The System Of The Institute Of Historiography In Tang Dynasty And The Management And Application Of The Archives

As the authorized institute for historiography in ancient China, the organization and the functions of the institute of historiography underwent a long process. The original version of the archive can date back to Lantai and Dongguan in Han Dynasty. Under the leadership of the Emperor Ming in Wei Dynasty of the Period of Three Kingdoms, the Office of Writing belonging to Zhongshu was responsible for national history. Then in Bei Wei Dynasty, the Office of Writing was successively transformed into the Bureau of Writing and the Bureau of Historiography. Then in the Dynasty of Beiqi, came out the Institute of Historiography. In the3rd year of Zhenguan period in Tang Dynasty, the Emperor Taizong set up the institute of secretary responsible for the historiography of five dynasties, the institute of historiography responsible for the historiography of national history, hence the system of the institute of historiography was officially established.The working staffs in the institute of historiography were responsible for editing national history, revising the institute of historiography, the direct institute of historiography and the daily work. Among them, the chancellor, superior to all the other officials, was usually responsible for editing the national history. The official responsible for revising the institute of historiography and the official responsible for the direct institute of historiography ranked inferior to the chancellor successively. The number of the people for the three working positions was generally stable despite some subtle changes with time going by. The materials of the institute of the historiography mainly come from five sources:the record of the life of the emperor, the record of the important current political and military events, the reports of different administrative institutes, and the materials offered and so on. Those materials can be classified into three categories:the record of the life of the emperor, the materials from the archives of different administrative institutes and individual things. To guarantee the amount of the sources of the archives of the Institute of Historiography, imperial edicts, which aimed to regulate the suppliers of the materials, were constantly issued in Tang Dynasty and systematically ensured the full authority of the Institute of Historiography over the collection of the archives. A sound operational system of the Institute of Historiography in collecting, storing and editing the archives of history had formed, and the management of historiography was systematized.The institute of historiography and the system of it in Tang Dynasty increased the amount of the ancient archives of China and enriched the contents of the ancient archives. Due to the enormous materials of archives collected by the institute of historiography in Tang Dynasty, the historiography in Tang Dynasty achieved a lot, which was unprecedented in Chinese ancient history. The large-scale editing of the archives in Tang Dynasty not only provided valuable materials for the editing theory of the archives in ancient China, greatly affecting the following editing of the archives, but also enriched the thoughts of the editing of the archives about ancient China. In general, the authorized establishment of the system of the institute of the historiography in Tang Dynasty had great influences in many areas like the history of the archives, and made remarkable contributions to the archives of ancient China.