UC Berkeley

This thesis constructs an account of the force and functions of legal, ritual, and classical precedents, through close analysis of the court debates during which Han officials invoked them to champion policies, to reform rites, or to assess crimes. Each chapter considers the extent of the force of Han precedents in Han policy debates, the strategies through which policymakers challenged this force, and the roles that the Classics reportedly played in arguments. Chapter 1 examines a series of arguments that Han emperors should abandon their commitments to following the precedents set by an honored forebear, Emperor Wu (r. 141-86 BCE). This chapter will show that, throughout the Western Han, it was far from settled as to whether many of Emperor Wu’s precedents should be deemed binding or problematic. Chapter 2 challenges the common assumption that Han law was an extension of the ruler’s will. As it will show, Han legal thinkers were keenly aware that legal precedents could easily be inappropriately manipulated, often to the detriment of the ruler’s authority. For this reason, fair legal administration often required adherence to principles that transcended both obligations to the ruler and to following the letter of the written laws. Turning then to ritual, Chapter 3 examines the changing uses of the posthumous title of “Honored Ancestor” (zong 宗) and the Han and pre-Han precedents that policymakers invoked in debates over its meaning. While most scholars have assumed that these debates were settled by recourse to citations from an orthodox classical tradition, this chapter will instead consider how court members constructed the meanings to be attached to this ritual honor through successive reforms, and how the political concerns that guided these reforms likely shaped court members’ interpretations of the Classics, rather than the reverse.