LINEAGES AND LOCAL ELITES IN HUI-CHOU,1500 - 1800 (CHINA).

详细信息   

• 作者：HAZELTON ; KEITH DUANE.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：1984
• 毕业院校：Princeton University
• CBH：8428326
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：15618214
• Pages：373

文摘

A broad class of kin groups,designated by the general term lineage,came to be an important feature of the social landscape of the lower Yangtze region and the southeastern coastal provinces of China in late imperial times. This dissertation investigates certain aspects of the historical development of such lineages through a study of Hui-chou Prefecture in southern Anhwei Province. It also attempts to demonstrate that the study of lineages and other kin groups makes possible a uniquely detailed reconstruction of the history of local society. Drawing on gazetteers,genealogies,and belles lettres generally,and on an extended case study of the Wu lineage of Hsiuning City in particular,this study argues for the special salience of residential concentration to the self-definition of base-level lineages and kin groups. One striking feature of the Hui-chou area is the high percentage of localized,base-level kin groups sharing traditions of common descent from particular individuals who figure prominently in the history of the region between the sixth and eighth centuries AD. Each of the three most prominent surnames in the prefecture,the Wang,Cheng,and Wu,possessed such high-level focal ancestors. In the case of the Wang and Cheng,these individuals had become local tutelary deities as well,and their cults united prefectural residents,both "kin" and non-kin,in common religious practices and beliefs. An analysis is made of the performance of members of particular localized kin groups in the upper levels of the examination system. These government examinations were the single most important entree to high-status careers in the imperial bureaucarcy. Several localized kin groups identified as being of high status in 1551 AD are shown to have had outstanding examination records for centuries before and after that date. A question with great import for the study of social mobility in late imperial China is how,in the context of an open,competitive examination system,they proved able to maintain high status and high educational standards over such long time spans.