Song Dynasty Law And Restriction To Sorcery

In the ancient age, as the representative for supernatural beings in human world, sorceresses owned the most important power. They were separated into two different kinds as the absolute monarchy getting strengthened. One assisted monarch in governing the country, the other group acted as the doctor or future teller, praying or catharsis among the people. Some folk sorcery disordered the law, harmed the people and property, and gathered a crowd, which became a huge hidden danger to the society. This trend prevailed in Song Dynasty. Song Government restricted and repressed the sorcery crime not only with legal regulations, but also issuing a lot of special decrees and commands. However, though law is the symbol of country's government power, it is not the only effective way to order the society. Due to the situation as dark policies, mutual help needed by small-peasant economy or sorcery and doctor mixed up, this harmful phenomenon couldn't be solved by law.The first and second parts of this essay analyze and state the sorcery crime situation, discusses the society background and psychology root cause of sorcery crime; the third part focuses on how the Song Dynasty Law restricted the sorcery crime, and the other related measures taken by Song Government; the fourth part is a summary of the features of Song Dynasty law to punish sorcery crime. In conclusion, Song dominators did publish the sorcery crime which harmed society order and government by law, but they also used the absurd statement and abnormal sorcery to maintain their domination with"reasonable"cause. So the measures Song government had taken to repress the sorcery were destined to fail, and the law couldn't be implemented well either.