Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_58hKYUYd5pFaxXBXlVGm9StSOC8PcFOPs-dSz77M6k-h_ZZTDTH_6YmKzmO39o0xZLj8ClbECKu6mDyp.yahoo.invalid> writes:
>a. Nobles: A hereditary nobility exists. There are lots of fancy titles,
>many of which correspond to nothing and nowhere. Nobles are limited in
> what occupations they can follow, but many royal and military offices
> are reserved to them. They are not subject to the same courts as
> commoners are; only other nobles ever judge them, with the predictable
> results.
This is the Kuge nobility around the Emperor. They had a bewildering variety of titles, with status and its perquisites precisely calibrated - if you were a noble of the Inner Grade of the Junior Class of the Seventh Rank, you could wear a particular colour of cap at court functions. Many of these nobles owned vast estates in the country which they never visited.
>b. Seigneurs: Some people own permanent "seigneurial" interests
> in the land, which do not include the right to possess and use it.
> These seigneurs overlap substantially with the nobility, but many of
> them are commoners. The rights are a complex assortment, but include
> things like: a small annual payment; a large payment on death or
> sale; the obligation to provide labor and cartage; annual gifts, etc.
> The rights are usually not written down (like everything else, local
> custom varies), so are open to manipulation by the local courts,
> which might be run by the very same manipulators.
In Japan, these seigneurial rights were called shiki. They worked pretty much the same way, except they were always written down. A shiki was originally a charge on the revenue of an estate used to pay either a bailiff or a local public official (since in Japan theoretically all land was owned by the State/the Emperor). They could be inherited, sold, or subdivided.
>c. The Church: There is an established church that gets something
>like 3 to 12% of the annual farm produce, with a the rate varying
> geographically and a complex assortment of assessments, exemptions,
> and blind eyes.
Buddhist monasteries became some of the largest landowners in the country during the Heian period, benefitting from Imperial patronage and tax-free grants of land.
>d. Taxes: The king imposes a bewildering array of taxes; as a whole,
> the system defies fairness.
Check. In theory there was a uniform tax on land. In practice, the government handed out tax exemptions to favoured courtiers, or to the Church, or as incentives to clear new land for cultivation - but peasants then gave their land to tax-exempt landlords, renting it back for a sum less than the amount they'd have paid in tax, until the entire system of public finance broke down. (Probably the single major factor in the collapse of the Heian Imperial system).
>e. Farmers: Farmers resent all of the above, but do nothing about it.
(Yet.) The farmers have a local council that decides many things. It
may have the right of low justice.
Also check - the Japanese village community with its headman was largely autonomous in terms of local administration, even though the village's land might be owned by a bewildering variety of nobles, clerics, landlords and shiki-holders.
>f. A Rising Gentry: There are agricultural entrepreneurs who are
>mostly of common origin and who do a combination of two things. First,
> they lease land from whoever possesses it and farm it more
> efficiently.
Say hello to the Buke class and their samurai retainers. They draw their origin from local administrators appointed by the State or by the great tax-free nobles to look after their estates, and prosper by acquiring and exploiting shiki. (On the other hand, they use their new wealth and power to get involved in political and military affairs rather than trigger an agrarian revolution.)
>g. The Constrained King: The king, while notionally absolute,
>in fact is constrained by custom and the threat of revolt.
A perfect summary of the position of the Emperor of Japan at... well, pretty much every moment in history.
>h. The Royal Court: The quality of the individual in the office of the
>kingship is wildly variable. So, the officials around the king often
> run things. They are all nobles. There are power struggles between
> different factions. Foreign wars and an extravagant palace mean that
> the court is always looking for more money.
Check, except that the court in Heian-kyo/Kyoto became increasingly isolated from the real business of running the country, and the only foreign war Japan was engaged in during this period was on the northern frontier against the Ainu 'barbarians'.
>i. The Cities: There are few big cities.
It's a pre-industrial society, so yes.
Stephen
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