Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/197

 The Emperor Saga (810-825) conferred an estate of "fifteen thousand houses" on the Fujiwara family, and made large grants to princes, princesses, Court ladies and nobles; and a few years later, the Emperor Seiwa (859-876) so greatly extended the system that twenty-eight kinds of tax-free estates were officially catalogued, including temple lands, musicians' lands, school lands, and so on. Hence, during the first forty years of the Heian epoch, the rate of taxation for those remaining liable was doubled, and before the close of the ninth century each farmer was paying to the central government one-eleventh of the gross produce of his rice-land, in addition to a corvée of thirty days' labour annually. Further, in many instances the provincial governors levied independent taxes on behalf of Court magnates and imperial relatives with whom they had special relations. The Court itself possessed estates chosen in the most fruitful parts of the empire, but these resources did not suffice for the support of the rapidly growing number of Imperial princes, and it became necessary to give them family names so that they might lay aside their princely titles, and be enabled to take office in the capital or the provinces. Thus, in the year 814, the name of "Minamoto" was conferred on four princes, and in 835 the name of Taira "on a fifth, the provinces of Kazusa, Hitachi, and Kōzuke being assigned for the support of the former, who