Common Land in Late Medieval Japan

Abstract

"In late medieval Japan (1300-1600) the village community emerged as the unit with responsibility for irrigation and common land. This development coincided with Japan's maturing as an agricultural society. The stabilization of agricultural land in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had led to the intensification of agriculture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and to the increased importance of irrigation and common land. These changes in turn led to the independence of small farmers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the emergence of the village community based around around patterns of land and water use."