The Study On Feast Activities In The Northern Song Dynasty

In the Northern Song Dynasty, with the development of social economy, the diet culture had developed into a new stage. And as an important part of the diet culture, the feast had also got the great development. During that period, every social class carried out a variety of feast activities. Especially the feast activities between the emperor and the courtiers had more items and more complex system. Along with the feast activities, it also had a series of etiquette in the Northern Song Dynasty.The feast activities between the emperor and the courtiers, in which the emperor was the core, concentrated on behalf of the Northern Song feast activities. It had many kinds of projects, and some of them had evident and strong political colors, such as Spring and Autumn santapan, drink Fu feast and Cipu; some were held because of the emperor's preferences and temporary needs, such as Qu feast, Toxophily feast; some were held to train national talents, such as the Wenxi feast; some were the special dinners for foreign envoys; some were held for preferential treatment to the retired officials. The Emperors of the Northern Song carried out a variety of feast activities, and it played an important role in promoting the cultivation, winning over civil and military officials, dealing with foreign affairs and regulating the contradiction between the rulers.Under the influence of the emperor, the scholar-bureaucrat of the Northern Song Dynasty had also undertaken various feast activities. The nature of their feast can be divided into work feast, home daily feast, and the feast among scholars, those who got though the imperial examination, retired celebrity of the government officials, and so on. As an important part of the Northern Song's feast, the feast among scholar-bureaucrat had certain effects on the political life and social customs in that period.The feast activities among the Northern Song plebeians, which had few patterns, also had rich content. Among them, it's most frequent to hold feast activities during the holiday. In addition, the richer plebeians also frequently held banquets in birth, wedding, funeral and other important life stage. Moreover, it could catch our eyes that the flowers banquet and the picnic outside among the plebeians.Because of the etiquette, foods and drinks had become less important in the Northern Song's feast. To emphasize hierarchical social structure, the Northern Song's government formulated a series of systems in banquets. There were lots of cockamamie rules during the imperial banquets, such as the order of seats, ceremonies, music, and so on. In the civilian feast, although the rules were less cockamamie and less strict, but it still had its traditional customs, that people generally recognized and followed.In the distinctive historical background, the Northern Song's feast activities formed its own features. Compared with the previous generation, the Northern Song's feast had more numerous names, more perfect ritual, and more luxurious grand scenes, and its overall style was becoming more and more restrained and elegant. Besides it, in different periods of the Northern Song Dynasty, the feast activities also showed some phase characteristics.The development of the Northern Song's feast activities and its ritual had a profound economic and cultural background; also it strongly related to the ideology and policies of rulers at that time. Meanwhile, the development of the Northern Song's feast activities also had a beneficial influence on the society. It was positive to promote the economy, especially the development of the catering. The large number of poems preserved in the feast activities was a great asset in our literature history. Meanwhile, the feast activities also played a positive role in the promotion of exchanges between nation-states.