Chapter 4 - Chinese law and legal system: Five Dynasties and Sung

Summary

In law, as in other aspects of Chinese life, some practices inherited from earlier times reached their zenith in the Sung and disappeared thereafter. The legal systems which reached maturity during the T'ang dynasty profoundly affected the character of East Asian civilizations. The law compilations ordinarily touched the lives of the people closely at only two points, through the fiscal regulations and the criminal law, with its associated police system. In its penal practices, as in so many other areas of governmental activity, the Sung state continued older systems in name, while altering their meaning in practice, and placing alongside them new usages anomalous to the inherited pattern which remained nominally in use. The system of amnesties, the manifold types of penalty, the use of punishment conversions, and the multitude of edicts which determined actual practice all combine to limit our current understanding of the Sung penal system.