{"title":"Yao Mian’s Letters","authors":"Beverly Bossler","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH06","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines literati correspondence in the late Song Dynasty\u0000 (960-1279) through a case study of letters to officials by the quirky late Song\u0000 Dynasty literatus Yao Mian (1216-1262). Yao was a brilliant prose master\u0000 who was desperate for political recognition. Over the course of his volatile\u0000 career, he used letters as a means of social interaction, to establish and\u0000 cultivate relations of patronage, and to convey political information or\u0000 demands. The chapter explores the subtle differences in tone that reflected\u0000 Yao Mian’s relationships with inferiors and superiors, and reveals how\u0000 movement up and down the political ladder influenced his letter-writing.\u0000 This case study of a single man’s correspondence demonstrates the varied\u0000 roles of epistolary communication in Song social and political life.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117135463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Yue Fei and Thomas Becket","authors":"Bernard Gowers, Tsui Lik Hang","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH11","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter takes as its starting point the gendered nature of political\u0000 communications. It uses as case studies the careers — and subsequent\u0000 reputations — of two twelfth-century figures: the Southern Song general\u0000 Yue Fei (d. 1142), and the Angevin minister and churchman Thomas Becket\u0000 (d. 1170). Both rose from relatively humble beginnings to become powerful\u0000 men, and both met violent deaths at the hands of rivals within the elite.\u0000 Posthumously, they were both celebrated for specifically masculine virtues\u0000 in their respective cultures. This micro-comparative study deploys the\u0000 traditional Chinese dichotomy between wen (civil, cerebral) and wu\u0000 (military, physical) expressions of manhood to explore the masculinities\u0000 at play in their careers, their homosociality, and their reputations.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129501073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Communications, Networks, and Textual Evidence","authors":"J. Haseldine","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH04","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter proposes a method for the comparative analysis of political\u0000 communications which is potentially applicable to different languages,\u0000 cultures and political structures. Political communications are defined\u0000 not in relation to culturally pre-determined categories of relationships\u0000 (allies, clients, friends, etc.), but as individual interactions or transactions\u0000 between actors which have specific functions at specific times.\u0000 The concept of ‘communicative function’ is proposed as the basis for the\u0000 profiling of relationships, which is in turn the basis for a culturally neutral\u0000 comparative analysis of political communications. Examples are given of\u0000 the application of this methodology to a number of Western medieval letter\u0000 collections, an important source of evidence for political communications\u0000 and networks, along with suggestions for future directions of research.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"120 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123309690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Language and Political Communication in France and England (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries)","authors":"J. Genêt","doi":"10.1017/9789048551002.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048551002.006","url":null,"abstract":"Symbolic power depends on the efficiency with which the values of any\u0000 dominant group are transmitted to society at large. In the eleventh century,\u0000 the Latin medieval Church initiated a fundamental transformation of the\u0000 Western European symbolic communication system. In France and England,\u0000 the symbolic power of the Gregorian Church was derived from the superiority\u0000 of the spiritual power of the papacy. Its armies of monks and priests had to\u0000 convince the members of the ecclesia (the Christian society) of the necessity\u0000 to embark on the road to individual salvation under the guidance of the\u0000 Church, imposing a new division between clergy and laity. Yet, whereas\u0000 clericus and litteratus had earlier been synonymous, many lay people were\u0000 now able to read and write. If the Church had developed its own administration\u0000 and bureaucracy, the Gregorian educational and cultural revolution\u0000 offered the same opportunity to cities and states, which thus acquired the\u0000 capacity to govern by the written word. As the laity entered into an age of\u0000 literacy, the foundations were laid for the genesis of a new type of state.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115088009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards a Comparative History of Political Communication , c.1000-1500","authors":"H. D. Weerdt, J. Watts","doi":"10.1017/9789048551002.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048551002.002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses the overlapping interest in political communication\u0000 and mediation in recent Chinese and European historiographies. It\u0000 explores a shared trend towards the social appropriation and reproduction\u0000 of central (or ‘state’) authority by various kinds of intermediaries in the\u0000 late Middle Ages, and underscores the use of a comparative historical\u0000 inquiry in analyzing the different modalities and effects of the social\u0000 appropriation of state authority in Chinese and European history.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"225 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115105058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Administrative Elites and the ‘First Phase of Byzantine Humanism’","authors":"Filippo Ronconi","doi":"10.1017/9789048551002.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048551002.005","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the interconnection between the adoption of the\u0000 minuscule script for the transcription of Greek literary texts (one of the\u0000 most significant innovations in the history of Byzantine book culture) and\u0000 the huge cultural revival of ninth-century Byzantium. The focus lies on the\u0000 social changes that occurred among the Constantinopolitan elites at the end\u0000 of the eighth century as a result of the political events following the death\u0000 of Emperor Leo IV. The adoption of the minuscule in the copying of books\u0000 will be described as a three-step process, whose phases will be discussed\u0000 with particular attention to the social milieus in which they emerged and\u0000 developed (especially the bureaucratic circles of the capital connected to\u0000 the finance administration and some monastic networks). In conclusion,\u0000 the study emphasizes the importance of some very specific technical skills\u0000 in one of the most decisive changes in middle-byzantine cultural history.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122453931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fragmentation and Financial Recentralization","authors":"C. Lamouroux","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH02.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH02.1","url":null,"abstract":"In creating four General commands (zonglingsuo) between 1141 and 1145,\u0000 at the end of the first Song-Jin war, the central government of the Song\u0000 Empire hoped to marshal resources from the four areas along the new\u0000 border while also controlling the military officials in charge of the armies.\u0000 With the fragmentation of the monetary system, this financial organization\u0000 resulted in a real autonomy of these strategic areas. Eventually, this\u0000 reform induced the fragmentation of the fiscal and financial authority\u0000 and, as accounting procedures became more complex, generated a new\u0000 kind of technical communication between the regional and the central\u0000 administrations. Lastly, it allowed high-ranking civil servants involved\u0000 in this process to reinforce their institutional positions.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116566467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Communication and Empire","authors":"M. Whittow","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH07","url":null,"abstract":"The Roman world in the second century was remarkably homogeneous,\u0000 and the ties that bound it together remarkably thick and apparently\u0000 strong. But what happened when the western half went its own way,\u0000 when imperial territories were limited to bits of Asia Minor and the\u0000 Balkans, when the construction of new monumental buildings had\u0000 slowed to a trickle or stopped entirely, when the epigraphic habit had\u0000 died? How did political communication work in the Roman empire\u0000 of the Middle Ages that we know as Byzantium? The answer requires\u0000 conjuring up a picture of people on the move; of soldiers, priests, students,\u0000 pilgrims, appellants, merchants, tax collectors, administrators,\u0000 painters, and builders. And it requires thinking about the messages\u0000 they received and passed on. Placing the Byzantine experience in\u0000 comparative perspective to Song China, this chapter surveys the\u0000 evidence of Byzantine political communication to investigate both\u0000 the means of transmitting news and orders as well as the underlying\u0000 networks of shared discourse and identity. It shows that the survival\u0000 of the Byzantine state depended largely on its ability to create an\u0000 imagined community as the nation-state of the Romans. The decline\u0000 of Byzantium and the rise of Muslim identities in its former territories\u0000 can thus be linked to a failure to maintain effective long-distance\u0000 communication networks that projected a ‘Roman’ narrative across\u0000 the entirety of the empire.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"135 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127388022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Letters and Parting Valedictions","authors":"Chenqing Song","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH10","url":null,"abstract":"In eleventh-century China, a growing number of local men received a classical\u0000 education and played a visible role in the government. Some passed\u0000 the civil service examinations and held office, but those who did not also\u0000 actively engaged themselves in local administration. These local men of\u0000 culture, or local literati, had a dual identity: they were influential members\u0000 of local society in their hometowns, but they were also participants in an\u0000 empire-wide literati community that defined itself by a shared culture and\u0000 supralocal networks. This chapter provides a case study of how local literati\u0000 on the fringes of officialdom negotiated between these two identities\u0000 and how they both cooperated with the state in local administration and\u0000 protested against it in defence of local interests. The protagonist in this\u0000 chapter is Zhang Yu, a Sichuanese literatus of the early Northern Song\u0000 Dynasty who never held office but commanded great respect from local\u0000 officials. Using his letters, parting valedictions, and commemorative\u0000 inscriptions, this chapter explores how local literati provided political\u0000 counsel and communicated their demands to the government. It argues\u0000 that Zhang pursued, in different genres of his writings, several agendas\u0000 that complemented one another. He eagerly fashioned himself as a true\u0000 literatus in the metropolitan circles, which in turn strengthened his\u0000 social standing and enabled him to weigh in on local policy and speak\u0000 for local interests.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"50 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116579102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Imaginaries of Empire and Memories of Collapse","authors":"A. Levine","doi":"10.5117/9789463720038_CH12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463720038_CH12","url":null,"abstract":"Producing parallel narratives of the fall of Kaifeng in 1127 and the sack\u0000 of Constantinople in 1204, Ye Mengde 葉夢得 (1077–1148) and Niketas\u0000 Choniates (c.1155–1217) chronicled the collapse of these imperial centres in\u0000 an effort to reconstruct post-conquest political communities in exile. While\u0000 Ye and Niketas were deploying different conceptual frameworks of political\u0000 authority and literary blueprints for memoirs, their writings documented\u0000 personal displacement as well as cultural and political trauma writ large. By\u0000 recording and commemorating the chain of events that culminated in the\u0000 collapse of the Northern Song and Byzantine Empires, both authors were\u0000 converting oral anecdotes into cultural memory. Ye and Niketas devised\u0000 ex post facto explanations for the fall of Kaifeng and Constantinople as the\u0000 consequence of the actions of failed monarchs and corrupt courtiers — and,\u0000 to a lesser extent — the forces of divine punishment.","PeriodicalId":162028,"journal":{"name":"Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125307747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}