uction of trade and travel. Further,
the priests were constantly enriched with donations of land and
money, in addition to the rents and taxes obtained from their own
domains, and thus it resulted that several of the great monasteries
possessed much wealth. To that fact is to be attributed the numerous
establishments of soldier-priests maintained at Enryaku-ji, on
Hiei-zan, and at Kofuku-ji, in Nara. To that also is to be ascribed
in part the signal development of literature among the friars, and
the influence wielded by the Shinto officials of Kitano and the betto
of Hachiman.

REVENUE OF JITO

A special tax levied by the jito was the hyakusho-yaku, or farmers'
dues. These were one per cent, of the land-tax originally, but the
rate was subsequently doubled. Other heavy imposts were frequently
and arbitrarily enacted, and there can be no doubt that financial
disorder contributed materially to bringing about the terrible
calamities of the Battle era (Sengoku Jidai), as the period of eleven
decades ending in 1600 is called. For, if the fiscal system was thus
defective during the comparatively prosperous age of the Ashikaga, it
fell into measureless confusion at a later date. It has been stated
above that the area under rice cultivation at the middle of the
fifteenth century was about one million did; at the close of that
century the figure was found to have decreased by more than fifty
thousands of cho. From such a result, opposed as it is to all records
of normal development, the unhappy plight of the agricultural classes
may be inferred.

TOKENS OF CURRENCY

Minting operations also were discontinued under the Ashikaga. Cotton
cloth and rice served as principal media of exchange. Fortunately,
commerce with China in the days of the Ming rulers, and Yoshimasa's
undignified though practical requests, brought a large supply of
Yunglo (Japanese, Eiraku) copper cash, which, with other Chinese
coins of the Tang and Sung dynasties, served the Japanese as media.
This fortuitous element was conspicuous in all the domain of finance,
especially after the Onin War, when the territorial magnates fixed
the taxes at their own convenience and without any thought of
uniformity. One of the only sincere and statesmanlike efforts of
reform was made, in 1491, by Hojo Soun. He reduced the rate then
ruling, namely, equal parts to the tax-collector and to the taxpayer,
and made it forty per cent, to the former and sixty to the latter,
and