''Honbyakushō'' (本百姓) were a type of

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...

(''hyakushō''; 百姓) in pre-modern

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. They were the owners of farmland in villages, and it fell to them to pay taxes for the village. This made them very active in village government. Following the middle of the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, honbyakushō were also called takamochi-hyakushō (高持百姓).

References

Short description of honbyakushō
Agriculture in Japan Japanese historical terms Taxation in Japan {{japan-hist-stub