A Research Of Bo-hai Gao Family In The Tang Dynasty

In middle-ancient China, the aristocractic families hadstrong power and profound influence on the society as well as the socialchanges, hiu Fang, who lived in Tang Dynasty, classified the aristocracticfamilies from Wei-Jin to Tang Dynasty into five types according to theregion. They were distributed in Shan Dong, Guan Zhong, Dai Bei, JiangNan, Southeast. Tang Dynasty was the last era when the aristocracticfamilies existed. The aristocractic families in Jiang Nan and Southeasthad already delined, and in fact, only the preceding three had theirinfluences. Although Bo-hai Gao family was attributed to the aristocracticfamilies in Shan Dong, it kept a close relation with the aristocracticfamilies in Guan Zhong and Dai Bei. Base on these, the author of this paperfocus her attention on Bo-hai Gao family.This paper consists of five chapters. The preceding two chapters arethe foreshadowings of the author' s argument, and it is expected that thereader may have a clean understanding about the materials inferde and themethodology, the former research of Bohai country, the origin of the Gaoclan and their relationship. The first segment of chapter three coordinatethe descent of Bo-hai Gao family before Tang Dynasty, which settle basefor the segment of Tang Dynasty.The second segment of chapter three is one main branch of this paper.The author tries to clarify the descendant of Bo-hai Gao family with theaid of plenty of epigraps of Tang Dynasty and concerded historical records.The result indicates that Bo-hai Gao family was still big and powerful inTang Dynasty. Contrasting with "Table of Prime Ministers in TangDynasty",XinTangshu,JiuTangshu and other official historical books,the author correct some mistakes and reinforce some lose. Coordinating thisdescendant of Bo-hai Gao family and reinforcing official career of membersare very useful for the historical reseach of Tang Dynasty.Chapter four is also a main branch of this paper. In the first segment,the author makes an analysis of the table of the official career. It is found that the members of Bo-hai Gao family were still very active on thepolitical stage in Tang Dynasty. And the ranks of these officials wererather high. About 66ï¼…were above five grade. The main approaches of theirbecoming officials were Menyin, Keju, Mufu, especialy the proportion ofMufu, which is a little high in terminal Tang Dynasty. And the excellentrepresentation of so many members in wars were an important evidence ofBo-hai Gao family for attaching importance to force, which is anaristocractic family in Shan Dong. In the second segment, the authormakes a guantative analysis of the table of the members, in order to getcharacteristics of marrige. The result indicates that most cases of marrigeof the Bo-hai Gao family were relateted to prominent aristocractic families,"the thirteen Great House" were about 68ï¼…of the total cases of marrige,especialy "the five surnames and seven shires" were about 50ï¼…. Theseindicates the localization of Bo-bai Gao family as an aristocractic familyin Tang Dynasty. The third segment named familial culture which describesthe thought, tradition and education of the family. The persistent familialculture of Bo-hai Gao family is definitive to the members' individual andfamilial glory, and the members of Bo-hai Gao family contributed theirpower to culture,especialy in literature and history, which can' terraced.In the fourth segment, the author analyzes the economy of Bo-hai Gao familyfrom two aspects, which are house and funerary place. On one hand, althoughholistic economical strength of Bo-hai Gao family had declined, advancedofficials also had extravagant lives. On the other hand, the migrationof the members of this family to area of Changin and huoYang can be regardedas one of the main reason of its degressive economical status.Therefore, as an aristocractic family in Tang Dynasty, the place ofthe Bo-hai Gao family cannot be neglected in Tang period. However, theit' s historical limitation also can' t be denied.