The History Of Chinese Legal History In The First Half Of The20^th Century

Since Late-Qing Dynasty, the society encountered a destined calamity andinfrequent big changes which had never happened for thousands of years. Andunder the influence of "West learning spreading to the east", Chinese traditionalacademic system had been transformed to the modern academic system. Basedon the Western academic classification, Chinese legal history had come into aframework transforming from one of Four Schools Theory to the branch ofSeven Schools Theory.So far Chinese legal history has gone through a hundredyears of development since the enacting of "Authorized School Regulation" in1902.The development of any discipline is inseparable from the developmentprocess of introspection. As the academic self-consciousness,the review of historyof Chinese legal history does not only aim to reveal the history truth, but also tofind a way to solve the dilemma of Chinese legal history nowadays. With the"Practical utility" as the standard of value at present, Chinese legal historybecomes the theory alienated from reality from pragmatic theory. Although theacademic circle has been reflecting, introspecting, and seeking the innovativeway to get out of dilemma, few scholars thought from the study about the historyof Chinese legal history.The author will do this in this paper.As Croce said,"All history is contemporary history".The paper will discuss course set-up, study circles, academic achievements to find internal developmenttrack of Chinese legal history in the first half of the20thcentury, and then discussthe externalities, such as the social background, related disciplines, overseasChinese legal history research, and on the base of which, it also investigates theacademic value and social function of the history of Chinese legal history.Inauthor's opinion, the first half of the20thcentury is an important period ofChinese legal history, and the research of Chinese legal history in the first half ofthe20thcentury could provide useful academic history resources for today.Basedon the research of internal history and external history,the paper focuses onresearching. Chinese legal history in the first half of the20thCentury, and drawsthe following conclusions that the way out of the predicament is mainlyembodied in the academic literacy training and research orientation. On theacademic literacy training, researchers should possess mastery the knowledge ofboth historiography and jurisprudence, through Chinese and Western academicliteracy, and broad academic vision. On the research orientation determining,researchers should pay attention to the theoretical explanation study which isguided by an interdisciplinary perspective.Specifically, this paper includes an introduction, five chapters, andconcluding remarks.In the introduction, the author firstly elaborates the thesis and value of thestudy, sorts out the study of academic circle, and summarizes research methodsand framework.In Chapter â… ,the author mainly elaborates general situation of developmentof Chinese legal history in the first half of the20thcentury. While traditionalacademic theory transformed into modern academic theory, Chinese legalhistory came into being with the enacting of "Authorized School Regulation" and"Presented School Regulation". Then according to the Chinese legal historycourse in higher education settings, research groups, research achievements, andresearch methods, Chinese legal history in the first of the20thcentury is dividedinto start-up period, building period, and developing period.Through analyzing the development characteristics of different periods, the author can conclude ageneral observation of Chinese legal history.In Chapter â…¡, the author reviews the academic researchers of Chinese legalhistory. It is reasonable to do this work because academic achievements arebased on researchers' own academic literacy, intellectual property and historicalperspective. The chapter consistes of two parts: pandect and specified part. Inpandect, the author studies on the academic researchers from regionaldistribution, education background, profession and research direction. Inspecified part, the author specifies the famous researchers such as Shen Jiaben,Liang Qichao, Cheng Shude, Yang Honglie, Chen Guyuan, and Qu Tongzu. Theauthor specifies these researchers from the points such as family&educationbackground, academic aptitude, representative works and contributions toChinese legal history. Overall, in spite of the great individual differences thoseresearchers had, from its academic origin, they shared some same point, such as,the good foundation of ancient Chinese literature search, Chinese and westernacademic accomplishment, and across time and disciplines of broad vision.In Chapter â…¢ and Chapter IV, the author focuses on the mainachievements of Chinese legal history. With the popularization of course ofChinese legal history, the research had gradually been spread and developedtoward a more in-depth and mature direction. At the same time, a large numberof valuable academic works came into being. The research of Chinese legalhistory in the first half of the20thcentury, not only had a certain degree ofdevelopment in the history of China's legal system, but also achieved initialdevelopment in following field: the legal department history, dynastic legalhistory, special legal subject history, legal literature history, and historicalcasebook.Chapter â…¢ is mainly described the history of China's legal system,specialized legal subject history, and legal department history. In the history ofChina's legal system, the study on Chinese legal history is particularly necessary.Through the research results of Chinese legal history, we can observe that the scientific system of Chinese legal history had been formed, and research scopeand research framework had been largely formed. On the study of special legalsubject history, as one of the basic problems in Chinese legal history, the study onChinese legal genealogy could microscopically grasp the connotation of Chineselegal history and the essence of traditional Chinese legal culture. On the study oflegal department history, researchers involved constitutional history, marriagelaw history, criminal law history, litigation law history, history of internationallaw history. This paper mainly elaborates the constitutional history and historyof international law, to observe the actual operation of positivism in China.Chapter â…£ mainly described the achievements of the study on dynasticlegal history, which was an important part of the study on Chinese legal history.Due to various historical data, the degree of perfection of the legal system, andthe interest of authors, overall, researchers focused on the legal system of WestZhou Dynasty, Han Dynasty, and Tang Dynasty, relatively speaking, researchedrelatively weak on the legal system of Xia Shang Dynasty, Qin Dynasty, ThreeKingdoms, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, and Song Dynasty. This papermainly describes the law systems of pre-Qin, Qin and Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin,Southern and Northern, Tang, Song, Ming, Qing Dynasty. In Chapter III andChapter IV, the author adopts the same method, summarizes the academicachievements in the first half of the20thCentury firstly, and then discusses theresearch points, conclusions, and at last analyzes gain and loss of theachievements.In Chapter â…¤, the author focuses on the external history of Chinese legalhistory. Chinese legal history can't be on its own existence. Therefore, the paperfirstly discusses the outer factors such as social background, related subjects, andoversea research. The theory of this phrase had strong flavor of the times for thespecial political and cultural background. And the studying methods of history,law, and archeology had a great influence on Chinese legal history theorybecause the theory had the nature of law and history. The study of oversearesearch, especially in Japan, was the source of reference. Secondly, we can sum up the characteristics and academic contributions of this phrase after reviewingthe academic circles, academic achievements and studying methods. On thewhole, after nearly fifty years of development, Chinese legal history graduallyget rid of the traditional jurisprudence research paradigm, under the guidanceof the diversity of research methods, eventually completed the construction ofdiscipline system, formed the study scope, and academic research had reached acertain level. A large number of open knowledge of researchers of Chinese legalhistory, from Shen Jiaben to Qu Tongzu, achieved remarkable results, and leftmany books. However, as the primary stage of development of Chinese legalhistory, there also had many deficiencies, such as the study of imbalance, lack oftheoretical analysis, relative lack of objectivity. Therefore after nearly half acentury development, the research on Chinese legal history had made pioneeringcontributions.At last, in the conclusion part the author shows the points and attitude again.In order to break away from the arguments of Historiography crisis andJurisprudence na ve, study on the history of Chinese legal history could be agood way. We should focus on academic literacy training, and adopt newresearch perspective and plurality of research methods to find the innovativeway to get out of dilemma.