Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2017

From Tenant Peasants to the Owners of Land Surface: An Analysis of the Evolution of Forms of Property Rights of Land in the Song Dynasty

(Abstract)

Dai Jianguo

Historically, the earliest rights to permanent tenancy and to land surface and subsoil emerged in the Song Dynasty. The increasing maturity of mortgage rights opened up a new approach to land circulation and the rational distribution of land resources, as well as encouraging the further division of rights to land and providing conditions for the subsequent prevalence of rights to land surface and subsoil. Peasants’ rights of permanent tenancy on official land had already taken shape in the Northern Song. By the Southern Song, independent rights to the land surface of official land had become explicit, and permanent tenancy rights had emerged in relation to the renting of “education fields” in economically developed areas. Song peasants did have stable tenant rights to privately owned land, but permanent tenancy rights were still developing, appearing in some areas only. The Song development of the diversification of landed property rights has important historical significance; it was profoundly influential in raising morale in operation and production relating to property rights and functions and enhanced the endogenous impetus for economic development, improving landed property relations in the Ming and Qing, the development of the rural economy in the latter period of traditional Chinese society, etc.