Clan History In Three Keys:Three Clans In The Border Town Of The Tang Empire

From Han dynasty to Tang and Five dynasties, the clan played the very important role in Dunhuang society. This paper tries to pick out three clans respectively from the upper Han class, the upper Hu class and the middle class to make case analysis. The purpose is not only trying to reveal the specificities of Dunhuang clans, but also the universalities of the ancient clans.The study of the upper Han class takes the Fan clan氾氏as an example. By the comparative method, the first case choose the Fan clan氾氏and the Fan clan范氏which has always been ignored as the comparison objects to find out the relationship between the two clans.The study of the upper Hu class is concentrated on the nationality of the Zhai clan. Different from the previous studies, whose judgment was based on some narrow strip of history, this paper put the Zhai clan翟氏into the backdrop of the national integration in order to solve the problem in the total history.The third case is the Wang clan which is stand for the middle class. The population of the Wang clan was quite large, this paper gives the Wang clan王氏a historical describe about the development path from Han dynasty to Tang dynasty. It helps us to make a further understanding about the function of the middle class clan in society.