Drafting Contracts by Scribes:A Study on the Scribal Writing of Contracts in the Qingshui River Region in Qing Dynasty
The research of traditional Chinese contracts has developed along with the availability of new source materials.However,a fundamental question remains largely unaddressed,namely how these contracts,particularly those prepared by scribes,were produced?This study focuses on the a-nalysis of two expressions used to describe the activities of contractual scribes,namely,"transcription by oral statements"and"transcription by drafts"as found in the contract from the Qingshui River manuscripts.It is argued that the former does not merely denote"dictation"by the scribes based on the contractor's oral statement,nor does the latter refer to a simple"transcription"of a pre-provid-ed draft.Instead,this study suggests that the role of scribes in contract production should be under-stood as a form of"writing",allowing for the integration of their subjective expression.In this sense,the nature of contracts should not be viewed simply as a"record"of facts but rather as a fact-based"statement"or"narrative".
contractsscribesthe Qingshui River manuscriptswriting
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
