72 documents
Unless otherwise specified, the descriptions of sources in this section are extracted from Pierre-Etienne Will and collaborators, Handbooks and Anthologies for Officials in Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography, 2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 2020
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Description
documentTypeBook
TitleDa Ming lü jiangjie 大明律講解 [Commentaries and Explanations on the Penal Code of the Great Ming]
Topic1. Code and commentaries
Historical periodEarly Ming (1368 -1584)
CountryChinese
Authoranonymous
Place of publicationHeilongjiang renmin chubanshe 黑龍江人民出版社
Publication typeWoodblock
Comment

A commentary on the Ming Code similar in format to comparable works, but known through Korean eds. only. Most Japanese catalogs attribute it to a “Ming anonymous author,” but its Chinese origin has recently been challenged (see below, Tanaka). It appears to have been available in Korea since the 1440s. It begins with a general table of contents listing the parts and sections of the Code, explanation of “eight characters,” tables (five punishments, instruments for punishment, and mourning), and detailed table of contents listing the 460 statutes of the code (j. 首); this table (placed immediately after the general table in the ed. at Sonkeikaku) splits the Code into two parts, called shangjuan 上卷 (j. 1-12) and xiajuan 下卷 (j. 13-30 starting with the 兵律 part). (Contrary to most editions of the Code with commentaries, both mulu indicate the juan numbers for each entry.) There seem to be two different versions: (1) In the 1810 and 1903 eds., which are identical in contents and page-setting, the commentaries in the body of the work are very unevenly distributed and at times rather scarce. They are inserted in small characters either at the end of a statute or after individual paragraphs or sentences thereof, and signaled by black cartouches with the words jiang yue 講曰 or (less frequently) jie yue 解曰; they are borrowed from Lüjie bianyi (q.v.), with some abstracting and editing, and mostly do not do more than paraphrase and explicitate the text of the law, not unlike the small-character notes (註) in the original text of the Code, and like them frequently introduced by wei 謂, “it means that….” However, in some instances they quote parallel laws and highlight the differences. (2) In the Sonkeikaku copy the commentaries are significantly more abundant and printed in the same font as the main text. They are frequently introduced by the words bianyi 辯疑, obviously referring to Lüjie bianyi (q.v.), but other Ming commentaries are quoted as well. There are no substatutes (tiaoli) cited in any of the eds. available. The Tae Myǒng yul kanghae became the standard version of the Ming Code in Chosǒn Korea, due to the fact that its commentaries were seen as more useful to administrators and the court than the idu translations in Tae Myǒng yul chikhe / Da Ming lü zhijie.

SubjectLaw
LanguageChinese
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