shōen

In Japan (с 8th–15th century), a private, tax-free, often autonomous estate.

As the shōen increased in numbers, they undermined the political and economic power of the central government and contributed to the growth of powerful local clans. Landowners would commend their parcels of land to powerful families or religious institutions with tax-free status, thereby obtaining that status for themselves. All people connected with the land

the powerful patron, the owner, and the estate manager

had rights to part of the income from the land. During the Kamakura period (1192–1333), the shogunate (military government) asserted authority over the shōen by inserting its own stewards (jitō) into each estate to collect taxes. During Japan's Warring States period, the shōen gave way to consolidated landholdings controlled by daimyo (domain lords). See also samurai.

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▪ Japanese history

      in Japan, from about the 8th to the late 15th century, any of the private, tax-free, often autonomous estates or manors whose rise undermined the political and economic power of the emperor and contributed to the growth of powerful local clans. The estates developed from land tracts assigned to officially sanctioned Shintō shrines or Buddhist temples or granted by the emperor as gifts to the imperial family, friends, or officials. As these estates grew, they became independent of the civil administrative system and contributed to the rise of a local military class. With the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate, or military dictatorship, in 1192, centrally appointed stewards weakened the power of these local landlords. The shōen system passed out of existence around the middle of the 15th century, when villages became self-governing units, owing loyalty to a feudal lord, or daimyo, who subdivided the area into fiefs and collected a fixed tax.

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