The Prisoner And Lingyu In The Zhou Dynasty

Prisoners appeared along with the emergence of country and the execution of laws. With the development of social productive force, the slave owners of the clans realized the fact that it was more beneficial to keep the criminals alive. Imprisonment and enslavement were executed as punishment, in this doing, prisoners emerged. Lingyu, which is the name of the prison in the Zhou Dynasty, is the public building specially used for the imprisonment of free criminals. The author of this thesis makes a relatively comprehensive and systematic investigation and analysis on the prisoners and Lingyu of the Zhou Dynasty.The introduction part of this thesis is mainly the summary of the history and present situation of the studies of the prisoners and Lingyu of the Zhou Dynasty. Both the significance and drawbacks of those studies are indicated.The main body falls into four parts for the discussion of the prisoners and Lingyu of the Zhou Dynasty.Chapter one concerns the connotation of prisoners. Based on the literature data and analysis on the historical data, the author of this thesis investigates the connotation of"penalty"and the records about"prisoners"in related data. The definition of"prisoners"and the common characteristics of the prisoners in the Zhou Dynasty are drawn. From the investigation of literature data, the author...