Individual Land Ownership and Rural Society at the Early Modern Age

Abstract

　　　　This paper reexamines the relation between the individual land ownership and the village at the early modern age while paying attention to “Unity of community”.
　　　　A lot of modern village social researches have postulated that the community, which was field for the production and life of peasants and had certain unity, existed, in distinction from the village as the administrative area. They think that the source of this community in modern age is a village or a hamlet in the village at the early modern age in many cases. The early modern village history researches recently insist that it was a village community, which supported the peasant farming and life. Additionally, they make the point that the village at early modern age held an influence over land inside the village and the villagers had the notion which the village should regulate individual land ownership.
　　　　However, this paper does not think that the necessity of the peasant farming and life for the period of the early modern age was grounds that support the unity of “community”, I request the base of the unity from the early modern village as an administrative village or the function and the role of it, l think that the acting that can be assumed to be control over the individual land ownership by the village community was a kind of function as an administrative village at the early modern age. Then, I pay attention to the land tax levy. As a result, this paper insists that when the early modern village had to limit the individual land ownership only because it had a responsibility for the land tax levy for the period of the early modern age.