Research On The Gift Giving Of The Literati And Officialdom In The Northern Song Dynasty

Gift giving has been existed for thousands of years in human society.As a form of social exchange,gift giving meets the needs of social interaction between people.The development of human society constantly shapes the gift form.Under the background of the complex economic relationship and the acceleration of social differentiation,the functions of gifts also expand accordingly.The flow of gifts between people continues to accelerate in order to meet the growing material and cultural needs of human beings.The Northern Song Dynasty was the peak of social development in ancient China.Politics,economy and culture were different from those of the previous generation.New economic factors sprouted,social contradictions tended to be diversified,and civil relations and interpersonal communication were unprecedented complex.In this context,many relatively stable social groups began to be divided into Northern Song society,which were mainly composed of social members with similar social status.The scholar bureaucrat group was the most important and representative one.The group of literati in Northern Song Dynasty is a group with clear identity label and significant social attribute.As a member of the same social group,the scholar bureaucrat have similarities in their career orientation,values,class consciousness,behavior pattern and education level.In the process of forming stable groups,mutual communication and pursuit of consensus are the important factors that lead to group consciousness.The principle of courteous intercourse and the tradition of carrying gifts in the meeting determine that gift giving is an important means of communication.Thanks to the improvement of material production level in the Northern Song Dynasty,more material products were produced and entered the market circulation.At the same time,the improvement of transportation and storage technology,supply-demand relationship,market environment and other social conditions provide the foundation for the rich gift giving of scholar bureaucrat.More and more material products have become gifts for gifts.As the material carrier of expressing meaning,gift plays a role in the social communication of scholar bureaucrat in many aspects.The realistic factors such as human feelings,politics and economic interests make gift gift be given new functions by practice.The material products of different categories are widely used as gifts in personnel coordination,emotional maintenance,material assistance and wealth transfer,different gifts play different roles.The differences of the needs,purposes and economic conditions of the two sides also create different acts of gift giving.From the perspective of gift giving,this paper aims to establish a cognitive path from gift to gving to scholar bureaucrat,and explores the behavioral logic and shaping factors behind the gift giving of scholar bureaucrat,and deepen the understanding of the group of scholar bureaucrat in Northern Song Dynasty.Political attribute is the core attribute of the scholar bureaucrat group,and the cultural attribute is the basic attribute of the group of literati.The dual attributes of officials and literati are interwoven in the activities of scholar bureaucrat’ behavior.The key to understand the gift behavior of the scholar bureaucrat is to analyze the influence of political and cultural Duality on the gift.The political pattern of scholar bureaucrat is a typical political model in the Northern Song Dynasty.The group of literati bureaucrat is the main shaper of the political form,and the political of scholar bureaucrat is the most distinct embodiment of the dual attributes of the Song Dynasty politics.This paper further through the Northern Song Dynasty scholar bureaucrat group representative figure Sushi case study,focusing on the analysis of the scholar bureaucrat political gift form of shaping,through Sushi in different periods of gift giving changes and characteristics,to deepen the Song Dynasty political and social changes of the understanding.This paper is divided into three parts: introduction,text and summary.The introduction part mainly includes the reasons and academic significance of the topic,the research status and the text objectives,the research methods and the definition of concept.The academic circles have little research on the gift giving of scholar bureaucrat in Song Dynasty,and the research results are scattered in the group of scholars.In addition to anthropological research results,some scholars also paid attention to gift giving in Song Dynasty in the aspects of system history and literature history.The existing research in academic circles has great inspiration and help to introduce relevant research methods and define the concept of research.The first chapter mainly introduces the background of gift giving for scholar bureaucrat in the Northern Song Dynasty,which covers three levels: Tang-Song transformation,the down shift of the etiquette system and the political evolution of the scholar bureaucrat.Under the macro background of Tang-Song transformation,the gift economy in the Northern Song Dynasty showed new social value,which was highly related to the social activities of the literati groups.In the context of the downward shift of the etiquette system,the concept of gift gradually changed from the traditional "rite" to secularization,and began to appear in the concept that the objects given to people in the later generations are all "gifts".Under the micro background of scholar bureaucrat’politics,the time,form and content of gifts were deeply influenced by political environment.The political affairs of the scholar bureaucrat in the Northern Song Dynasty experienced the process of sprouting,developing,mature and declining,and then following the collapse of the Northern Song Dynasty regime,and the subtle changes of political ecology,The relationship between emperor and scholar bureaucrat has a direct impact on the form of gift.The second chapter mainly classifies the gifts used by the scholar bureaucrat in the Northern Song Dynasty.The variety of gift types is the result of social production,and the difference of gift selection is influenced by the gift environment and conditions.According to the material form and function value of gifts,it can be divided into five types,including diet,daily use,culture,property and other types.Based on the sorting and classification of gift historical materials,a clear understanding of the content,form,production and manufacturing source of gifts is formed.The preference of the scholar bureaucrat’ choice of gifts and the factors influencing the preference can be directly reflected in the functional classification.The third chapter classifies the gift behavior of scholar bureaucrat in Northern Song Dynasty.The social relations established by the scholar bureaucrat group in the process of interpersonal interaction are obviously different.Ethical relationship,emotional relationship and interest relationship are three main social relations established by the scholar bureaucrat in social communication.In order to establish or maintain social relations,gift is essential in interpersonal communication.Gifts for different social relations show different forms and characteristics,which are ritual,emotional and utilitarian.The fourth chapter is the analysis of the structure of gift,the difference of gift structure is caused by the different direction of gift flow.Once gifts are sent out,they always flow towards specific targets.The difference between the social status of the feeder and the recipient results in the upward,downward and parallel flow of gifts.The core reason for shaping the flow of gift is the imbalance of the distribution of rights in hierarchical society,especially the imbalance of political rights.Behind the difference in the flow of gifts is the expression of identity differences between the two sides of gift return.Through the analysis of the structure of gift giving,we can see the hierarchical structure of Song Dynasty society,especially the political hierarchy of scholar bureaucrat in Song Dynasty,and the normal activity of scholar bureaucrat in the hierarchical society.The fifth chapter is the case study of Su shi’s gift giving.Based on the clue of time sequence,the paper analyzes the process of Su shi’s gift giving through the clues of Sushi’s life history,situation change and political changes in the Northern Song Dynasty.As an official or literati,Su Shi was very typical in the group of literati in the Northern Song Dynasty.Su Shi experienced five dynasties,namely,Renzong,Yingzong,Shenzong,zhe Zong and Huizong,which had experienced many ups and downs,and his political resume was complete and clear,and his political experience was complex.At the same time,Su Shi’s handling of affairs for people not only reflected the general principles of scholars in Song Dynasty,but also had strong personal style.In his own written records,there were not many gift giving records,which were far from the scholar bureaucrat of the same time in terms of quantity and type.Through the study of Sushi’s gift behavior,it is not difficult to see that Sushi’s interpersonal communication is closely related to political situation,which also leads to the continuous changes of Sushi’s life situation.The present and gift situation in different periods reflects the change of Sushi’s real situation,which undoubtedly provides a new perspective for deepening the political changes in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty.The conclusion part summarizes the collection from three aspects: first,the change of gift and social relationship;Secondly,the construction of gift and interpersonal relationship;Third,the relationship between gift and the politics of scholar bureaucrat in Northern Song Dynasty.The paper summarizes the gift behavior of scholar bureaucrat in the Northern Song Dynasty,and then points out the status of gift gift in the life of scholar bureaucrat from the perspective of group research.