Also during the Muromachi period shoens continued, but while the rights and duties of central aristocrats, temples and shrines, samurais, local lords and so on began to be complicated in a multi-layered way, the autonomous control by the independently emerging village = soson (a community consisting of peasants' self-governing association) started and shoens began to disappear slowly.
室町時代にも荘園は存続したが、中央貴族・寺社・武士・在地領主などの権利・義務が重層的かつ複雑にからむ状況が生まれる一方、自立的に発生した村落＝惣村による自治が出現し、荘園は緩やかに解体への道を歩み始めた。