宋代以後の土地所有形体

Abstract

Large scale estates called chuang-yuan (莊園) came into existence in the Six Dynasties, but in the time of Sung (宋) and after they underwent a remarkable change though the name chuang-yuan or chuang (莊), remained unchanged. Now the estate did not mean the possession of one large piece of land but the ownership of a number of rather smaller pieces of land by a single landlord. This was due to the establishment at the end of the T'ang dynasty of the custom of equally dividing landed property among the sons. The large scale estate in the period, which the author speaking of, came into existence as the result of purchasing small pieces of land dispersed in various localities. With the appearance of such a kind of large scale land-ownership the relations between the landlaord and the tenant also suffered a change. In the Sung period and after the tenant called t'ien-hu (佃戶) was no more a bondman but a freeman who paid rent by contract. Though in certain parts of the country the older type of estates was still in existence in the Sung period, the new type was becoming more and more common throughout the whole country. At the same time economic exploitation of tenants by powerful landlords was becoming intense. When the concentration of landed property became to threaten the finance of the State, the central Government had to take steps to interfer with the tendency, and the result was the so-called Public Land Policy (公田政策) of famous statesman Chia Ssu-tao (賈似道). Thus the government attempted to expropriate one-third of every estate for nationalization.