We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
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 .
To save content items 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.
Chapter 3, “Inner versus Outer – The Politics of Political Space,” reviews the spatial dynamics of the Song court that are reflected in the conceptual and spatial dichotomy between inner and outer (nei/wai 內/外) and posits the inner and outer courts as competing and separate political and administrative centers of imperial technocratic versus Confucian institutionalist governance. Most critical was the intermediate, overlapping space where the emperor served as the sanctioned conduit between these two administrative spheres of Song governance. This chapter counters the contention that “the Song had no inner court,” which is itself merely a modern extension of the rhetorical claim that the Song monarchs succeeded in curtailing the political reach of the affinal kinsmen, female bureaucrats, and eunuchs who administered the mechanics and politics of the inner court. On the contrary, this chapter concludes that over the course of the dynasty court administration shifted progressively away from outer towards the imperial palace’s inner space and thus accorded more control over vital governmental functions to the non-literati operatives of the inner court.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.