#7
                    7. MYO IN NORTHERN SATSUMA, 1193
                          (A Gon Shuin doc., now lost, in Miya-no-zho ki.)
FORTUNATELY there are lists of domains and their holders in Satsuma-given in this and the next
document (Nos.7 and 8)-which throw light upon the situation in which Tadahisa found himself
on his arrival in the sho about 1196, and which awaited the descent of the Iriki-in family a half-
century later. The following list of myo in northern Satsuma is probably incomplete, and should be
studied together with the next number.
  A myo, or, more fully, myo-den-"name[-bearing] rice-land"-was rice-land bearing a name,
usually personal, by which it was known, despite changes of hands through which its title might
pass. The origin and history of the myo have not been adequately studied. It probably arose from
allodial lands which were newly opened to cultivation or acquired from previous holders and to
which names were affixed in order either to individualize or to commemorate them; these names
P104
may not always have been, as is generally assumed, those of the first cultivators, but of any persons,
and even of impersonal matters, which the givers of the names took a fancy to select. At first
allodial, the myo-den were often commended to sho or otherwise incorporated into them. In their
further evolution, the myo-shu-myo-holders-were in an increasing number of instances recipients
of shiki of the myo granted conditionally by the domanial lord, instead of being successors by in-
heritance or alienation to the earlier holders. That is, the myo and its holdeing had changed more and
more frequently from being allodial to tenurial. This is the brief history of this institution down to
the time of these documents; it is unnecessary to trace here the course of the subsequent develop-
ment.
  Whether allodial or not, the important point about the myo is that it generally formed one of
the two kinds of units of the warrior's holding in the early feudal ages. The other unit was the
ya-shiki, which meant a residence and its appurtenances, often with a piece of land attached
thereto; if a warrior held several ya-shiki, one of them was his chief domicile. A typical holding
of a small warrior consisted of one or more ya-shiki and myo-den; to these might be added shiki
of various kinds. Cf. similar instances in the seigniory of Montfort d'Amauri, about 1284, in Morice,
Mem. pour servir de preuves a l'hist . . . de Bretagne, I, col. 1102.
  The peasant's house and house-land were usually differentiated from the ya-shiki by the term
zai-ke, literally, rural house. Despite their difference in status and importance, zai-ke and ya-shiki,
like the mazure and the manoir in medieval France, were essentially the same in composition, for
both consisted of a house and appurtenances and land dependent upon it. See the maison and the
mex in Burgundy in documents quoted in Seignobos, Reg. feod. de Bourgogne, 366-370. Further see
No.13, nn.21 and 25.

  "REPORTED from various kori in the 4th year of Ken-kyu, [1193].
"Ke-to in:-own1 myo; Taro-Maru myo;
Satsuma kori:-Kore-eda myo; Mitsutomi myo; Nari-eda myo; Nagatosi myo;
  Yoshida myo; Tokiyoshi myo;
Taki kori:-Saburo-Maru myo; Man-toku myo; own1 myo; Masasue myo; Waka-
  yoshi myo; Yoshi-eda myo;
Izhu in:-Kiyofuji myo;
To go:-Tokiyoshi myo; Yoshi-eda myo;
Yamato in:-Mitsunaga myo, Mototake myo."2




  1 To whom or what the word "own" refers is not clear; sometimes it might mean a myo bearing
the same name as the general district, like Keto-in myo and Taki myo, if, indeed, such myo existed.
  2 Subsequent Iriki documents often refer to several of the myo here enumerated.