In the han dynasty, it was common for young people to become Men-sheng (disciple) of famous scholars or men of influence in order to obtain positions in government. Through the recommendations of their masters, they could attain their aims. However, the enactment of Kyuhon-Kanjin-Ho in the beginning of the period of the three Kingdoms was aimed at controling the recruitment of government officials from among the nobles and powerful families, and changed the original character of Men-sheng system. Now, the most important factor in securing official position had become good family background rather than consideration of Men-sheng. Thus, in the Southern dynasty (c.317-c.589), the character of Men-sheng differed greatly from that in the Han dynasty although we can find many Men-sheng throughout the former period. The relation between master and Men-sheng became an economic one, as in the following instances: 1) cases in which wealthy commoners became Men-sheng of men of influence in order to obtain concessions, 2) cases in which debtors offered labor to creditor, 3) cases in which poor commoners worked for men of influence. All of these cases show that the Men-sheng was only a name and no longer a means of securing position111 government.

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In France after the Hundred Year's War rural districts were rapidly to their former prosperity. Inevitably the birth-rate rose, which resulted in an increase in the country population, as the towns, on the whole, did not grow fast enough to absorb the number increased. In France, where, traditionally, the property of a farmer was divided equally among his children, this population growth called into existence many peasants who could not make a living on land. The seventeenth century history may be interpreted as the process of providing these people with the necessary tracts of land. The growing interest of peasants in land wars not the only thing that mattered. Land also attracted townspeople whose very existence depended on money-making, and these, distressed at the remarkable fall in value of silver, sought a solution of their precarious position in becoming landowners. Land must now become the object of aspiration for two kinds of people at a time- one wanting to make a living on it, the other given to money-making. These two were associated in "fermage" -in its original form "metayage", not tenant farming in general, but form of tenancy centered round a "ferm". As this "fermage" strove to meet the demand of the age, it came to have a deeper connotation. It must be our present task to make clear how this happened. In the present article the nature of a "ferm" has been taken up in the first place. We then procceded to discuss how the building-up of such ferms brought about drastic changes in ownership generally, which in their turn revolutionized the structure of peasant population.

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