A Study Of Contract Law System Of The Song Dynasty

The contract law system has gradually come into being with the emergence of private ownership and the exchange of commodities. During the development of human society, the emergence of social division of labor led to the exchange of commodities, whose economic manifestation is the market and whose legal manifestation is the contract. Therefore, the contract law constitutes an important part in both social life and the civil law system. Its function in the development of society is in no sense negligible.The Song Dynasty adopted the land policy of un-restrained annexation and private land ownership, which allowed the free trade of land, making land a kind of commodity in circulation. In the village, the feudalistic tenancy system replaced the manorial slave system, and villains became state registered peasant. The tenantship was based on the tenancy bond, in which the tenantry was guaranteed and motivated by personal freedom. Thus, agriculture got recovered and developed, which expedited commerce and handicraft industry. The Song government adjusted its commercial policy to encourage commodity economy. The development in commodity trading led to the development in business contract. During the Song Dynasty, the mining and metallurgical industry and handicraft industry adopted employment, and this put the employment contract into wide use. In this period, contractual relationship became the most popular and important social relationship in land trading, handicraft, agriculture and service industry. The wide use of contract furthered the emerging of various forms of the contract. Popular ones were trade contracts, pawn contracts, loan contracts, employment contracts and lease contracts. Adapting to such changes, the Song Dynasty developed and improved also in laws and regulations which regulated civil relationship, especially in the protection of private property and standardization of trade rules which was unprecedentedly specific and detailed. The contract law system in Song Dynasty had become more mature and emerged into a system with exceptional feature. For instance, the mass adoption of contract, the bid-up contracting, etc.The contract law system in the Song Dynasty, in one way indicated the adjustment of state law on the contractual relationship, and in the other expedited the commodity economy. Those measures effectively retained the normal economic activities in the Song dynasty.Based on the research by other experts, this dissertation contributes further efforts in finding, arranging and analyzing related historical data, and undertakes to make a monographic study on the contractual relationship of the Song Dynasty and the contract law system that adjusts it, adhering to materialistic interpretation of history and systematic and scientific methodology. Emphasis is laid on the background under which the Song contractual relationship emerged, grew and changed, as well as the types of contracts together with the legal system. The dissertation objectively presents the conformation of the movement of the social properties, and sums up the Song government's interference in and regulation of the establishment and implementation of contractual relationship.This dissertation serves as a preliminary study of Song contracts from six aspects.Part I:Going through and expounding ancient Chinese contracts, in terms of their concept and the revolution of their forms.Part II:Discussing the social causes for the advancement of the Song contractual system, through the analysis of the developments of the Song land policy, commodity economy and class structure.Part III:Comprehensively and systematically categorizing and studying the types of the Song contracts and their scopes of application.Partâ…£:Probing into the establishment, forms, implementation and termination of contracts from the perspective of Contract Law, which mirror a mature Song contractual system.Part V:Specially examining some Song contractual systems of era characteristics, such as the system of bidding and contracting, the system of guarantee and the system of intermediary within the area of commodity exchange.Part VI:Reflecting upon the advanced Song contractual system, pondering over the reasons why it didn't get further development nor acquired completeness, but transformed and declined instead, from which modern China can draw lessons to improve her contract law system.