春秋世族考

Abstract

Historical trends in the development of the aristocracy in the states of the Central Plain, during the Spring and Autumn period, were in essence regulated by the political order that pertained by throughout the whole Central Plain. That is, the hegemon system of the Jin 晉 state, there occurred a certain amount of simultaneous development corresponding to the larger trends that occurred in the hegemon system. On the basis of this fact, in this paper I examine the roles played by members of the aristocracy within the context of their socio-political orders and the changes of state. First, I situate the process of the formation of these aristocracies within the political history of the period following the Eastward Transfer. Second, I examine special questions such as the relationship between the aristocracies and the monarchs, the participation of members of the aristocracies in the government of states, and the personal relations involved in the formation of aristocratic clans. In this way, I provide an account of the role played by the aristocracies within the sociopolitical orders of their respective states. Finally, I situate the upheaval of the aristocracies within the dissolution of the hegemon system. I consider the political developments that occurred after the mid-fifth century B.C. to constitute a turning point that marked the beginning the rise of despotic forms of rule. This trend was continued and completed in the early and mid-Warring States period. In this structure of investigation, I thus utilize the vicissitudes in the development of the aristocracies to provide a framework for the diachronical analysis of the four and stretched from the Eastward Transfer to the early and mid-Warring States period.