Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2014

 

The System of 'Five Ranks of Nobility' and the Political System of the Nobility in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties              

(Abstract)

 

Liu Yuan

 

The system of five ranks of nobility (五等爵制) was never really put into practice in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties. Their political system was one of inner and outer domains. The outer domains system of the vassal lords included the titles of Hou, Dian, Nan, Wei and Bangbo, but out of these five ranks, only the titles Hou and Nan belonged to the vassal lords. Gong, Bo and Zi essentially referred respectively to one who was advanced in years and held a high position; to the Bozhang and the eldest son of the principal wife; and to the head of the clan and the eldest son of the principal lineage. Thus these three titles were widely used for the nobility and not limited to the vassal lords. During the Spring and Autumn period, the royal house was in decline, and the Son of Heaven was incapable of restraining the various nobles’ expansion and amalgamation of their inner and outer domains. As a result, the "inner and outer domains" system collapsed. The nobility with the rank of Bo (formerly an internal title), who had become rivals of the Son of Heaven, those holding the rank of Hou and Nan (formerly external titles), and the ruler of the barbarian tribes, who bore the title of Zi, together with Dukes of Song, descendants of the Yin kings, frequently met in alliances and on the battlefield. The records of the official historians produced the invented order of precedence of "Gong, Hou, Bo, Zi, and Nan" in The Spring and Autumn Annals. This order not only concealed the system of inner and outer domains of the Yin and Zhou Dynasties and the system of Hou, Dian, Nan, Wei and Bangbo for the vassal lords, but also provided ready-made material for Warring States scholars to set up their ideal models of a kingly system with five ranks of nobility, five or even nine degrees of mourning apparel, etc. in accordance with military exploits.