Prosopography in Medieval Chinese StudiesInformation that are database friendly and otherwise —Literacracy as a Case Study

Presented by Yang Lu • University of Kansas

Literacracy as a Distinctive Class

The Usefulness of Chinese Biographical Database (CBDB) in identifying Literacracy through

Unique career patternExamination recordPure officesProvincial appointmentsPatronage network

Unique burial patternThe co-burial of the husband and the primary wife (exclude the second and secondary wives)The rule of primogeniture was observedThe accompanied burials included only the descendents, the primary spouses, their issues of this ancestral pair

Literacracy and their family

They often had a career that took them zigzagging back and forth between the capital and provinceThey formed an extensive network of friends and colleagues as well as marital relations that spread throughout the realmAll of them traveled

The well known fact is that many of they died while they were away from homeThe lesser known fact is what to do when that happened

Tang Burial PracticeTang people practiced multiple-burials based on the following principles:

They wanted to bury with the familyFollowing the primogeniture principle

Preferably at their ancestral home if possibleIf not, they would be provisionally buried until the condition was ripe to relocate them

Many were left by the wayside leading to an edict in early Late Tang dynasty to demote those who failed to bring one’s dead parents back to family graveyard

Tang Burial PracticeThe Results of multiple burial practices:• An individual could be buried in more than one

way (ex. cremated and then buried; buried and then being summoned and buried; buried alone then with a spouse, etc) and buried more than once.

• Muzhi are amended each time to reflect the multiple arrangements and locations of burials

• We have records of new family grave yards established around the two capitals, especially around Mt. Meng

Harvestable InformationNew Family Graveyard:

Location (database friendly)Not always clearly spelled out or spell out in the same way; but cross referencing can help

Motivation (not so database friendly)Not always spelled out; even does spell out, require interpretation

Burial methods (database friendly)Tomb, pagoda, cremation, water, forest, spirit, mummified, etc

Number of Burial (database friendly)Circumstance leading to Provisional burial(s) (database friendly)

Tour of duty, refugee of war, exile, travel/pilgrimage, ritual prohibition, destitute, etc

Example 1: The Boling Anping Cui Family博陵安平崔氏