Reading Between the Lines: The Representation and Containment of Disorder in Late Ming and Early Qing Legal Texts

Abstract

Using a variety of legal texts from the seventeenth century, this paper explores the ways in which legal discourse was produced across the Ming-Qing transition. Despite the major changes between the two dynasties, the use of the Ming Code as a model for the Qing legal system meant that there was signifi cant continuity in the ways in which law, order and disorder were intertwined in both discursive representations and practice.