Originally, the word "shomu" meant jobs and duties, as suggested by the characters which mean "work that is related to the place"; however, with the development of shoen koryo sei (the system of public lands and private estates) during the Heian period, the word came to express the concept for the rights and obligations pertaining to the managerial work in shoen (manors) and koryo (the imperial teritories), and further during the Kamakura period, the word was extended to mean the property management of domains such as shoryo.
所務とは、元来、務めるところという字義どおり仕事・職務を意味する言葉だったが、平安時代の荘園公領制の展開に伴い、荘園や公領の管理職務に付随する権利・義務を表すようになり、鎌倉時代頃には転じて所領等の不動産管理を意味した。