Genealogy and Status: Hereditary Office Holding and Kinship in North China under Mongol Rule

Genealogy and Status explores how the conquered Chinese people understood and represented the alien Mongol ruling principles through their own cultural tradition, known as "genealogical steles." These steles were commissioned by Northern Chinese officials to record a family's genealogy, reflecting a massive social change in Chinese society due to Mongol rule.

Format: Hardback
Length: 388 pages
Publication date: 07 February 2023
Publisher: Harvard University, Asia Center

Genealogy and Status delves into a long-forgotten epigraphic genre that thrived in North China during the Mongol Empire, or Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), shedding light on the ways the conquered Chinese people understood and represented the alien Mongol ruling principles through their own cultural tradition. This epigraphic genre, collectively referred to as "genealogical steles," was uniquely distinct in the history of Chinese epigraphy.

Northern Chinese officials exclusively commissioned these steles to record the extensive genealogy of a family, rather than the biography or achievements of an individual. Tomoyasu Iiyama demonstrates how the rise of these steles signifies that Mongol rule fundamentally impacted how northern Chinese families defined, organized, and commemorated their kinship. Due to the fact that most of these inscriptions are written in Classical Chinese, they appear to be part of Chinese tradition. However, they actually reflect a significant social change in Chinese society that occurred as a result of Mongol rule in China.

The evolution of genealogical steles outlines how local elites, while considering themselves heirs of traditional Chinese culture, seamlessly accommodated to Mongol imperial rule and ultimately became one of its cornerstone elements in eastern Eurasia.

Weight: 748g
Dimension: 159 x 238 x 33 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780674291294