The Research Of Evidence System In The Song Dynasty

Law is the lowest morality, and the usage of laws is mainly embodied in the trials, while the obtain of evidence is the key of the trials, besides, whether the evidence is sufficient or not is concerned with the vital interests of the two parties. Traced back to the dynasty of Yao and Shun, the phenomenon of litigation had already come into being, since then, the long period of evolution on the legal system had begun.The development of society had reached the peak of ancient times in Song dynasty. During this period, the politics was moderate and open-minded; the economy was highly developed; the class structure had changed; the governors paid great attention on the legal system; while technology, culture and other aspects had also made great progress. The drawing of "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" that drawn by Zhang Zeduan had described the circumstances of that period. At the same time, the legal institution had been developing and stepping forward all the time, as the result, the development of legal institution had reached the peak of ancient times in Song dynasty, especially its evidence system, which had made great progress and presented lots of new characteristics. While it also reflected the fine legal literacy and thick humanism.Because of the preceding part, this paper focuses on Song dynasty. The first part of this paper gives a longitudinal summarization of evidence system of ancient times, the second part analyses its evidence system from five aspects, such as politics, economy, system, culture and technology. The third part describes five types of evidence in great detail, for example, the documentary evidence was enriched by contracts, wills, official account books and so on. Especially, the development of forensic science made the system of check and inquest more accurate. The fourth part concludes the characteristics of Song’s evidence system, for example, it paid more attention to protect the witness and also limited the usage of torture. The fifth part summarizes a series of reformation of ways of trials that came into existence under the influence of evidence system, for example, the power of accepting and judging the cases had been endowed to two different judicial organs, another example, it transferred the cases to anther same level judicial organs even a superior one. In a manner of speaking, these reformations had produced important influence on the judicial system of China. The content of Song’s evidence system has enormous reference value to contemporary society.