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STATE AND SOCIETY IN
EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA
Edited
by
Albert E. Dien
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
1990
CONTENTS
Preface
I.
vii
Introduction
Albert E. Dien
1
1.
Sale of Office or "Fines"
in
the Later Han: A Matter
of Interpretation
CarlLeban
Toward a Better Understanding of the Later Han
Upper Class
Patricia Ebrey
The Evolution in the Nature of the Medieval Genteel
Families
Mao Han-kuang
Clients and Bound Retainers in the Six Dynasties
Period
Tang Changru
Reinventing China: Pseudobureaucracy in the
Early Southern Dynasties
Dennis Grafflin
Northern Emigres and the Problems of Census
Registration under the Eastern Jin and Southern
Dynasties
William
G.
Crowell
Intermarriage as a Gauge of Family Status in the
Southern Dynasties
Richard B. Mather
Society and the Sacred in the Secular City: Temple
Legends of the
Lo-yang Ch'ieh-lan-chi
WhalenLai
31
2.
49
3.
73
4.
111
5.
139
6.
Stanford
University Press
Stanford,
California
e
1990
by
Hong Kong University Press
171
Originating
publisher:
.
Hong Kong University Press
First
published in the United States of Amenca
by Stanford University Press,
1991
Printed in Hong Kong
ISBN 0-8047-1745-1
LC89-60727
(,
7.
211
8.
229
~
vi
State and Society in Early Medieval China
9.
Politics of the Inner Court under the Hou-chu (Last
Lord) ofthe Northern Ch'i
(ca.
565-73)
Jennifer Holmgren
PREFACE
269
A conference entitled "State and Society in Early Medieval China" was
convened at Stanford University in August
1980,
with the support of the
Committee on Studies of Chinese Civilization of the American Council
ofLeamed Societies. The volume at hand is a result of that conference.
By the term "Early Medieval China" we meant the period of division
between the Han and the Tang, the Nan-pei ch'ao or Six Dynasties
period, as it is variously called. The aim of the conference was to explore
the interfaces within Six Dynasties' social and political organizations
and to trace the changes in these complex relationships, to better
understand them both for their own intrinsic interest and for what such
an exploration might add to an understanding of the Sui-T'ang, which
brought unity once again to China.
The volume that has ultimately emerged includes contributions by
most but not all of those who participated in the conference and
additional contributions by scholars not present at the conference whose
work was solicited to represent a full range of contemporary Six Dynas-
ties studies. Two such scholars, Mao Han-kuang and Tang Changru, one
in Taiwan and the other in the People's Republic of China, are repre-
sented in this volume by translations into English of important work
previously published in Chinese. The final paper, by Robert Somers,
focuses on the founding of the T'ang and so would seem to lie outside the
scope of the volume, but the paper not only provides an epilogue to the
history ofthe Six Dynasties Period, its conclusions also give us important
insights into the Six Dynasties as a whole.
Although the
conferen~
was held less than a decade ago, two of the
contributors are represented here posthumously, Robert Somers and
Carl Lehan. Their passing so early in their promising careers has
occasioned deep grief and intellectual deprivation on the part of their
colleagues, and they are sorely missed.
The editor wishes to express his appreciation to the Center for East
Asian Studies, Stanford University, for financial support in preparing
the volume, Tsui-king Chang for her administrative assistance, Beata
Grant for her critical editing ofone stage ofthe manuscript, Susan Mann
for her perceptive comments at the original conference, with which she
brought many problems into proper focus, and to Jack Dull, Harold Kahn
and Prasenjit Duara for their criticisms and helpful suggestions con-
10.
The Role of the Military in the Western WeifNorthern
Chou State
Albert E. Dien
331
11. Time, Space and Structure in the Consolidation of
the T'ang Dynasty (A.D.
617-700)
Robert M. Somers
List of Contributors
Index
369
401
403
viii
State and Society
in
Early Medieval China
cerning the Introduction. Thanks are especially due to Muriel Bell and
to Ming K Chan for facilitating the publication of the volume.
Introduction
Albert E. Dien
Like the Dark Ages in European history, the Six Dynasties period is
often considered to be one of gloom and disorder, little more than a
confusing series of dynastic names. In a story by Lu Hsun, Venerable
Schoolmaster Kao bemoans the fact that he has been assigned to lecture
on the "Rise and Fall of the Eastern Chin," which means that he will be
unable
to
use his stock of stories about the Three Kingdoms or about the
T'ang, derived from popular fiction, to get him through the classroom
period. Lu Hsun's depiction of the school teacher's dilemma reflects well
the extent of common knowledge about those three centuries, which can
be summed up by the phrase known to every schoolchild in China,
Wu·
hu loon Hoo,
"The Five Barbarians brought disorder to China."
1
Given
such an array of short-lived dynasties, it is natural to want to find a way
of summarizing the period, but given the paucity of research and the
inadequate state of our knowledge, any such attempt must be seen as
provisional. The studies contained in this volume are to be viewed as
attempts
to
further our knowledge of the period and to test what few
generalizations we have.
It is
generally held that this was a period when society and state were
dominated by powerful aristocratic clans. These clans are seen as having
had their origins in the late Han, gaining strength during the following
centuries of disorder and general instability, and slowly declining in the
early centuries of the T'ang. The generalization is so widely accepted
that it seems presumptuous to question it. Yet, there
is
much evidence
that a re-examination of precisely these assumptions is in order and that
an argument can be made, similar to that put forward concerning the
Holy Roman Empire, that during this period the putative "powerful
aristocratic clans" were neither powerful, nor aristocratic, nor even
clans.
An
alternative interpretation of the data, one that will be suggested
in this introduction, is that members ofcertain lineages, or better, lines,
potentially had available to them favored access to office. Such access
1
Albert E. Dien
Wolfram Eberhard,
A History of China
<Berkeley; University of California
Press, 3rd ed., 1960) provides an excellent survey of the history ofthis period.
2
State and Society in Early Medieval China
Introduction
3
was granted on the basis of membership in a pedigree, a pedigree that
was recognized officially as having a special status acquired overtime by
producing distinguished officials in high positions, by adherence of its
members to a code of elite behavior, by a record of marriages with
suitable partners, and so forth. Sharing in such a pedigree did not
automatically qualify a person for entry into the official hierarchy; this
was extended on the basis of individual performance in screening
examinations conducted by the state. Further, those who came to court
did not do so as representatives of powerful groups; rather they served
at the pleasure of the court. Thus, the system is best explained in terms
of prestige and status, not power. The analysis of the role and function
of these " pre-eminent clans" is a fundamental problem, one that
affects
the conclusions of many of the papers in this volume. While it may have
to remain still unresolved, a discussion of this fundamental problem will
serve to define the nature of the argument and the issues involved.
Scholars of the previous generation who studied this period of
disorder and fragmentation found an underlying continuity in its ruling
class, composed of these powerful aristocratic clans. For example, NaitO
TorajirO (1866-1934), an extremely influential Japanese historian, held
that during the Six Dynasties period each of the states was dominated
by an aristocracy of great families who controlled a selection process for
officials which emphasized family background and status, and thus
in
effect monopolized the highest offices of the state. In the North, he went
on, a number of these aristocratic families intermarried with the upper
levels of the nomadic families, whence emerged the ruling houses of the
northern dynasties, as well as the founders of the Sui and Tang. The
ruler then reigned simply as first among his nobles
(primus
inter
pares)
while the " other great aristocratic clans, which remained immensely
wealthy and powerful," made sure he ruled through
his
fellow aristo-
crats and in their mutual interest. NaitO saw the transition to modern
times as occurring in late T'ang, when the social system changed and the
aristocracy and the traditional pedigrees were swept away, to be re-
placed by a system of despotic rule. NaitO's follower, the famous scholar
Miyazaki Ichisada, went further and said that with the emergence in the
T'ang of the examination system as the chief means of official recruit-
ment, the power of the great families that made up the leading stratum
began to wane, and what had once been an aristocracy gave way to a
meritocracy, characterized oy increased social mobility.2
2
Ch'en Yin-k'o, one of the foremost Chinese historians of the Six
Dynasties and the Tang, in an equally influential hypothesis, main-
tained that in the early T'ang high office was largely in the hands of a
hereditary aristocracy that consisted mainly of the leading families of
the earlier Northern Chou and Sui dynasties. This aristocracy had been
originally forged by Vii-wen T'ai, the
de
facto
ruler of the Western Wei,
and derived primarily from the Kuan-chung area (the Wei River Valley,
with Ch'ang-an as its center), thus creating what Ch'en called the
Shensi-Kansu (Kuan-Lung) clique. These families included Chinese and
non-Chinese alike, were related by marriage, and had a military tradi-
tion. By the T'ang, this aristocracy had also come to include the imperial
families of the conquered southern dynasties, as well as the families of
other men who had been instrumental in founding the new Sui and T'ang
dynasties. It was this group that began to lose out to the new blood
brought in by the examination system, which Ch'en believed to have
been instituted by Wu Tse-t'ien, the female emperor ofT'ang China, with
the express purpose of reducing the power of those aristocrats she
thought were opposed to her.s
The work of these great pioneers, NaitO, Miyazaki, and Ch'en, must
necessarily be modified, and some of their ideas may even need
to
be
abandoned.
It
would seem, however, that the tendency to characterize
the social structure of
this
period as one dominated by powerful aristo-
cratic clans is generally consistent with the statements of Chinese
writers of the past who noted the importance of these great families.
For example, Liu Fang (d.
822)
listed the "great clans"
(ta-hsing)
of
the Six Dynasties period
in
a classification by area and noted that at the
time genealogical registers were certain to be consulted in making
appointments to office, thus leading to strong social differentiation, with
some lines garnering the offices generation after generation.
4
There are
also statements by Shen Kua of the Sung that seem to indicate that
a
caste-like system similar
to
that of India was practiced during the Six
Dynasties period.
s
There was apparently no doubt in the minds of Liu
China,
589-906,
Part I,
pp. 8-9.
See
also the statement of NaitO's position
quoted by Dennis Graftlin in "The Great Family
in
Medieval South China,"
Harvard Journal. ofAsiatic Studies
41.1 (1981), p. 65.
3
Edwin G. Pulleyblank,
The Background of the Rebellion of
An
Lu-shan
(London: Oxford University Press, 1955). pp. 47-48.
• Hsin Tang shu
(Chung-hua shu
cha
ed.) 199.5677-78.
6
See
Denis Twitchett. "The Composition of the Tang Ruling Class: New
Evidence
from
Tunhuang,"
in
AF. Wright and D. Twitchett, eds.,
Perspectives
Denis Twitchett, ed.,
The Cambridge History of China: Vol.
3
Sui and Tang

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