| This dissertation, The rise of the Hanlin Academicians: The political history of the imperial secretaries during the Tang-Song, 783-1082, focuses on the political and institutional history of the new imperial secretaries, called Hanlin Academicians (hanlin xueshi), from the Tang (618-907) through the Northern Song (960-1127). Specifically, this study addresses the origin, evolution, and development of the Hanlin Academicians up through the Yuanfeng reforms (1080-82), when they became the official imperial secretaries of the Chinese empire, involved in both policy-making and cultural-educational assignments. Although there have been previous studies on the Hanlin Academicians, most of them have focused on institutional history. Unlike previous studies, this paper concentrates on the broad history of the Hanlin Academicians by (1) tracing their two-fold origins (from imperial secretaries and academicians) from the Han (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) to the Tang (618-907); (2) describing the late Tang and early Five Dynasties (907-60) developmental history of the inner court imperial secretaries through primary sources, and (3) explaining the subsequent functions of the Hanlin Academicians from the Northern Song through later imperial China. The historical impact of the Tang to Song evolution of the Hanlin Academicians was enormous, for they not only influenced the alien dynasties (Khitan Liao, Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan) and the neighboring states of Korea and Vietnam, but were also crucial in the establishment of the Ming-Qing Grand Secretaries (neige da xueshi), who headed the bureaucracy for several centuries. |
