The American Historical Review THE ORIGIN OF THE FEUDAL LAND TENURE IN JAPAN T is quite beyond the range of possibility, in an attempt to prove a certain sequence of social conditions and results, to try on a nation a series of experiments on a large scale which would require for their maturity circumstances of great and changing complexity extending over centuries. It must then be a matter of uncommon interest to the student of the history of human society to observe that Western Europe and Japan,1 with no mutual relation between them, independently evolved in the course of a long time those peculiarly definite and exhaustive social adjustments that are known as feudal, under conditions and upon principles which were, if significant in their minor differences, also striking in their extraordinary similarity in the main features. Human history, which so usually eludes a comparative study of its great divisions, becomes, under such circumstances, nearly comparable, and should therefore afford invaluable data to the scientific student of social evolution. The interest of the theme is enhanced, in the case of Japan, by the fact that she possesses a body of original sources sufficiently large to invite a careful investigation, and larger than may be offered by some of the other non-European nations that are said also to have known feudalism in their history. Following is a summary statement of some of the conclusions and problems of a study of the origin of the Japanese feudal land tenure on its purely institutional side. For it is thought that an analytical view of the institutional aspects of a great social devel 1" Die beiden grossartigsten Beispiele des entfalteten Feudalstaates, Westeuropa und Japan." F. Oppenheimer, Der Staat, p. 108. 2 A full discussion of the subject and of the sources for its study will be presented later in a monograph, to which the present paper may serve tentatively as an introduction. opment might well precede any economic or sociological interpretation of it. I. The political society of Japan before the seventh century was composed largely of patriarchal units (uji) and of groups of people (be, tomo) formed after the pattern of these units. Each unit had its chief, who exercised control over its members and the people of the groups attached to the unit, as well as over the land on which they subsisted. The emperor was in theory the head of the entire ruling tribe, but in reality his power rested chiefly on the members of his own unit and the people of the groups he had specially created, and on the land in possession of the unit and the groups (mita, miyake). He was hardly more than the largest among the patriarchs. One of the latter was rising in power so fast that it seemed almost to rival the imperial authority, while throughout the realm the inevitable tendency toward decentralization appeared increasingly alarming. It was the inherent dangers of this system, added to the threatened peril of an invasion from China, that necessitated the great Reform of the seventh century.3 The Reform was an adaptation of a system of state socialism that had been elaborated in China. It established a broad division of the free people into the governing and the supporting classes. The governing class consisted of a new civil nobility of rank and office, the higher ranks and offices being accompanied with definite grants of rice-land to be held during their tenure, and every holder of rank and many a civil servant being exempt from the payment of tributes and forced labor. The supporting or taxable class constituted the bulk of the free citizens; it was provided with 3 Preliminary measures of reform may be traced back to earlier years, but a radical and thorough reorganization of the state-system was begun in 645. After much experimentation, the institutional foundation of the reformed state was nearly completed when the Code of 701 was promulgated. 4 The system of ranks was instituted in 603, and was revised five times before 701. The final system of 701, which continued till 1869, contained nine chief ranks with thirty subdivisions. 5 Early in the eighth century, there were provided, exclusive of military offices, civil posts for more than 8300 officials in the capital and more than 3500 in the provinces. 6 The taxes were of three main classes: the rice tax (so), the tributes of local products (cho), and the forced labor or its equivalent payable in kind (yō). The new nobility was immune from the last two, which were by far the more onerous forms of taxation, but, theoretically, not from the rice tax. Some will probably maintain that at least the office-land (shiki-den) was exempt also from the rice-tax, but it may be demonstrated that such was not the intention of the law, excepting the office-land assigned to the provincial governor (ku-ge-den). 7 The population of this period has been estimated as four or five millions, and at the beginning of the feudal régime in 1186 as seven millions or more. equal allotments of rice-land subject to a periodical redistribution. The citizen owed to the state taxes and military duties. This is a schematic view of the social reorganization that was really devised and put into operation. On closer examination, the system will be found to have contained elements which would be certain in the course of time to defeat its own ends. Nor did the system comprehend all the land and all the people that existed. 8 First, as regards the people. The new nobility was indeed conceived on a new basis, but its personnel was essentially the same as that of the old patriarchal nobility. It may be presumed that the new nobility could not so readily have outlived the old habit of coveting private possession of land and men, and of regarding affairs of state much in the light of private concerns. The new taxable population was also in all probability composed mostly of the old free people of the pre-Reform period and their descendants.9 It is true that the old units and groups as such were no longer recognized by law, and all the free men and women were placed under the direct control of the state; but this must have meant merely that the free were no longer permitted to possess and to exercise public rights over one another. Beyond this, the new system was not intended to do away with class distinctions among the free; nor did it abolish the unfree, who in fact are found after the Reform in considerable numbers and in conditions of great diversity among themselves. The unfree received small allotments of riceland, but returned no tributes; the private menials were hardly under the direct rule of the state. Next, as regards land. There is evidence to show that the law of equal allotment of land was in reality largely enforced, though at different times in different parts of the country. But the allotting need not be taken in every case in the sense of an actual carving out of rice-land, which from the very nature of the land of this description was impracticable.10 The allotment was presumably, 8 An imperial rescript of 646, addressing itself to members of the old nobility, said: "Now the manner of securing your service is to abolish the old offices, to establish new offices, and to mark grades of ranks, so as to appoint you with offices and ranks." Nihongi, XXV., in Koku-shi tai-kei, I. 443. 9 More precisely, the taxable class consisted of most of the old clan (uji) members, some old group (tomo) people, and those of the old nobility whom fortune had reduced to the common rank. 10 For three important reasons, among others. First, rice-land (ta) was terraced in different levels for the purpose of irrigation, and could not always be easily parcelled. Secondly, much labor had to be invested in this class of land, in its first cultivation, its continual irrigation, and in the careful culture and harvesting of rice. Thirdly, the rigid delimitation of rice-fields, in addition to the heavy expenditure of labor required in their use, forced their cultivation to be in many instances, a flexible adjustment of tracts in the official register." Much the same thing may be said of the periodical redistribution.12 It was also fatal to the system that the authorities permitted the holder of the allotment to transfer its title by sale or mortgage. Before the eighth century was over, the allotment-land was neither equal nor re-allotted; it had become an unequal, private possession of people. Even allotting among the new population was all but discontinued by the end of the ninth century. A question of the utmost importance is, what was the allotmentland (ku-bun den)? It was rice-land, and did not include the other kinds of tiled land13 nor the vast tracts of arable and non-arable1 land that then existed. Moreover, the allotment-land probably was the rice-land that was, at the time of the Reform, not only in cultivation, but also properly registered; there must have existed much rice-land which was cultivated but which escaped registration. It was evident that a system of state organization built upon an equal division of so limited areas of land would soon be upset by developments that must inevitably occur in the remainder of the territory.15 If to this consideration are added other sources of evils latent in the large fiscal immunity of the noble and the unfree, as well as in the insatiable aggrandizement of the Buddhist Church, it is not strange that the life of the reformed state should intensive. These conditions must have tended early in history to make the rice-land an object of exclusive private possession (whether of the individual or of the family) resisting arbitrary division and redistribution. 11" Rice-land for each member is not considered in detail; a grant is made [in totality] to the house-head in accordance with the number of persons in his house." Ryō no shu-ge, commentary on the Code of 701 compiled in the latter half of the ninth century (1912-1913), I. 392–394. p. 102. 12 Cf. Ryō no gi-ge, official commentary on the Code compiled in 833 (1900), Only once, in 729, it was decided that an actual complete redistribution be made (Shoku Ni-hon gi, X., in Kohu-shi tai-kei, II. 170), but it is unknown whether this was accomplished. 13 The homestead (taku-chi), including the adjoining vegetable-land, was, as might be expected, in permanent private possession and alienable, and was also untaxable, as was the land for mulberry and lacquer trees (en-chi). Some dry grain-land (hatake) was rented to people, and its extension was apparently unrestricted. 14 Meadows and woodlands were, in law, not for private appropriation. 15 Arable land was still extensive, especially in north Japan and in Kyūshū, and its opening either as wet rice-land (kona-da) or dry grain-land (hatake) was inevitable; the new fields thus created would, even if nothing else happened, more and more eclipse the relative importance of the allotment-land in the economic life of the people. Moreover, the prevailing system of agriculture in Japan at this time was evidently that of scattered farms (Einzelhof) based upon individual ownership, not in an over-developed form of the system, but rather in its earlier stages. It was futile to try successfully to supersede the system with another of a foreign origin adopted for the convenience of the authorities. |