Hyakusho

• Japanese: 百姓 (hyakushou)

Hyakushô (lit. "one hundred surnames") is a term generally used to refer to peasants or villagers, especially of the medieval and Edo periods. The definition of the term and its best translation have been the subject of considerable scholarly debate, along with debate as to understandings of the lifestyles led by hyakushô and their level of economic well-being.

The term is most often translated as "peasants," with the implication of being farmers, i.e. of relying primarily on agricultural activity for subsistence and economic well-being. However, many scholars, Amino Yoshihiko perhaps chief among them, have argued that many hyakushô were craftsmen, merchants, traders, landowners, or fishermen, and/or earned a living engaging in other commercial, artisanal, or maritime activities. This is a key element of Amino's broader argument, that pre-modern Japanese society was not nearly as exclusively based upon agricultural production, and that regional rural areas were not so isolated, as is most commonly believed. In his translation of Amino's work, Alan Christy translates hyakushô into English not as "peasants," but as "villagers."

In modern/contemporary Japan, the term hyakushô has come to take on a feudal connotation, much as the word "peasant" has in English. The term is thus sometimes seen as derogatory, and is avoided, with the term nômin (lit. "agricultural people," or farmers) used instead; the equivalence between hyakushô and nômin is strongly ingrained in the common collective consciousness, despite scholarly attempts to reexamine the character and activities of the medieval or early modern hyakushô.

References

• Amino Yoshihiko, Alan Christy (trans.), Rethinking Japanese History, Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan (2012), 15-16 passim.