Emperorship redefined: Developments of the state ritual program in seventh-century China

This study searches for a new historical context to re-examine the changes of emperorship in Tang China during the seventh century. The developments of the Tang state ritual program is used as an index to gauge the changing relationships between the emperor, members of the imperial house, and the rest of the ruling elite. I argue that the power structure of the Tang court underwent a significant re-organization since the 650s. The officials withdrew from interfering with the emperor's private and familial domains, and close kin of the emperor replaced high officials as the new co-rulers. The legitimacy of imperial power was less predicated on a commitment to common goals, collective policy-making, and negotiation of power between the emperor and the aristocratic class, which had been characteristic of the period before the 650s.; All these changes were registered in the developments of state rituals. My study rediscovers the paradigmatic role of the feng and shan rites performed in 666, which initiated an aggressive series of state ritual reforms. Along with the holy rites of 666, all the new practices in the imperial ancestral rites, the suburban altar sacrifices, and the mingtang ceremonies re-wrote the concepts of emperorship, establishing the emperor as the ultimate source of status and power. They marked an important landmark in the history of imperial China. “Primus inter pares” was no longer applicable in understanding emperorship from now to the end of the imperial period.