Archival Research in Qing Legal History

Abstract

ARCHIVAL RESEARCH IN QING LEGAL HISTORY* Nancy Park and Robert Antony Over the past few years there has been a resurgence of interest in Qing law, a field that peaked in the 1960s and early 1970s with the publication of several classic works on late imperial law and government.1 fascinating subject, branching off into the spheres of civil, administrative, and commercial law as well as continuing the more traditional focus on criminal law. The research potential of Qing law seems limitless, and the possibilities are enhanced by a wealth of virtually untapped primary and archival sources. The Number One Historical Archives of China (Zhongguo diyi lishi danganguan ) in Beijing houses a rich trove of materials on Qing law and related topics in social and economic history.2 During the three-year period in which one or both of us worked at the Number One we handled many different types of legal documents, and in this article we would like to share with a larger audience what we learned about the types and uses of these materials. Although our survey is scarcely exhaustive, we have tried to describe some of the major archival sources for Qing law in order to bring them to the attention of other researchers. We have directed our remarks to scholars who are primarily interested in using legal documents in the Number One; however, 'Nancy Park worked in the Archives from 1990 to 1991, collecting information on bribery cases involving governors-general and governors for her dissertation, "Corruption and Its Recompense: Bribes, Bureaucracy, and the Law in Late Imperial China." Robert Antony worked there in 1985 and 1990 examining larceny cases for a study on "Bandits, Brotherhoods , and Qing Law in Guangdong, 1760-1840." We would like to thank the staff of the Number One Historical Archives as well as the Institute of Qing History and the Archival Department of Chinese People's University for their hospitality and assistance. For research funding and institutional support, we are both grateful to the National Academy of Sciences' Committee for Scholarly Communication with China, with Robert Antony additionally indebted to the Fulbright-Hays Program and Western Kentucky University. Finally, we wish to express our appreciation to Philip Kuhn, Robert Marks, Evelyn Rawski, and Kristin Stapleton for reading and commenting on this article. 1Among others, Ch'ii 1962; van der Sprenkel 1962; Bodde and Morris 1967; Watt 1972; and Metzger 1973. 2For descriptions of holdings at the Number One Historical Archives of China see Zhongguo diyi lishi dang'anguan guancang dang'an gaishu 1985; Bartlett 1981:81-110; Naquin 1980:45-60; and Shan 1981:3-8. Late Imperial China Vol. 14, No. 1 (June 1993): 93-137 93 94Nancy Park and Robert Antony primarily interested in using legal documents in the Number One; however, we believe that many of our comments have broader significance. On one level, much of what we describe about the organization and content of legal materials held by the Number One will be useful to individuals specializing in a wide range of topics in Qing history including, but not limited to, law. On a second level, our statements about the types and uses of particular documents within the Number One's archival collections hold true to a large degree for the archival holdings in Taiwan.3 We have organized this article according to major archival collections within the Grand Secretariat, Grand Council, Board of Punishments, and other central government organs. We have assumed the reader's acquaintance with the standard archival sources available for Qing history; therefore, we have concentrated on materials within each collection that hold the most promise for the study of law in late imperial China, prefacing our remarks with a short description of the collection as a whole. To make our comments as comprehensive and helpful as possible, we have included references to selected sources and research aids on Qing institutional and documentary systems.4 The Grand Secretariat Archive Inherited from the Ming dynasty, the Grand Secretariat (Neige) was the supreme advisory organ to the early Qing emperors until the development of the Grand Council (Junjichu) during the Yongzheng and early Qianlong reigns. Thereafter, the Grand Secretariat's power and prestige...