Nothing hardens a samurai’s sword more than the thought of owning land.
And nothing softens a peasant’s pickaxe more than the thought of
having their land owned by samurai.
In the Kamakura Period [1185 - 1333] of Japan, the warrior class started taking over land
all across Japan, and became the worst landlords ever.
How did they do this, and what abuses did they inflict upon the peasants?
This time, on History with Chibis.
[Private Lands Creep Across Japan]
In the Nara Period [710 - 794], all lands were owned by the state, the Imperial court.
They were public lands.
Tax money went directly to the state to fund important work in the capital,
like parties mainly. Mostly parties.
In the Heian Period [794 - 1185], things began to change.
The court started carving up some of the public lands to make private lands, called shōen 荘園.
The shōen system was important, so repeat the word three times in the comments,
it’ll be on the test.
The court gave out shōen as awards to members of the imperial family,
other nobles, temples, and shrines.
These lands were free from the hand of the state.
The government couldn’t even chase criminals that ran into a shōen.
A shōen paid no taxes to the state.
Nice, so peasants got to keep all their money right?
Nope.
Peasants paid taxes to the shōen owner, so owning these lands was pretty sweet.
Most shōen owners didn’t even live on their land.
They were aristocrats who lived in and around the capital.
They usually had a local representative to manage things.
It was like owning an apartment building and hiring a property manager to manage it while
you sip on wine in a lambo in your pool.
Over time, the number of shōen exploded.
The country was a Crunch Berries cereal bowl of public and private land,
and life was pretty good for landowners.
Until the warriors rose up.
[the warriors are coming! the warriors are coming!]
A hurricane called the Genpei War blew across Japan.
Out of the blood arose a military government in Kamakura, ruled by a shogun.
It was awkward because the traditional civilian government in Kyoto was still there like “oh hi"
Japan was ruled by two governments.
The new Kamakura shogunate sent men from its warrior houses to shōen across Japan,
to manage the lands, as reward for their service.
These men were called jitō 地頭.
And so it became.
A shōen was not only controlled by one shōen owner from Kyoto, but also one jitō from Kamakura.
Problem was, the jitō only answered to Kamakura, not the landowner.
If the landowner had a problem with the jitō, all he could do was angrily file a lawsuit
with Kamakura and violently sit there awaiting the shogunate’s judgment.
With the jitō managing private lands, it was a case of having too many cooks in the chicken.
Between the jitō and the landowner, it wasn’t clear who controlled what.
When the shogunate leaders sent their men all over the country, they gave them very
clear instructions: “Go manage the land, just make sure to follow local customs.”
Whatever that meant.
It was up to the jitō to learn the local customs, and then ignore them.
[meet the new boss, sh-ttier than the old boss]
A jitō would travel across the country to his assigned shōen, and stroll in with his
thick sword swinging about like he owned the place.
He was an outsider.
He didn’t know any of the local agreements between the peasants who lived there
and the previous land manager, nor did he care much.
Remember, these jitō were men of the sword, men of the bow and arrow,
men of the rapping and the pillaging.
Before the war that formed the shogunate, many of them were bandits going around
stealing food and women.
It was a constant battle between the jitō and the landowner over who controlled what.
The jitō basically did whatever he could get away with.
Japanese trees today tell their children of the great massacre of their ancestors,
who were used to create mountains of complaint letters that were sent to the shogunate.
Here’s a record of what one warrior did, but his actions were pretty common among jitō.
He collected money from peasants for himself and his men, even forced them to send him
regular deliveries of cloth and other goods.
He forced people to do random projects for him during harvest time,
when they were supposed to be busy harvesting.
He used other people’s horses for his family to get around.
And when his family wanted to travel far away,
he forced the community to donate men and transportation.
It was typical for samurai to force peasants to work in their homes,
as servants, cooks, or whatever.
They even demanded free labor for random projects.
“Hey George, why don’t you add a pool to my house. It’s for official business.”
When they did this during harvesting or planting season, it threatened the livelihoods of farmers.
One jitō ordered some peasants to come with him to the capital to do some labor,
then locked them in a hut at night to keep them from running.
A local shrine was like, “Hey could you please let them go?
These are virtuous people who are protected by the gods.”
The jitō replied, “They are worthless peasants, not people of the gods.”
This seemed to be a common opinion among jitō.
Another jitō kept forcing his way into the homes of commoners to stay the night,
because he didn’t want to travel in unlucky directions.
[Link: Video about unlucky directions] Yep that was a thing people believed in.
Peasants didn’t feel pleasant.
Most shōen owners lived far away in the capital.
Most jitō did live in their shōen, but they moved in from elsewhere.
The locals must have felt like they were being controlled by outsiders.
[I can't, I just can't with these guys]
Power-hungry samurai pissed off everyone, even the higher-ups in the military capital.
The mountains of complaints and devastated forests were hard to miss,
but the shogunate leaders were in a tough spot.
They didn’t want to dish out harsh punishments to their most valuable men.
Jitō were important followers.
Plus, men of war are like Q-tips. You shouldn’t push them too hard.
However, shogunate leaders did often rule against jitō,
stopping their most blatant abuses.
They were like, “Alright Bobunaga, pump the breaks on that using people as slaves business.”
They tried their best to get jitō and shōen owners to work together to control the peasants.
Now you really didn’t want warriors accumulating too much land.
The plural of land is rebellion.
Jitō tried to grab land whenever they could.
When a jitō was first assigned to a shōen, he was given a small plot of land in the shōen
where he could live, grow food, and mistreat the locals.
He collected money from this land and wasn’t taxed on it.
Back in those days, commoners often left their homes and fields, either because they didn’t
like the people there or wanted different opportunities in other regions.
They left behind empty lands, and the jitō would be like, “Welp it’s my land now.”
Problem was, if this kept happening, over time the jitō would take over more and more areas.
Shōen owners complained, and Kamakura finally ruled that vacated lands had to be split equally
between shōen owner and jitō.
The shogunate also said that after a peasant family paid their annual tax,
they were free to stay in the shōen or bounce.
This made it hard for a jitō to bind peasants to the land,
preventing them from growing too strong and independent.
[okay you win, dick]
Peasants did try to protest and fight back, especially in the west where the shogunate’s
influence wasn’t as strong.
But it didn’t seem to make a difference.
Pharmacies made a killing on aspirin in those days, with all the shōen owners suffering
headaches from dealing with these warriors.
Some shōen owners said “Screw it” and entered into tax collection contracts with their jitō.
The contracts basically said, “Fine, you can control everything.
Just pay me an annual tax.”
Not only was controlling the whole shōen pretty neat, these contracts made the jitō rich.
They could be really one sided.
One jitō collected 50 times more tax money than the money he sent to the shōen owner.
Sometimes a shōen owner would even split the ownership of the land with the jitō.
“Okay, do whatever you want on your side, but stay out of mine.”
When this happened, the jitō went from owning a small plot of land
to owning a huge chunk of the shōen.
This was a bigger deal than the tax collection contracts from before,
because the jitō became a major land owner instead of just a land manager.
The shogunate tried to limit the growing power of its warriors,
but the jitō started to overtake the shōen system.
The shōen system of rule by a faraway owner didn’t break down in the Kamakura Period,
but it was the beginning of the end.
The shift of land ownership from faraway nobles to local warlords was a big deal,
and it allowed samurai to amass local power
and wage the wars in later periods that we all know and love.
For more Japanese history videos, check these out.
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