Society of the Song dynasty

Chinese society during the Song dynasty (AD 960–1279) was marked by political and legal reforms, a philosophical revival of Confucianism, and the development of cities beyond administrative purposes into centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce.

Conversely, shopkeepers, artisans, city guards, entertainers, laborers, and wealthy merchants lived in the county and provincial centers along with the Chinese gentry—a small, elite community of educated scholars and scholar-officials.

[5] The entertainment quarters of Kaifeng, Hangzhou, and other cities featured amusements including snake charmers, sword swallowers, fortunetellers, acrobats, puppeteers, actors, storytellers, tea houses and restaurants, and brokers offering young women who could serve as hired maids, concubines, singing girls, or prostitutes.

[14] While being served by waiters and ladies who heated up wine for parties, drinking playboys in winehouses would often be approached by common folk called "idlers" (xianhan) who offered to run errands, fetch and send money, and summon singing girls.

[40][41] Following the logic of the Confucian philosophical classics, Song scholar-officials viewed themselves as highly moralistic figures whose responsibility was to keep greedy merchants and power-hungry military men in their place.

Northern Song gentry and officials, who were concerned largely with tackling issues of national interest and not much for local affairs, preferred painting huge landscape scenes where any individuals were but tiny figures immersed within a larger context.

"[57] The entertainment business in the covered bazaars in the marketplace and at the entrances of bridges also provided a lowly means of occupation for storytellers, puppeteers, jugglers, acrobats, tightrope walkers, exhibitors of wild animals, and old soldiers who flaunted their strength by lifting heavy beams, iron weights, and stones for show.

Nonetheless, Song Chinese urban society was teeming with wholesalers, shippers, storage keepers, brokers, traveling salesmen, retail shopkeepers, peddlers, and many other lowly commercial-based vocations.

[79] Not all social and political philosophers in the Song period blamed the examination system as the root of the problem (but merely as a method of recruitment and selection), emphasizing instead the gentry's failure to take responsibility in society as the cultural elite.

[91][92] The Song Imperial examinations conferred successive degrees at the prefectural, provincial, and finally the national (palace exam) level, with only a small fraction of candidates advancing as jinshi, or "presented scholars".

Wealthy families eagerly gathered books for their personal libraries, including the Confucian classics as well as philosophical works, mathematical treatises, pharmaceutical documents, Buddhist sutras, and other genteel literature.

[99] Ebrey states that meritocracy and a greater sense of social mobility were also prevalent in the civil service system: records show that only roughly half of degree holders had a father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather who served as a government official.

[125] In the Southern Song, four semi-autonomous regional command systems were established based on territorial and military units; this influenced the model of detached service secretariats which became the provincial administrations (sheng) of the Yuan (1279–1368), Ming (1368–1644), and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties.

[126] The administrative control of the Southern Song central government over the empire became increasingly limited to the circuits located in closer proximity to the capital at Hangzhou, while those farther away practiced greater autonomy.

[129] The commissions of Salt and Iron, Funds, and Census that were created to deal with immediate financial crisis after An Lushan's insurrection were the influential basis for this change in career paths that became focused within functionally distinct hierarchies.

[116][130] Lower-grade officials on the county and prefectural levels performed the necessary duties of administration such as collecting taxes, overseeing criminal cases, implementing efforts to fight famine and natural calamity, and occasionally supervising market affairs or public works.

[135] All of these programs received heavy criticism from conservative ministerial peers, who believed his reforms damaged local family wealth which provided the basis for the production of examination candidates, managers, merchants, landlords, and other essential members of society.

[139] Lo asserts that Wang, believing that he was in possession of the dao, followed Yi Zhi and the Duke of Zhou's classic examples in resisting the wishes of selfish or foolish men by ignoring criticism and public opinion.

[140] Yet factional power struggles were not steeped in ideological discourse alone; cliques had formed naturally with shifting alliances of professional elite lineages and efforts to obtain a greater share of available offices for one's immediate and extended kinship over vying competitors.

"[149] Since official promotion was considered by examination degree as well as recommendation to office by a superior, a family that acquired a significant amount of sons-in-law of high rank in the bureaucracy ensured kinship protection and prestigious career options for its members.

A geomancer had to be consulted on where to bury the dead, caterers were hired to furnish the funeral banquet, and there was always the purchase of the coffin, which was burned along with paper images of horses, carriages, and servants in order for them to accompany the deceased into the next life.

[165] Women who belonged to families that sold silk were especially busy, since their duties included coddling the silkworms, feeding them chopped mulberry tree leaves, and keeping them warm to ensure that they would eventually spin their cocoons.

This included the ardent nativist, scholar, and statesman Ouyang Xiu, who called Buddhism a "curse" upon China, an alien tradition that infiltrated the native beliefs of his country while at its weakest during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–581).

Hong Mai (1123–1202), a prominent member of an official family from Jiangxi, wrote a popular book called The Record of the Listener, which had many anecdotes dealing with the spirit realm and people's supposed interactions with it.

[186]In the Song dynasty, sheriffs were employed to investigate and apprehend suspected criminals, determining from the crime scene and evidence found on the body if the cause of death was disease, old age, an accident, or foul play.

[202] He wrote of examinations of victims' bodies performed in the open amongst official clerks and attendants, a coroner's assistant (or midwife in the case of women),[203] actual accused suspect of the crime and relatives of the deceased, with the results of the autopsy called out loud to the group and noted in the inquest report.

[204] Song Ci wrote: In all doubtful and difficult inquests, as well as when influential families are involved in the dispute, [the deputed official] must select reliable and experienced coroner’s assistants and Recorders of good character who are circumspect and self-possessed to accompany him.

[205]Song Ci also shared his opinion that having the accused suspect of the murder present at the autopsy of his victim, in close proximity to the grieving relatives of the deceased, was a very powerful psychological tool for the authorities to gain confessions.

[213] In 1131, the Chinese writer Zhang Yi noted the importance of employing a navy to fight the Jin, writing that China had to regard the sea and the river as her Great Wall, and use warships as its greatest watchtowers.

[220][221][222][223][224] Song Chinese trade ships traveled to ports in Japan, Champa in southern Vietnam, Srivijaya in Maritime Southeast Asia, Bengal and South India, and the coasts of East Africa.

A landscape oriented painting showing a Buddha in red robes, seated in a throne, surrounded by sixteen adult figures and one baby. With the exception of the baby, all of the figures, including the Buddha, have blue halos.
The Sakyamuni Buddha , by Song painter Zhang Shengwen, c. AD 1181–1186; although Buddhism was in decline and under attack by Neo-Confucian critics in the Song era, it nonetheless remained one of the major religious ideologies in China.
A long, landscape oriented segment of scroll depicting throngs of people, mainly men, crossing a bridge over a large river. The atmosphere is chaotic.
A small section of Along the River During Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan , depicting Kaifeng City in the 11th or early 12th century.
A green bowl with a pattern of circular flowers with small, thin petals set over a background of vines glazed into it.
Yaozhou ware celadon bowl, 10th to 11th century
A circular painting set on a square background depicting a woman and her sons interacting with a man carrying a large number of trinkets for trade. To the left, the woman is holding a baby, and three young boys are clinging to her skirt, with a fourth boy clinging to one of the peddler's containers of trinkets. To the right, a peddler is carrying two large containers, each as tall as he is, filled to the brim with numerous indescriabale trinkets. The man himself is covered in trinkets that are strapped to his limbs and torso.
Painting of a woman and children surrounding a peddler of goods in the countryside, by Li Song (c. 1190–1225), dated 1210 AD. The youngest of the children, seen pulling at one of the baskets of the peddler's wares, is still too young to be wearing trousers . [ 15 ]
Twelve people gather around an outdoor table decorated with a black tablecloth, several potted plants, and dozens and dozens of small dishes. Most of the people are talking with one another. Off to the side a servant stands watching, and in the bottom of the painting four people are crowded around a smaller table set up as a staging area for the preparation of tea.
A Song painting of an outdoor banquet, by Emperor Huizong of Song
Two young girls play with a toy consisting of a long feather attached to a stick, while a cat watches them. There is a large rock formation and a flowering tree to the left of the girls and the cat.
In this painting by Su Hanchen ( fl. 1130–1160), a child waves a peacock-feather flag that was commonly used by actors playing generals in Song theater performances
A long, horizontally aligned painting of several small, two person fishing vessels in a river, with mountains in the background.
Fishermen's Evening Song , by Xu Daoning , c. 1049.
A long, vertically aligned painting of a several people listening to music under the shade of a tree. At the center of the painting, about a third of the way up from the bottom, a man in a green robe sits playing a stringed instrument that is built into a desk shaped container. To his left and right, further towards the bottom of the page, sit two men in robes, one on each side, listening to the music. A woman is standing behind the man on the left. The entire top half of the painting is dominated by a thin, angular tree, and a block of text above it.
Listening to the Qin , by Huizong , 11th century; playing the musical instrument of the qin was one of the leisurely pursuits of the scholar-official .
A long, vertically aligned painting of a nature scene. At the bottom of the painting, two horses, one tan and the other black, are playing with each other. Above them is a tree, which occupies the upper three fourths of the painting, emerging from behind a rock. Three long monkeys with limbs hang from various parts of the tree.
Apes and horses , a 10th-century painting and copy of an 8th-century original. Literati painters of the Song period and subsequent dynasties often remade scenes that were painted in earlier dynasties, while adding their own unique style and artistic expression.
An older woman sits in front of a machine consisting of a vertically aligned wheel composed of about two dozen flat wooden spokes, with a string for an outside rim. The wheel is held up by a simple wooden pole stand. Two other older women watch the first.
The Spinning Wheel , by Wang Juzheng (fl. early 11th century), Northern Song era, a scene with three old peasant women and their dog.
A square painting depicting two oxen fighting against each other at the bank of a river. The ox to the right appears to be trying to turn around to face the ox to the left, while the ox to the left seems to be charging straight at the ox to the right.
Homeward Oxherds in Wind and Rain , by Li Di, 12th century.
A square painting depiciting a small bird, with a grey top and white underbelly, perched on a branch that ends with a large cluster of orange tinted fruits, each about half the size of the bird.
Loquats and a Mountain Bird , by an anonymous Southern Song painter; small album leaf paintings like this were popular amongst the gentry and scholar-officials of the Southern Song period.
A long, horizontally oriented painting depicting fifteen people in a room. All but two of the people are adult men who are busy reading.
Northern Qi Scholars collating classic texts , 11th century silk handscroll painting.
A long, portrait oriented painting of a bare-chested, bearded man sitting on a mat under a tree, reading.
Scholar in a Meadow , Chinese painting of the 11th century.
A square painting of four well dressed small boys playing in a circle. Unused toys sit in a corner. The background uses darker colors while the children are wearing mostly white and bright colors.
Palace children playing , by an anonymous Song artist; privileged children of affluent backgrounds not only had the advantage of greater access to reading materials than other children, but also the yin privilege of well-connected family members that ensured for them a low-level staff position and crucial early experience working within the bureaucracy.
Four men dressed in robes and black square cut hats gather around a tree talking to one another. Three are sitting on rocks while the fourth is leaning over a horizontally bent branch of the tree.
A Literary Garden , by Zhou Wenju, 10th century.
A thin, nine story tall octagonal pagoda. It is made of brown-orange brick and stone, and appears to lean slightly. Each floor is separated from the others by a double eave.
The Pizhi Pagoda at Lingyan Temple , Shandong , built in 1063; when a pagoda collapsed in Yihuang County of Fuzhou in 1210, local inhabitants believed it was correlated with the recent failure of its county's exam candidates , so it was rebuilt according to geomantic principles in 1223 with hopes to reverse a trend of cosmic misfortune. [ 122 ]
A landscape oriented painting depicting a man in white robes standing on an unpaved path staring at the sky.
An official strolling on a path in spring , by Ma Yuan (c. 1160–1225).
A portrait oriented scroll depicting a man with a pointy beard and mustache in thick red robes, black pointed shoes, and a square cut, black hat with long, thin protrusions coming out horizontally from the bottom of the hat, sitting on a throne.
Emperor Shenzong of Song , the political ally of Wang Anshi who endorsed Wang's reform effort in the economy, military, education system, and social order.
A head-shot style painting of a middle aged to late middle aged man with pointed eyebrows, sideburns, a mustache, and a beard. He is wearing a red robe and a black, square cut hat.
Chancellor Wang Anshi (1021–1086)
A portrait oriented painting depicting two young children, a boy and a slightly older girl, playing with figurines on a table in a garden. Behind them is a tall rock flanked by branches of a flowering tree.
Playing Children , by Song artist Su Hanchen, c. 1150 AD.
A square painting depicting four cats, two in the bottom left tussling and two on the bottom right not doing anything in particular, in a garden with small flowering bushes.
Cats in the Garden , by Mao Yi, 12th century; family pets in the Song dynasty included watch dogs whose tails were often docked, long-haired cats for catching rats, cats with yellow-and-white fur called 'lion-cats' (who were valued simply as cute pets), eagles and hawks, and even crickets in cages. [ 152 ] [ 153 ] [ 154 ] Cats could be pampered with items bought from the market such as 'cat-nests', and were often fed fish that were advertised in the market specifically for cats. [ 152 ] [ 153 ]
A painting of a woman in a blue dress with intricate gold and red decorations and a large blue hat. Her face has a simple angular design painted onto it in darker brown tones. She is sitting in a golden throne with dragon heads protruding from the ends of the armrests and from the sides of the top, back edge of the throne.
Official court portrait painting of the empress and wife of Zhenzong . Notice the contrast of heavy ceremonial facial painting with this picture and women in the one below.
A painted image of four Chinese women wearing colorful silk robes, their hair tied up into buns, standing around a small wooden block with silk laid on top while holding large whisks which they use to beat the silk.
Women striking and preparing silk, by Emperor Huizong , early 12th century, a remake of an earlier Tang dynasty original.
A long portrait oriented painting depicting two figures, the man to the right is a man in blue robes, facing right. The figure to the left is a much larger, bare-chested, outwardly male figure with an over-sized head, also facing right.
A Luohan , painted in 1207 by Liu Songnian, Southern Song period
An marble statue depicting the upper half of an elderly man's body. The man has a long beard and thick eyebrows, and is wearing a square cut hat with long, thick, hoizontal protrusions coming out from the sides, near the ears. The carving is angular, and the figure being depicted appears to be in the middle of a sharp turn.
A bust of the famous magistrate Bao Qingtian (999–1062), renowned for his judgment in court justice during the early Song era.
A small, square excerpt of painting showing a large open space enclosed by walls about twice the height of an adult. The walls are topped with large, pyramidal spikes. Several men sit in front of an open thick metal gate.
A gated entrance to a jail; notice the spikes on the wall to deter escapees or unlawful entry; detail from a famous cityscape handscroll painting by artist Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145).
A painting of a play being staged in a courtyard. In the center, a man in loose black robes appears in mid-bow or mid-dance. To the left, two men dressed as guards are holding a third man, dressed in the same attire as the man in the center. To the right, a heavy set man sits in a throne. Behind him stand three women in white face paint and a man dressed in the same attire as the man in the center.
The Broken Balustrade , a 12th-century painting showing two armed palace guards (on the left) making an arrest.
A long, landscape oriented painting of eight figures. From left to right, the first, third, fifth, sixth, and eighth people are armed, with the first and last men most heavily armed, carrying both a bow and a sword, with the other three carrying either a bow or a sword but not both. Each of the men wears a thin, flat, black cap. The third and sixth figure are also a head shorter than the rest of the figures.
The "Four Generals of the Restoration" with their four attendants, painted by Liu Songnian (1174–1224); the famous Song general Yue Fei is featured as the second person from the left.
A map showing the territory of the Song, Liao, and Xia dynasties. The Song dynasty occupies the eastern half of what constitutes the territory of the modern People's Republic of China, except for the northernmost areas (modern Inner Mongolia province and above). The Xia occupy a small strip of land surrounding a river in what is now Inner Mongolia, and the Liao occupy a large section of what is today northeast China.
Territory controlled by the Northern Song
A map showing the territory of the Song dynasty after suffering losses to the Jin dynasty. The western and southern borders remain unchanged from the previous map, however the northernmost third of the Song's previous territory is now under control of the Jin. The Xia dynasty's territory remains unchanged. In the southwest, the Song is bordered by a territory about a sixth its size, Nanchao.
Territory controlled by the Southern Song
A diagram of the front three sides of what appears to be a six sided wooden structure. All of its surfaces are intricately carved, with small doors in each side, cloud patterns in the bottom, and a wall carving at the top.
A revolving Buddhist ark drawn in 1103 CE during the Song dynasty; Sino-Judaic scholars believe the Kaifeng Jews used one of these to house their 13 Torah scrolls.
A map of the island of Hainan, which is roughly oval in shape, tilted so that the longer side is at a roughly 45 degree angle pointing towards the northwest on a map where north is at the top. An area taking up the bottom left half of the island is highlighted, indicating the location where the Li people are based.
A map of Hainan showing the areas inhabited by the ethno-linguistic Li people in the southern half of the island