the imperial house too was trying to get in on the tax-immunity game).
Argument, Sources, Examples One important point to note in this story is the tenacious survival of the office of the provincial governments; although governors themselves did not much travel to their bailiwicks after the high Heian period, but instead entrusted the administration of their provinces to custodians known as zuryô, "the provincial governments themselves proved to be among the most durable of ritsuryô institutions, probably because from the beginning they served to integrate the interests of local elites, capital officials, and court nobility" (253). The fact that more and more authority was entrusted to resident officials meant that they assumed more and more autonomy from the capital, strengthening provincial governments in general. In the second phase, "a domainal landholding system evolved and, by about the year 1100, the subject populace had also been reorganized, bringing whole communities of cultivators under the patrimonial control of domainal lords or proprietary officeholders" (253). Through the process of commendation which led to the consolidation of mature shôen as three-level institutions--original local proprietors (geshi or azukaridokoro), the lord (ryôshu or ryôke) and the principal in the capital (honjo)--both territory and people were divided between the provincial domains and shôen in the third phase. It is important to note, however, that through this entire period and into the medieval era, what was actually important was not the land itself but rather shiki ("commission") rights to income from the land--whether in kind or in labor, both of which were tax goods by the third phase of this progression. However, the emergence and enforcement of shiki, by which de facto title to land was effectively consolidated, was also related to what Kiley calls "the rapid militarization of the 11thC rural elite" (245). These developments spelled the end of the zuryô system, which Kiley argues "had within it the seeds of its own destruction; increasingly, the newly consolidated (and militarized) local elites could deal with the capital nobility directly, without the governor as intermediary" (248). Remember that these militarized rural elites were the people who fought in, and in some senses caused, the Gempei Wars. But also, shôen were not the sole form through which land was held at this point: there still remained land that was designated kokugaryô in each province at this point, held by the state and administered by those working in the provincial government offices.
Critical assessment: I've had complaints about Kiley in other contexts, but this chapter seems very solid; it also fits well with what we know about the early shôen from Sato, whose analysis likewise seems quite solid. I don't envy either of these scholars combing through documents, or the scholarship, about the shôen; they are famously complicated and famously somewhat boring once you descend from any but the most general level.
Further reading: Nagahara, "Landownership under the Shôen-Kokugaryô System"; Mass, "Jitô Land Possession in the 13thC"; Kawai, "Shogun and Shugo"; Miyagawa, "From Shôen to Chigyô"; Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages
Meta notes: It is totally correct to call medieval Japan "feudal." The problem is that most people don't understand what that means.
Main Argument: Shôen emerged beginning in the 8thC CE; most early shôen, however, came from the ritsuryo category of "land available for reclamation," in which the reclaimer's nominal right of proprietorship for two to three generations was granted in perpetuity. Although they emerged at the same time as the ritsuryo government began to revert to patrimonial power and extra-legal customs began to supersede the state's laws on paper, shôen were not initially part of this process. Those early shôen that did become later shôen did so through the commendatory process, in which original proprietors commended the estate to a central proprietor so as to avoid encroachment from the state's provincial officers.
Argument, Sources, Examples Two factors are crucial in analysis of the shôen: when they were developed and the land itself. "Although in later times rights to income from land became more important than the land itself, in the early stages of shôen development, the reverse was true: in order to produce income, land first had to be developed" (95). The early shôen, moreover, was "a relatively compact unity that could be handled by a simple administrative structure" (96). Finally, "tax immunity, then, was not necessarily a defining characteristic of the early shôen, although most entities that were called such by their holders eventually received at least a partial exemption from taxation. Those that did not simply failed to survive" (ibid). The point, however, is that "lands were granted for reclamation before they received tax immunity" (ibid). Beginning in the early ninth century, however, as landholding rights on the ground changed, shôen emerged as an institution for proprietary control over the land, which became complete when an estate's proprietor acquired not only tax immunity but also immunity to entry by government officials. The shôen survived as an institutional form because it offered a great deal of flexibility--different rights and privileges could be granted to different members at all levels (shômin-shôke-ryôke-honke) based on their particular circumstances, and "it was possible for changes to take place at one level without substantially affecting the other levels" (107). Moreover, "it was possible for the income of the shôen to be widely distributed. Shiki [income rights] could change hands through sale, inheritance, or donation without disturbing the function of the shôen as an economic unit" (ibid). This flexibility was reciprocal, in that cultivators and proprietors could change without disturbing the others without threat to the shôen itself: "as an economic system, the shôen offered advantages to all of its constituents" (108).
Bibliographic Data: Kiley, Cornelius J. “Provincial Administration and Land Tenure in Early Japan.” In The Cambridge History of Japan vol. 2, ed. Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 236-340.
Main Argument: Kiley traces the transition from, essentially, the ritsuryô to the shôen system from the 9th to 12thC. This transition can be roughly divided into three phases; in the first, in the 9th and 10thC, rural notables of a type that Kiley calls "petty gentry" inserted themselves into the ritsuryô state as, essentially, tax farmers, acting as intermediaries between official tax collectors and the tax renderers themselves [though communal rendering of tax goods was not new; see Yoshie]. In the second, in the 11thC, "provincial governments were, without permission from the capital, beginning to license certain holdings as the specially chartered possessions of their 'cultivators,' endowed with specific tax preferences" (243). In the third, in the 12thC, what are known as "mature shôen" began to emerge, partly through the administration of Shirakawa, who as retired emperor promulgated many edicts ostensibly registering and curbing shôen but in actuality mostly confirming their rights of immunities in toto (since at this point the imperial house too was trying to get in on the tax-immunity game).
Argument, Sources, Examples One important point to note in this story is the tenacious survival of the office of the provincial governments; although governors themselves did not much travel to their bailiwicks after the high Heian period, but instead entrusted the administration of their provinces to custodians known as zuryô, "the provincial governments themselves proved to be among the most durable of ritsuryô institutions, probably because from the beginning they served to integrate the interests of local elites, capital officials, and court nobility" (253). The fact that more and more authority was entrusted to resident officials meant that they assumed more and more autonomy from the capital, strengthening provincial governments in general. In the second phase, "a domainal landholding system evolved and, by about the year 1100, the subject populace had also been reorganized, bringing whole communities of cultivators under the patrimonial control of domainal lords or proprietary officeholders" (253). Through the process of commendation which led to the consolidation of mature shôen as three-level institutions--original local proprietors (geshi or azukaridokoro), the lord (ryôshu or ryôke) and the principal in the capital (honjo)--both territory and people were divided between the provincial domains and shôen in the third phase. It is important to note, however, that through this entire period and into the medieval era, what was actually important was not the land itself but rather shiki ("commission") rights to income from the land--whether in kind or in labor, both of which were tax goods by the third phase of this progression. However, the emergence and enforcement of shiki, by which de facto title to land was effectively consolidated, was also related to what Kiley calls "the rapid militarization of the 11thC rural elite" (245). These developments spelled the end of the zuryô system, which Kiley argues "had within it the seeds of its own destruction; increasingly, the newly consolidated (and militarized) local elites could deal with the capital nobility directly, without the governor as intermediary" (248). Remember that these militarized rural elites were the people who fought in, and in some senses caused, the Gempei Wars. But also, shôen were not the sole form through which land was held at this point: there still remained land that was designated kokugaryô in each province at this point, held by the state and administered by those working in the provincial government offices.
Critical assessment: I've had complaints about Kiley in other contexts, but this chapter seems very solid; it also fits well with what we know about the early shôen from Sato, whose analysis likewise seems quite solid. I don't envy either of these scholars combing through documents, or the scholarship, about the shôen; they are famously complicated and famously somewhat boring once you descend from any but the most general level.
Further reading: Nagahara, "Landownership under the Shôen-Kokugaryô System"; Mass, "Jitô Land Possession in the 13thC"; Kawai, "Shogun and Shugo"; Miyagawa, "From Shôen to Chigyô"; Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages
Meta notes: It is totally correct to call medieval Japan "feudal." The problem is that most people don't understand what that means.