Shoen

shoen

In Japan (c. 8th–15th century), a private, tax-free, often autonomous estate. As the shoen increased in numbers, they undermined the political and economic power of the central government and contributed to the growth of powerful local clans. Landowners would commend their parcels of land to powerful families or religious institutions with tax-free status, thereby obtaining that status for themselves. All people connected with the land—the powerful patron, the owner, and the estate manager—had rights to part of the income from the land. During the Kamakura period (1192–1333), the shogunate (military government) asserted authority over the shoen by inserting its own stewards (jito) into each estate to collect taxes. During Japan's Warring States period, the shoen gave way to consolidated landholdings controlled by daimyo (domain lords). See also samurai.

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Shoen 

private feudal estates in Japan from the eighth through 16th centuries. Shoen arose in the eighth and ninth centuries and counterbalanced the system of state landownership characteristic of Japan in the mid-seventh century, when the land allotment system had been established. By the 11th century, state landownership had become insignificant, and shoen became the standard form of landownership. As early as the tenth century, shoen were made exempt from all taxation and received administrative and judicial immunity. The landholdings of the eighth through 11th centuries are usually referred to as early shoen, and those from the 12th through 16th centuries as late shoen.

Manors, which belonged chiefly to the aristocracy, especially the house of Fujiwara, were the most important of the early shoen; by the period of the late shoen, the principal manors had disappeared. As a result of the development of feudal relations, the feudal warrior class—the bushi (samurai)—came to occupy a dominant position in the system.

The shoen system disintegrated between the 14th and 16th centuries, with the evolution of a system of major feudal land-holdings (principalities).

REFERENCES

Pozdniakov, I. G. “Progressivnaia iaponskaia istoriografiia o kharaktere feodalizma ν Iaponii.” Narody Azii i Afriki, 1962, no 3.
Yasuda, Motohisha. Nihon shoen shi gaishetsu. Tokyo, 1958. (Outline of the history of shoen in Japan.)

I. G. POZDNIAKOV