Were there serfs in japanese feudalism?

Question

Also, were they born into their class, like people during the middle ages in europe?

Answer 1

The Japanese feudal system began to take shape under the Kamakura bakufu, though it remained only inchoate during the Kamakura period. Warrior-landlords lived in farming villages and supervised peasant labour or themselves carried on agriculture, while the central civil aristocracy and the temples and shrines held huge public lands (kokugaryo) and private estates in various provinces and wielded power comparable to that of the bakufu. These shoen were managed by influential resident landlords who had become warriors. They were often the original developers of their districts who became officials of the provincial government and agents of the shoen. Under the Kamakura bakufu, many such individuals became gokenin and were appointed jito in lands where the bakufu were allowed access. As leaders of a large number of villagers, these jito laboured to develop the rice fields and irrigation works in the areas under their jurisdiction, and they and other influential landlords constructed spacious homes for themselves in the villages and hamlets where they lived.
Among these landlords, some were vassals of the shogun, while others were connected to the aristocracy or the temples and shrines. The jito owed their loyalty to the shogun, for whom they performed public services such as guard duty in Kyoto and Kamakura. In return, the shogun not only guaranteed these men security of tenure in their traditional landholdings but rewarded them with new holdings in confiscated lands—such as from the Taira or the supporters of Go-Toba. This connection between lord and vassal, on which grants of landownership or management were based, gave Japanese society a somewhat feudal character.

But these lands were by no means complete fiefs: the Kamakura bakufu did not possess large tracts of its own land that it could grant to its vassals as fiefs in return for service. Kamakura warriors could control traditional land types (shoen and kokugaryo) or be newly appointed into confiscated lands. In either case, there was a nominal absentee central proprietor—temple, shrine, or aristocratic or royal family—who maintained substantial control over the land. Thus, there was a limit on the degree to which the Kamakura warrior could exploit the land and people under his control. Conflict was endemic between central proprietor (usually a local representative of the proprietor) and jito: the former wished to maintain as much control and income as possible while the latter was concerned with expanding his share. Since the jito was entirely under the control of Kamakura, disputes flooded the warrior headquarters from landowners seeking to curtail jito encroachments. Thus, the primary focus of Kamakura activity became the dispensing of justice in legal cases involving land disputes. The Kamakura bakufu gained a reputation for fairness, issuing countless orders of admonition to its vassals to follow the precedents on the land in question. By various means, however, Kamakura warriors managed to whittle away significantly the absentee control of shoen proprietors.

Conflict also was endemic between the farming population and the warriors, stemming from the efforts of the former to increase personal and economic autonomy, as well as to enlarge their holdings within the shoen or kokugaryo. There were several different statuses among the peasantry, including myoshu, prominent farmers with taxable, named fields (myoden) of significant size and long standing; small cultivators with precarious and shifting tenures; and others who paid only labour services to the proprietor or jito. These groups, while distinct from one another, were also quite separate from transient agriculturalists present in many estates. The lowest peasant category, called genin (“low person”), was made up of people who were essentially household servants with no land rights.

The samurai, in theory, performed military service on the battlefield and during times of peace, in addition to managing agricultural holdings, engaging in hunting and training in the martial arts, and nourishing a rugged and practical character. Medieval texts speak of kyuba no michi (“the way of the bow and horse”), or yumiya toru mi no narai (“the practices of those who use the bow and arrow”), indicating that there was an emerging sense of ideal warrior behaviour that grew out of this daily training and the experience of actual warfare. Pride of family name was especially valued, and loyal service to one's overlord became the fundamental ethic. This was the origin of the more highly developed sense of a warrior code of later ages. Like his Heian predecessor, the Kamakura warrior was a mounted knight whose primary martial skill was equestrian archery. The status of women in warrior families was comparatively high; like their Heian predecessors, they were allowed to inherit a portion of the estates and even jito posts, a practice that gradually came to be restricted.

After the middle of the Kamakura period, the farming villages in which the warriors resided underwent changes as agricultural practices advanced; other aspects of society were changing as well. Artisans were frequently attached to the proprietors of the shoen and progressively became more specialized, responding to a specific growth of consumer demand. Centres for metal casting and metalworking, paper manufacture, and other skills appeared outside the capital, in various provincial localities, for the first time. The exchange of agricultural products, manufactured goods, and other products thrived; local markets, held on three fixed days a month, became common. Copper coins from Sung China circulated in these markets, while itinerant merchants increased their activity. Bills of exchange were also used for payments to distant localities. In the large ports along the Inland Sea and Lake Biwa, specialized wholesale merchants (toimaru) appeared who, as contractors, stored, transported, and sold goods. Further, it became common for many merchants and artisans to form guilds, known as za, organized under the temples, shrines, or civil aristocrats, from whom they gained special monopoly privileges and exemptions from customs duties.

Answer 2

Japanese feudalism employed the caste system consisting of four ranks called 士農工商 with the samurai (士of武士) ranked at the top, the farmers right under the samurai (農民), the builders under the farmers （工as in 大工[carpenter]）, and finally the business people, or the money handlers （商業）. Samurai were placed at the top since they administered the government. Samurai over 1,000 years ago were actually hired hands who protected farmland and food crops from thieves. The word samurai itself actually means "to serve". The farmers actually owned the land the food was grown on. Also, samurai vassals and especially feudal lords were paid in units called "koku", with 1 koku equal to the amount of a rice a person consumes in a year. The higher a samurai's rank, the greater his stipend in koku. He would distribute his stipend to those serving him as he saw fit. The builders were next in importance since the samurai needed them to build them their mansions and castles. The money-handlers were considered the lowest class since Japanese people generally consider money to be dirty. This is why, even now, when paying your daughter's piano teacher for the next month's piano lesson, you would place the money in an envelope and never pass the cash over directly. There was a sub-class of people called えた(eta); that are now called 部落民(burakumin); which are called the "sub-class" people. These are the undertakers, butchers, sewer cleaners, etc. There were no slaves per se, but the burakumin were severely discriminated against and were given all of the dirty jobs that no one else wanted to do. They were paid, but at bare-survival levels only.