The court and its provincestwo, leading finally to a strengthening of more direct and increasingly integrated control of both
by central elites. This process was at the same time proceeding in interaction with an escalating
social differentiation of these very central elites.^28
As an example of first steps in this direction, in 879 approximately 4,000 chō of rice fields
(including some newly cultivated areas) were designated as kanden (“office land”). These fields
were not included among the kubunden, but were leased on yearly contracts to farmers at a rent
of 20 percent of the yield, and tilled by corvée workers, or by paid labor. The crops were trans-
ferred by the provincial administration to the capital in order to provide income for civil servants
in the central administration.^29
As the system evolved, some institutions in the central administration and other central elites
were vested with partial rights of income on specific rice fields. Typically, two parties held rights
on such fields. One party, the great houses and institutions in the capital, held the rights to the
labor taxes the tillers of these paddies had to pay, while taxes in kind were paid as before to the
second party, the provincial administration. Fields of this type were called zōeki menden, that is,
fields exempted (by the provincial administration) from labor levies. During the eleventh century,
they developed into the so- called zōekimen-kei shōen (“shōen exempt from corvée”) that became
increasingly important for the support of Buddhist temples, quite soon after they finally came
under the full direct control of the temple authorities.^30
Shōen emerged as an important category of land and increased rapidly during the tenth and
eleventh centuries. The new types of shōen were totally different from the early shōen established
in the middle of the eighth century in order to support the reorganization of the Tōdaiji as the
head of all province temples. The early versions lacked any autonomy from central administra-
tion and vanished again quite soon in the course of the ninth century.^31
During the eleventh century, lands in the provinces became divided into two main categories.
The first consisted of shōen of several types, controlled to a large extent by the noble houses and
institutions that constituted the central elite. The second category, called kokugaryō (“land con-
trolled by the provincial administration”) or kōryō (“land under public control”), was land still
under the control of the provincial government.^32
From the tenth century onward, the central administration tried hard to control the number
of shōen. In a famous decree promulgated in 902, it ordered strict “regulation of shōen,” and fol-
lowed this with about a dozen decrees of similar content from 984 till 1173.^33 This shows the care
of the central administration for maintaining control over the land.
On the other hand, the efforts of the provincial administration to promote the development
of arable land flagged noticeably in the early tenth century. One reason for this might have been
the changing expectations central elites had for the provinces. In order to stabilize the oscillations
of the court’s yearly income, tax output for each province became fixed, with provincial gover-
nors held responsible for delivering stipulated quotas. The amount of the tax output now became
the most important criterion for evaluating a governor’s administration and determining his sub-
sequent career. As an incentive, governors were granted the right to retain any surplus collected
as their own income, but were also compelled to make up shortages out of their own pocket.
Therefore, they subsequently lost interest in investing in infrastructure or other projects from
which they drew no direct profit during their terms of office. In addition, the area of taxable land
itself became increasingly fixed; newly opened land was not integrated into it, and did not
promise a direct increase of tax output. Fallow land became a growing problem for local and
regional society.
Of particular significance is the fact that province governors during this period of the tax
system came to be called zuryō (“one [i.e., the new governor] who receives accounts [from the
former governor]”). Typically, new governors brought followers and helpers with them from