Reassessing the Shōen System: An International Conference

Organized by Joan R. Piggott and Janet R. Goodwin

University of Southern California

Spring 2012

Shōen, agricultural estates with a complex hierarchy of rights to income from the land and cultivators, represented a major landholding structure in classical and medieval Japan.  Shōen received considerable attention in Japanese scholarship some thirty years ago. Historians in Japan are now revisiting the topic.  While knowledge about shôen has informed much English-language scholarship over the last few decades, there have been few intensive studies of the land-holding system per se, and its place in the medieval economy of Japan. 

For this workshop we will invite both Japanese and Western scholars to present their research on shōen and shōen-related topics. Contributions from faculty and graduate students in the ongoing Ōbe Estate Project at the University of Southern California will be included, but coverage will not be limited to a single estate. Scholars from several disciplines, including history, archaeology, religious studies, and art history, will be invited as presenters and discussants. The workshop will focus on the ways that research on shōen can be applied more broadly to Japanese historical studies, as well as on methods to introduce shōen to undergraduates and non-specialists. Within this framework we propose three sub-themes:

1.  Archaeology and history:  the lay of the land

Although the development of specific estates may be well documented, written records do not cover all their significant aspects.  For example, we must often turn to archaeological findings to understand just how previously uncultivated land was developed and where dwellings were located.  Material evidence such as religious images, tools, and buildings can provide information not included in documents about beliefs, rituals, and relationships. Combining material and textual evidence can support an analysis of the shōen development process from two different perspectives.  In the case of Ôbe estate, for example, texts demonstrate how the throne and court authorized and protected the rights of the proprietor, the great Nara royal temple, Tōdaiji; while results of archaeological excavations enable an on-the-ground view of land reclamation efforts and the construction of irrigation systems.  From the latter, we can draw at least tentative conclusions about the contributions of ordinary people to developing the estate, a topic that rarely finds its way into official documents.  Another topic that relies heavily on archaeological evidence is the transportation network—both land and sea—that connected shôen with their proprietors, the ultimate off-site recipients of the proceeds of the land. A tandem examination of archaeological and historical evidence can enhance in-depth explorations of topics that evade the techniques of a single discipline. 

2.  “It’s the economy, stupid”: shōen and economic development

How did the shōen structure enhance—or retard—economic development?  How did an economic climate that changed drastically from late classical to late medieval times influence the shōen structure?  What was the relationship between local developments on individual shôen and the growth, stagnation, or decline of the economy throughout the realm? Over the last twenty years or so, Japanese and Western scholars have proposed various theories of economic development during this time; one recent provocative work, William Wayne Farris’s Japan’s Medieval Population, posits a period of little or no growth prior to about 1280. Yet the example of Ōbe estate (Ōbe no shō) in Harima (today’s Ono city in Hyōgo prefecture, north of Kôbe) suggests that at least locally—and in fits and starts—the productivity of the land began to rise somewhat earlier than that. What can further research on this estate, as well as the examination of other shōen, tell us about this issue? Another important topic is the relationship of agricultural land to commercial enterprises and the economy of towns. What role did shōen play in the development of commercial guilds, markets, and towns—and core-periphery relations— from the early to the late medieval age?

3.  Land and power:  who controlled shōen and how did this change?

The complex ladder of rights to the produce of a shōen’s fields challenges common concepts of land ownership. Various entities held these rights: court aristocrats and major religious institutions at the top as proprietors; off- and on-site representatives of proprietors; local managers with long family roots in the land; and prosperous cultivators.  Rights were determined by contract and by fiat of the royal court, and they were defended through both litigation and violence. The documents of Ôbe estate suggest frequent conflict between the proprietor and its own appointees; between a local temple established to oversee the estate when it was initially developed, and lay officials appointed by the proprietor; between the proprietor and the military government’s appointee as military steward (jitō); between shōen officials and cultivators on the one hand and invading warriors (akutō) on the other; and even within a single family.  The evidence from Ôbe suggests that the shōen structure, in which rights were assigned according to status and no-one could vie for the rights of a superior or inferior, did very little to guard against conflict. Was the situation on Ôbe estate typical?  How was conflict resolved?  Can we define “control” over the land in a way that avoids or refines the concept of ownership?

One goal of the workshop is to produce a volume of essays on the shôen system that will be both useful to scholars in Japanese studies and accessible to undergraduates and specialists in areas other than Japan.  It would be the first such volume available to English readers. Meanwhile the conference will bring together the best known specialists on the estate system, while providing an opportunity for USC graduate students in Japanese history to present their research, meet scholars from Japan, and prepare early publications that should result in better future career opportunities.