The Power of Genealogy:A Preliminary Study on the Basic Function and Practice of Genealogical Documents in Medieval China
The content and function of genealogical documents in Medieval China are different,and they have a distinctive"Zeitgeist".Liu Fang,of Tang Dynasty,wrote,"While selecting officers,the government must look into the genealogical records and test their authenticity."The same was true for the intermarriage of descendants of powerful families.Shen Yue's"Zou Tan Wang yuan"was not only an important document witnessing the endogamy of aristocratic class in the Six Dynasties,but also can be used to understand the specific credential and process by which the descendants of powerful families chose the object of their intermarriages.The marriage and official ranks of ancestors in the recent past have become the most core content while the government selecting officers or powerful families looking into the genealogical document for intermarriages.Although the genealogy texts of Medieval China had been lost,by compiling and examining fragments and sentences from preserved documents such as the"Wang's Genealogy"and"Hundred Family Genealogy",it is confirmed that the marriage and official career of recent ancestors were key contents recorded in the genealogical document of Medieval China,and these contents were precisely the knowledge and culture controlled and monopolized by the government of the Six Dynasties,ordinary literatis and civilians were prohibited from browsing unless exceptional case,otherwise the"chaos"of mixed marriages between literatis and civilians will occur.Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei ordered his sixth younger brother to marry with the Chinese great clans,giving birth to the marriage group of Cui,Lu,Li,Zheng and Wang,which was also a political product of the insistence on non-marriage between literatis and civilians.In this sense,the Six Dynasties,Sui and Tang Dynasty can also be called"Genealogy Era".Since the Five Dynasties,the large-scale loss of medieval Chinese genealogical documents did not mean that the significance of genealogy had completely disappeared.The almost obsessive pursuit of ancestors by the Han Qi family is a vivid example.The power of medieval Chinese genealogical document was political and social,while the power of genealogical document in modern times was cultural and symbolic,and the meaning of the latter was not just nominal.
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