Relationship between Landlord and "Nu-pu" or Servants during the Sung Dynasty

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Other Title
  • 宋代の地主「奴僕」関係
  • ソウダイ ノ ジヌシ ドボク カンケイ

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As the direct producers during the Sung dynasty, there were slaves and employees besides the tenants and owner-farmers. People of the former categories are in all called nu-pi 奴婢 or servants in literary sources, and the present essay is a trial to give a consideration on the relationship between landlords and nu-pi in this wider sense, namely servants and employees in general.The landlord’s estate at that time was quite great in extent and was then called chuang 荘. As regards the inner structure of the estate, the residential quarter for the landlord was enclosed within a fence and was open towards outside through an intermediary gateway. In between this intermediary gateway and the outermost gateway was the living quarter for nu-pu 奴僕 or the servants. Within the garden were planted several tens of kind of trees and flowers dispersed by pavilions and benches, and furthermore, vegetable garden and paddy field were also there.Now, the nu-pi were not only engaged in various domestic works but also serving for agricultural works, but the extent of the latter was limited to that in and around the estate (viz. chuang), in other words mên-chien-t’ien 門前田, chia-hou-t’ien 家後田 and fu-kuo-t’ien 負郭田. It seems that these lands were managed directly by the landlord, the area covering at most a hundred or two hundred mou 畝, while the other scattering fields of the landlord in the relevant or other villages were run by tenants.The chief supply source of these nu-pi could have been the management of small peasants such as tenants and petty owner-farmers. In such a management, due to its essential unstability, peasants had to let their wives or children serve as nu-pi when the exploitation of the state or landlords was too severe, or in the occasion of natural calamity. Therefore, those who serve as nu-pi were solely the subsidiary members of small peasants, and there could be no or little case in which the family head served as nu-pu. This fact can well tell us that the fundamental type of management at that time was that of small peasant, and that the management by nu-pu was essentially complementary in its character among the contemporary management types.

Journal

  • The Toyo Gakuho

    The Toyo Gakuho 53 (3・4), 342-382, 1971-03

    東洋文庫

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