to eat for the sellers and the person to be sold. This behavior had been going on illegally for centuries, but its official authorization from 1231 to 1239 showed just how severe the Kangi famine was. The policy helped to spread starving victims around to people who could take care of them, but it also ripped more families asunder. In addition, all those sold became members of a servile class, dwelling in small lean-tos or perhaps even in a room of their master's house. These conditions did not encourage large. stable families. The new policy may have saved some lives, but the creation of so many dependent, broken, and poor families helped lower fertility, making recovery from the famine even more difficult. After the famine in 1239, the bakufu tried to abrogate the more lenient laws, without success. The famine expanded the size of the servile class considerably; it was to remain a significant proportion of Japanese society for the next four hundred years[ ... ]" Notes References Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ; OCLC 58053128 Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Odai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. OCLC 5850691 Varley, H. Paul. (1980). A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa. New York: Columbia University Press. ; OCLC 6042764 William Wayne Farris. Japan To 1600: A Social and Economic History. External links National Diet Library, "The Japanese Calendar" -- historical overview plus illustrative images from library's collection Japanese eras 1220s in Japan 1230s in Japan