OPENING THE CODE · TANG LAWLAW · RITUAL · ORDER
T TANG LAWDIGITAL EXHIBITION OF TANG LAW

TANG LEGAL HISTORY · DIGITAL ARCHIVE

TANGLAW

Begin with a code; discover the institutions that sustained High Tang order.

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CURATORIAL NOTE

Ritual supplied the values; law furnished the instruments of order

Tang law was not a modern system of separate legal branches. This exhibition reorganizes the sources through six lenses—legislation, criminal law, administration, civil law, economic law, and justice—while preserving their historical setting: imperial authority, status hierarchy, and kinship ethics ran throughout.

“Virtue and ritual are the foundation of government and instruction; punishment is their instrument.”— Tang Code with Commentary, General Principles

SIX CHAPTERS

Follow the institutions and see how an empire worked

Choose a chapter or enter a keyword. Core findings appear first; details expand on demand.

6 chapters

CHAPTER ONE

Legislative System

From governing values and forms of norms to code compilation, the Tang developed a layered and coordinated body of written law.

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I

Guiding Ideas of Legislation

Confucian virtue and ritual supplied the values, while punishment and institutional rules maintained public order. Revision of the law favored moderation, simplicity, and caution. Ritual and law worked together, yet also served imperial, kinship, and status hierarchies.

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Virtue First, Punishment in Support

Moral instruction was treated as fundamental and punishment as an auxiliary tool of government, but the two were not mutually exclusive.

Preserving Status Order

Kinship, official rank, and free or dependent status affected liability and sentencing, revealing the system’s historical limits.

II

Principal Forms of Law

Lü, ling, ge, and shi performed distinct functions: lü defined offenses and penalties; ling established institutions; ge supplied prohibitions and supplements; shi prescribed administrative procedures and documentary forms. Together they formed the basic normative system.

View the four-part division

LÜOffenses & penalties

LINGInstitutions & rules

GESupplementary controls

SHIProcedures & forms

III

Major Legislative Achievements

The early Tang successively revised the Wude and Zhenguan Codes. In the Yonghui era, the code and its official commentary were completed, later known as the Tang Code with Commentary. The Kaiyuan-era Six Canons of the Tang systematically recorded offices and administrative institutions.

Expand legislative timeline
  1. Wude CodeAn important starting point for early Tang codification.
  2. Zhenguan CodeFurther simplified provisions and moderated penalties.
  3. Yonghui Code and CommentaryThe statutory text was paired with official interpretation.
  4. Six Canons of the TangA major surviving compendium of administrative institutions.

CHAPTER TWO

Criminal Law

The General Principles governed the code as a whole, while other books organized rules by field of governance. Its structure was mature, but status inequality remained pronounced.

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I

Offense Categories

The Tang Code did not use a modern offense taxonomy. The Ten Abominations grouped grave acts against imperial authority, family ethics, and status order; books on banditry and theft, official duties, violence and litigation, and fraud covered other conduct.

View the Ten Abominations and code books

TEN ABOMINATIONS:Plotting rebellion; plotting great sedition; plotting treason; malign rebellion; depravity; great irreverence; impiety; discord; unrighteousness; and incest.

The Ten Abominations were exceptionally grave statutory categories, not ten modern criminal offenses.

II

Punishments

The basic punishments—light beating, heavy beating, penal servitude, exile, and death—ran from least to most severe. Each was internally graded, creating a sentencing scale.

Light beating10—50Heavy beating60—100Penal servitude1–3 yearsExile2,000–3,000 liDeathStrangulation · Decapitation
III

Principles of Conviction and Sentencing

The system distinguished intent from negligence, principals from followers, voluntary surrender, complicity, and multiple offenses. It also provided age and disability relief, substitution by office, privileged review, mitigation, and redemption. Judgments generally had to cite the applicable lü, ling, ge, or shi text.

Expand principles and limits

CAUTION IN PUNISHMENT:Certain vulnerable groups received mitigation, and capital judgments faced stricter review.

STATUS INEQUALITY:Official rank, kinship, and free or dependent status affected liability—unlike modern equality before the law.

CHAPTER THREE

Administrative Law

From the Three Departments and Six Ministries to prefectural and county government, defined duties, documentation, and performance review placed a vast bureaucracy within a dense normative network.

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I

Central Government

The Secretariat drafted orders, the Chancellery reviewed and remonstrated, and the Department of State Affairs directed the Six Ministries in execution. Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Punishments, and Works divided portfolios, though the balance of power changed over time and by imperial appointment.

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SecretariatDrafting

ChancelleryReview

State AffairsExecution

Six MinistriesPortfolio administration

II

Local Administrative Divisions

Prefectures (or superior prefectures) and counties were the basic local tiers. Circuits began mainly as supervisory regions and later acquired more substantive powers; the shorthand “circuit–prefecture–county” therefore requires period-specific caution.

Expand changes over time

Ten circuits were designated in 627, initially to facilitate inspection. After the Kaiyuan era, their number, functions, and officers continued to change. Prefectures and counties handled registration, taxation and service, public order, and adjudication.

III

Management of Officials

Officials entered through examinations, hereditary privilege, and other routes; appointment also required Personnel Ministry selection. The Four Virtues assessed conduct and the Twenty-Seven Excellences measured performance by office type, while the Censorate exercised supervision.

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FOUR VIRTUES:Shared standards of integrity, prudence, fairness, and diligence.

TWENTY-SEVEN EXCELLENCES:Job-specific standards of performance; results could affect promotion, demotion, reward, or punishment.

CHAPTER FOUR

Civil Law

The Tang had no separate civil code. Relevant rules were dispersed across lü, ling, ge, shi, and contracts, and were deeply shaped by status and family structure.

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I

Status

Legal rights and liabilities varied with rank, kinship hierarchy, and free or dependent status. Commoners, officials, retainers, and enslaved people did not occupy equal legal positions.

II

Property

Land, houses, enslaved persons, and livestock could be possessed and transferred. Sale, pledge, and tenancy were commonly fixed by contract, subject to state controls over land and status.

III

Obligations

Loan and sale contracts received legal protection. The Miscellaneous Statutes imposed liability for nonpayment according to amount and delay and ordered repayment; interest and coercive collection were also regulated.

IV

Marriage & Family

Marriage emphasized family authority, written betrothal, bridewealth, and status. The code restricted same-surname marriage and recognized negotiated separation, the Seven Grounds for Expulsion, and compulsory severance.

V

Inheritance

Equal division among sons was a basic principle of family-property succession, with separate rules for unmarried daughters, returned daughters, and extinct households. Women’s property rights cannot simply be described as nonexistent.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: Why call this a “civil-law system” only with caution?

Tang law centered on penal norms and combined fields now treated separately. Property, contract, marriage, and inheritance rules intertwined with household registration, ritual, and penal liability. Modern categories aid study; they do not imply an independent civil-law branch existed at the time.

CHAPTER FIVE

Economic Law

Markets, land, taxes and service, and cross-border trade linked state finance with the private economy, while institutions changed across the dynasty.

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I

Market Regulation

Officials in the capital’s Eastern and Western Markets and in local markets regulated trading hours, prices, weights, and measures. The Tang Code held market officers liable for unfair valuation, showing direct state intervention in exchange.

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The Miscellaneous Statutes of the Tang Code with Commentary provide that market officers who value goods unfairly are liable according to the excess or deficiency. Regulators themselves were thus governed by law.

II

Land & Taxation

Early land statutes worked with the zu-yong-diao tax-and-service system, which relied heavily on adult male registration. In 780, the Two-Tax Law shifted assessment toward household grade and assets, with summer and autumn collections.

Expand the institutional shift

EARLY PERIOD:Household registers, adult-male registration, and land rules structured allotment, taxation, and labor service.

LATER PERIOD:Changes in registration and landholding drove the Two-Tax Law to replace the earlier collection framework.

III

Foreign Trade

The overland and maritime Silk Roads carried foreign merchants and goods. By the Kaiyuan era at the latest, Guangzhou had a superintendent of maritime trade overseeing foreign shipping, official purchasing, and taxation. Exchange was open, but not unrestricted.

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The state protected and benefited from foreign trade while inspecting prohibited goods, collecting maritime dues, and controlling some movements of people and materials. Openness and regulation coexisted.

CHAPTER SIX

Judicial System

Prefectures and counties combined administration with adjudication. At the center, the Court of Judicial Review, Ministry of Punishments, and Censorate divided trial, review, and supervision; major cases could be handled jointly.

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I

Judicial Institutions

The Court of Judicial Review was a major central trial court; the Ministry of Punishments handled judicial administration and review; the Censorate supervised and could join major cases. Local governors also adjudicated, making county magistrates and prefects central to first-instance justice.

Local hearing→Ministry review↔Judicial Review Court↔Censorate oversight
II

Litigation System

Rules governed accusation, acceptance, interrogation, judgment, and review. Bypassing jurisdiction, false accusation, and torture were restricted. Judgments had to cite the applicable lü, ling, ge, or shi text, and capital cases underwent stricter review.

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LIMITS ON ACCUSATION:Kinship hierarchy, jurisdiction, and rules against bypassing levels affected who could accuse and where.

EVIDENCE & INTERROGATION:Confession carried great weight, while conditions for interrogating prisoners were regulated; this was not a modern law of evidence.

CITING AUTHORITY:A judgment had to identify its basis in lü, ling, ge, or shi, reflecting a strong commitment to written norms.

LÜ
Institutional sophistication did not mean modern equality. To understand Tang law is to recognize both its achievements and its status hierarchy and imperial foundations.

SOURCE CHECK

Primary texts cross-checked with scholarship

The exhibition does not use unverifiable quotations attributed to historical figures. Key institutions are grounded first in surviving legal texts and cross-checked against authoritative scholarship in legal and institutional history.

PRIMARY TEXTFull Text of the Tang Code with CommentaryWikisource edition ↗ LEGAL HISTORYSeveral Questions in the Study of Tang LawInstitute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences ↗ JURISPRUDENCEStudies in Traditional Chinese JurisprudenceChina Law Society ↗ FISCAL HISTORYThe Early Tang Fiscal SystemSocial Sciences in China Press ↗ JUSTICEThe Court of Judicial Review, Ministry of Punishments, and CensorateSocial Sciences in China Press ↗ TRADEPersian Merchants in Tang China and the Maritime Silk RoadSocial Sciences in China Press ↗ OVERVIEWTang Code with Commentary: China’s Most Complete Surviving Premodern CodePeople’s Daily ↗
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