Research On The Banishment Penalty System Of Tang Dynasty

The punishment of banishment, originated from the primitive society, is an important penalty in the history of Ancient China. It was officially included as one of the five chief forms of punishment in the Northern Dynasty period, and then been kept to be the most severe penalty, except for the death penalty, until it was abolished in Qing regime. In the Tang Dynasty, the punishment of banishment was improved considerably, and all the aspects of its implementation were stipulated in details in"the Tang law dredges opinion"which is regarded as a prototype The abundant materials about the Tang Dynasty history also contain many records of banishment. By learning the Tang law and the Tang Dynasty history materials, this paper makes an extensive exploration of the banishment penalty in the Tang Dynasty. The provisions on the banishment penalty by the Tang law and the executions of the banishment penalty are expounded in details. Meanwhile the main characteristics of the Tang banishment are summarized and the causes why this penalty was not executed according to its provisions are discussed and analyzed. The whole paper can be divided into four parts.Part I: The origination and development of the banishment penalty. This section mainly describes the process that the banishment penalty, from the early forms ,such as exile, flow, flutter and so on,apeared in primitive society, is being perfect with the development of the feudal society. In this process, the penalty of banishment was officially listed as one of the five chief forms of punishment in the Northern Dynasty period, and had been developed to be a perfect punishment system in the Tang Dynasty.Part II: The banishment penalty of Tang Dynasty. The emphasis of this section is analyzing the provisions of Tang law on the banishment and making a classification according to modern legal and the analysis for the criminal types of banishment in Tang law. Meanwhile the main characteristics of the Tang banishment are summarized clearly.Part III: The execution of the banishment penalty in practice. The conditions that the banishment in the actual execution is not only inconsistent with the provisions but also more severe than the provisions are demonstrated from several different aspects. Moreover, the causes to these conditions are discussed.Part IV: The influence of the Tang banishment on that of the following dynasties. The inheritance and development of the Tang banishment penalty by the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties are investigated in this section.