唐宋變革期の軍禮と秩序

Abstract

This study focuses on military ceremonials, and in particular the imperial hunt 田獵 and military drills 講武, in analyzing how social order was meditated by military affairs in the period of upheaval between the Tang and Song dynasties. In the early period of the Tang dynasty the emperor, foreign embassies, leading civilian and military officials, soldiers and ordinary citizens would all assemble for the imperial hunting expeditions and ceremonial military drills. These assemblies served as representations of the Tang imperial order. The participants would follow a program prescribed in the classics and jointly conduct military exercises. They would thereby confirm their individual places in the imperial order. Moreover, in the case of the imperial hunt, a portion of the game that had been caught during the hunt was shared by the participants in a communal meal, and another portion was used as an offering at the tomb of the imperial ancestors. This practice also emphasized the unity of the entire empire, including the imperial ancestors. Military ceremonials, however, changed greatly as time passed. In the case of the imperial hunt, the practice of the emperor and his subjects exchanging the game taken and other items spread during the late Tang. Then in the Sung, the practice of offering game to the imperial tomb itself died out. In short, the fact that the fruits of this military training were shared in a reciprocal, quid pro quo, manner by sovereign and subject rather than shared communally among the members of the empire, was important as a turning point in the mediation between the two. A similar phenomenon occurred in the case of military drills. In other words, full representation of the entire empire on the parade grounds became a rarity, the emperor would make imperial progresses to specific military camps, evaluate the military skills of the officers, and make awards. To summarize, in both ceremonials that which mediated between sovereign and subject were practices like military training or the sharing of game, whose context shifted from what was essentially a military one to an individual relationship of reciprocity unrelated directly to the military. In other words, the motivation to mediate the social order through military means faded greatly. By the time of the late Song dynasty, the continued existence of the two ceremonials, which had lost their essence, came into question.