A study of customary practices related to land transactions in the Setouchi region during the late Edo era: a case study of Kanemaru village, Ashida district, Bingo province

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  • 近世後期瀬戸内農村における村内土地取引構造の研究 : 備後国芦田郡金丸村を事例に
  • キンセイ コウキ セトウチ ノウソン ニ オケル ソンナイ トチ トリヒキ コウゾウ ノ ケンキュウ : ビンゴノクニ アシダグン カナマルムラ オ ジレイ ニ

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Recent scholarship has usually seen the practice of pawning land as a form of credit in rural villages. However, there has been little study of the political and economic conditions that led to such practices, nor of its structural characteristics. This paper examines such customary practices in Kanemaru village, Ashida district of Bingo province in the late Edo period. The customary practices in Kanemaru village developed against a background of the development of commercial farming and the social norms of the murauke system, which was a village-wide, system for the collective responsibility for tax payment. My analysis of the data on land transactions shows that people of every class took part in this practice, especially the more commercialized middle and lower peasant classes. From this we can see that such practices developed within the context of an advance of commercialized agriculture, and were a form of mutual assistance. Peasants actively redeemed their pawned land, since if a person went bankrupt, his neighbors would have had to pay his taxes. Therefore, this practice not only prevented the lower class peasants from going bankrupt but also made it difficult for their land to be acquired by outsiders. In conclusion, this practice had historical significance that saved village community from bankruptcy and constrained the parasitic landlord system.

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