Résumés

Stephen Durrant, The Place of Hou Hanshu in Early Chinese Historiography

A period particularly significant for the development of Chinese historiography begins with an essay found in Hou Hanshu 後漢書 and ascribed to Ban Biao 班彪 (3-54 CE). If we can accept Ban Biao’s authorship of this piece, it constitutes the earliest sketch of historical writing to appear in the Chinese tradition. The period ends, at least for purposes of my paper, shortly after 650 CE with the appearance of the Suishu隋書 “Jingji zhi” 經籍志 (A Treatise on Classics and [Other] Texts), which, as we all know, is a bibliography constructed around a scheme whereby texts are classified into one of  “Four Sections” 四部. The second of these four sections is labeled shi 史, typically and somewhat loosely translated as “historical writing.” This section is further divided into thirteen subsections, creating a typology of shi writing as it was understood at that time. The first subsection is named zhengshi正史 “standard histories” or “official histories,” a term first found in this treatise to define what will become an especially prestigious type of historical writing under which Hou Hanshu itself is classified.  I consider in my paper two issues: first, how Hou Hanshu might be positioned schematically in the gradual development of historiography during this period; and second, how we might regard some of the peculiarities of Hou Hanshu within such a context.

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Sebastian Eicher, Early Representations of Filial Piety in Dynastic Historiography—Textual History and Content of Hou Han shu Chapter 39

Tales of filial piety became a standard element of the annals-biography style of historiography early on. Starting from the Song shu 宋書, almost every dynastic history contains a chapter that is devoted to filial men. An early—but often neglected—precursor is Chapter 39 of Fan Ye’s 范曄 (398–446) Hou Han shu 後漢書. Inspired by his predecessor Hua Qiao 華嶠 (?–293), Fan inserted a chapter on filial men. This paper tries to shed some light on its origins, form and content, and attempts to distinguish the most common motives that were used to describe filial (xiao 孝) behavior in this early stage of its historiographical representation.

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Hans van Ess, Poetry in the Hou Han shu: The biographies of Zhang Heng, Ma Rong and Cai Yong reconsidered

As its predecessors, Shi ji and Han shu, Fan Ye’s Hou Han shu contains two chapters with biographies of literati whose prose and poetry make up most of the text. In my contribution I would like to have a look at these chapters again and see what their function within the wider context of the Hou Han shu is. Their placement within the sequence of the Hou Han shu may have chronological reasons but it would also seem possible that their contents may have more to say on Fan Ye’s ideas than the reader may think at first sight.

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Béatrice L’Haridon, The Historian’s judgment and the peers’ judgment in the “Biographical Chapter on the Proscribed Party”

In the array of biographical chapters in the Hou Han shu, the chapter 61 presents the specificity to be organized not around the destiny of one person, or of a group of persons gathered for thematic reasons (such as hermits, exemplar women, etc…) but around a political event, the proscription of the Literati Party (in fact two proscriptions). The gathering of involved personalities allows the historian to narrate the event, and at the same time to place a strong importance on it in the whole history of the Eastern Han dynasty, from the literati’s viewpoint and not only from the reigning dynasty viewpoint. Therefore, this very specific chapter can be approached as a narrative of the events surrounding the Great Proscription. Meanwhile, its way of intertwining the biographies of eminent literati who were engaged in the political activity of “understanding men”, that is of judging the qualities of their peers, sheds light not only on the events themselves but also on the importance of the peers’ judgment during this specific historical moment. I will inquire the exchange relationship between this type of judgment on contemporary peers, which is inspired by historiographical literature, and the historian’s judgment, which is confronted with the catastrophic consequences of this political activity.

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 Michael Loewe, Weaknesses of Imperial Government in Eastern Han

A loss of coherence was affecting public life in Eastern Han at an earlier stage than may be generally recognised. By 100 CE emperors, who were enjoying less and less respect and prestige, were being alienated from opportunities to take decisions or formulate policies.  Steps were taken to prevent their close relatives, the kings, from being used as figureheads for disloyal activities.  From perhaps 130 the large estates that were being formed were subject to the magnates that held them rather than to provincial officials; the peasantry who worked them had little chance of appealing against oppression.  Protests were being voiced, by officials and others, against the inequities of official administration, the failures of the officials and the growth of favouritism.  Perhaps before 100 religious and intellectual movements were arising that were in conflict with the traditional ideas of imperial government and its social distinctions.

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Alexis Lycas,Integrating non-Chinese people in Fan Ye’s Hou Han shu

Contrary to Ban Gu’s 班固 geographical account (dili zhi 地理志), which is based on reports written by government agents sent out to the margins of the empire, Fan Ye makes use of earlier texts instead of first-hand information when describing distant lands and populations.

Having previously studied how Fan Ye conceptually classifies non-Chinese people according to their customs and geographical origins, we were able to see that some groups appeared either well integrated, or well organized into polities, while others seemed to be denied any form of civilization.

While pursuing a translation of relevant portions of Fan Ye’s “ethnographical accounts” (zaiji 載記) dedicated to foreign peoples, we shall investigate how some officials played a crucial role of “civilizing” them through their benevolent actions and governance, as recounted in the “reasonable officials” (xunli 循吏) biographies, in order to bring forth the differences between northern and southern peoples, and what those differences entail for our understanding of Early Medieval Chinese human geography.

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Daniel Morgan, Remarks on the Source, Selection, Reliability, and Function of the Non-terrestrial Events Recorded in the Hou Han shu “Imperial Annals” (Benji 本紀)

The “annals” form (ji 紀, chunqiu 春秋) is contingent on the astral sciences, be it in its more fundamental, chronological reliance on li 曆, mathematical astronomy, or in its articulation of human events with ‘heavenly patterns’ (tianwen 天文). The Hou Han shu 後漢書 “Benji” 本紀 are no exception in this regard, being framed in time and being punctuated by eclipses, comets, meteorites, and planetary events, and these elements offer us a unique perspective into how their author, Fan Ye 范曄 (398–446), composed his history. Focusing on the annals’ tianwen contents, we will review what we know of Fan Ye’s potential sources: institutional data collection, the circulation of observational records, and their historiographical treatment in the annals and monographs (zhi 志) of his predecessors. The question of selection is made somewhat easy: it turns out that Fan Ye’s list of annals-worthy phenomena is nearly identical to that in Yuan Hong’s 袁宏 (328–376) Hou Han ji 後漢紀, which, in turn, reproduces (and cites) the monographs later collected in Sima Biao’s 司馬彪 (c.240–c.306) Xu Han zhi 續漢志. Dispelling doubts about outright fabrication as raised most recently by Huang Yi-long 黃一農 (2004), we will reassure ourselves that these annals-worthy phenomena are largely plausible and reproducible, allowing us to focus on a small handful of discrepancies – discrepancies between historical records and astronomical reality and, more importantly, discrepancies between editorial decisions. The real difference between Fan Ye, Yuan Hong, the monographs, and, where extant, the Dongguan Han ji 東觀漢記 annals, however, is not so much selection as it is presentation – the hermeneutics and the historiographical ends of ‘heavenly patterns’ – and we will focus in the final portion of this paper on how Fan Ye appears to divest these phenomena of meaning and what, if anything, that may mean.

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Michael Nylan, Fan Ye’s Hou Han shu, as seen from the Shitong

Delving more deeply into Fan Ye’s work, after earlier reviewing his prison letter, requires a fresh look not only at his concluding appraisals, but at his distinctive achievements, as perceived by later historians. As I am particularly interested in how Fan Ye treats earlier historians, such as Ban Gu, I will review the Shitong evaluations, which can be quirky and ill-tempered, but often prove illuminating as well.

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