A Study On Land Trading And Contract In Eastern Han Dynasty From The Perspective Of Land Certificate

The land certificate of the Eastern Han Dynasty is a land contract made between common people and spiritual beings, which authorizes the dead the cemetery ownership. Under funeral customs of believing in no difference between hereafter and real life, and with the land bestselling, the land certificate comes into being. The land certificates are mainly classified as buying the land, buying the land and tomb defence; however, their symbolic meanings are consistent about the dead owning the right to tomb, seeking official sanction and protection. The land certificate has appeared in early Eastern Han Dynasty, and became popular in the middle and late period; although complicated, the content has a distinct theme, carrying unique features of that era, and it takes on three characters: diverse text forms, the nonuniformity of space-time distribution and secularity. As one part of funerary objects, the land certificate reflects the truth about land trade in the Eastern Han Dynasty and people′s ideas of using land contract. Contents show the rapid change of land rights in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which can be drawn from the diversity of traders′identities, lands′types, land trading behaviors and standardized land trading. People use currency to trade lands, showing us a wide range of lands′prices in different classes, places and periods. Because of the feasibility of buying and selling land as well as currency payment, the multitude can buy or sell land according to his/her real demand, which offers convenience for daily life. In accordance with the contents of the land certificates, the land contract already has six terms: the signing date, contract parties, object of contract, land prices and delivery, responsibility and guarantee, and witness. As a land property document, it already has the legal force to protect the buyer′s proprietary and inheritance rights forever. But the purpose of signing a land contract is to gain and maintain a trust relationship between contract parties, rather than fighting for a lawsuit. On this, people′s interests and the governors′intention coincide; and to some degree, the authorities approve the social value of land contract on maintaining trust relationships to prevent lawsuit, regulating and restricting persons′behavior, and maintaining the social order.