Farmers, myoshu (owner of rice fields), shokan (an officer governing shoen or manor), jito (manager and lord of manor), ryoke (a lord of a manor) and head family had their ownership to harvests generated from a certain piece of land or to a certain piece of land itself and these various ownerships were multilayered (this is called "shiki no taikei (定訳不明, framework of tasks or authorities in specific functions of administration.)"
ある土地からの収穫物またはその土地自体に対して、百姓・名主・荘官・地頭・領家・本家などといった多様な権利が重層的に存在していたのである（これを職の体系という）。