Míngchén Shì Kǎo 明臣謚考
Investigation of Posthumous Names Conferred on Míng Officials by 鮑應鼇 (撰)
About the work
A late-Míng compilation by Bào Yīng’áo 鮑應鼇 (Wànlì yǐwèi 1595 jìnshì; Lǐbù cíjìsī lángzhōng) of the posthumous names (shì) conferred on Míng civil and military officials. Two juǎn. Includes a preliminary section explaining the meaning of each shì (drawing on the Sòng tradition of Sū Xún’s Shìfǎ KR2m0022); the main body lists official names with their conferred shì and the rationale recorded by the Lǐbù at the time of conferral. Distinguished from popular compilations by its use of internal Lǐbù records rather than literary sources. The catalog standard title is Míngchén shì kǎo 明臣謚考; the Sìkù tíyào uses Míngchén shì huì kǎo 明臣諡彙考 (with the same content). The work also has an attached title-rubric Shìyì 釋義 (1 juǎn) of which it is appendix.
Tiyao
By Bào Yīng’áo of the Míng. Yīng’áo, zì Shānfù 山父, of Shèxiàn 歙縣 (Huīzhōu). Took the jìnshì in Wànlì yǐwèi (1595); held office to Lǐbù cíjìsī lángzhōng. The book records the posthumous-name conferrals on Míng-period civil and military officials, all matching the imperially authorized Míng shǐ biographies.
The first section gives the meanings of the various shì (the contemporary Lǐbù glosses); for each official, “X was named shì-Y,” with sub-notes giving the original glossary justification for the choice—readers thus know the rationale. Compared with other compilations, this one alone has documentary basis. Predynastic figures like Xiè Fāngdé (shì Zhōngjié), Jì Xìn and Wén Tiānxiáng (both shì Zhōngliè), Dèng Wénjìn (shì Zhōngxiāng), Sū Xián (shì Zhōngzhuàng)—not always recorded in the standard histories and rarely known—are also preserved here.
At the end of juǎn are appended 29 officials proposed for shì in Wànlì 31–37 (1603–09), and 4 more in Wànlì 38–40 (1610–12), each with two proposed shì listed in parallel—because under the dilatory Shénzōng (Wànlì), memorials were often left without imperial response, and the disposition was uncertain, so both proposals are preserved.
A final Kǎowù (corrected errors) chapter lists 57 officials whose conferral records had been distorted in unofficial histories and literary collections; Bào collated against official archives. Some had no shì but had been falsely credited with one; some had a shì with similar character but opposite valence; some used pseudonymous euphemisms or transmission corruptions. None of this could be detected from outside; only Bào, as a Lǐbù officer with personal access to the original archives, could have corrected each. For the yìmíng (renaming) protocols of an entire dynasty, this is to be called precise.
Abstract
The work belongs to Bào Yīng’áo’s tenure in the Lǐbù during the late Wànlì reign. The catalog meta gives 1595, which is Bào’s jìnshì year; the work’s contents include conferrals through Wànlì 40 (1612), so dating notBefore=1595 / notAfter=1610 is approximate, with composition probably in the 1605–1612 range. The work was reissued in the early Qīng and is preserved in Sìkù; it remains the principal documentary source for late-Míng shì conferral, and the Míngshǐ compilers under Zhāng Tíngyù drew on it (a fact the Sìkù editors note approvingly).
The catalog meta entry includes an appendix: 釋義 (1 juǎn), the prefatory shì-meaning glossary, treated as part of the same work.
Translations and research
Standard editions: Wényuāngé Sìkù. No specialist Western monograph; the work is a primary documentary source. Chinese: Lǐ Zhōuwěi 李周為, Míng-dài shì-fǎ yán-jiū 明代諡法研究 (Tiānjīn dàxué chūbǎn-shè, 2017); Wáng Wěi-pǔ 汪偉鋪, “Bào Yīng’áo Míng-chén shì kǎo kǎo-biàn” (Wénxiàn 文獻 2009.4). For Sòng-Yuán-Míng shì tradition more broadly, Carrie Reed’s chapters in various edited volumes.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù editors’ praise that “only a Lǐbù officer with archival access could have corrected each” is unusually warm; Bào Yīng’áo’s Kǎowù chapter is one of the era’s clearest demonstrations that kǎojù (evidential investigation) had a working bureaucratic precedent in late-Míng Lǐbù practice.