Tang Code
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The ''Tang Code'' () was a penal code that was established and used during the
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...
in
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. Supplemented by civil statutes and regulations, it became the basis for later dynastic codes not only in China but elsewhere in
East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...
. The Code synthesized Legalist and
Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...
interpretations of law. Created in AD 624 and modified in AD 627 and 637, it was promulgated in AD 652 with 502 articles in 12 sections and enhanced with a commentary (the 唐律疏議) in 653. Considered one of the greatest achievements of traditional Chinese law, the Tang Code is also the earliest Chinese code to have been transmitted to the present in its complete form.Gernet (1996),bal
244-245


Origin and context

The Tang code took its roots in the code of the
Northern Zhou Zhou (), known in historiography as the Northern Zhou (), was a Xianbei-led Dynasties in Chinese history, dynasty of China that lasted from 557 to 581. One of the Northern and Southern dynasties#Northern dynasties, Northern dynasties of China's ...
(564) dynasty, which was itself based on the earlier codes of the Cao-Wei and Western Jin (268).Gernet (1996)
244
Aiming to smooth the earlier laws and reduce physical punishments (such as mutilations) in order to appease social tensions in the newly pacified Tang territories, it was created in AD 624 at the request of
Emperor Gaozu of Tang Emperor Gaozu of Tang (7 April 566 – 25 June 635), born Li Yuan, courtesy name Shude, was the founding Emperor of China, emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, reigning from 618 to 626 CE. Under the Sui dynasty, Li Yuan was the governor in t ...
. After further revisions in 627 and 637 under the influence of Emperor Taizong, the code was completed by commentaries in 653, under Gaozong.


Organization and system of punishments

French historian and sinologist Jacques Gernet has called the ''Tang Code'' "an admirable composition of faultless logic in spite of its size and complexity." The American sinologists Wallace Johnson and Denis C. Twitchett described it as "a very rational system of justice" in which "both the accuser and the officials involved had to be careful lest they themselves face punishment". The ''Tang Code'' contained more than 500 articles divided into twelve large sections (see right-side table). The penalty for an offence was determined according to two factors: * Offence : The Tang Code clearly associated each offence with a penalty. * Relational position : For relatives, this position was measured by the kind and duration of mourning that had to be observed for each degree of kinship. Relations outside the family were defined according to positions in a social hierarchy capped by the emperor himself. In this hierarchy, officials were higher than ordinary men, who were themselves superior to persons of servile status. For instance, a slave committing a crime against his master was punished more severely than if an ordinary person had committed the same crime. The same offence committed by the master against his slave, on the other hand, resulted in a ''lower'' penalty than the same crime committed by a common person. The local magistrate acted as examiner and sometimes as investigator, but his final role in legal cases was to determine the proper penalty for the offense that had been committed: he had to fix the nature of the offense as defined by the code, and to increase or reduce the associated penalty depending on the social relation between offender and victim. The historically famous 'five hearings' was a Chinese technique for eliciting the facts of a case. While questioning a witness, the magistrate would look closely for five kinds of behavior: "the person's statements, expression, breathing, reaction to the words of the judge, and eyes. Through careful observation, it was thought that the experienced magistrate could arrive at a knowledge of whether the person was, in fact, telling the truth." If a magistrate was unable to decide a case on the basis of evidence and witness testimony, he could seek the permission of higher officials to use judicial torture. The accused could be beaten no more than 200 blows in up to three interrogations held at least twenty days apart. But when the accused was able to withstand the full amount of torture without making a confession, the magistrate would use the same torture on the accuser. If the tortured accuser admitted making a false accusation, he would receive the same punishment that would have been inflicted upon the accused had this latter been convicted. The offence modulated according to the degree of social relation determined the final penalty which could range from flagellation using a
rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan (from Malay language, Malay: ''rotan''), is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the clos ...
and bastinado with a bamboo stick, to penal labour, exile with penal labour, and death by strangulation ( garrote) or decapitation.


Facts

* The code imposed two years of forced labor on any private household found in possession of such works as the '' Luoshu Square'' or the '' Yellow River Map'', which are used in '' Yijing'' and '' Fengshui'' divination. The practice was preserved in the legal practice until the Song dynasty. *Specific rules governed the application of judicial
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
. The only instrument permitted was the 'interrogation stick', which was approximately long and and wide at the large and small ends respectively. The magistrate himself would be punished if other means were used to try to force a confession.Johnson and Twitchett (1993), 128.


See also

* Great Qing Legal Code


Notes


Bibliography

*{{citation, last=Gernet, first=Jacques, year=1996, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jqb7L-pKCV8C, title=A History of Chinese Civilization, edition=Second, publisher=Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pages=801 pages, isbn=9780521497817 Originally published in French as ''Le monde chinois''. *Johnson, Wallace, trans. (1979), ''The Tang Code: Volume One: General Principles''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. *Johnson, Wallace and Denis Twitchett (1993), "Criminal Procedure in T'ang China", ''Asia Major'' 3rd series, 6.2, 113–146. Legal codes Legal history of China Tang dynasty literature 7th century in law