Six
Charitable Estates as an Aspect of Statecraft in Southern Sung China

Linda Walton

Since the publication more than thirty years ago of Denis Twitchett's classic account of the Fan charitable estate,^[1] historians and anthropologists who have considered this and similar institutions of "clan property" have focused, understandably, on their relevance to the evolution of kinship structures.^[2] Here I propose to take a different approach: to look at charitable estates in Southern Sung China, both within and outside the setting of the descent group, to see what they reveal about ways of conceiving the relationships among kinship, the local community, and the state. I limit my discussion to two kinds of properties: charitable lands (i-t'ien or i-chuang )^[3] and charitable schools (i-hsueh or i-shu ), established either by members of a patrilineal descent group (tsu or tsung-tsu)^[4] or jointly by a larger coalition or community.

Recent research on the emergence of "localist" strategies in the Southern Sung—seen both in networks of affinal ties that linked elite families in one

[1] Denis Twitchett, "The Fan Clan Charitable Estate, 1050-1760," in David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright, eds., Confucianism in Action (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959).

[2] For recent research on this topic, and for references to important work by Japanese scholars, see Patricia B. Ebrey and James L. Watson, eds., Kinship Organization in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). Hereafter cited as Ebrey and Watson.

[3] The translation of i as "charitable" here and throughout is based on the function of these institutions and follows long-established practice. Bear in mind, however, that i literally connotes "duty" (or "relationship-specific obligation") (as in i-chün or i-ping , "duty troops," voluntary military forces). Emphasis is on doing what is right and on fulfilling one's obligations. On the uses of this term in Southern Sung, see the discussion in the Introduction to this volume.

[4] For definitions and a useful discussion of both English and Chinese kinship terminology, see Ebrey and Watson, pp. 4-10. I have attempted to follow their suggestions as consistently as possible.

area to each other and in broader patterns of social, economic, and political behavior with a local rather than national focus—has set out to demonstrate a contrast with the Northern Sung, when elite families set their sights on national politics and on ties with other elite families that would transcend local or regional boundaries.^[5] A further manifestation of this shift, it can be argued, was a change from reliance on central-government policies to deal with social and economic problems, characteristic of the Wang An-shih era, to increasingly local, voluntary, and private efforts to meet local needs. This change can be attributed at least in part to a loss of confidence, attendant on the fall of the Northern Sung, in the ability of the state to carry out policies that could deal successfully with problems at the local level. In education, the change can be seen in the proliferation of local academies (shu-yuan ) in the Southern Sung. The Southern Sung academy movement in an important sense grew out of dissatisfaction with the examination system and the official educational environment it fostered during the Northern Sung. Although the founding of academies followed Northern Sung precedents, the Southern Sung movement acquired a distinctive character and meaning because of changed intellectual, political, and social circumstances. Similarly, although the Fan charitable estate of the Northern Sung was cited repeatedly as a model for Southern Sung estates, the Fan estate was the premier example of only a few such estates in the Northern Sung; and the significance of these estates differed in the Southern Sung, not only because there were far more of them, but also because of the new social and political environment in which they were established.

Although anthropologists have generally assumed that jointly owned property, including endowed estates, is crucial in lineage formation and joint descent-group activities, some historians have begun to question this assumption.^[6] Recent research suggests that, at least during the Sung, property jointly owned did not necessarily play a central role in the organization and viability of patrilineal descent groups.^[7] It is true that apart from the Fan estate only a handful of endowed estates can be documented for the Northern Sung.^[8] However, I have found a relatively large number of cases

[5] See, for example, Robert Hymes, "Marriage, Descent Groups, and the Localist Strategy in Sung and Yuan Fu-chou," in Ebrey and Watson, pp. 95-136, and Hymes, Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Hymes extends arguments made by Robert Hartwell in "Demographic, Social, and Political Transformations of China, 750-1550," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 42 (1982): 365-442.

[6] See Patricia Ebrey, "The Early Stages in the Development of Descent Group Organization," in Ebrey and Watson, pp. 40-44; 55-56.

[7] See Richard L. Davis, "Political Success and the Growth of Descent Groups: The Shih of Ming-chou During the Sung," in Ebrey and Watson, pp. 92-93.

[8] Shimizu Morimitsu, Chu goku zokusan seido ko (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1949), pp. 39-40, cites a half dozen Northern Sung charitable estates; Hymes, Statesmen , p. 130, n. 15, cites two Northern Sung estates in Fu-chou, Kiangsi; and Ebrey, "Early Stages," p. 42, cites another Northern Sung estate. Liang Keng-yao, Nan-Sung ti nung-ts'un ching-chi (Taipei: Lian-ching, 1985), p. 316, attributes the Yen estate in Chien-k'ang to the Southern Sung, but it should be considered late Northern Sung, unless it was established virtually on the founder's deathbed, for he died in 1130 (three years into the Southern Sung) at age seventy-seven. See Liu I-chih, T'iao-ch'i chi (SKCS ed.), 50.27a-28a.

for the Southern Sung (see the appendix to this chapter); and since even these do not reflect a comprehensive search of all potential sources, many more cases may remain to be identified.^[9] Thus I would argue that, even if charitable estates were not yet crucial to lineage formation, and however short-lived many of them may have been, the institution already had a significant presence in Southern Sung local society. It was the subject of writings by prominent men who provided ideological justification for it in both classical and historical terms. Many of them sought to link the founding of estates with larger principles of "ordering the world"; and the way they presented and justified the establishment of charitable estates sheds some light on Southern Sung thinking about institutions and society. Evidence from charitable estates also supports the argument that localist strategies were emerging among elite families in this period. Whether in endowed estates for one descent group or in the fewer community estates designed to provide support for impecunious shih (or shih-ta-fu ) families, a new (or perhaps renewed) conception of the local community seems to have been evolving, along with a rethinking of the relationship among descent group, community, and state.

Sung Neo-Confucians, following the Great Learning , held that "bringing peace to the world" (p'ing t'ien-hsia ) begins with "rectifying the self" (hsiu shen ), proceeds to "regulating the family" (ch'i chia ), and on to "governing the state" (chih kuo ). One modern scholar has suggested that Sung men sometimes in effect placed another step between "rectifying the self" and "ordering the world": "transforming the community" (hua hsiang ).^[10] It is in this realm, as well as in that of "regulating the family," that the charitable estates were important, both as symbols and as practical guardians of the welfare of the group, whether the descent group or the local community. It

[9] The Southern Sung examples listed in the appendix have been gathered largely from secondary studies, especially those of Shimizu and Liang. Many of the primary sources are obvious, since they are inscriptions written to commemorate the establishment of a charitable estate. However, many other references are found in funerary inscriptions, and it is highly likely that a careful search of such writings, as well as other less obvious documents, would yield many more examples. Thus, I think it is reasonable to suggest that the list in the appendix could easily be expanded to at least double its size. But I would emphasize that the present study is not quantitative in nature.

[10] Inoue Akira (?), "Sodai ijo ni okeru sozoku no tokushitsu no zai kento," Nagoya daigaku toyoshi kenkyu hokoku 12 (1987): 60. Compare the discussion, in this volume's Introduction, of Chu Hsi's interest in institutions of the "middle level"—the level of the hsiang .

has been suggested that the endowing of a charitable estate might have been in part a way to limit the obligations of the wealthier, more prominent members of a descent group to their less fortunate kin.^[11] But any such practical function need not preclude an equally or even more important symbolic function: to "bring together" the loosely allied or dispersed members of a patrilineal descent group (ho tsung-tsu ) through the support of ancestral rites or the maintenance of graves; or to affirm a sense of joint interests and common identity among the emergent local elite of an area through a community charitable estate. Much evidence from the Sung, especially Southern Sung, points to the strengthening of descent-group ties, a process engendered by the uncertainties of official careers dependent on the examination system and bureaucratic politics, as well as by the instability and insecurity of fife in a period of rapid social and economic change. Although endowed estates may have been neither critical to descent-group survival nor a major support of emerging local elite strategies in the Southern Sung,^[12] they were important symbolically in the proclaiming and strengthening of both descent-group and community ties. A study of charitable estates may thus reveal links between the changing relationships among descent group, community, and state during the Southern Sung, on the one hand, and attitudes and ideas concerning statecraft, understood in the broad sense of "ordering the world," on the other.

Estates for The Descent Group

One of the earliest and best-documented examples of a Southern Sung charitable estate founded to benefit members of one descent group is that of the Lou of Yin county in Ming-chou (Liang-che).^[13] It was set up in about 1160 by Lou Shou (1090-1162) after his retirement from office, in fulfillment of the earlier plan of his father, Lou I (chin-shih 1085), to establish a charitable estate for his descent group. Although the Lou had begun to rise as an official family in the mid-eleventh century when Lou I's grandfather, Yü, took a chin-shih degree in 1053, by Shou's generation in the early Southern Sung they had experienced financial hardships that forced them to rely

[11] Ebrey, pp. 41-42; Hymes, "Marriage, Descent Groups, and the Localist Strategy," p. 130.

[12] For a contrasting view of the role of charitable estates in local elite strategies and lineage organization in the late nineteenth century, see Jerry Dennerline, "Marriage, Adoption, and Charity in the Development of Lineages in Wu-hsi from Sung to Ch'ing," in Ebrey and Watson, pp. 170-209.

[13] See Fukuda Ritsuko, "Sodai gisho koko—Minshu Roshi o chushin to shite" (Nihon joshi daigaku shigaku kenkyukai), Shiso 13 (1972): 72-115. Reprinted in Chugoku kankei ronsetsu shiryo 14, no. 3 ge : 188-206. Pagination used in citations is from the latter. See also Linda Walton, "Kinship, Marriage, and Status in Song China: A Study of the Lou Lineage of Ningbo, c. 1050-1250," Journal of Asian History 18, no. 1 (1984): 35-77.

on marriage relatives for support. Shou's brother Ch'uü (d. 1182) was a dependent son-in-law of his wife's family, and Ch'u's son, the famous Southern Sung official Lou Yueh (1137-1213), grew up in the household of his maternal grandparents.^[14]

Lou Shou did not write about his intentions in setting aside five hundred mou of land for the estate, so we must rely on the testimony of his nephew Lou Yueh. According to Yueh's account in his funerary inscription for his uncle, Shou established the estate as an act of filial piety, to fulfill the wishes of Lou I. Yueh also cited the model of Fan Chung-yen's estate, saying that his family had sought to imitate the Fan estate but had not been able to achieve the same level of support, since the Lou estate provided rice allotments only to those judged to need them, not to the entire group, as had the Fan estate.^[15] The Lou estate was designed to provide specifically for the descendants of Lou I, and not for those of other "branches" (p'ai ).^[16] After he achieved high office in the Southern Sung government, Lou Yueh was able to enlarge the estate, as others had tried to do and failed. However, in 1212, a year before Yueh's death, when the estate was only half a century old, official help was requested to punish individuals who had sold land and misappropriated income from the estate; ironically, the precedent of the Fan estate was also cited for this.^[17]

Accounts of the Lou estate in local histories dating from the Yuan emphasize its importance as a social model of harmonious relations within the descent group, extending its benevolent influence to society as a whole.^[18] Yet by the Yuan, wealthy families had encroached on the estate, and the Lou were relatively weak and in financial straits, dependent on official support to retain their lands. Local officials tried to protect the estate, ostensibly because of its utility as a model of Confucian social order; but, unlike the Fan estate, that of the Lou did not survive the Yuan.^[19]

Similar estates were scattered throughout Southern Sung China, but of over forty surveyed here, approximately half were clustered in the two circuits of Liang-che. This is in part due to the wealth of sources extant for this area, but it should also be seen as a reflection of the relatively high level of economic development that characterized the region by the Sung. The surplus resources necessary for the founding of a charitable estate or lands were more likely to be present in such an area. Although one writer claimed that five thousand mou were necessary to establish a particular

[14] Walton, p. 59.

[15] Lou Yueh, Kung-k'uei chi (TSCCHP ed.), 60:808.

[16] Fukuda, p. 103; Walton, p. 47.

[17] Wang Yuan-hung et al., Chih-cheng Ssu-ming hsu-chih (SYTFCTS ed.), 8.19b-20a (hereafter abbreviated Chih-cheng ).

[18] Chih-cheng , 8.19b.

[19] Ibid.

charitable estate because it supported a large number of people,^[20] and the model Fan estate had been started with a grant of three thousand mou, the size of endowments varied greatly, partly because of variations in the productivity of land and the use of different methods of distribution and allocation of income. In the cases examined here, the amount of land ranged from one hundred to several thousand mou, so the Lou estate with five hundred mou was of medium size.

Although the Lou estate provided only a monthly allotment of rice to needy members of the descent group, most estates were more specific in their provisions, stipulating, for example, support for marriage and funeral expenses along with aid for sickness and poverty.^[21] Some estates subsidized the expenses associated with both male and female coming-of-age ceremonies (capping and hair binding, respectively) and also provided support for the births of sons and daughters.^[22] In about one quarter of the cases studied here, in addition to direct material support to individual households, estates supported schools for the education of the sons of the descent group. Support for education was of obvious importance to elite families who were concerned to maintain and enhance their status by succeeding in the examinations or by fulfilling in other ways the role of shih . Aid for the expenses of weddings and funerals might also be of special concern to elite families for the same motive. Similarly, support for ancestral rituals and for burial expenses or the purchase and upkeep of gravesites was important in the maintenance and display of elite status and perhaps in the strengthening of descent-group ties.^[23] A wide range of activities, related to status as

[20] Liu K'o-chuang, Hou-ts'un hsien-sheng ta-ch'üan chi (SPTK ed.), 92.20b.

[21] The estate belonging to ancestors of the Ch'ing scholar Ch'üan Tsu-wang, located like that of the Lou in Yin county, was set up to provide support for marriage and funeral expenses, as well as to aid the poor of the descent group. See Ch'üan Tsu-wang, Chieh-ch'i t'ing-chi (SPTK ed.), 21.4a. Others, such as the Ch'en of Chin-hua (Wu-chou) (Wang Mou-te, Chin-hua fu-chih [Taipei 1965 reprint ed.], 16.69a), the Chang of P'ing-chiang (Su-chou) (Liu Tsai, Man-t'ang wen-chi [SKCS ed.], 21.32a), both in Chekiang, the Chang of Han-chou in Szechwan (Chu Hsi, Chu-tzu ta-ch'üan [SPPY ed. ], 95 hsia : 38), and the Fang of Hsing-hua in Fu-chien (Lin Hsi-i, Chu-hsi chüan chai shih-i kao hsu-chi [SKCS ed.], 12.15a), also specified that income from the estate be used to provide support for marriages and funerals, as well as to aid the poor of the descent group.

[22] For example, the estates of the Hsing-hua Fang (Lin Hsi-i, 12.15a) and the Chao of T'an-chou in Ching-hu-nan (Liu K'o-chuang, 92.20a) both specified that income was to be used for these purposes as well as for weddings and funerals and for aid to the poor. The Shih of T'ai-chou in Liang-che designated income from their estate to be used for the marriage expenses of orphaned girls and for monthly support for wet nurses for abandoned infants (Chu Hsi, 92.6b).

[23] The Fu of Wu-chou (Liang-che) stipulated that income from their estate be used not only to aid members of the descent group, but also to provide support for rites (Huang Chin, Huang wen-hsien kung-chi [TSCCHP ed.], 7.14a). The Ch'en of Chen-chiang used half of the income from their estate for aid to the descent group and half for the upkeep of graves (Liu Tsai, 23.10b). Hsieh Tzu-ch'ang of T'ai-chou purchased mountain land for the interment of those members of his descent group who had no place for burial (Lin Piao-min, Ch'ih-ch'eng chi [SKCSCP ed.], 12.18b). Income from lands that supported the charitable school established by the Liu of Hsin-chou was eventually increased to provide support for the completion of grave-building (Chu Hsi, 80.2b).

well as to basic economic welfare, could be supported by the income from charitable estates. For example, the Fang of Hsing-hua (Fu-chien) designated aid for rites of passage, such as the birth of children, cappings, weddings, and funerals; ancestral rites; a school; and for the "poor and hungry."^[24] The Sun of Chi-chou in Chiang-nan-hsi specified that income from their estate be used for food, clothing, medicine, burial, and ritual expenses.^[25]

By far the greatest number of estates simply designated that income from the estates be used to provide financial support to members of the descent group. Whether this was to be general support for all, as with the Fan estate, or only to those judged especially to need it, as with the Lou estate, is usually unclear. The model and precedent specifically cited in over a third of the cases examined was, not surprisingly, that of the Fan estate; and the largest single cluster of Southern Sung estates documented here was in Su-chou (Liang-che), the home of the Fan. Liu Tsai (1166-1239), writing about the estate of the Chang lineage of Su-chou, cited the example of the Fan estate and suggested that it was widely imitated by elite families in the Su-chou region in particular.^[26] Few families, however, could afford to allot the income from the estates indiscriminately, as had the Fan. Judging from the limited size of most of the estates (although, again, the information on this is sparse), it would not have been possible to provide support to the entire group, only to those in need and probably then only on an emergency basis.

Some estates were established as the direct result of misfortune and designed with the specific purpose of aiding the orphaned children of a close relative. For example, at the death of his elder brother, Sun Ch'un-nien (d. 1199) cared for the brother's children; after their deaths, he cared for their children in turn. The estate he set up in Yueh-chou (Liang-che) was called a "charitable residence" (i-chü ), and it provided regular allotments to his brother's and cousins' descendants, with any surplus designated for marriage expenses.^[27] In a similar case, the charitable estate founded by Ch'en Chü-jen (1129-1197), who had marriage connections with the Lou of Ming-chou, provided support for his cousin's children after the deaths of his uncle and two cousins.^[28] Ch'en Chü-jen's father had migrated to Ming-

[24] Lin Hsi-i, 12.15a.

[25] Chou Pi-ta, Wen-chung chi (SKCS ed.), 74.7a.

[26] Liu Tsai, 21.34b.

[27] Lu Yu, Wei-nan wen-chi (Wan-yu wen-k'u [WYWK ] ed.), 39.716-17.

[28] Lou Yueh, 89.1220-21.

chou from Fu-chien, leaving lands behind in P'u-t'ien, Hsing-hua, which Ch'en Chü-jen set aside for his uncle's descendants in the form of a charitable estate. The estate founded by Wen I (1215-1256), the father of the famous Southern Sung patriot Wen T'ien-hsiang (1236-1283), was initially set up to aid his uncle's household after the uncle's death but was eventually extended to the entire descent group.^[29] Thus, a sense of obligation to specific kin, as well as more generalized concern for the welfare and status of the descent group as a whole, motivated the establishment of charitable lands and estates.

Benefits from the estates were not always limited to those linked by agnatic kinship.^[30] In some cases, affinal kin were specified as recipients of aid along with agnatic kin, although in most cases this appears to have been due to special circumstances. Income from the estate in Han-chou (Ch'eng-tu-fu) established by the elder brother of the famous general Chang Chün (1096-1164) was designated for aid to the poor among the descent group and for weddings and funerals of maternal kin (mu-tsu ).^[31] An estate in Su-chou (Liang-che) appears to have been established in part for affinal kin (yin-tsu ),^[32] and the estate of the Shu, established in the late Sung or early Yuan period, was set up for maternal relatives (wai-chia ) who had brought up and educated the founder of the estate.^[33] The contract for the estate of the Liu in Chien-ning (Fu-chien) stipulated that neither sons-in-law who "transgress the rites" nor daughters who marry "those who are not upright" would receive aid from the estate, even though they were poor.^[34] These restrictions imply that both sons who marry into the family and daughters who marry out ordinarily would be considered for aid.^[35]

In general, although the income from most estates was probably limited to agnatic kin, there appear to have been no customary restrictions on the allocation of estate income to others. Wives could also play an important role in founding estates. For example, the wife of a man in Mei-chou (Ch'eng-tu-fu) gave money and land to help with the expenses of weddings and funerals and to aid sickness and poverty for her husband's kin.^[36] After

[29] Wen T'ien-shang, Wen-shan hsien-sheng wen-chi (WYWK ed.), 11.374-75.

[30] There is at least one Northern Sung example of a wife who used her dowry to set up a charitable estate to benefit equally both her own and her husband's kin (Sung Lien, Sung hsueh-shih wen-chi [WYWK ed.], 42.738). Another late Northern Sung woman, highly educated and active in her husband's career as well as in their home, helped her husband establish a charitable estate for his agnates (Liu I-chih, 50.27b).

[31] Chu Hsi, 95 hsia . 38.

[32] Pien Shih, Yu-feng hsu-chih: ming-kuan p'ien (Yuan-wei pieh-ts'ang ed.), 18b-19a.

[33] Wu Ch'eng, Wu Wen-cheng chi (SKCS ed.), 77.12a-b.

[34] Yu Chiu-yen, Mou-chai i-kao (SKCS ed.) hsia. 30b.

[35] For the relevance of charitable estates to marriage strategies in the late Ch'ing, see Dennerline, "Marriage, Adoption, and Charity."

[36] Wei Liao-weng, Ho-shan hsien-sheng ta-ch'üan chi (SPTK ed.), 44.16b.

her death, her husband added to it, and it was called the Compassionate Favor Estate. The wife of another man who founded a charitable estate for his agnatic kin helped her husband purchase six hundred mou of land to give to impoverished cousins by contributing proceeds from the sale of over twenty cosmetic trays she had received as presents.^[37]

To establish a charitable estate was not easy. As Lu Yu (1125-1210) put it: "It is not because it is not good that it is not done; it is because resources are insufficient."^[38] One reads frequently of estates being founded by sons of a father who had desired to do so, but had not been able to carry it out in his lifetime. The estate set up by Lou Shou is just one example. But if founding an estate was difficult, maintaining one was even more so. In fact, reference is often made to the Fan estate as having been preserved unlike so many others. In his inscription on the Compassionate Favor Estate in Szechuan, Wei Liao-weng (1178-1237) lamented the fact that, even though the estate was relatively small, the descendants of the founder had not been able to preserve it. An inscription On the charitable lands of the Hsieh in T'ai-chou (Liang-che) emphasized the difficulties in setting up the estate and the even greater difficulties in managing and continuing it, noting that the inscription was written as a warning to those who might consider charitable lands easily gotten and thus take lightly their responsibilities in managing them.^[39] Few estates, however, were maintained for more than a few generations; the Lou are representative, since they experienced problems with their estate within fifty years of its founding. The complaint runs through documents on charitable estates that members of the descent group abused their privileges and illegally dispersed resources for their own benefit, suggesting an inherent tension between the explicit motives presented for the founding of estates and the facts of kin-group life, property relations, and the interests of individual members that determined their subsequent fates.

According to most accounts, the founders of estates were motivated by an altruistic ideal: to help their kinsmen. At the same time, it is apparent that these ideals could not have inspired all members of the descent group, since it was most often members who contributed to the dispersal of the estate. The explanation for this phenomenon may lie in specific aspects of the landholding system, which is beyond the scope of this study and the expertise of the author; but the general point may be made that joint property was not subject to dispersal through the system of partible inheritance practiced in Chinese society, so this was a logical way to preserve land in larger units and to avoid the parcelization of landholdings among members

[37] Hu Yin, Pei-jan chi (SKCS ed.), 21.10a.

[38] Lu Yu, 21:4.

[39] Lin Piao-min, 12.19a.

of a descent group.^[40] But while endowing a charitable estate could be easily justified and encouraged by Confucian ideas of familial obligation, and while an estate yielded economic benefits to the descent group as a corporate unit, particular households might well prefer receiving their small portion through inheritance to awaiting possible future benefits, very likely shared and not individually substantial. Considerable gain might also be had by a household that could surreptitiously direct much or all of the estate's income toward its own interests. This would explain why the generations following the establishment of a charitable estate might attempt in various ways either to claim their individual inheritances or to increase them through illegally taking advantage of its resources. The endowment of a charitable estate would presumably serve the economic interests of the descent group taken as a whole, as well as strengthen by symbolic means the sense of common identity among its members, particularly if some of the income from the estate were designated for support of ancestral rites. These benefits might be of particular value to elite households within the group. But to individual descendant households, retaining land for division by inheritance might seem economically preferable.

The Southern Sung writer Yuan Ts'ai described the problems of charitable estates straightforwardly, suggesting that charitable schools served far better to protect and preserve the descent group. According to Yuan Ts'ai's Precepts for Social Life , charitable schools were better for very practical reasons:

The purpose of establishing a charitable estate is to aid poor kinsmen. If your lineage is an old one, its members are sure to be numerous. Not only will each person's share become less and less, but the unworthy young men will not use their shares to aid the cold and hungry. Furthermore, some will go so far as to mortgage their shares in the joint estate in a bout of drinking or a toss of the dice. They will then get less than half; what is the use then? Also, if members' income is generous, they will be well fed to the end of their days with nothing to focus their minds on except disturbing their communities and causing trouble for the authorities.

Thus it is better to use the land to endow a charitable school. If it is attached to a temple, you can endow "monk land." Someone qualified as a classicist can be selected to teach. [From the endowment] the meals for the students can be supplied, and help can be given when they are in need.^[41]

We can infer from Yuan Ts'ai's comments in the latter half of the twelfth century that charitable estates were widespread and that the problems and

[40] Shimizu 1949, p. 45 cites a rare example contained in the Ming-kung shu-p'an ch'ing-ming chi of the establishment of a charitable estate by official order as a means of dividing up an estate. (Cited also in Liang, p. 319.)

[41] Patricia B. Ebrey, trans., Family and Property in Sung China: Yuan Ts'ai's "Precepts for Social Life " (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 229-30.

abuses that led to their demise were also common knowledge.^[42] His account may also imply that charitable schools were less common, although their founding must also have been common enough that Yuan could presume this audience knew what they were.

Charitable schools were, in fact, often established together with estates; and in some cases, the estate was set up specifically to provide income to support the school, although schools could also be set up as adjuncts to estates. The Ch'en estate was established with a substantial endowment to support marriages and funerals, and to provide aid for people in need. A charitable school was founded at the same time, and teachers were invited to teach the sons of the family.^[43] A "charitable school-estate" (i-hsueh-chuang ) established by the Chao of Heng-shan in T'an-chou (Ching-hu-nan) provided funds for food, clothing, marriages, and funerals, as well as special payments to the poor, and support for the school.^[44] A shrine was set up at the school to honor Chao K'uei (1186-1266), who, although he attained high political rank, had been unsuccessful in his desire to establish a charitable estate. The school was quite extensive, including four student chambers (chai ) and an upper and lower division. It also functioned as a community school, since outsiders preparing to take the examinations were taught here, and the school regulations followed those of two famous Southern Sung academies, Yueh-lu and Stone Drum.^[45]

That a lineage school might be open to the community, like that of the Chao above, suggests that the barrier presumably separating the sphere of descent from the sphere of the larger community had a certain permeability. The authors of commemorative inscriptions likewise explicitly connected the two spheres when they linked a man's beneficial acts as an official with his private beneficence in establishing a charitable estate for his descent group. Chu Hsi praised the compassionate administration of Magistrate Liu, who held office in the neighboring county of Te-an when Chu Hsi was prefect of Nan-k'ang, and on later visiting Liu at his home at Yü-shan in Hsin-chou (Chiang-nan-tung) learned of the charitable school he had set up there:

My family was originally simple and poor, and I gained office very late, so I had not the means to be benevolent to the three tsu ["lineages": own,

[42] Shimizu, p. 25.

[43] Chin-hua fu-chih , 16.69a.

[44] Liu K'o-chuang, 92.20a-20b.

[45] Liu K'o-chuang, 92.20b. Other examples of linked school and estate include the "charitable estate-school" (i-chuang-hsueh ) of the Chiang in Chien-ning (Wei Liao-weng, 83.1b); the charitable estate and school established by Wu Fei (1104-1183) in T'ai-chou (Chu Hsi, 88.15a); the school established by Chang Kao in Su-chou, which was connected with the charitable estate begun by his father (Liu Tsai, 21.35a); and that of the Liu of Hsin-chou, who supplied the resources to establish a school for their own family, although local villagers were also allowed to attend (Chu Hsi, 80.2b).

mother's, and wife's?]. In the past I had set aside land, built a dwelling, and invited known scholars to teach the sons of the tsu ; and local people who wanted to study were also allowed to come. Some among the elder and younger brothers took pleasure in using their property to aid it, but I still worried about whether it would continue or not. Then I went out again to [hold office in] Hsin-an and took my excess salary to add to it and to support its expenses; and it was completed. There was [also] support for grave-building and for those who were getting married. Thereupon I reported it to the prefecture, and the prefect was happy to hear of it. He made a proclamation to announce to the descendants that they must not subvert my will.^[46]

Thus official recognition of and support for an estate can also be seen as linking a descent-group estate to the wider community and even the state. Chu Hsi went on to criticize the behavior of contemporary shih-ta-fu and to compare them unfavorably with Magistrate Liu, who, despite having neither high rank nor great wealth, was benevolent to his kin. He directly connected this to his compassionate acts as an administrator dealing with famine in his jurisdiction: "And this can also be seen in his former days in government administration in Te-an."^[47] Chu also wrote of Shih Tun (1128-1182; chin-shih 1145), prefect of Nan-k'ang, who established a charitable estate for his agnates.^[48] In his funerary inscription for Shih, Chu immediately followed the reference to the founding of the estate with the words: "What he put first in government administration was loving the people."^[49] thus linking his charitable acts to his descent group to his career as a public administrator, or perhaps even encouraging us to see the former as a special category of the latter.

The same linkage is asserted for a private gentleman's charitable acts in an inscription by Liu Yueh (1144-1216) for an estate in his home county, Chien-yang (Fu-chien), belonging to the Hsiung, relatives of Liu's stepmother.^[50] According to Liu, the Hsiung produced many illustrious men, although the founder of the estate seems not to have been particularly prominent.^[51] Liu tells of a famine in the Ch'ien-tao period (1165-1174), when the Hsiung, unlike others, did not attempt to profit from the disaster, but sold their grain reserves at reasonable prices.^[52] As Liu presents it, the founder was then able to extend the "charitable consciousness" displayed in

[46] Chu Hsi, 80.2b.

[47] Chu Hsi, 80.3a.

[48] Chu Hsi 92.6a-b.

[49] Chu Hsi, 92.6b.

[50] Liu Yueh, Yun-chuang Liu Wen-chien kung wen-chi (Ming Hung-chih/Chia-ch'ing revised woodblock ed.), 8.1 a-2a.

[51] Of the 23 Hsiung listed in the standard reference for Sung biography (Ch'ang Pi-te et al., Sung-jen chuan-chi tsu-liao so-yin [Taipei: Hsin-wen-feng, 1974-1976] 4:3620-24; hereafter cited as SBM ), nearly half are from Chien-yang, including Hsiung Ho (1253-1312); but this list does not include the founder of the estate.

[52] Liu Yueh, 8.1a.

his benevolence toward the community to his descent group by founding a charitable estate for them. The order of concerns traced here is extraordinary. One might expect to see a man described, on the model of the Great Learning or the Classic of Filial Piety , as having extended the caring learned in the family or kin group to a wider sphere through his charities to his community or his beneficence in office. Here instead a man first shows (and perhaps learns?) his altruism outside, then applies it at home. The reversal may in part simply reflect the real sequence of the Hsiung founder's own beneficent acts. But that Liu is ready to draw the connection in this direction, to see founding a lineage estate as the downward extension of a broader community-mindedness, or even perhaps as statecraft writ small, is striking. Perhaps beneficence to community and nation was for some in Liu's audience a more uncontroversially admirable starting-point than caring for kin. In what follows we will see similarly striking ties drawn between the two spheres, but now for estates that from the outset locate themselves on the community side of the kin-community line.

Community Charitable Estates

A close connection between charitable estates founded by and for members of one descent group and those founded to benefit a community of elite families was suggested by Shimizu Morimitsu, who argued that various kinds of descent-group institutions, such as the charitable school and charitable granary (i-ts'ang ), were directly modeled on earlier community institutions; others, such as charitable estates, originated within the descent group and were adapted as community institutions.^[53] The earliest community charitable estate I have been able to document for the Southern Sung was established in 1168 by chief-councillor-to-be Shih Hao (1106-1194) early in his political career when he served as prefect of Shao-hsing (Yüeh-chou, Liang-che).^[54] Since the Shih, like the Lou whom we have already seen, were from Yin county in Ming-chou, and since the two had marriage ties, Shih Hao may well have been influenced by the example of the Lou estate, although there is no direct evidence. He allotted funds from the prefectural treasury to purchase land and used the income from this land to grant worthy but impecunious local shih-ta-fu families aid for marriage and funeral expenses. This land was attached to the prefectural school and was managed by local administrators, who approved or denied requests for aid submitted by Shao-hsing families. Although the school preceptor and other school officials shared in the management of the land, they were not allowed to shift its resources to the support of students.^[55]

[53] Shimizu, p. 30.

[54] Chou Ying-ho, (Ching-ting ) Chien-k'ang chih (SYTFCTS ed.), 13,18b-19a.

[55] Ibid.

This charitable estate became the model for a "community charitable field-estate" (hsiang-ch'ü i-t'ien-chuang ) established in Shih Hao's native Yin county during the late Ch'un-hsi period (1174-1189), when Shih Hao lived at home at the close of his official career.^[56] Shen Huan (1129-1181), a local scholar whom Shih Hao patronized and who was also one of the "Four Masters of Ming", disciples of the philosopher Lu Chiu-yuan, suggested to Shih Hao that the local elite of Ming-chou might follow the example of Shao-hsing and establish a community charitable estate to benefit local scholars.^[57] Shih Hao agreed with him, and the two of them, together with Wang Ta-chi (1120-1200) of the locally prominent Wang family, exhorted other leaders of local society to support the project. Later the prefect contributed official land and money, and the income was used to support local shih-ta-fu who lacked the means to pay for marriages and funerals. According to Shih Hao, however, and unlike the original community estate in Shao-hsing, the income from the estate was to be used not only for marriage and funeral expenses, but also to assist scholars in study by releasing them from financial concerns, and even to provide some security for officeholders, since "the days in office are few, and the days of retirement are many." In his preface to an account of the estate, Shih Hao suggested that its purpose was to encourage the self-cultivation of shih-ta-fu by providing financial assistance that would allow them to concentrate on the completion of their development as moral individuals.^[58]

In a commemorative inscription on the same estate, Lou Yueh mentions the Fan estate and that of his own family but declares the community estate superior, presumably because it was directed to the needs of the entire community of shih , not just of one descent group.^[59] Images of Wang Ssu-wen (chin-shih 1112), Wang Ta-yu's father and Lou Yueh's maternal grandfather, of Shen Huan, and of Shih Hao were honored at the estate. An inscription on the Former Worthies' Sacrificial Hall at the estate by Wang Ying-lin (1223-1296) explained that the sacrificial hall was begun in 1217 to honor the Three Worthies for their contribution to the local community by establishing the charitable estate, and stated: "The Great Learning considered this [kind of undertaking] to be the means to bring peace to the world [p'ing t'ien-hsia ]."^[60] Wang went on to make references to the "community compact" (hsiang-yueh ) of Lü Ta-chün and to Ch'en Hsiang's (1017-1080) achievements as a local teacher as exemplary models of the use of local means and resources to help people and thereby to "bring peace

[56] Yuan Chueh et al., (Yen-yu ) Ssu-ming chih (SYTFCTS ed.), 14.41a-45b.

[57] Ibid., 14.41a.

[58] Ibid., 14.42a.

[59] Ibid., 14.44a.

[60] Yen-yu , 14.45b.

to the world."^[61] The gazetteer for the late Yuan lists extensive landholdings, income, and buildings for the estate, so it is apparent that it not only survived but, unlike most descent-group estates, continued to prosper.

A similar community charitable estate was set up in Chien-k'ang (Chiang-ning, Liang-che) in 1251 by the prefect Wu Yuan (1190-1257) to aid "poor" officeholding families with the costs of education, marriages, and funerals, and to support them through the vicissitudes of official careers.^[62] It was modeled on the community charitable estate of Yin county in Ming-chou, which, according to the sources on the Chien-k'ang estate, was attached to the local school, as the original one established by Shih Hao had been. Here, however, surplus income could be used to support students at the school. An inscription on this estate in the local history also cites the precedents of the Fan estate and the community charitable estate in Yin county, but remarks that the charity of Fan Chung-yen's estate stopped with the descent group, while the community estate extended charity further to the whole community of elite lineages.^[63] Elsewhere, at about the same time that Shih Hao established the community estate in Shao-hsing, Chao Shan-yü (1143-1189), serving as registrar of Ch'ang-kuo county in Ming-chou, exhorted wealthy families there to buy land, the income from which would be used to support the marriages and funerals of poor people (perhaps still of shih status?).^[64] Although the date is not clear, a similar institution, called a "charitable estate for scholars" (i shih-chuang ), was set up by Lei Te-jun, preceptor of the government school in Fu-chou (Fu-chien).^[65] He used surplus school grain to buy land, whose income was to aid poor scholars for marriages and funerals, in old age, and in sickness.

There were probably, given the limits of the sources available to us, a good many more such estates in Southern Sung China. Alongside them in the same period we may place the "charitable service" estates founded privately to lessen the burden of draft village service on local elites and others; the numerous private "normal-purchase" estates and granaries,^[66] founded

[61] For Ch'en Hsiang, see SBM 3:2518. Niida Noboru specifically linked the "community compact" of the Lu family to the conception of charitable estates. See Niida Noboru, Chugoku hoseishi kenkyu (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1962), p. 142.

[62] Chien-k'ang chih , 28.24b-28a.

[63] Chien-k'ang chih , 28.26b-27a; 28a.

[64] Lou Yueh, 102.1429; T'o T'o et al., Sung shih (Taipei: Ting-wen), 247 (lieh-chuan 6): 8762.

[65] Wang Tz'u-ts'ai and Feng Yun-hao, Sung-Yuan hsueh-an pu-i (Ssu-ming ts'ung-shu ed.), 3.55b.

[66] An example is the Original Price Estate (pen-chia chuang ) of the Ch'en of T'ai-chou. The founder of this estate contributed funds to purchase grain when it was abundant and the price low, and then sold it at half the market price when grain became scarce and the price high. After the founder's death, his two sons divided up the property; and since each got 10,000 mou (10 ch'ing ), with the remainder going to the continuation of the estate, the Ch'en property must have been extensive. See Lin Piao-min, 12.15b-17b.

to ease the impact of price swings on poor farmers; and the community granaries examined in chapter 5 of this volume by Richard yon Glahn. These institutions certainly differed in important ways. The community estates considered here, for example, resembled charitable-service estates in directing their aid largely at elite members in relative poverty or temporary difficulty, whereas normal-purchase institutions and community granaries aimed more broadly at improving the lot of the farming population as a whole. Yet all resembled one another in certain ways as well. All may be viewed, on the one hand, as indications of the consolidation of local elites' ties to one another and position within their localities. On the other hand, they should be seen as reflecting a new attitude toward the community and state: an attitude that emphasized local, voluntary efforts (even though these often involved the cooperation, if not the direct action, of local officials) to resolve local social and economic problems. Moving from the institutional to the ideological level, I will discuss the motives and justifications for the founding of charitable estates, gleaned from the accounts of contemporaries who composed inscriptions commemorating estates or their founders.

Charitable Consciousness

How did people explain or justify charitable estates? On what intellectual foundations were they based? What relation did these ideas have to attitudes toward the descent group, the community, and the state? Some tentative answers can be found in the background discussions contained in commemorative inscriptions for a number of estates. Perhaps the most fundamental and most frequently cited aim proposed in this literature is to strengthen the ties of the descent group by providing support for its members. Support is provided for ancestral rites, funerals, and graves, to maintain these symbols of descent-group unity; and also for marriage and schooling, matters vital to the group's status. While human compassion for the suffering of one's kin is often expressed, it is frequently couched in terms of reverence for ancestors.^[67] Similarly, writers refer to the unity of rich and poor as the reasons for the obligations of the rich, but this is generally done within the framework of kinship.

Such arguments concern relations within the descent group and the efficacy of charitable estates in uniting it (ho tsu or ho tsung-tsu ). But a number of writers went beyond kinship to discuss what they saw as classical and historical precedents, and to present charitable estates, even when limited to kin, as a contemporary revival of some of the basic principles of gover-

[67] See Liu Tsai, 23.10b, 21.32a, where he supports the same idea with a quotation from Fan Chung-yen, and 21.33b-34a; also Lu Yu, 21.3-4; Wei Liao-weng, 44.16a.

nance that prevailed in antiquity under the sage-kings. The most extensive such discussion I have found is by the Neo-Confucian scholar Hu Yin (1098-1156), who wrote in detail about the era of the well-field system as a model of political economy and harmonious social relations:

In the good government of the illustrious kings of ancient times, they calculated the [number of] mouths and allocated land [accordingly], so that people would all receive clothing and food and there would be no extremes of poverty or wealth. The poor did not lack the means to sustain themselves; nor did the rich go beyond the limits of the [sumptuary] laws. All had the means of nourishment. Thus the well-field system, using righteousness to attain profit, was [the way to] make the world "public" [kung ] and to achieve harmony and peace. After the Ch'in opened up the dividing lines and destroyed the boundaries, people used their intelligence and strength to set up their own lands, and then oppressed each other in their [pursuit of] things. . . . If we examine the later results, "the city walls fell back into the moat,"^[68] and people held on to precious things only to lose their lives over them. Although the noble and mean were not equal, they were the same [in their pursuit of things]. When T'ang and Y6 established the feudal states, they divided the big and small into li [townships]. As we see in the book of Yü-kung, the li were simply the well-fields. When the Chou fell, the strong swallowed the weak. The many quickly were absorbed by the few, and the myriad states were consolidated and became six or seven. But the lords of these six or seven states were not yet satisfied in their hearts. They formed deceitful stratagems, sharpened their spears and knives; the dead covered the fields, and flowing blood filled the rivers. Ch'in Shih-huang-ti was the harshest of these. Finally, there was no one who did not turn against even those they loved most. This was because they abandoned righteousness and struggled over profit.

Mencius took the well-field system as the first order of humane government. . . . From the Han and T'ang on, the shih-ta-fu households who have been able to maintain themselves for several generations and not fall, if they have not simply inherited wealth, have managed their resources [in order to maintain themselves]. They wrote ritual rules so that those who occupied the positions of leaders would not dare to be selfish, and those below would not dare to act recklessly. All the sacrificing, banquets, funerals, and weddings were appropriately conducted. . . . And the grace of mutual support and mutual giving spread through the tsu

Today the gentlemen [shih ] in a district allow the households to the east to be poor and the households to the west to be wealthy. Those who carry out the Way must criticize this unevenness. How much more [ought one to criticize this] in the gathering of a household, where the elders have delicious food to eat and beautiful clothes to wear, and the younger have [only] chaff to eat and hemp to wear, and do not avoid hunger and cold? In the present dynasty, Fan Chung-yen set up a charitable estate [to counteract this] at Ku-su. It was

[68] A quotation from the I-ching , indicating doom.

greatly regarded by the elite, and it was a model, from the household to the state.^[69]

Hu Yin concludes this inscription on the Shih charitable estate in Ch'eng-tu (Ch'eng-tu-fu) by returning to the theme of the well-field and "feudal" (feng-chien ) system, arguing that since it was not possible to restore these, the shih-ta-fu could establish charitable lands as a means to achieve some of the same ends.

Developing the same theme, Huang Chin (1277-1357) wrote in an inscription on a late Southern Sung or early Yuan charitable estate:

Ah! From what does the name "righteousness" (i ) come? Humanity means loving your kin. Doing the proper thing at the appropriate time is righteousness. It is what rites arise from. This being so, I have heard that the ancients in establishing rites used the well-field system to pool their resources (li ). They used the community (pi-lü q and the clan (tsu-tang ) to attain social stability. After that, they helped each other in emergencies and celebrated each other's joyous events, were sympathetic with each other at deaths and funerals, and nourished the sick. [But] this was still not sufficient to exhort people to love their kin. Therefore there were the regulations for the patrilineal descent line [tsung-fa ], and the meaning of these lay not simply in residing together [but in following appropriate mourning rituals].^[70]

Another Sung writer, in an inscription on an estate in Fu-chien, similarly praised the era of the well-field system and the descent-group organization that evolved at the same time:

[They] helped each other in hard times. . . . The established teachings of the sages always arise from treating kin as kin and treating elders as superiors. . . . The people submitted to and practiced the admonitions from above. And "commiserating consciousness" could regularly begin from those near at hand. This was the origin of the Three Dynasties' moral transformation [chiao-hua ].

Later, the boundaries were opened up and the tsung lost continuity. Many dispersed to the four directions, and deaths and moves were not reported; the benevolence of treating kin as kin narrowed. How could the "good heart" not remain? It was simply because of historical trends [not because of the disappearance of the innate "good heart"]. The point was reached when rites and righteousness were not heard or seen, cultural transformation [feng-hua ] was not practiced, and the selfish heart triumphed. Feelings for the distant and for those outside begin with bones and flesh [i.e., with kin] because of their nearness. [Yet] people did not take care of their brother's poverty but [only] struggled over profit.^[71]

[69] Hu Yin, 21.8a-10a.

[70] Huang Chin, 7.14b.

[71] Yu Chiu-yen, hsia . 29b.

After describing these historical changes as a falling away from the pristine society of antiquity, and then giving details of the establishment of this charitable estate, the writer returned to the theme of the unity of the tsung , echoing ideas expressed by his contemporaries above:

Men's lives begin with their parents. Extending this on a large scale, numerous generations, even though they are distant, all are of the same vital energy [ch'i ]. Who lacks a heart that empathizes with this? . . . The regulations for the patrilineal descent line [tsung-fa ] have declined, and the gentlemen [shih chün-tzu ] lack the land to fulfill their intentions of being kinlike and harmonious; there is only the charitable estate, the one thing, that still is able somewhat to unite the descent group [tsung-tsu ] and receive the dispersed. . . . And the family law of Fan Chung-yen is most complete. . . . The wealthy put out capital in order to help their kin, the poor have food, and thereby their conduct is good. It is the way of correct [cheng ] mutual encouragement.^[72]

As seen in this inscription and in many others, the Fan estate is cited as a model and a precedent for charitable estates founded in the Southern Sung and later in the Yuan; but here, as in other writings cited above, that reference is embedded in a broader discussion of classical and historical institutional models, in particular the well-field system. The main argument was succinctly put by Wei Liao-weng:

The ancients resided in communities [pi-lü ] and cultivated the well-fields. Income and expenditures were shared, and savings were always put aside for aid. When the surplus was insufficient, they always aided each other. [Even in] adversity they always contributed to accumulation [of a surplus]. There was none who did not enable men to live and be nourished in order to help complete the virtue born of Heaven and Earth. In later generations those who produce wealth for themselves are hard; and when individuals in distress knock at their doors, they refuse them. . . Mencius said: "He who lacks a commiserating heart is not a man."^[73]

Thus a community institution, the putative well-field system of antiquity, was cited as an ideal of communal support and so as a model for charitable estates. Southern Sung and Yuan men here put forward explicitly the notion of a retreat or withdrawal, though without particularly negative connotations, from public action and national institutions to a sort of statecraft of the family and community at the local level. Returning to the well-field system was recognized as impossible, but the charitable estate was for these writers an imperfect but historically possible means to accomplish some of the same ends. Similarly, a Yuan writer, Ch'en Kao (1314-1366), describing a charitable estate and school in the Yuan, argued:

[72] Yu Chiu-yen, hsia . 31a-b.

[73] Wei Liao-weng, 42.16a.

In the era of the Three Dynasties, [those of the] same community [tang ] helped each other, [those of the] same prefecture [chou ] were charitable toward each other, and those in office were punished for not being compassionate and thereby correcting the shortcomings. In those days people all knew to divide surplus and supplement insufficiencies, and to help people in need. Since then the way of the world has declined and kingly government is not carried out. Each person is selfish about his wealth, weighing and calculating, counting and comparing, hesitating to pay out. This extends even to their bones and flesh [kin]. Even though someone is in extremity, cold and hungry, on the brink of death, still they keep distant and do not pity him, remain unmoved and do not think themselves responsible. In such circumstances, to take one's property and use it to succor those in difficulties can only be considered having the heart of a benevolent man. . . . The heart of Ch'en [who established a charitable estate] was humane, indeed! Formerly Fan Chung-yen established a charitable estate at Ku-su. Several hundred years have passed and it still remains, but is seldom heard of. The one who carried on the tradition was Ch'en. He heard of the Fan estate and took it up as [a model]. Even though the rules were not precisely the same, still each had its own strengths, and the benevolence of this [commiserating] heart was the same. If one could cause the wealthy people of the age all to have hearts like Ch'en's, and the people to be generous toward their tsu and compassionate toward their neighbors, then charity would spread far and wide. How can one not see generous customs as supplementing [or: compensating for the lack of] kingly government?^[74]

Like the Southern Sung authors already cited, this Yuan writer explicitly linked voluntary and local initiatives, no matter whether in private within the descent group or in public through community estates ("to be generous toward their kin and compassionate toward their neighbors"), to an ideal of "kingly government." The maintenance of social order in the past was understood as a natural reflection of "kingly government." Charitable institutions, a manifestation of "generous customs," it was suggested, were logical and laudable "supplements" (in the sense of compensation for a current deficiency or lack) to "kingly government." Although this statement is of Yuan origin, and may in part reflect the background of a period when Chinese authors felt that "kingly government" had in a profoundly literal sense disappeared, still the ideas represented here flow logically out of Southern Sung discussions of the motives behind charitable estates. In these discussions and in others justifying charitable estates, no contradiction is recognized between the proper needs of an individual descent group and those of the community; rather, it could more accurately be said that the welfare of the two was seen as linked.

[74] Ch'en Kao, Pu-hsi chou-yu chi (Ching-hsiang lou ts'ung-shu ed.), 12.7a-b.

Charitable estates for both descent group and community may be seen as part of a single evolving Southern Sung "statecraft" tradition, in that both sought to use economic aid and mutual support to stabilize and harmonize social relations. The Confucian idea that the order of the state was linked to harmonious relations within the family, and the Mencian notion that social order depended on economic welfare, provided ideological backing for both lineage and community estates. Ostensibily the Sung state recognized its own responsibility for charitable institutions, but in fact in Southern Sung the state had neither the means nor—since its attitude toward large and potentially powerful local organizations was necessarily ambivalent—the will to provide support for elite descent groups, however impoverished they might be. Thus with the rise of local elites in the Southern Sung it fell to their members, as individuals and as descent groups, to secure and protect their own resources; and this they attempted to do in part through charitable estates. Descent group and shih community need not be at odds here, since in most cases by the Southern Sung extensive affinal ties linked the elite members of different descent groups in a single locality. Thus a community estate could be seen as partly the extension of a descent group's corporate holdings through a network of marriages, with the added advantage that, like that network but unlike descent-group lands, this estate served only the elite and not its masses of poorer kinsmen.^[75] A clear example is the community charitable estate established in Yin county, Ming prefecture, where the web of marriages among local elite families has been amply documented.^[76]

Southern Sung descent-group and community charitable estates were products of private, local, voluntary efforts. This was true even when local officials like Shih Hao took the lead in a community estate's founding. Both kinds of estates were designed to provide material assistance that would allow individuals to survive at a level commensurate with their status. But more important, they were intended to promote consciousness of a common identity, rooted in descent in the case of lineage estates, or in the common position in society and relation to the state shared by the shih in the case of community estates. These motives were explicitly linked to notions of governance and of the proper ordering of society by founders and commemorators who claimed a classical and historical basis for charitable estates, arguing that they represented, in changed historical circumstances, the principles of communal economy and social harmony seen in the idealized society of antiquity, particularly in the well-fields. A specific historical con-

[75] On local elite marriage networks in Southern Sung, see, for example, the work of Robert Hymes cited above in note 5.

[76] See Walton, "Kinship, Marriage, and Status."

sciousness, rooted in awareness of their own historical circumstances—the fall of the Northern Sung, the failure of state power and of the aggressive state-based reform associated with Wang An-shih and his disciples—informed these writers' perception of charitable estates and enabled them to present them as latter-day reflections of classical social and political norms, and so as experiments in governance in their own right.

Appendix: Southern Sung Charitable Lands and Estates