A charitable estate was a holding of land shared by the clan together with the rules for running it. The land was called charitable land, its income was used to support clan members and also to fund a school, and the land was not divided among households, so that it could be kept from generation to generation.
In the second year of Huangyou of the Northern Song (1050), Fan Zhongyan gave more than a thousand mu of land at Suzhou and set up the Fan clan charitable estate, using the income of the clan land to support clan members.
After Fan Zhongyan's death, his son Fan Chunren used the stipends he received to enlarge the estate, and the estate carried on.
Lineage Trust Funds is the class in the chapter on Commerce on lineage charitable estates, which supported clan members from the income of clan land. In the Northern Song Fan Zhongyan gave land at Suzhou and set up the Fan clan charitable estate; the land belonged to the whole clan and could not be divided, and its income went to support and relieve clan members and to run a school.
