Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600 (Global Chinese Histories, 250-1650)

Based on a collaboration between historians of Chinese and European politics, Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600 offers a first comprehensive overview of current research on political communication in middle-period European and Chinese history. The chapters present new work on the sources and processes of political communication in European and Chinese history partly through juxtaposing and combining formerly separate historiographies and partly through direct comparison. Contrary to earlier comparative work on empires and state formation, which aimed to explain similarities and differences with encompassing models and new theories of divergence, the goal is to further conversations between historians by engaging regional historiographies from the bottom up. Cover 1 Table of Contents 8 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 14 Hilde De Weerdt and Franz-Julius Morche 14 Part I: Communication and the Formation of Polities 34 1. Towards a Comparative History of Political Communication, c.1000-1500 36 Hilde De Weerdt and John Watts 36 2. Administrative Elites and Political Change 102 2.1 Fragmentation and Financial Recentralization 106 The Emergence of the Four General Commands (1127-1165) 106 Christian Lamouroux 106 2.2 Administrative Elites and the ‘First Phase of Byzantine Humanism’ 144 The Adoption of the Minuscule in Book Production and the Role of the Stoudios Monastery 144 Filippo Ronconi 144 Christian Lamouroux and Filippo Ronconi 102 3. Language and Political Communication in France and England (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries) 174 Jean-Philippe Genet 174 Part II: Letters and Political Languages 204 4. Political Communications, Networks, and Textual Evidence 206 A Cross-Cultural Comparative Approach to Written Sources using Letter Collections 206 Julian Haseldine 206 5. Latin and Classical Chinese Epistolographic Communication in Comparative Perspective 240 Beverly Bossler and Benoît Grévin 240 6. Yao Mian’s Letters 288 The Epistolary Networks of a Late Song Literatus 288 Beverly Bossler 288 Part III: Communication and Political Authority 314 7. Communication and Empire 316 Byzantium in Perspective 316 Mark Whittow (†) 316 8. Giving the Public Due Notice in Song China and Renaissance Rome 346 Patricia Ebrey and Margaret Meserve 346 9. The Printers’ Networks of Chen Qi (1186–1256) and Robert Estienne (1503–1559) 384 A Micro-Comparative Approach to Political Dependence and Censorship 384 Chu Ming Kin and Franz-Julius Morche 384 Part IV: Memory and Political Imaginaries 440 10. Letters and Parting Valedictions 442 Zhang Yu and Political Communication in Mid-Eleventh-Century Sichuan 442 Chen Song 442 11. Yue Fei and Thomas Becket 482 Elite Masculinities in Comparison 482 Bernard Gowers and Tsui Lik Hang 482 12. Imaginaries of Empire and Memories of Collapse 524 Parallel Narratives in Southern Song and Byzantine Commemorations of Conquered Capitals 524 Ari Daniel Levine 524 Epilogues 572 1 Communication Breakthroughs 574 Conditions and Consequences 574 Wim Blockmans 574 2 Thoughts on the Problem of Historical Comparison between Europe and China 598 Robert Hymes 598 List of Contributors 616 Index 620 List of Figures and Tables by Chapter 10 Figure 2.2.1 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, PSI XII 1266. Official letter of Helladios to the pagarch, in the name of the topotērētēs (seventh century). 165 Figure 2.2.2 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, PSI XII 1267. Letter of Theodoros to the pagarch (seventh century). 166 Figure 2.2.3 Examples of the linking of subsequent letters and words. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, PSI XII 1266 (see Figure 2.2.1). 166 Table 4.1 Some possible transactions and groupings of transactions which might be developed for the cross-cultural comparative analysis of letter collections. 230 Figure 4.1 Peter the Venerable. 231 Figure 4.2 Bernard of Clairvaux, all letters. 231 Figure 4.3 Bernard of Clairvaux, corpus epistolarum. 232 Figure 4.4 Bernard of Clairvaux, epistolae extra corpus. 232 Figure 4.5 Peter of Celle, all letters. 232 Figure 4.6 Peter of Celle, early letters. 233 Figure 4.7 Peter of Celle, late letters. 233 Figure 4.8 Anselm, Prior of Bec. 233 Figure 4.9 Anselm, Abbot of Bec. 234 Figure 4.10 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury. 234 Figure 4.11 Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. 234 Figure 4.12 Gilbert Foliot, Abbot of Gloucester. 235 Figure 4.13 Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford. 235 Figure 4.14 Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London. 235 Table 5.1 An example of the influence of the summae dictaminis (compendia of prose compositions created on the basis of collected chancery letters) of the thirteenth century on the political art of writing during the late Middle Ages. An official letter 267 Table 5.2 Formulaic composition and rhythmical ornament in the letters of the papal chancery during the thirteenth century: a billet from the compendium of Cardinal Thomas of Capua (ThdC I, 62) progressively created in the papal chancery around 1220–1268 268 Figure 9.1 Networks of the ‘five victims’ — networks of the five primary victims of the Poetry Case (green dots), which show that nine individuals were linked to both Chen Qi and Liu Kezhuang (i.e. the nine names clustered between Chen and Liu). Those wh 401 Table E1.1 Number of people per newly produced manuscript book. 591 Based on a collaboration between historians of Chinese and European politics, this volume offers a first comprehensive overview of current research on political communication in middle-period European and Chinese history. The chapters present new work on the sources and processes of political communication in European and Chinese history partly through juxtaposing and combining formerly separate historiographies and partly through direct comparison. Contrary to earlier comparative work on empires and state formation, which aimed to explain similarities and differences with encompassing models and new theories of divergence, the goal is to further conversations between historians by engaging regional historiographies from the bottom up.