The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 4: Early Modern Japan

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THE SENGOKU VILLAGE LEGACY 485

though the prohibition was often repeated, the transfer of land became

quite widespread by the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Decrees that limited the subdivision of land also restricted the redis-

tribution of land to children other than the eldest son in those cases in

which the family head held less than a defined minimum amount of

land. This minimum requirement varied from domain to domain and

not infrequently changed over time, but a figure of ten koku was

common. The first appearance of this sort of inheritance restriction

came in the year 1673, when most people considered approximately

one hectare of land as the minimum needed to support an ordinary

small family for a year, and hence to ensure perpetual consanguineous

possession.

The cadastral surveys generally dealt only with cultivated land and

residential plots. Individual possession and utilization of forestland

and communal brushland, as well as the use of the lakes, seas, and

coastlands, did not come under the jurisdiction of any clearly stated

measure similar to the survey. In the sixteenth century, the rapid

growth of waterborne commerce led to an increased demand for ship-

building materials which, along with the growing demand for build-

ing materials for castles, warrior residences, and the houses and stores

of the merchants, stipulated the demand for lumber. Consequently,

many villages began communally to cut timber to sell commercially.

Forestland also served as a crucial source of fuel necessary for the

farmer's subsistence. Grass from pastures and forests provided fodder

for both the samurai's riding horses and the farmers' own workhorses

and oxen.

Even more importantly, woodlots became the single most impor-

tant source of green fertilizer. Under the

shoen

system, the use of

mountain woodlands, the collection of grasses for fertilizer, and fish-

ing in the lakes and seas usually were regulated according to long-

established customs that obviated the need for official guidelines.

Local custom also prevailed with respect to the use of village commu-

nal forests and brushlands. Such lands might be owned by an estate

proprietor or his officials who were empowered to grant access to the

stewards, the

myoshu,

and the peasants who depended on such lands.

Even after the Taiko survey clearly established the peasantry as a

landed class, such long-standing local practices would not change

until well into the Edo period.

9 Furushima

Toshio

chosakushu,

vol. 3, pp. 57-8. 10 Ibid., pp.

59-61.

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486 THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE

THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE EARLY MODERN

VILLAGE

Although the basic intent of the Taiko cadastral survey

was to

record the

names of the heads of

small

peasant families that cultivated the land in

order to bring social stability to the countryside and to make these

families responsible for paying annual land taxes, this goal was not

completely realized

everywhere.

Had it been, it would

have

resulted in

situation in which all peasants owned and worked parcels of land of

approximately the same

size.

However, entries in registers dating from

the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries reveal a considerable

disparity in the assessed value of the lands held by individual farmers,

even among inhabitants of the same village. A few large families might

cultivate lands whose productive capacities amounted

to as

much

two

hundred or three hundred

koku

rice.

On the other hand,

some

individ-

ual peasant families held less than five koku, and the putative yields of

others did not amount to even one koku. This inequity arose because

many village samurai in the regions of Kinai and the mountainous

reaches of Kanto and Tosan (the old provinces of Hida, Shinano, and

Kai) were permitted to retain rights of possession and cultivation over

their hereditary lands. These samurai-turned-peasants might hold

lands assessed at upwards of three hundred

koku,

and they were able to

manage such large possessions only by incorporating branch families

into their own households and by employing hereditary servants,

known as hikan,

nago,

kadoya.

These house servants were owned by

the heads of households and could be sold or traded.

In contrast, a more common pattern could be seen among the farm-

ers who worked lands estimated at ten to twenty koku and who culti-

vated these lands by relying on the labor of their immediate family and

relatives. Those farm families who worked only tiny plots were forced

to lease land from wealthier farmers and to pay rent in kind or in labor

service. In some very remote villages, there were even some farmers

who still used the primitive slash-and-burn and field rotation tech-

niques, and these lands were usually not subject to the annual land

tax.

Inequality in the distribution of individual family holdings was also

reflected in social relationships within the villages. Those farmers who

possessed large landholdings were able to monopolize the prized, hon-

orary functions in ceremonies that evoked the village's protective dei-

ties.

In villages near Kyoto such families in fact were considered to

have the status of samurai. In Honden village in Kawachi, for exam-

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SOCIAL COMPOSITION 487

pie,

only the upper-class villagers participated in the local religious

ceremonies, and they claimed to be descended from the founders of

the village." Such farmers were referred to as "the rooted"

(neoi)

or as

"the pioneers" (kusawake).

Quite common in the Kinki region and certain other areas in west-

ern Japan was the monopoly of religious and ceremonial duties by a

miyaza, or shrine council, composed of the heads of landholding vil-

lage families.

Moreover, in the early Togugawa period, village cere-

monies were typically conducted by a select "privileged council," or

kabuza. Still other customs that served to differentiate the older fami-

lies who constituted the village's upper class from the rest of the

villagers survived throughout Japan well into the Tokugawa period.

Even in the early nineteenth century, elite villagers in Mino Province

were still referred to as "elder" or "head" farmers

(otona-

kashira-

byakusho).

In Kano domain, official government edicts gave legal sanc-

tion to the traditional housing and clothing privileges that were re-

served for this class. The smaller, more ordinary farmers were called

"lower" or "adjunct" farmers

(jige-

waki-byakusho),

and they were

upposed to live in more humble dwellings.

In some villages, the

older and lower-class farmers even patronized separate shrines.

The gap between the upper-class farmers and the rest of the farming

population was both a product of traditional social custom and a conse-

quence of economic privileges and laws favorable to the elite rural

families. For instance, in the Sengoku period it was common for only

head farmers to have the right to own forestlands. Moreover, riparian

works were often carried out by either

a so

coalition of

myoshu,

and

this often meant that the village's upper class was able to retain author-

ity over the distribution of reservoir water. Such privileges and the

concomitant economic advantages continued to be enjoyed by select

groups well into the Edo period, and the accompanying social differ-

ences that had arisen among the inhabitants of pre-Tokugawa villages

were often preserved for a considerable length of time.

Although the nationwide land surveys of

the

late sixteenth and early

seventeenth centuries established a rough kind of horizontal equity

among the cultivators, by requiring everyone listed in the survey regis-

ters to work the land and to pay the annual land taxes, in fact, condi-

11 See chap. 5 of Furushima Toshio and Nagahara Keiji, eds., Shohin seisan to kisei

jinushisei

(Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1954).

12 See the entry "miyaza" in Terao Hirotaka, comp., Nihon keizaishi

jilen,

vol 2 (Tokyo: Nihon

hydronsha, 1940).

13 See doc. 119 ("Motorogun Miederamura teisho") in Gifu

kenshi

shiryo,

vol. 4.

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THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE

tions in the early Tokugawa period allowed a privileged subclass to

continue to dominate village politics. In some part this can be attrib-

uted to the concern of many daimyo governments with protecting

small-scale farmers from falling victim to the insolvency that could be

brought on by the combined onus of tax payments and the frequently

heavy expenses associated with conducting official village duties. It

should also be remembered that early Tokugawa village officials were

often descended from a privileged class of local elites who had held

official posts assigned by the earlier civilian proprietors or military

lords.

Thus they could claim that a prestigious lineage entitled them to

positions of authority, especially as village headmen.

Beginning about the mid-seventeenth century, however, the practice

of limiting formal membership in village organizations as well as posi-

tions of leadership to select members of the village's upper class gradu-

ally began to change, especially in response to transformations in the

village economy and domain politics. Sometimes the initiative came

from below. In many places where the "privileged councils," or

kabuza, had dominated village affairs, for instance, protests by lower-

class villagers, who not infrequently took their demands to daimyo or

shogunal courts, brought about the establishment of "village coun-

cils,"

muraza,

which permitted all village families to be represented

in such ceremonies. Another example, this time concerning access to

forestlands, comes from Horado village in the mountainous region of

northern Mino. In 1655 the long-standing claim by wealthy village

landholders to the exclusive use of nearby forestlands was challenged

by lower-class farmers who had been denied entry into the forest to

collect materials for use as fertilizers. The dispute was eventually

settled in favor of the lower-status farmers, and most of

the

forestland

was opened for communal use.

Another factor leading to change was the increasing tendency to

apportion taxes and other dues in proportion to a family's holdings

relative to the entire village kokudaka. This process can be traced in

some detail for the villages of Todo domain, located in the ancient

provinces of Iga and Ise.'

In principle the annual land rent was based

on the putative yields recorded in the cadastral survey, and it was paid

by the cultivators as a percentage of these assessments. During the

14 Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi no

kiso

katei, pp. 189-92.

15 See the 1750 document "Sokokushi," edited by Todo Kobun, for specific ordinances. Particu-

larly relevant are the details for 1692. This document was published in 1941 by the Kyoiku

kai of Ueda-machi in Mie Prefecture.

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SOCIAL COMPOSITION 489

early Tokugawa period, however, the Todo village officials, not the

common cultivators, came to be held responsible for ensuring that

their village as a unit delivered the specified amount of its total tax

assessment to the appropriate domain official. Indeed, village leaders

were sometimes even held hostage when defaults occurred.

At first, documents imposing the annual land tax tended merely to

list a figure that represented the total kokudaka for all old and new

paddies and dry fields within the village and then demanded a certain

percentage of tax based on that total, thus treating the village as a

single tax entity. Consequently, within any given village, taxes often

were not apportioned according to an individual farmer's assessment

as specified in the original cadastral survey records. Eventually the

annual tax assessment documents began to include clauses providing

that village meetings, in which all village households were repre-

sented, would decide how to apportion the village's tax burden. The

earliest instances in Todo domain of villagewide participation in the

apportionment process date back to 1610, but the practice did not

appear in the tax documents of Todo domain until approximately

1650.

Furthermore, the apportionments agreed upon within the Todo

villages had to be written down and witnessed by everyone, and even

other minor taxes, originally paid exclusively by upper-class house-

holds,

were now divided into equal amounts and paid by all village

households.

To continue with the Todo example, in 1649 the domain govern-

ment conducted a survey of the rural households within its bound-

aries.

A document summarizing the results of the survey noted that

the number of village households had increased markedly, but it re-

marked on a decline in the number of so-called official farmers

(yakugi

hyakusho),

a term used in Todo to refer to households that had

existed in the late Sengoku period and that were traditionally held

responsible for paying an annual household levy known as the yanami

yaku, a cash substitute for an older corvee levy. Based on this finding,

domain officials recommended that the number of households subject

to this levy be decreased in poor villages and increased in wealthier

villages. This policy enabled the domain to restore the number of

households obligated to pay this levy to a figure roughly equivalent to

what it had been in previous years. Consequently, the term "official

farmers" had now come to indicate one's degree of wealth, and not

one's pedigree. Status within the village was now bestowed according

to the farmer's actual holdings and his ability to pay the village assess-

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490 THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE

ment. Those who were able to pay the entire family allotment were

considered "full" members. Less wealthy peasants who only paid

seven or eight tenths of the tax were called "seventy percenters" or

"eighty percenters."

Policies designed to alter the number and composition of officially

recognized village members reflect a shift in the pattern of landholding

that was taking place as a result of the sale of farmland. There was an

increasing tendency among villagers to apportion all taxes, not just the

land tax, in accordance with the

kokudaka

assessment for each family.

For example, a 1690 decree in Todo ordered that village maintenance

fees

(muranyuyo)

were to be borne by the entire

village.

Village officials

were also prohibited from taking other farmers along on trips to the

domain capital, nor were they to employ other farmers to cultivate their

own lands. The decree also stipulated that servants and members of

extended families, who had previously been denied standing

separate

householders, now could become independent farmers if they received

partitioned lands and established separate, detached domiciles. Two

years later, in 1692, another decree stipulated that "from this date

village maintenance fees are to be paid as a proportion of an individual

family's

kokudaka

and are not to

divided among

village

households in

a manner that fails to reflect differences in wealth." This decree also

stated that "official farmers" had to pay the village maintenance fee

as a

proportion of their

kokudaka.

Significantly, the document justified this

policy by noting that if equal fees were paid by all village households,

the poorer farmers would be put at a disadvantage.

In short, the social structure commonly found in most villages in

the latter half of the Tokugawa period emerged after tax assessments

began to be levied in proportion to the size of an individual farmer's

holdings and started to take account of disparities in wealth. New

nomenclature also appeared that reflected these changes in village

social stratification. For example, from the beginning of the eigh-

teenth century, all cultivators with independent holdings were re-

ferred to as hyakusho or

hombyakusho,

and the poorer families who

did not possess their own holdings, and hence did not have a

kokudaka assignment, were known as

mizunomi

(literally, "those who

drink water").

As the possession of holdings included in a village's official koku-

daka became the sole criterion for determining

hyakusho

status, official

administrative posts, such as village headmen, elder, group household

head, and farmers' representative

(hyakushodai),

gradually replaced

the mixed bag of village-level positions that had been recognized in the

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SOCIAL COMPOSITION 491

early Tokugawa years.

Moreover, the method of selecting village

officials became more open. In the early years of the Tokugawa period,

village officials were usually appointed by the domain government,

and almost all were drawn from the same traditional upper-class fami-

lies,

often referred to as the

otona-byakusho,

or elder farmers, who had

dominated so many other aspects of village life. But as landholding

patterns and taxation methods changed, new people felt that they had

achieved a more equitable standing in the village, and so they began to

press for administrative changes that would give them a larger voice in

village political affairs.

In 1841, for example, a coalition of village officials and otona-

byakusho

of a village in Mino Province submitted a document to the

local lord that set out guidelines for resolving a dispute that had

erupted over nominating a man to serve as village headman.

These

guidelines established new rules to govern the election of future village

officials by providing that two members from a group of six former

elders

(toshiyori)

would serve alternately as headman for three years

while the other four continued to serve as elders. This measure essen-

tially created a six-member council to govern the village. Routine

village functions were to be carried out by the six elders in consulta-

tion. All "elder farmers" were allowed to participate in discussions of

special matters such as the apportionment of the annual land tax, the

official domain inspection of the rice crop, and the provision of lodg-

ing for visiting officials. Among the thirteen signatories of the docu-

ment, social distinctions remained. Only one wrote

hyakusho

under his

name. The remaining twelve listed themselves as

otona-byakusho,

one

of whom was a farmer's representative, and six of whom were elders.

The sharp social barriers between farmers who had the status neces-

sary to become village officials and the lower-class farmers began to

crumble even more after the 1720s when disturbances and even violent

demonstrations flared up concerning the election of ordinary peasants

as village officials, usually in regions where viable markets had devel-

oped for agricultural goods.

For instance, in 1642 the shogunate

16 For a discussion of village offices in English, see Harumi Befu, "Duty, Reward, Sanction and

Power: The Four Cornered Office of the Tokugawa Village Headman," in Bernard S.

Silberman and Harry D. Harootunian, eds., Modem Japanese

Leadership

(Tucson: University

of Arizona Press, 1966), pp. 25-50; and Harumi Befu, "Village Autonomy and Articulation

with the

State,"

John Whitney Hall

and

Marius B. Jansen,

eds.,

Studies in

the Institutional His-

tory

of Early Modem Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 301-14.

17 Gifu

kenshi

shiryd,

vol. 4, doc. 133, pp. 594-6.

18 A detailed discussion of this process in Kurashiki can be found in Thomas C. Smith, The

Agrarian Origins of Modem Japan (Stanford,

Calif.:

Stanford University Press, 1959), pp.

180-200.

492 THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE

stationed an administrative representative

(daikari)

at Kurashiki in

Bitchu, and the town prospered as a port from which the shogunate's

rice tax was shipped. From this time, thirteen men, known as the

koroku

(ancient lineages), held positions of authority as village officials

and landlords.

Beginning in 1700, new fields were developed near the sea, and

cotton cultivation became increasingly widespread around Kurashiki.

At the same time, wealthy men who engaged in the cotton trade began

to appear. They became known as the

shinroku

(new lineages), and

beginning in the late eighteenth century they opened a contest, at

times edging on violence, with the old lineages for positions of author-

ity in the village. By the 1818-30 period the so-called new lineages had

emerged as the community's political elite. Under conditions such as

these, elections in which ballots were formally cast for candidates

began to be held in many areas throughout Japan. Peasant grievances

over the unfair distribution of the land-tax burden and the unequal

imposition of the village maintenance fees were the primary catalysts

for these disturbances. Important also was dissatisfaction over the

monopoly by an elite few of honorary positions in village festivals.

More ordinary farmers now questioned the governing abilities of the

once-wealthy farmers whose fortunes had declined but who nonethe-

less continued to hold sway over village politics.

LAND-TAX REVENUE AND GOVERNMENT FINANCES

Wealth came from many sources in the Tokugawa period. The mines

and forests produced important primary resources, and Chapter

this volume explains the dynamic growth in commerce during the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet for all the vitality and excite-

ment associated with the expansion of cities and trade, it must be

remembered that the rice taxes collected from rural villages consti-

tuted the basic wealth of

the

country throughout the entire early mod-

ern epoch. An appreciation of the important role of the peasantry in

the economy can be gained from examining the income of the largest

and most important of the military families, the Tokugawa house, for

the last century of the regime.

The extensive Tokugawa domain was officially assessed at between

3.5 million to 4 million

koku.

By comparison, the domain of the next

largest lord, the Maeda house of Kaga, was officially appraised at just

over 1 million koku, although the annual rice crop was usually nearly

a third more than that. The Tokugawa family enjoyed many other

LAND-TAX REVENUE 493

economic advantages beyond its landholdings. First, the Tokugawa

house had the benefit of the services of an enormous bureaucracy

that it entrusted with the task of administering its lands scattered

throughout Japan. This bureaucracy was distinguished by its exten-

sive organization, its systematic auditing of accounts, and other fea-

tures that were later adopted by the Meiji civil service. Moreover, the

Tokugawa house acquired control over the output of all mines

throughout Japan, including the rich gold mines of Sado and the

extensive silver mines of Ikuno and Omori. In addition the Toku-

gawa house managed the large tracts of forests situated in the Hida

and Kiso mountains. And finally, the Tokugawa family was able to

levy taxes on commerce and industry in Edo, Osaka, Kyoto, and

other cities under its direct administration and to collect revenues

from the Nagasaki trade.

Because only secondary sources survive, we do not have accurate

figures on the shogunate's revenues for the entire

Edo

period.

However,

it is possible to make calculations derived from documents that are

extant for certain years. In 1844, for instance, a year for which good

documentation exists, gross bakufu revenues amounted to 4,011,766

ryo

of gold, of which

1,827,879

ryo was

categorized as "regular income"

and 2,183,887 ryo

"extraordinary revenues."

The single most impor-

tant source of revenue was the land tax, which amounted to the equiva-

lent of some

1,660,000

ryo

in 1844. The shogunate also netted about

583,000

ryo

from loan repayments; 839,000

ryo as

profits garnered from

a recoinage that lowered the precious metal content of the coins it

issued; and 23,629 ryo from forced loans and gifts extracted from

wealthy merchants and peasants. Lesser but still significant amounts of

income were derived from mining revenues (62,000

ryo)

and transport

fees (71,000 ryo).

Clearly, the land tax was the major source of revenues. Such tax

payments made up 41 percent of the bakufu's total revenues in 1844,

almost twice the

percent of total earnings represented by the second

largest source of income: recoinage profits. Daimyo who could not

avail themselves of the special sources of income restricted to the

Tokugawa house were even more dependent on the land tax. In Kaga

domain, to take but one example, the land tax during the early decades

of the nineteenth century accounted for well over 80 percent of all

domain revenues, or nearly 560,000 koku of rice annually. Although

Kaga's landed income was exceptionally large in absolute terms, most

19 Furushima, Kinsei keizaishi

kiso kalei.

494 THE VILLAGE AND AGRICULTURE

domains derived approximately the same percentage of their total reve-

nues from the rice tax.

It is easy to imagine the burden that fulfilling the annual tax obliga-

tions presented to the average household farm. Many specific taxes

were typically lumped together to make up the average family's annual

tax obligation. The most important of these was the "basic tax"

(honnengu),

calculated as a proportion of the official, estimated yields

on surveyed lands. Added to this were the various miscellaneous taxes

(komononari)

that were imposed on fixed assets: the boats that plied

the rivers and seas, the soaking bins used for making paper, the large

pots used for boiling seawater to make salt, and even the possession

and use of forestland. These taxes were usually small sums paid as user

or licensing fees rather than as a percentage of output or profit. In the

early Edo period, there was also a labor corvee imposed on each regis-

tered farm household, and this was later converted into a cash pay-

ment calculated as a percentage of

kokudaka

holdings. Another levy -

one that won little favor with local farmers - was imposed from the

mid-Tokugawa period and required the villages located along the ma-

jor highways maintained by the shogunate, the Tokaido, Nakasendo,

Nikko Kaido, and Koshu Kaido, as well as those dotting the highways

constructed by individual daimyo, to provide packhorses for official

communications and transport.

The payment of these taxes resulted in severe hardships for most of

the peasantry, and official policies often seemed to be designed to leave

the peasants with only the minimal income necessary for their contin-

ued existence. The draconian spirit of the shogunate's officials is re-

vealed in a few well-known sayings that have come down to us.

Honda Masanobu (1538-1616), a daimyo closely allied with Tokugawa

Ieyasu, urged his officials to estimate

peasant's annual output and his

consumption needs and then to calculate the basic tax so that it would

soak up every surplus grain of rice. "The proper way to govern is to

ensure that peasants don't accumulate wealth yet don't starve either."

Ieyasu advised his rural intendants to govern the peasant by "making

certain they can neither live nor die." Kan'o Haruhide, the finance

magistrate in 1749 when the shogunate increased its tax levies, com-

20 For a general discussion of domain finances, see Aono Shunsui, Daimyo to

ryomin

(Tokyo:

Kyoikusha, 1983); pp.

70-91;

and Kitajima Masamoto, Bakuhansei kokka kailai katei no

kenkyu (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan, 1978), esp. pp. 1-28.

21 This quotation and others similar to those that follow can be found in many texts. See

Furushima, Nihon nogydshi, pp. 173—6, as well as vol. 22 (Shiryo-hen, Nihon,

kinsei-hen)

the Sekai rekishijiten (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1955).