唐前半期における鄰保とその機能 : いわゆる攤逃の弊を手がかりとして

Abstract

During the Tang, both the lin and bao were formalized into law. At a level below the xiangli zhi 郷里制and the cunfang zhi 村坊制, the linbao composed of four or five households, was based essentially upon the fundamental unit of the jia家. Unlike the hu 戸, the fundamental unit of the xiangli zhi, the jia was more or less based upon the natural and individual relationships held between certain blood relatives and members of the local society. In this sense, it was, more than the others, a real unit reflecting actual social relationships. Until now, the function of the linbao has been widely understood to have been intended only as police enforcement. But this interpretation is not necessarily correct. Since the early Tang, the law of "linbao daiji" 鄰保代濟 had probably existed. Under its provisions, in the event of a peasant leaving the area, abandoning his household fields and not fulfilling his appointed work, the linbao to which the departed householder belonged undertook the cultivation of the abandoned fields and the responsibilities of his alotted jobs. Social responsibility was transformed into coercion. Therefore, the lahor of this substitute cultivatidn became a kind of compulsory labor services. The substitute work too was obtained essentially through force. The central government relied upon conditions of social interdependence which actually already existed within the jia in causing the linbao to assume such a function. At the heart of the linbao (in other words, within the regional society), there was just such a strong economic and social association and mutual interdependence for survival growing from the bonds of blood relationships. Under the pretext of reprimanding the local society for the occurence of an abandoned household, the state assumed the already existing custom of mutual assistance practiced by peasants. What is commonly called the abuse of tantao in the linbao is merely the result of regional official shaving made this an unlawful activity.