At the beginning of the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, both social conditions and systems were the succession of five generations. From a legal point of view, although the "Song Penal System" is the inheritance of the "Tang Law Shun Discussion", the "Tang Law Shun Discussion" is more based on the social situation in the early Tang period, and it is the absorption and development of the legislative achievements since the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
With the development of society after the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the code was still constantly revised, and the "Great and Middle Penal Law System" appeared during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, which comprehensively arranged and classified "law", "personality" and "edict", forming a new form of code called "criminal system".
During the Five Dynasties period, there were "Tongguang Penal Law System" and "Xiande Penal System", which are the direct sources of the compilation of the "Song Penal System". Therefore, the "Song Penal System" is actually a comprehensive reflection of the legal situation in a historical period of the late Tang dynasty and the early Song dynasty.
The relevant provisions of the Song Penal System stipulate exactly the same as Tang Law. Although with the evolution of the system, some terms in the official law were no longer applicable to the social conditions of the Song Dynasty, for example, the change in the official system changed the meaning of words such as "minister, scattered official, and guard official", and the status of "honorary official" in the Song Dynasty also decreased.
However, these changes are only formal, and the attitude of the law towards both recognition and restriction of official shying away from home has not changed. It is only seen that the name of the "official" of "exempted from residence" changes in the specific punishment, but it is easy to deal with it mutatis mutandis.
Therefore, out of respect for the Basic Code, the compilers of the Song Penal System retained the terms of Tang Law in their original form. However, a close reading of the provisions of the Song Penal System on the evasion of officials will reveal that there will be some minor changes beyond the content directly presented by the article.
It is mainly reflected in the fact that the format of "Song Penal System" has changed compared with "Tang Law Shuan". This is related to the codification norms of the penal genre itself.
The codification of the "Penal System" is characterized by the categorization of previously scattered articles. The essence of classification is "to divide categories according to the nature of things".
To group fragmented legal provisions into several doors also means that the laws within the same door have a similar nature, and it also means that the nature of different doors must be different.
This involves the criteria on which the divisions are based, and behind the standards are the views of the people of the time on the relevant issues. "Impostorous officials" are recorded in the "Law of Fame" and "Law of Employment" in the two books.
Volumes 2 and 3 of the "Tang Law Shun Discussion" are the "Laws of Famous Cases", and the articles in the two volumes of "Official Dang", "Removal from Ranking", "Exemption from Official Residence", "Removal from Official Duties", "Exemption from Official Residence", "Exemption from Official Residence as Description Law", "Failure to Exhaust Official Disciples", and "Exemption from Exemption from Punishment by Others" all stipulate the circumstances in which officials commit crimes against crimes, and the article "Risking to live in honor" is one of the crimes of "exempting officials from residence."
In the "Song Penal System • Famous Laws", these crimes that appear in the "Tang Law Shun Discussion" are summarized and grouped under the door of "removing officials as disciples, removing officials from office, and removing officials from residence". The purpose of merging these items in the "Song Penal System" is only to reduce the various situations of using officials to resist crimes into one unit, and there is no special intention.
In the "Law of Tang Law", volume 10, "The Law of the Occupation System", "the official of the government calls the name of the father and the ancestor" is a stipulation that the official avoids the family. In the Song Penal System, volume 10, "The Law of the Occupation System", this provision was merged under the "hidden mourning" door. The emergence of the "hidden mourning" door reflects that the legislative thinking of the Song Dynasty on the issue of avoidance has changed greatly compared with the Tang Dynasty.
"Concealing mourning" originally means "concealing mourning and not mourning", and not only mentioned in the "Ten Evils" of the "Law of Fame", but also in the "Law of Employment" there are provisions on the sin of "those who hear of the loss of their parents and husbands, and do not mourn". In the "Song Penal System", the use of "hidden mourning" was expanded and became the topic of the ruling school.
Looking at the "hidden mourning" gate alone, you will think that this is just an entry related to family and ancestors as a category, but there is another one in the "Laws of the Occupation System" in volume 10 of the "Song Penal System", called "Mistakenly Violating Zongmiao Zhao", if you combine the classification of "Zongmiao Zhao" in the "Tang Law Shun Discussion" and the "Song Penal System", there will be new discoveries.
Before the Tang Dynasty, the Gate Shi clan was not inferior to the royal family in the gate, and Tang Taizong's compilation of the "Clan History" relied on coercive orders to lower the rank of the Shandong Shi clan. However, even so, more than a hundred years later, Tang Wenzong still sighed: "My family has been the son of heaven for two hundred years, and I can't care about Cui and Luye?" ”
If the Tang Dynasty's gatekeeper family could compete with the royal family in terms of social reputation, then the Song Dynasty royal family was absolutely exclusive, and no other family could compete with it. In this context, if it is said that in the "Tang Law Shun Discussion", "family secret" can vaguely match "public secret".
Then in the "Song Penal System", it is completely classified as two different nature issues. The different understandings of "private secrets" and "public secrets" in the Song Dynasty will inevitably lead to different treatment.
The strictness of the Song Dynasty's public secrets was unprecedented, "This dynasty is prosperous, so the officials discuss, every time you want, the temple has five crosses." The "Chunxi Revision" stipulates that the "Huan" character of Zhao Huan of Emperor Qin should be suspected of 49 characters, and the "construction" character of Zhao Huan of Emperor Gaozong should be suspected of 55 characters.
The strict regulation of "public affairs" does not mean that "family secrets" can also receive the same treatment. The norms and restrictions on "family secrets" have become the general outline for the Song generation to deal with the problem of family secrets. This trend can also be seen from the development and changes of the "Honorable Residence Official" Law in the Song Dynasty.
The edict during the reign of Emperor Taizong can be seen as an earlier document by the rulers of the early Song Dynasty to revise the official law of the Emperor Taizong. Compared with the law of impersonating officials in the Tang Law and the Song Penal System, this edict has new provisions on officials avoiding their homes.
From the structural point of view, its content is divided into two parts, the first part from the beginning until "Greetings and Feelings" is a statement part, which explains the theoretical basis for dealing with the problem of officials avoiding family secrets, and refers to the existing problems; After that until the end is a provision made after the presentation of the situation.
The statement in the first part affirms the principle of avoidance. First of all, it affirms the rationality of avoiding family secrets, that is, "the name will eventually be secret, and the etiquette has the old chapter".
However, the conversation soon changed, emphasizing that family secrets can only be avoided in private settings, and cannot be used in official occasions, that is, "children and grandchildren are difficult to speak, but public families are not avoided." This also indicates the basic attitude taken in the edict that family secrets are only reasonable when used in private situations.
Secondly, the two names are not biased and dismissive, which has long been clearly stipulated in the Book of Rites, and the edict once again reaffirms this principle.
Subsequently, the edict further pointed out that at that time, the practice of avoiding family secrets had exceeded the norm, that is, "if you hear that in recent days because of your family secrets, you will be angry." The edict recorded here is only an abridge, according to the same edict included in the "Collection of Song Great Edicts".
At that time, the situation was that "the magistrate of Wenzhou County was quite private and blamed people, and it was even meaningless!" From this, it can be inferred that the main problem at that time was that the state and county magistrates abused their power and asked their subordinates to avoid their own secrets.
The second part of the edict deals with this issue, and its content is also divided into two layers. First of all, it is emphasized that "the names of the three generations of internal and external ministers must only be kept private, and the governor of the state must not be listed as a guest." ”
Secondly, it stipulates that "newly appointed officials are not subject to the restrictions of the three provinces, the fifth grade of the Yushi Tai, the fourth grade of the literary class, and the third grade of the martial class." "The two provisions are substantially different. The superior's request to his subordinates and guests to avoid their homes was to expand the influence of private secrets, and it was not tolerated in the context of the Song Dynasty's strong "public secrets" and weak "private secrets".
However, officials who choose not to serve in the official position of the offender are avoiding the family by changing their official position, which may only affect their own official position, although it also has a certain impact on the operation of the imperial court, but basically does not implicate others.
This is the result of a compromise between "selflessness" and "filial piety", which is a different nature from "blaming others with private means", but the edict prohibits it altogether, allowing officials above the "fourth grade of the literary class and the third grade of the martial class" to appoint officials to avoid their families.
Considering the Song Dynasty grinding and surveying method, civil officials consulted the doctor (from the fourth grade) and above, and the rampant and formal position of the military position was not a high grade specially awarded by the grinding survey. In this way, only a very small number of people are allowed to serve as officials and hide from their homes. While cracking down on the expansion of private secrecy, this edict also prohibits middle- and lower-level officials from acting as normal officials to avoid their homes.
Although the text of the edict is short, it clearly points out that the two names should not be concealed, and the suspect names should not be hidden, making up for the lack of clear provisions on the two names and suspects in the "Tang Law Shun Discussion" and the "Song Penal System". However, the attitude of the "public family" of not shunning family secrets, and depriving a large number of middle- and low-level officials of the right to appoint officials and avoid family secrets, undermined the principle of official shyunning as determined by the Tang Dynasty Law on Honorable Residence.
However, the dual principle that high-ranking officials should avoid and lowly officials should not avoid it proves that this edict does not negate the principle of officials avoiding family secrets, but deprives a large number of middle- and lower-level officials of this right out of administrative efficiency. This is closely related to the social background of the time.
For five generations, the culture of avoiding family secrets can be said to have gone to two extremes, one is that the family secrets of high-ranking officials are greatly respected, and the other is that the family secrets of most ordinary officials are ignored.
During the Five Dynasties period, local disciplines gave weight, and the imperial court was also accommodating to heavy ministers asking their subordinates to avoid family secrecy within their own jurisdiction. Historical records show that a distinction was made between public and private situations at that time. One is the situation of "private respect" within the jurisdiction of the Jiedu Envoy, and the other is the situation of the Shangshu imperial court.
Here, it is obvious that the Shangshu imperial court is regarded as "public", while the festival makes the territory "private", so there is also a difference between the two situations of "in the main way" and "within the admonition" in the handling method. Jiedu makes the jurisdiction seem to be a "private" place, and the festival makes one's family secrets naturally respected.
Under such a last resort, the imperial court had to maintain a basic bottom line. The historical records also mention the Luwen Chronicle, which shows that the imperial court also recognized the fact that officials asked their subordinates to avoid their families, and the reason why they wanted to distinguish between "in the way" and "within the admonition" was actually a workaround after absorbing the lessons of Yu Yeshen's suicide.
However, it should also be pointed out that the power lords of the Five Dynasties period shun family secrets are different from the previous gatekeeper clans. First of all, the shunning of the family by the gatekeepers is the embodiment of the pursuit of etiquette, while the five generations of powerful ministers blindly follow suit.
As quoted by Huo Yanwei above, his person was originally an orphan, adopted by the Later Liang general Huo Cun, and after returning to Later Tang, he was given the name Li Shaozhen, and changed his surname to a different name many times. The five generations of courtiers show their power by avoiding the family, and the gatekeepers avoid the family to maintain their etiquette.
Secondly, the gatekeeper clan is a social class, and it has inheritance, and it is a family that continues to avoid the family; The five generations of powerful ministers are only individual figures, and with the change of dynasties, although the five generations are all powerful subjects, but for individual families, they cannot continue to avoid family secrets.
Compared with the phenomenon of the five generations of powerful ministers avoiding family secrets, the status of ordinary civil servants of the fifth generation is lower, such as Later Liang Prime Minister Jing Xiang who claimed to be "subject to the grace of the state, only the three periods, from the micro to the best, all encountered by the first dynasty, although the name is the prime minister, the old slave of the Shizhu clan." Until the Later Zhou Dynasty, there was still "An Imperial Court, set the chaos, straight must be a big sword and a big sword, if the 'hairy awl' is used safely?" ".
Under such circumstances, it is impossible for ordinary officials of the fifth generation to make demands for officials to avoid their families. In short, at the beginning of the fifth dynasty of the Song Dynasty, the gate valve clan had long declined, and the fashion of avoiding family in the gate valve clan society was no longer prevalent.
In this context, only powerful ministers and high-ranking officials can compete with the "honor of the king" and avoid the family, but the avoidance of the family by the powerful minister is no longer a reflection of the "heart of filial piety", but the embodiment of privilege. It can be understood that the "Second Year Edict of Yongxi" also reflects the actual situation of the society at that time to a certain extent.
However, this was a temporary regression of the official law of the Song Dynasty, and with the stability of the Song Dynasty, as well as the improvement of the system and social development, the official law of the official law of the Imperial Law had a new development after the middle of the Song Dynasty. In response to the disorderly state of the early Song Dynasty's official evasion of his family, Jia Yao proposed that "when it is allowed before and after, it is one of them, and the cover is established as an eternal system without tasting the law of etiquette."
Please ask the edict of Yongxi, from several grades of officials and above, each of them is removed, if the name of the father and ancestor is violated, the one who plays the Chen will first have a detailed decision. If the person who avoids the law of etiquette, listen to the teaching, the rest is not limited to avoidance. ”
The original intention of Jia Yao's letter was to request that the provisions of the Yongxi Edict be strictly implemented on the basis of referring to the provisions of the Yongxi Decree. However, after "the Imperial Rite and the Dali Temple were decided together", it was believed that "the name of the father and ancestor is unbearable for the descendants." Do not be of official quality, and listen to avoidance".
Although the edict of the extant Jiayou is short, it makes substantial changes to the Edict of the Second Year of the Yongxi Dynasty. First of all, the "Yongxi Second Year Edict" listed the privilege of high-ranking officials to avoid their families, while the Jiayou six-year edict clearly stated that "do not be superior to official qualities, and listen to avoidance."
The greatest significance of this edict was to change from the privilege of a few to a general rule for all officials. Second, the issue of evasion of suspects and two names.
The "Tang Law" does not make specific provisions, and although the "Second Year Edict of the Yongxi Dynasty" mentions that the name and the second name should not be avoided, the basic attitude is still to regard it as part of the "etiquette", and does not clearly point out the principle of the two names being impartial and not being a bad name. Although the six-year edict of Jiayou excluded the two names and suspected names from the scope of the official to avoid the family, the expression was tactful and did not directly refer to the two names and suspected names.
The "Jiayou Six Year Edict" is a turning point in the Song Dynasty's legal provisions on family secrets from simple and rude to meticulous. It not only solved the problem of contradiction between the previous law and the edict, unified the standards for dealing with the problem of family secrets, but also made further additions and improvements. The Song Dynasty law changed from rude to respectful, which coincided with the social development situation at that time.
When the monarch is strong and the subject is weak, the monarch will suppress the minister's request to avoid the family, and when the monarch is weak and the minister is strong, the minister often avoids the family secret, and the official law is the result of the balance between the two. Once the imbalance is lost, the law of imposter officials will not be truly implemented.
The abuse of ministers and high-ranking officials in the Five Dynasties, the early Song Dynasty, and high-ranking officials only stemmed from the personal privileges of ministers, and did not form a class of gatekeepers that rivaled imperial power like the Wei and Jin dynasties. Therefore, the five dynasties, the early Song dynasty, and high-ranking officials did not mean that the "honor of the king" and the "heart of filial piety" had returned to a state of equilibrium.
The real restoration of this equilibrium was after the formation of the Shidafu group, and the specific driving force was the movement of the Northern Song Shidafu to rebuild the clan.
Mr. Yu Yingshi pointed out that "the emperors of the Song Dynasty, the former Yue Han and Tang, and the later Yue Ming and Qing dynasties", this phenomenon was not only because of the emperor's personal likes and dislikes, but also because the rulers of the early Song Dynasty sought a new basis for ruling in order to suppress arrogant generals. By reforming the imperial examination and favoring the scholars, the Song Dynasty was recognized by the scholars.
Under such circumstances, Shi Dafu has a strong sense of political subjectivity, and only then did Fan Zhongyan's famous phrase "first the world is worried and worried, and then the world is happy and happy", and only then did Wen Yanbo's idea of "ruling the world with Shi Dafu" be born. With the existence of such a class that competes with the power of the monarchy, the "honor of the king" cannot suppress the demands of his subordinates to avoid their families.
In order to maintain the continuation of their family status, the rising scholar class has been involved in the movement of rebuilding the clan, and in the clan activities such as genealogy, clan fields, and clan sacrifices, the most closely related to the family is the compilation of genealogy. Five generations ago, all the families had genealogies for election and marriage.
In addition, because genealogy records the names of each family, in order not to offend other people's family secrets in communication, genealogy has also become an essential knowledge for social communication in the era of gatekeepers. Yan Zhitui once complained that "today's people avoid it, and they are more anxious about the ancient." Whoever has the name of the son shall be the land of the grandson. In my personal knowledge, there are Zhan Xiang, Secret Friend, Secret Tong, Secret Qing, Secret Peace, Secret Yu, Jiao Shu Jiao, a hundred criminals, those who hear it are hard, and there is no hope to rely on it. ”
Although Yan Zhitui is overwhelmed, there are also people who are proficient in this way. It can be seen that the spectrum is a seditious force that promotes the social avoidance of family. During the Five Dynasties period, the Shi clan declined and the genealogy was not transmitted, completely breaking the situation that the Shi clan was secretive to each other, so that after several generations, the name of the ancestor was not known.
At that time, Song Jiao was seriously injured and forced to change his name. From the reason for the name change proposed by him as "the elders in the village told the ancestors the names", it can be seen that the people at that time were not ashamed of not knowing the names of their distant ancestors. This situation is very different from the phenomenon of tracing generations of ancestors at every turn during the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties.
However, the phenomenon of clan decline is gradually changing. The first scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty to start compiling genealogy was Ouyang Xiu and Su Xun in the late Renzong period. As genealogy became commonplace, there were also examples of requests to avoid the names of distant ancestors.
In addition to the direct promotion of family genealogy on family names, the trend of respecting ancestors and respecting ancestors triggered by the revival of clans also indirectly affected the atmosphere of avoiding ancestors' names. The movement of the Northern Song Dynasty to revive the clan played a great role in restoring the atmosphere of family avoidance. Since then, the phenomenon of not appointing officials in accordance with the regulations and avoiding their homes has still occurred from time to time.
Based on one or two examples, Yue Ke came to the conclusion that the "Jiayou's Edict" did or could not work, but he did not see the trend of the development of the family secret. Unlike other official management systems, the practice of avoiding family secretion is an ideological issue that cannot be completely one-size-fits-all, and its essence can only be recognized by grasping it from the trend.
In general, the ministers of the Song Dynasty were not comparable to the imperial power of the Wei and Jin clansmen, and the emperors of the Song Dynasty also had basic respect for the scholars, so the official law of daring to live as a result of the balance between the "honor of the king" and the "heart of filial piety" can also be better implemented. After that, the development of the official law of the Song Dynasty was mainly to fill in the gaps in the past and refine the way of changing appointments when avoiding family secrets.
In response to the problems of avoidance such as two names and suspected names that were not explicitly stipulated in some previous legal documents, but were common problems for officials to avoid their families, the Song Dynasty regulations made clear provisions on them in the form of edicts.