Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T05:40:24.331Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Bibliographical essays

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Denis C. Twitchett
Affiliation:
Princeton University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

THE LIAO

Traditional sources

The Liao is a particularly poorly documented period. Its government, like all Chinese bureaucracies, produced a mass of paperwork, written in both Chinese and Khitan. But little of this documentation survived the fall of the dynasty, and nothing remains today.

The peculiar nature of the Liao government was an important factor in the poverty of the historical record. Although it supported court diarists and a historiographical office, its historians never achieved the smooth routines and professional competence of their successors under the Chin, let alone of their Sung contemporaries. One reason for this was the fact that even until the end of the dynasty the Liao never had a static capital, palace, court, and government on the Chinese model. The Khitan court remained peripatetic, the emperors never abandoning their annual tours around their empire and their annual visits to the four seasonal camps (na-po). This style of government was not conducive to keeping orderly state archives. Nor was the personal arbitrary style of government at every level, and the Liao's fragmented administrative structure, divided into northern (tribal) and southern (Chinese) bureaus, the former keeping some of their records in Khitan and the latter exclusively employing Chinese.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×