Piles of manuscripts in the Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang Photo: FILE

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Unearthed documents might contain lost historical information, thus serving as important sources for historical research. When using unearthed documents in historical research, attention should be paid that these documents do not take the place of inherited documents but be used as supplements to them, because information from unearthed documents is not enough to reconstruct history, particularly that after the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BCE). Meanwhile, the term “unearthed” is not limited to excavated archaeological remains. It covers new findings from museums, libraries and document collectors. Studies on the daily lives of the Tang people are crucial to understanding the great dynasty. However, research within this domain has been constrained due to a lack of primary sources.

 

Manuscripts
Excavated manuscripts related to the Tang Empire (618–907) mainly consist of the ancient manuscripts discovered from Dunhuang and Turpan. These manuscripts involve a large number of social documents, such as contracts, account books and household registration transcripts, providing a better view of Chinese society during that era. 

The early Tang Dynasty adopted the military system that originated in the Western Wei Dynasty (535–556), the Fubing system. The system involved a network of militia who were assigned tracts of land. They farmed land when off-duty and were mobilized when a war occurred. Since the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (685–762), the Fubing system had been gradually abandoned in favor of full-time army units, leading to a great increase in government spending because of the production of military uniforms by the government. The Tang Prime Minister Lu Zhi once listed the military expenditures on uniforms and rations, together with the salary of civil servants, as the most expensive programs of the Tang government.

Studies of the production and use of military uniforms are premised on the number of clothes that a soldier may have had per year. It is the account books of military expenditures found among Dunhuang manuscripts that provide detailed information of military uniform consumption during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong.

According to the account book, List of Winter and Spring Uniforms for Soldiers Including Zhang Fenger from 750 to 751, a soldier gets two sets of uniforms (winter and spring) every year at that time. Each spring set uniform includes a long gown and a pair of trousers, underwear, a short-sleeved jacket, headwear named putou, shoes and socks. The winter clothing also involves putou, shoes and socks, together with padded coats and trousers. A quilt would be allocated to each soldier every two years. A rough inference of men’s daily dressing at that time can be drawn from those lists. The Tang people, regardless of noble or common standing, dressed largely in the same way. The only differences to distinguish them lay in the colors, materials and accessories of their clothing.

When doing research on the living standards of a common family in the Tang Dynasty, a key step is to figure out the disposable income of the family, something which is based on its number of members, ownership of farmland and taxes. What makes it difficult is that there is very little evidence about family size and the amount of land owned. When the Dunhuang manuscripts were unearthed, people saw an opportunity. Among these ancient documents, there were many household registration transcripts of that time, recording detailed information that archaeologists had been looking for. In a town’s collection of household registration transcripts in 747, a kehu (a household with at least one taxpayer) consisted of 12 family members, including the host, who was also the taxpayer, his mother, wife, three sisters, a boy and five girls. This family owned 101 mu (a unit of area is equal to 0.0667 hectares) of farmland, including 87 mu owned under the land policy (of which 40 mu are yongye tian, a type of land with permanent tenure assigned by the state), 12 mu purchased land and 2 mu for gardens and residences. Based on these documents, the well-known historian Han Guopan (1920–2003) finished the work A Glance at Farmers’ Lives of the Tianbao Era (742–756).

 

Code of laws
There were four kinds of laws implemented in the Tang Dynasty, respectively known as lü, the criminal law; ling, the specific provisions about the government system; ge, supplementary modifications of the lü; and shi, administrative regulations. Social life at that time was subjected to these four kinds of laws, especially the ling. Since the ling was issued and implemented for a certain dynasty, it was usually abolished by the succeeding dynasty. Therefore, the Tang list of ling laws remained obscure because it was not passed down to later dynasties.

This situation changed in the late 20th century, when a collection of ling of the Northern Song Dynasty, Tiansheng Ling, was found in the Museum of the Tianyi Pavilion in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

The Tiansheng Ling is characterized by attaching the abolished clause of Tang ling to each clause of Song ling. One can get access to the ling of the two dynasties directly through this collection. The Tiansheng Ling provides a previously unknown precious source on the social lives of the Tang and Song dynasties, ranging from diets and fashion to rituals and medical care.

From the Tiansheng Ling, we learned that gynaecologists had existed during the Tang Dynasty. According to its clauses, only the smart maidservants working in officials’ families, unmarried or married without children, were eligible to study gynaecology. Before they could practice as a gynaecologist, they needed to study for five years. Their lessons were mainly practices conducted by medical doctors. They had to pass an internal exam every quarter of a year and an exam held by the government every year. That admission was given only to women who had no children has provoked discussion throughout modern academic circles. It has been interpreted from the perspectives of sociology, medicine and gender study.

These ling documents also help historians find out whether and how laws changed from the Tang to the Song era. For example, the Tang ling stipulates that people who are sentenced to banishment cannot divorce their wives and concubines. The Song ling are similar with a slight difference in that the couple could get divorced by mutual agreement.

 

Epitaph
Over 10 thousand epitaphs from the Tang Dynasty have been discovered at this point, an important source for studies on Tang society.

Mainstream historiography on ancient China focuses on dealing with major events and personalities, thus adopting biographies as the primary pattern for organizing dynastic histories. The Old Book of Tang, a classic historical work about the Tang Dynasty, records over 2,000 historical figures, but unearthed epitaphs provide biographies of over 10 thousand Tang people, providing further understanding of the Tang Dynasty.

Some epitaphs written by the tomb owners’ family members, relatives, friends or colleagues are extraordinarily valuable, because they reveal more details about the tomb owners’ lives. For instance, the epitaph written about Liu Yingdao, a man not mentioned in classic historical works, left his life permanently in a piece of 2,500-character writing on his grave. From his epitaph, we know that he was raised by his mother and was fond of reading philosophical classics ever since he was a child. When serving as a county magistrate, besides public affairs, he spent all his income on copying scriptures. During his term in office, he copied 6 or 7 thousand volumes of scriptures. For some reason he was removed from government.

 

After that, he stayed within his house for ten years before moving to Yongzhou to work as a Sigong Canjun, an official in charge of ceremonies and activities like offering sacrifices, rites and music, schooling, medicine, and funerals. The epitaph also states that Liu was seldom promoted because he didn’t want to flatter and toady to powerful people. He paid little attention to earning money and lived a simple life in later years. The epitaph depicts the deep love between him and his wife as they often walked along with fingers interlocked. After the death of his wife, he moved out of their bedroom and lived in a small room outside the bedroom. He was accomplished at painting, music and playing Go. His clerical script and cursive script were widely honored at that time.

There are many epitaphs that record a person’s life in the way Liu’s does. Collecting and analyzing these documents provides deep insights into the society and people of the Tang Dynasty.

 

Huang Zhengjian is a research fellow from the Chinese history research institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

edited by REN GUANHONG