Patricia Buckley Ebrey

The Lineage-Village Complex in Southeastern China: A Long Footnote in the Anthropology of Kinship [and Comments and Reply]

The A. attempts to evaluate the current litterature on descent and lineage organization in China and its significance for anthropological discussions of kinship theory. Despite increasing anthropological skepticism over the applicability of lineage theory and the corresponding decline of interest in unilineal descent, the existence of lineage organizations has been an unchallenged fact for anthropologists and historians of China, in turn offering explicit support for lineage theory. Recent historical research has shed light on the diversity of Chinese kin organization over time and space for the most part without questioning the model itself. While the A. does not contest the existence of lineages in China, he argues that the historical conditions of their evolution squarely contradict the theoretical principles upon which lineage theory has been constructed

Patron-Client Relations in the Later Han

During the second Century A.D., much of the social and political activity of upper class men was organized on the basis of private ties between superiors and inferiors. These patron-client ties were created every time a man took on a teacher, accepted an appointment as a political subordinate, or received a recommendation for office by an official. Clients were expected to show loyalty to their patrons, mourning for them if they died and supporting them in political disputes. Patrons had reciprocal duties and could loose their clients if they did not show them proper respect and aid. Although ties of locality underlay most patron-client relations, high court officials sometimes attracted students from all over the country. Patron-client ties could be extended beyond the two individuals involved to form networks of men linked to common patrons, and to the patrons of their patrons. These networks provided a means of organization outside the formal government system. The first to exploit these networks were the various consort family regents who periodically rose to power after A.D. 89. After 140 officials who opposed the power of the consort families and eunuchs relied on their own patron-client networks; confidence that their client would aid and protect them enabled provincial officials to attack the clients of their opponents. In the 170s and 180s, after the failure of the partisan movement, patron-client networks remained strong, incorporating many men excluded from office. With the end of the Han, however, the personal subordination involved in patron-client relations seems to have lost much of its appeal to upper class men, and links between individuals came more often to be made on grounds of common status and kinship.

Huizong and the Imperial Dragon: Exploring the Material Culture of Imperial Sovereignty

This article examines the case of the Song emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1125) in order to explore the dragon as an imperial image in China. Huizong put images of dragons on the bells and cauldrons he had cast, paper he had printed, and stones he had inscribed. His paintings catalogue singled out those paintings of dragons and fish as a distinct category, something no earlier classification of paintings had done. His antiquities catalogue included numerous discussions of dragon imagery on ancient objects.Huizongs two ”double dragon” seals are given close attention, as seals are a material object with close ties to emperorship from early times. Huizongs double-dragon seals were in no sense conventional for his time and place. First, they do not depict words or characters, but are pictures. Yet the pictures seem to resemble characters at first glance- they are made out of connected, curved lines. In addition, there is the question of why there are two dragons rather than one, despite the fact that the emperor was a singular individual, the ”one man” of classical tradition. Two possible sources for Huizongs innovation in the design of his double dragon seals are considered in this article: his collection of antiquity rubbings and his interest in Daoist talismans.These seals encourage us to think about the material culture of imperial sovereignty in a new way. What made the emperor an emperor was a set of practices and conventions that did not change each time a new ruler acceded to the throne. To work, they had to be timeless. Most of the dragon imagery connected to the throne represents the office of the emperor. Yet emperors were at the same time individual men, with personal habits, preferences, talents, and quirks. By Song times, personal seals were a common means of expressing individual identity among literati. Huizong found a way to take the dragon- the symbol of his office- and have it also function as a symbol of himself. This suggests that even with an institution as dominating as the imperial one, there was still room for more private, creative uses of material and visual culture. For Huizong, the image of the dragon played a part both in making the throne seem remote, linked to the authority of antiquity, and in making it approachable, linked to popular culture.

Law and Order in Sung China

List of figures, maps and tables Preface List of abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. The historical context 3. Crimes and criminals 4. Informal and semiformal agencies of law enforcement 5. Formal civil agencies of law enforcement 6. The role of the military in law enforcement 7. Supervision of law enforcement - the role of the intendants 8. Personnel selection 9. Urban crime and urban security 10. The Sung penal system 11. Jails and jailers in the Sung 12. Penal registration 13. The death penalty 14. Modifications of penalties 15. Conclusion Glossary Bibliography Index.

The Aristocratic Families of Early Imperial China: A Case Study of the Po-ling Ts'ui Family

1. Introduction 2. The historical development of the aristocratic families 3. Origins of the Tsuis in the Han 4. The Tsuis in the aristocratic age 5. The Tsuis as an old family in the Tang 6. Implications and conclusions.