The “Twelve Lords” in Tenth-Century Vietnam

Abstract

Our chief sources of information about Vietnam until the middle of the tenth century are the dynastic histories and related writings of China. This is because, from the beginning of recorded history in Vietnam until then, Vietnam was, for the most part, under the authority of Chinese governors or people who posed as Chinese-style governors. By the end of the tenth century, an independent Vietnamese monarchy was established, and historical information was being independently preserved by the Vietnamese; this information was eventually incorporated into the Vietnamese historiographical tradition as it developed in later centuries. Consequently, the historian of tenth-century Vietnam finds two streams of information, one coming from a wellestablished viewpoint from which Vietnam was a remote frontier district at the edge of the horizon, the other coming from the Vietnamese themselves as they worked toward a standpoint from which to remember their past.