The System of Land Law in the Edo Period

Abstract

In the Edo period, each Han (daimyo domain) had its own land law, but, in my opinion, it can be typified by the Edo bakufu (Shogunate) law.The system of land law is to be classified as follows: control of daimyo by shogun, control of Han by daimyo, land-owning by commoners and utilization of commonage (fields, mountains, pounds and lakes etc.) by a village to which commonage belongs.Contrary to the Middle Ages, when all official and private affairs were apt to be mixed up, in the Edo period, there existed a discrimination between official daimyo domain and private land estate of commoners. This was seemingly caused by the Taiko's cadastral survey. Toyotomi Hideyoshi confiscated the land-ownership that had existed before the cadastral survey, and only those people who had been recorded in the land register as responsible holders of land were permitted to exercise the rights of disposal and succession to the lands as their owners.As to the daimyo domains confiscated at the time of cadastral survey of lands, Hideyoshi took a policy to assign them anew to daimyo on the basis of the survey. Thus he drew a line between official right of daimyo to control their domains and private land-owning of commoners. Since the domains were assigned to daimyo on a temporary basis, daimyo had no rights of disposal and succession to them.Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Edo Shogunate, followed Hideyoshi's policy. Shogun controlled daimyo, but he did not get lands and people of their domains under his control. His control over lands and people was only exerted indirectly by way of daimyo, but he had jurisdiction over lawsuits etc. which occurred between the people, belonging to the different domains. Peasants and merchants, both of bakufu and daimyo domains, controlled their private land estate. Though, in regard to the peasants, there were some restrictions, for instance, prohibition in perpetuity of purchase and sale of their fields etc., as to the merchants, their control over lands in town was comparatively unrestricted.In 1867 (the 3rd year of Keio) the 15th Shogun of bakufu returned sovereign power to H.I.M. the Empero of Meiji. This means the transference of the right to control daimyo from Shogun to the Emperor.A village could be a land-owner as well as an individual, but actually a commonage was not a village estate, though the commonage which was indespensable for villagers to secure manure and fuel necessary to their village life, was called by that name. The village only held the right to utilize the commonage. In this sense, the village means whole villagers (land-owners) and the commonage can never be disposed of without whole villagers' consent. Forests, mountains and fields, belonging to the commonage, amounted to 80 per cent of the country, and it was only in 1873 (the 6th year of Meiji) that the ownership of commonage was authorized by the Land Tax Reform Ordinance. In this way, the land-ownership throughout the country had obtained legal recognization.