The Textual Research On The Clan Lineages In The Newly Published Epitaphs Of Tang Dynasty And Its Related Projects

Huge amounts of the new publications of the epitaphs in the Tang Dynasty provide us a wealth of materials to carry out the research on the history of the Sui and the Tang Dynasty. Meanwhile these new resources broaden the vision and the field of this research, and greatly promote the process of the studies on the Chinese medieval history.The epitaphs of the Tang Dynasty are original and reliable stone literature, which were buried underground for long and written by the ancients. During the Chinese medieval period, people in the whole society attached importance to family patriarch and ancestry, but the epitaphs documented its owner's family lineage, official processes and marital status in details. Because there are very few surname books of the Middle Ages handed down at present, these historical documents in the Tang Dynasty became one of the important original materials for us to explore the family lineage of the Middle Ages, and also to make up for the lack of history chronicles. With the newly published collection of the epitaphs in the Tang Dynasty, the author compiles and sorts the materials related to the family lineage, and then compares two most important surname books about the medieval family lineage(Yuan He Xing Zuan and New Book of the Tang Dynasty—the descent pedigree of the prime minister) on the basis of previous research. After this, the author selects the part within New Book of the Tang Dynasty—the descent pedigree of the prime minister but without Yuan He Xing Zuan to collate, especially the aristocratic clan that took an active part in various fields of the medieval society for a long time, such as Cui, Lu, Li and Zheng.During three hundred years in the Tang Dynasty, because so many important figures served as local chief executives, sorting out the chronology of the local chief executives could help us explore the annual meetings of these famous figures, the time of the famous literary works and the occurrence of the major historical events. So the textual criticism collection of Ci Shi in the Tang Dynasty is one of the most important tools for the contemporary researchers of the Tang Dynasty literature and history now. The newly published epitaphs comprise a wealth of information of the local chief executives in the Tang Dynasty, and some of them were not included in the textual criticism collection of Ci Shi in the Tang Dynasty. So it is helpful to sort the related information and revise the documents in order to make the chronicles of the local executives in the Tang Dynasty clearer, and better investigate the arrangement and abolition of the local administration in the Tang Dynasty by knowing about the appointment and removal of the chief executives.Currently, the academic studies of the epitaphs are mainly divided into the unilateral epitaphs' researches and the thematic studies based on a survey of the newly published epitaphs. The last two cases of this thesis are a preliminary attempt on the both research methods.In recent years, the unearthed and published medieval epitaphs have gradually become the same popular research as Dunhuang-Turfan manuscripts in the past. And the emerging studies relying on the newly published epitaphs have also played an important role in the Chinese medieval history.