For this reason, in the shoen before the Kamakura period, the dispersed rural settlements where the houses were sparsely scattered were normal, but in the Muromachi period the common people increasingly tended to consolidate as a village unit for self-defense.
このため、鎌倉期以前の荘園では、住居がまばらに点在する散村が通常であったが、室町期に入ると、民衆が自己防衛のため村落単位で団結する傾向が強まっていった。