朝野類要

Cháo yě lèi yào 朝野類要

Categorical Essentials of Court and Country

by 趙升 (Zhào Shēng, zì Xiàngchén 向辰, self-styled “of Wénchāng 文昌,” fl. early-mid thirteenth century, place of residence unknown)

About the work

A 5-juan kǎozhèng compendium of late Southern Sòng administrative, ceremonial, and bureaucratic terminology, completed at the Shuāngguì shūyuàn 雙桂書院 in the Chóngyáng festival (9th day of 9th month) of Duānpíng bǐngshēn 端平丙申 (29 October 1236) under Lǐzōng 理宗. The author is a private compiler whose preface explains that he spent decades collecting the technical vocabulary of court ceremony, examinations, recommendations, fiscal practice, and legal documents — and that his original manuscript, partially destroyed by silverfish, was retrieved and engraved in wood at the request of friends. The work is organized in fourteen rubrics (bāncháo 班朝, diǎnlǐ 典禮, gùshì 故事, chēngwèi 稱謂, jǔyè 舉業, yībǔ 醫卜, rùshì 入仕, zhírèn 職任, fǎlìng 法令, zhèngshì 政事, shuàimù 帥幕, jiàngmiǎn 降免, yōunàn 憂難, yújì 餘紀) under each of which the relevant technical terms appear with brief glosses and source-citations. The Sìkù editors compare the format to Cài Yōng’s 蔡邕 Dúduàn 獨斷 (KR2m0003) and note that the work’s main service to scholarship lies in giving present readers (then five or six centuries removed from Sòng) a window onto Sòng-era bureaucratic jargon — terms like bǎjiàn 把見 (a court-ritual greeting) and hùnshì 混試 (a kind of examination procedure) — that would otherwise be opaque.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Cháoyě lèi yào in five juan was compiled by Zhào Shēng of the Sòng. Shēng’s zì was Xiàngchén; his self-styling reads “of Wénchāng” — what place this is, we cannot determine; his beginning and end cannot be traced either. The book was made in the third year of Duānpíng (1236) under Lǐzōng. It draws on the gùshì of the dynasty’s institutions and assigns them to categories. The first rubric is bāncháo; the second diǎnlǐ; the third gùshì; the fourth chēngwèi; the fifth jǔyè; the sixth yībǔ; the seventh rùshì; the eighth zhírèn; the ninth fǎlìng; the tenth zhèngshì; the eleventh shuàimù; the twelfth jiàngmiǎn; the thirteenth yōunàn; the fourteenth yújì. The matters following each rubric carry further sub-headings, with each separately documented and elucidated. The structural model resembles Cài Yōng’s Dúduàn. Now, from Sòng to today is five or six hundred years — the official-document vocabulary of that age and the everyday usage of the shēnjǐn 縉紳 (court officials) differ markedly from current usage. In matters of court ritual there is “bǎjiàn”; in matters of examination there is “hùnshì” — read suddenly, the text is barely intelligible. This book glosses each item, and on opening it everything is clear — a genuine contribution to evidential studies, and worlds apart from the xiǎoshuō genre that records jests and chronicles marvels.

Respectfully revised and submitted, twelfth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Zhào Shēng 趙升 (fl. early-mid thirteenth century; CBDB id 29568, no dates), zì Xiàngchén 向辰, is otherwise unknown. The autograph preface dated Duānpíng bǐngshēn Chóngyáng (1236.9.9) and signed “Wénchāng Zhào Shēng Xiàngchén” at the Shuāngguì shūyuàn 雙桂書院 is the only positive datum about his identity; “Wénchāng” 文昌 (literally “the Wénchāng asterism”) is taken by some commentators as an alternative hào rather than a real place name, while others have proposed Tōngzhōu 通州 (whose ancient name was Wénchāng). The Sìkù editors themselves note that they cannot determine the place. He is sometimes confused with the homonymous Qīng-dynasty Zhào Shēng (1720–1774, CBDB id 84054), a separate person.

The book is a quasi-encyclopedic categorical glossary of late Southern Sòng bureaucratic and ceremonial terminology — what would today be called a “controlled-vocabulary handbook” for reading Sòng administrative documents and court records. It is among the most important Southern Sòng witnesses to the technical vocabulary of the bureaucracy: terms for examination procedures (jiěshì 解試, shěngshì 省試, diànshì 殿試, suǒtīng 鎖廳, hùnshì 混試, biétóu 別頭, fùshì 覆試), for office-titles, recommendation procedures, sinecures, mourning leave, official punishment, military command structures, and so on, are all glossed. The work is heavily relied on in modern reconstructions of Sòng official terminology — most famously in Charles Hucker’s A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (1985), in Gōng Yánmíng’s 龔延明 Sòngdài guānzhì cídiǎn 宋代官制辭典 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1997), and in Zhāng Xīqīng’s 張希清 work on the Sòng examination system. The Sìkù editors’ comparison to Cài Yōng’s Dúduàn (KR2m0003) — the Hàn court-ritual glossary — is apposite.

The work is dated by the author’s preface to 1236 and the notBefore/notAfter are set to that year. The first imperial-bibliography registration is in Sòng shǐ Yìwén zhì; the Sìkù received text is the standard reference.

Translations and research

No book-length English translation exists. The dictionary’s terminology is, however, systematically incorporated into:

• Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Stanford UP, 1985) — the standard Western reference work for imperial Chinese official titles, which silently relies on the Cháo-yě lèi yào for many Sòng entries.
• Gōng Yánmíng 龔延明, Sòng-dài guān-zhì cí-diǎn 宋代官制辭典 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 1997). Standard modern Chinese reference for Sòng-era official titles; foregrounds Cháo-yě lèi yào among its principal source materials.
• Wáng Ruìlái 王瑞來 (ed.), Cháo-yě lèi yào jiào-jiān 朝野類要校箋, Zhōnghuá shūjú (Tángsòng shǐliào bǐjì cóngkān 唐宋史料筆記叢刊), 2007. The standard modern punctuated edition with critical apparatus.

For the Shuāng-guì shūyuàn of the preface (a local academy whose location remains debated) see scattered modern Chinese-language references in studies of Southern Sòng academies.

Other points of interest

The jǔyè 舉業 chapter is the most exhaustive contemporary Sòng witness to the Sòng examination calendar and procedures, including the abolished or reformed institutions (hùnshì, biétóu, fùshì, suǒtīng); it is regularly extracted in modern handbooks of Sòng examination history. The yībǔ 醫卜 chapter is a small but useful late-Sòng witness on the bureaucratization of medical and divination personnel.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 2 · Zákǎo zhī shǔ, Cháoyě lèi yào entry.
• CBDB id 29568 (Zhào Shēng, Sòng).