What is a Chinese scholar official called?
The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats ( Chinese: 士大夫; pinyin: shì dàfū ), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.
Are scholar-officials an economic class?
Scholar-officials, unlike the other three social classes, did not therefore constitute an economic class as such, as their only power resided in their Confucian ideals and their moral and ethical values.
What was the role of scholar-officials in ancient China?
Scholar-officials were the elite class of imperial China. They were highly educated, especially in literature and the arts, including calligraphy and Confucian texts. They dominated the government administration and local life of China until the early 20th century.
What are the four types of scholar-officials?
The feudal social structure came to divide ordinary people into four categories, with scholar-officials at its top level, this structure is another important institutional basis of the formation and prosperity of scholar-officials. The order of these Four Occupations were scholar-officials, farmers, artisans, and craftsmen/merchants
Why do people become scholar-officials?
— A scholar official is an educated member of the government. … — People would want to become scholar officials because if they did, they would get respected and reduced penalties for breaking the law.Jan 3, 2022
How did one become a scholar bureaucrat?
These officials mostly came from the well-educated men known as the scholar-gentry. These men had earned academic degrees (such as "xiucai", "juren", or "jinshi") by passing rigorous civil service examinations. The scholar-bureaucrats were schooled in calligraphy and Confucian texts.
What was the scholar-official class?
Scholar-officials, unlike the other three social classes, did not therefore constitute an economic class as such, as their only power resided in their Confucian ideals and their moral and ethical values.
Why were scholar-officials highly respected?
Why were scholar-officials highly respected in Song China? They had to take exams that were very difficult to pass. Lead to gaining wealth and status. Who were some well-known song poets and painters?
What did scholar-officials do?
The scholar-officials carried out social welfare measures, taught in private schools, helped negotiate minor legal disputes, supervised community projects, maintained local law and order, conducted Confucian ceremonies, assisted in the government's collection of taxes, and preached Confucian moral teachings.
How did the process of becoming a government official change during the song?
15.4 How did the process of becoming a government official change during the Song period? The lower class gained the ability to become scholar officials. 15.4 Why did people in medieval China want government jobs? They were well respected and enjoyed privileges.
How would you describe scholar-officials during the Song dynasty?
In a society in which most people were illiterate, scholar-officials stood out by virtue of their reading and writing skills. Their Confucian education encouraged them to aspire for government service, but also to speak up when they thought others were pursuing the wrong course, making them courageous critics of power.
How did hiring scholar-officials hurt China?
How did hiring scholars hurt China? It hurt China because the exams did not test understanding of science, mathematics, or engineering. People with such knowledge were therefore kept out of the government. Confucian scholars had very little respect for merchants, business and trade.
Who defeated the last song emperor of China?
By 1279, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan had established the Yuan dynasty in China and crushed the last Song resistance, which marked the onset of all of China under the Mongol Yuan rule. This was the first time in history that the whole of China was conquered and subsequently ruled by a foreign or non-native ruler.Nov 25, 2021
How did Marco Polo meet Kublai Khan?
He first set out at age 17 with his father and uncle, traveling overland along what later became known as the Silk Road. Upon reaching China, Marco Polo entered the court of powerful Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, who dispatched him on trips to help administer the realm.Jul 30, 2012
How is Kublai Khan related to Marco Polo?
Polo was only 15 years old when he left Venice on the great adventure that took him to the court of Kublai Khan. His father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo Polo had made the journey previously. Polo barely knew his father, who had spent Polo's childhood as a traveling merchant when they left on their quest.Sep 29, 2020
What was the examination for scholar-officials?
the civil service examination systemThe men who governed the empire had to pass a grueling exam. For roughly 1,300 years, China's emperors used the civil service examination system to identify talented men for government service. Stationed throughout the empire, scholar-officials maintained order and reported back to the emperor on local events.
What were the scholars in China?
Scholar-officials were the elite class of imperial China. They were highly educated, especially in literature and the arts, including calligraphy and Confucian texts. They dominated the government administration and local life of China until the early 20th century.
How did the examination system help the Confucian people?
Theoretically, this system would create a meritocratic ruling class, with the best students running the country. The examinations gave many people the opportunity to pursue political power and honor and thus encouraged serious pursuit of formal education. Since the system did not formally discriminate based on social status, it provided an avenue for upward social mobility. However, even though the examination-based bureaucracy's heavy emphasis on Confucian literature ensured that the most eloquent writers and erudite scholars achieved high positions, the system lacked formal safeguards against political corruption, only the Confucian moral teachings tested by the examinations. Once their political futures were secured by success in the examinations, officials were tempted by corruption and abuse of power.
What was the role of the Shi in the warring states?
During the Warring States period, with the annexation wars between states and the rise of bureaucracy, many talented individuals from the Shi class provided valuable services to their lords. Shi became more influential and Da Fu gradually evolved into an official position in the bureaucracy, not a hereditary peerage. The Shi and Da Fu gradually merged and became the Scholar-officials (士大夫 Shi Da Fu).
When was the Civil Service Examination established?
Officially established the Civil Service Examination in 587, during Sui and early Tang period the scholar-officials selection is a combination of Civil Service Examination and hereditary positions from family. The sixth emperor of Tang Wu Zetian who was well known as the only female emperor in ancient China reformed and improved the Imperial Examination system, and after Emperor Wu's reform gradually came into being as the today's concept scholar-officials and intellectual class. Emperor Wu established the Metropolitan Exam and people passed it called Jinshi (metropolitan graduates, highest degree), people passed the Provincial Exam called Juren (provincial graduates). In this way government could select scholar-officials by examining their poems and essays writings, intellectuals who passed the exam will serve as officials, these group of peoples generally good at Confucian texts and some Buddhist texts. Many famous Tang poets were the scholar-officials, such as Du Mu. However, because Tang Dynasty is a rapid changing period for the final formation of the structure and composition of scholar-officials, there are some ambiguity of the usage of the words "scholar-officials": according to the Old Book of Tang, scholars/intellectuals (who passed the imperial exam) without official position only can be called as Shi 士; according to the New Book of Tang, as long as they are scholars, whether official or not they can be called as scholar-official.
When did the imperial examination system end?
In 1905, the Qing government abolished the imperial examination system, leading to the gradual disappearance of scholar-officials.
Who is the most famous Chinese philosopher?
Confucius is one of the most famous Chinese philosophers and educationists, he lived during the late Spring and Autumn period. The Confucian school of thought became the mainstream of traditional Chinese society, and Confucian education also became the mainstay of selecting officials at most levels of administration.
Was Da Fu a higher class than Shi?
Thus Da Fu was originally a higher class than Shi. Da Fu were people from the aristocracy and served as officers. Shi were people from the social class between Da Fu and ordinary people and could only serve as low-level officials.
What were the scholars-officials in the Confucian system?
Nevertheless, the landowners, the craftsmen, and the merchants were controlled by the state and the state was administered by the scholar-officials, who discouraged entrepreneurial endeavor and the accumulation of wealth with the Confucian admonition that acceptance of limitations leads to happiness.
What is the unique position of the scholar elite in China?
The unique position occupied by the scholar elite in Chinese society has led historians to view social and political change in China in light of the evolving status of the scholar. One theory holds that the virtues of the scholars were appreciated only in times of cultural upheaval, when their role was one of defending, however unsuccessfully, moral values rather than that of performing great tasks. Another theory, relating to art and political expression in Han-dynasty China, offers an analysis of the tastes and habits of the different social classes: “the imperial bureaucracy, not the marketplace, was [the scholar’s] main avenue to success, and he was of use to that bureaucracy only insofar as he placed the public good above his own. … [Thus] the art of the Confucian scholar was … inherently duplicitous and was encouraged to be so by the paradoxical demands [that Chinese] society made upon its middlemen.”
What was the study of the arts in the late Northern Song?
Beginning in the late Northern Song, with the growth of literacy but with a fixed quota for civil examination candidates (and therefore limited opportunities for official employment), scholars increasingly turned to the arts, the study of which was considered a path to the cultivation of the moral self. Responding to both perceived and real moral ...
Overview
The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats (Chinese: 士大夫; pinyin: shì dàfū), were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.
Scholar-officials were politicians and government officials appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day political duties from the Han dynasty t…
Origins and formations
Scholar-official as a concept and social class first appeared during the Warring States period; before that, the Shi and Da Fu were two different classes. During the Western Zhou dynasty, the Duke of Zhou divided the social classes into the king, feudal lords, Da Fu, Shi, ordinary people, and slaves. Da Fu were people from the aristocracy who served as officers and were a higher class than Shi, who were people from the social class between Da Fu and ordinary people and could o…
Developments
Using the Recommendatory System and Nine-rank System to select governments officials and candidates were popular during the long period beginning with the Han dynasty and ending after the Northern and Southern dynasties period. Scholars-officials during this period usually from prominent clans, including the Zheng clan of Xingyang, Xie clan of Chen Commandery, Cui …
Non-governmental functions
Since only a select few could become court or local officials, the majority of the scholar-literati stayed in villages or cities as social leaders. The scholar-gentry carried out social welfare measures, taught in private schools, helped negotiate minor legal disputes, supervised community projects, maintained local law and order, conducted Confucian ceremonies, assisted in the governments collection of taxes, and preached Confucian moral teachings. As a class, these sc…
Evaluations
Theoretically, this system would create a meritocratic ruling class, with the best students running the country. The imperial examinations gave many people the opportunity to pursue political power and honor and thus encouraged serious pursuit of formal education. Since the system did not formally discriminate based on social status, it provided an avenue for upward social mobility. However, even though the examination-based bureaucracy's heavy emphasis on Confucian litera…
See also
• Bildungsbürgertum
• Cabang Atas, the Chinese gentry of colonial Indonesia
• Four arts
• Junzi
• Kuge
Further reading
• Esherick, Joseph and Mary Backus Rankin (1990). Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520067630.. Free online text.
• Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism (1916; transl. 1951)
• Jerry Bentley and Herb Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters - A Global Perspective on the Past.
External links
• Late Qing China: Reform and Rebellion (1898 -1900)
• Reunification and Renaissance in Chinese Civilization: The Era of the Tang and Song Dynasties
• The Chinese Scholar-Official Education About Asia, Columbia University.