Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:56:44.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Diverging Legacies of Classical Empires in China and Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2016

Wim Blockmans  and
Hilde De Weerdt
Wim Blockmans
Affiliation:
Emiel Poetoustraat 25, 9030 Ghent, Belgium. E-mail: wim.blockmans7@gmail.com
Hilde De Weerdt
Affiliation:
Arsenaalstraat 1, 2311 CT Leiden, the Netherlands. E-mail: h.g.d.g.de.weerdt@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The memory of classical empires has been prominent in both Chinese and European history but it has had a different imprint in each culture. The Han territories were periodically reunified in part and were more consistently ruled as unified empires from the 13th century onwards. In medieval Western Europe the Carolingian and the Holy Roman empires boasted of being renewals of the glorious ancient models but they developed in a different environment, were no longer built on the Roman scale, and only borrowed selectively from the Roman repertoire. In this essay we examine how differences in power relationships, fiscal regimes, and territoriality help explain both the peripheral impact of the classical model in the European context and the enhanced prospects for it in Chinese history from the 12th century onwards.

Type
Tsinghua–Academia Europaea Symposium on Humanities and Social Sciences, Globalization and China
Information
European Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 306 - 324
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Scheidel, W. (ed.) (2009) Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (Oxford: Oxford University Press) and (2015) State Power in Ancient China and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Bang, P. F. (ed.) (2012) Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Tilly, Ch. (1990) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (Cambridge, MA & Oxford: Basil Blackwell), pp. 19–32.Google Scholar
4.Burbank, J. and Cooper, F. (2010) Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press); M. Mann (1986) The Sources of Social Power. Vol. I, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD. 1760 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); M.E. Lewis (2007) The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
5.Scheidel, W. (2015) State Power in Ancient China and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 18–20; J. Burbank and F. Cooper (2010) Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 54–59.Google Scholar
6.Hui, Tin-bor (2005) War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press), pp. 60–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Sima Guang 司馬光, Zhuanjia ji 傳家集 (Siku quanshu edition), 21.4b.Google Scholar
8.On Ming and Qing military prowess and the interest of the Ming and Qing courts in Central Asia see D. Robinson (2013) Martial Spectacles at the Ming Court, 1368-1568 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center), P. Perdue (2005) China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
9.Chaffee, J. (1995/1985) The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of the Examinations (Albany: State University of New York Press), p. 35.Google Scholar
10.Brown, M. (2007) The Politics of Mourning in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11.Hartwell, See R. (1982) Demographic, political, and social transformations of China, 750-1550. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 42(2), pp. 365–442; R. Hymes (1986) Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Luo Yinan (2005) A study of the changes in the ‘Tang-Song Transition Model’. Journal of Song Yuan Studies, 35, 99–127; N. Tackett (2014) The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center). Critiques of the localist turn include B. Bossler (1998) Powerful Relations. Kinship, Status, and the State in Sung China (960-1279) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center); L. Sukhee (2014) Negotiated Power. The State, Elites, and Local Governance in Twelfth- to Fourteenth-Century China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center).Google Scholar
12.Tackett, N. (2014) Mapping localism: new data on the geographic redistribution of political elites across the Tang-Song transition. (Paper presented at the Conference on Middle Period China, Harvard University, 6 June).Google Scholar
13.De Weerdt, H. (2015) Information, Territory, and Elite Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center).Google Scholar
14.Tsung-hsi, Huang and de Bary, Wm. Th. tr. (1994) Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince: Huang Tsung-hsi’s Ming-i tai-fang lu (New York: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
15.Kuhn, Ph. (2002) Origins of the Modern Chinese State (Stanford: Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
16.Scheidel, W. (2015) State revenue and expenditures in the Han and Roman Empires. In: State Power in Ancient China and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 150–180.Google Scholar
17.Major works on fiscal organization during the Song period include Bao Weimin 包伟民 (2001) Songdai difang caizhengshi yanjiu 宋代地方财政史研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji); Bao Weimin 包伟民 (2004) Songdai caizheng shi yanjiu shuping. In: Bao Weimin (ed.), Songdai zhidu shi yanjiu bainian, 1900-2000 宋代制度史研究百年, 1900-2000 (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan), pp. 328–352; Wang Shengduo 汪圣铎 (1995) Liangsong caizheng shi 兩宋财政史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju). On military expenses and military organization, see especially Wang Zengyu 王曾瑜 (1983) Songchao bingzhi chutan 宋朝兵制初探 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju).Google Scholar
18.Guanglin, Liu (2015) The making of a fiscal state in Song China, 960–1279. The Economic History Review, 68(1), pp. 48–78.Google Scholar
19.Figures are based on Liu Guanglin (2015) The making of a fiscal state in Song China, 960–1279. The Economic History Review, 68(1), p. 52, Table 1.Google Scholar
20.Mitchell, S. (2007) A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284-641 (Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell).Google Scholar
21.Figures are based on Liu (2015) The making of a fiscal state in Song China, 960–1279. The Economic History Review, 68(1). For contemporary critiques of the growing size of the military, see, for example, H. De Weerdt (2007) Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (1127-1279) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center), pp. 145–146.Google Scholar
22.Guanglin, Liu (2014) Was the Song State to Fail? Travel with Robert Hartwell in China and Europe (Paper presented at the Conference on Middle Period China, Harvard University, 6 June).Google Scholar
23.Huang, Ray (1974) Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
24.Zelin, M. (1984) The Magistrate’s Tael. Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China (Berkeley: University of California Press).Google Scholar
25.Kuhn, Ph. (2002) Origins of the Modern Chinese State (Stanford: Stanford University Press), p. 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26.Isenmann, E. (1999) The Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages. In: R. Bonney (ed.), The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c.1200-1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 266–273.Google Scholar
27.Körner, M. (1995) Expenditure. In: R. Bonney (ed.), Economic Systems and State Finance (Oxford: Clarendon), p. 399.Google Scholar
28.Prinz, F. (1993) Grundlagen und Anfänge. Deutschland bis 1056 (Munich: C.H. Beck); P. Moraw (1985) Von offener Verfassung zur gestalteter Verdichtung. Das Reich im späten Mittelalter (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag); H. Rabe (1989) Reich und Glaubensspaltung. Deutschland 1500-1600 (Munich: C.H. Beck); H. Lutz (ed.) (1982) Das römisch-deutsche Reich im politischen System Karls V. (Munich & Vienna: R. Oldenbourg Verlag); V. Press and R. Stievermann (eds) (1995) Alternativen zur Reichsverfassung in der Frühen Neuzeit? (Munich & Vienna: R. Oldenbourg Verlag); V. Press (1991) Kriege und Krisen. Deutschland 1600-1715 (Munich: C.H. Beck).Google Scholar
29.Scheidel, W. (ed.) (2009) Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 21.Google Scholar
30.This and what follows are based on H. De Weerdt (2015) Information, Territory, and Elite Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center), esp. ch. 3. Pan Sheng 潘晟 further argues that the Tribute of Yu chapter first gained political significance in the Southern Song: Pan Sheng (2009) Songdai de ‘Yugong’ zhi xue—cong jingxue zhuanzhu zouxiang dilixue 宋代的《禹贡》之学——从经学传注走向地理学,” Lishi yanjiu 历史研究 2009.3, pp. 39–58.Google Scholar
31.Wanru, Cao 曹婉如 et al. (eds) (1990) Zhongguo gudai ditu ji: Zhanguo – Yuan 中国古代地图 集: 战国 – 元 [An Atlas of Ancient Maps in China – From the Warring States Period to the Yuan Dynasty (476 BCE –1368 CE)] (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe).Google Scholar
32.De Coene, K., De Reu, M. and De Maeyer, Ph. (eds) (2011) Liber Floridus 1121 (Tielt: Lannoo), p. 19; http://adore.ugent.be/OpenURL/app?id=archive.ugent.be:018970A2-B1E8-11DF-A2E0-A70579F64438&type=carousel&scrollto=0 (f°241r°).Google Scholar
33.Deploige, J. and Verommeslaeghe, H. (2011) De wereld van Lambertus. In: K. De Coene, M. De Reu and Ph. De Maeyer (eds) (2011) Liber Floridus 1121 (Tielt: Lannoo), pp. 48–55.Google Scholar
34.Rider, J. (ed.) (2013) Galbert of Bruges, The Murder, Betrayal, and Slaughter of the Glorious Charles, Count of Flanders (New Haven & London: Yale University Press), pp. xxiv–xxvi.Google Scholar
35.Derolez, A. (2015) The Making and Meaning of the Liber Floridus (London/Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers), pp. 112–113, 117, 183–187, 251. The full-page representation of Saint Peter seated on a chair with his attributes in an impressive church in Rome on f° 168 r° supports the hypothesis that this manuscript reflects the popes’ hierocratic worldview, as proposed by F. Crivello in O. Stiegemann and M. Werhoff (eds) (2006) Canossa 1077. Erschütterung der Welt. Vol. II: Katalog (Munich: Hirmer Verlag), p. 44 nr. 33.Google Scholar