''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 peasan ...

(''hyakushō''; 百姓) in pre-modern

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. 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 , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

, 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