Matthew Sommer joins Micah to discuss Law and Society in Traditional China (Mouton, 1961). Listeners should also check out Matt's two groundbreaking books on Chinese legal history: Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 2002) and Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions (University of California Press, 2015).

EPISODE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Secondary works:

瞿同祖《中国法律与中国社会》(上海商务印书馆, 1947).

Ch'ü, T'ung-Tsu, Local Government in China under the Ch'ing (Harvard University Press, 1962).

Ch'ü, T'ung-Tsu, The History of Chinese Feudal Society (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020) [English translation of 《中国封建社会》 (1937)].

Chang， Chung-li, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (University of Washington Press, 1962).

Jing Junjian, “Hierarchy in the Qing Dynasty,” Social Sciences in China: A Quarterly Journal 3:1 (1982): 156–92.

经君健《清代社会的贱民等级》 (中国人民大学出版社, 2009).

Derk Bodde and Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch'ing Dynasty Cases (Harvard University Press, 1967).

David C. Buxbaum, 1971: “Some Aspects of Civil Procedure and Practice at the Trial Level in Tanshui and Hsinchu from 1789 to 1895,” Journal of Asian Studies 30:2 (1971), pp. 255-279.

Philip C. C. Huang, Civil Justice in China: Representation and Practice in the Qing (Stanford University Press, 1996).

Melissa Macauley, Social Power and Legal Culture: Litigation Masters in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 1998).

Bradly W. Reed, Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty (Stanford University Press, 2000).

Primary sources (recommendations and comments courtesy of Matthew Sommer):

祝慶祺編次、鮑書芸參定 《刑案匯覽》[1834] (reprint edition 成文出版社, 1968).

吳潮、何錫儼合編；薛允升鑒定; 何錫儼,《刑案滙覽續編 》 [1887](reprint edition, 文海出版社, 1970).

黃六鴻 (Kangxi era),《福惠全書》.

汪輝組 (late Qianlong-early Jiaqing era), 《佐治藥言》, 《學治臆說》, and sequels.

劉衡 (Jiaqing-Daoguang): 《蜀僚問答》，《庸吏庸言》，《庸吏餘談》.

Liu Heng is interesting because he served as magistrate of Ba County, so you can compare the cases he actually judged with the self-serving stuff he wrote in his books — quite illuminating! But Ch'ü's favorite by far is Wang Huizu.

Also, the most accessible version of the Qing code, which includes valuable commentaries, is the late Qing edition by Xue Yunsheng called 《讀例存疑》. There are various published editions, but the following is (in my opinion) the best one to use for scholarly citation:

薛允升 (Guangxu era): 《<讀例存疑>重刊本》 (5 vols.), punctuated and edited by 黃靜嘉 (Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center, 1970).

But there is also an incredibly useful full-text searchable version, free access online, thanks to the Japanese legal historian Professor Terada Hiroaki (emeritus, Kyoto University): http://www.terada.law.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dlcy/index.htm