Shrines to Living Officials and Political Participation in Ming China, 1368-1644

FAIN: FA-56424-12

Sarah Schneewind
Regents of the University of California, San Diego (La Jolla, CA 92093-0013)

Ming people inherited and created a landscape dotted with temples and shrines honoring not only deities, but men and women. Scholars have studied shrines to dead people, but have hardly noticed a very common set of shrines to men who were still alive. Ideally built by local commoners sorry to part with a good official moving to another post, pre-mortem shrines were legal, accepted, and ubiquitous. They could be temporary or permanent, large or small; some men were enshrined together, while one county magistrate had an image in each home. This first book on pre-mortem shrines will focus on Ming, whose autocratic, bureaucratic monarchy is often seen as the height of despotism in China, and posed as the defining other to a democratizing Europe. I will show that Ming subjects, not just elite men but also commoners, used pre-mortem shrines to claim roles in politics, claims recognized as legitimate within the Mandate of Heaven ideology that justified imperial power.

Associated Products

Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine (Article)
Title: Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine
Author: Sarah Schneewind
Abstract: Ming (1368-1644) subjects of all classes, theoretically without a voice in the selection of bureaucratic personnel and setting of government policy in their hometowns, exploited the dynamic tensions within the orthodox Mandate of Heaven ideology to claim a legitimate political voice through one ubiquitous yet understudied local institution, the pre-mortem shrine. Meant to express gratitude to good magistrates and prefects moving on to other positions, the shrines were suspect as flattering an official in hopes of return favors. To forestall accusations of such corrupt gentry networking, steles for living shrines included or invented the voices of local commoners. Whether this meant that commoners living under the reality of autocracy and class oppression could actually affect personnel and policy or not, erecting such steles as permanent features in the landscape did legitimate commoner’s political participation within the same discourse that justified imperial rule and the dominance of educated men.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911812002203
Access Model: JSTOR
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Asian Studies
Publisher: Cambridge UP: Journal of Asian Studies 72.2 (May 2013): 345-366

Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos (Book)
Title: Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos
Author: Sarah Schneewind
Abstract: "Explores premortem shrine theory to illuminate Ming politics, including the Donglin Party's battle with eunuch dictator Wei Zhongxian and Gu Yanwu's theories. Argues that because elites often served their own interests, shrine rhetoric stressed the role of commoners, which allowed for the expansion of public opinion in late imperial China
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/shrines-to-living-men-in-the-ming-political-cosmos/oclc/1088865476&referer=brief_results
Publisher: Harvard University Asia Center
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780674987142
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Pavilions to Celebrate Honest Officials (Que Jin Ting) (Article)
Title: Pavilions to Celebrate Honest Officials (Que Jin Ting)
Author: Sarah Schneewind
Abstract: The Lodge of Spurned Gold honoring He Wenyuan何文淵 (1385-1457), in its political context, presented an “authenticity dilemma.” Related to emic terms like 近名 (to chase fame), “authenticity dilemma” refers to an honor for a good act raising doubts about sincerity. The Lodge spawned Spurned-Gold Pavilions (que jin ting卻金亭) to Ming envoys and other officials. Accounts of Pavilions and the Lodge changed over time to manage the dilemma. From one-time refusals of cash gifts from subordinate officials and individual subjects, narratives came to present honorees as life-long exemplars cherished by local commoners.
Year: 2021
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Publisher: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

The Lady Vanishes: Religious Conflict and Premortem Enshrinement in Sixteenth-Century China (Article)
Title: The Lady Vanishes: Religious Conflict and Premortem Enshrinement in Sixteenth-Century China
Author: Sarah Schneewind
Abstract: This article centers on the career of one sixteenth-century Chinese official, Lin Jun, to connect several religious phenomena of Ming times (1368-1644). The well-known mutual toleration, even syncretism, among Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and the popular religion – referred to by Voltaire – is only one side of Ming religious life. During the high Ming, in particular, zealous Confucian officials launched attacks on temples of the other religions, dubbing them “improper shrines.” The images of some of these men were placed into shrines to receive offerings while they were alive. Such premortem shrines have been seen as primarily political, but in this case, they honored men who had angered the people of the jurisdiction, and in a sense replaced deities important to the community. Viewing premortem shrines in the light of religious competition suggests that the shrines may have captured a kind of violent spiritual power not normally associated with Confucian officials.
Year: 2021
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Sixteenth Century Journal

How the Primer-Literate Read Ming Steles: A Digital Speculation (Article)
Title: How the Primer-Literate Read Ming Steles: A Digital Speculation
Author: Sarah Schneewind
Abstract: Historians disagree about the role of literacy in Ming society. Certainly, the stone inscriptions that littered the Chinese landscape displayed elaborate essays showing the gentry author’s erudition and compositional skill. Yet steles for shrines to living officials also sent political messages. They authorized and amplified the voice of “the common people,” embodying and explicitly arguing for a popular voice in the evaluation of magistrates and prefects. How were these texts on public monuments understood by the many Ming people with only basic literacy? The Late Imperial Primer Literacy Sieve is a digital tool that sifts a target text, such as a commemorative stele, leaving only the characters found in one or more primers. The Sieve may bring us closer to understanding not only what was written, but what was read. The article argues that the message of premortem steles about popular participation could indeed come across.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: http://doi:10.1017/jch.2019.43
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Chinese History
Publisher: Cambridge UP

Peculiar Living Shrines and Yuan Governance as Background to Ming Populism (Article)
Title: Peculiar Living Shrines and Yuan Governance as Background to Ming Populism
Author: Sarah Schneewind
Abstract: Although post-mortem apotheosis and secular honor in temples have received more attention, shrines to living men were also ordinary institutions from Han times onwards in Chinese history. Previous scholarship so far on pre-mortem shrines in Tang and Song relates them to pre-mortem commemoration in inscribed records of local commendation on the one hand and Neo-Confucian Daoxue Shrines to Local Worthies on the other. That scholarly work suggests that Tang and Song premortem shrines when political were basically elite institutions; and that when common people were involved their motivations were religious rather than political. In Ming times, by contrast, premortem shrines were normatively established by commoners and constituted a venue for popular political participation, while the steles commemorating the shrines explicitly argued that non-elite people had the right to political speech. This article speculates, as a hypothesis awaiting further research, that both Yuan modes of government generally, and creative uses of premortem enshrinement in Yuan times specifically, may have contributed to Ming populism.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: http://DOI 10.3868/s020-008-019-0011-6
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Frontiers of History in China

Voice on China – Sarah Schneewind: Author, “Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos” (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Voice on China – Sarah Schneewind: Author, “Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos”
Director: Johanna Costigan, Young China Watcher
Abstract: Sarah Schneewind holds degrees from Cornell University, Yale University, and Columbia University. She has studied the relations between state and society during the Ming era (1368-1644) in three books. “Community Schools and the State in Ming China” shows change over time in the local implementation of one policy, arguing that the center did not determine the policy’s course. “A Tale of Two Melons” traces the way the first Ming emperor, his advisors, and people at the local level interpreted one lucky omen. “Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos” argues that shrines to living officials (生祠) constituted, among many other things, a legitimate way for commoners to participate in politics under the autocratic, bureaucratic Ming monarchy. Schneewind teaches courses on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean history at UC San Diego. She has been President of the Society for Ming Studies, and runs a website called “The Ming History English Translation Project.” She has also developed a digital tool called The Late Imperial Primer Literacy Sieve.
Date: 07/16/2019
Primary URL: http://https://www.youngchinawatchers.com/voice-on-china-sarah-schneewind-author-shrines-to-living-men-in-the-ming-political-cosmos/
Format: Web

Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos
Writer: Michael Laha
Director: Michael Laha of China File, Asia Society
Abstract: Harvard University Press: Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos places the institution of pre-mortem shrines at the intersection of politics and religion. When a local official left his post, grateful subjects housed an image of him in a temple, requiting his grace: that was the ideal model. By Ming times, the “living shrine” was legal, old, and justified by readings of the classics. Sarah Schneewind argues that the institution could invite and pressure officials to serve local interests; the policies that had earned a man commemoration were carved into stone beside the shrine. Since everyone recognized that elite men might honor living officials just to further their own careers, pre-mortem shrine rhetoric stressed the role of commoners, who embraced the opportunity by initiating many living shrines. This legitimate, institutionalized political voice for commoners expands a scholarly understanding of “public opinion” in late imperial China, aligning it with the efficacy of deities to create a nascent political conception Schneewind calls the “minor Mandate of Heaven.” Her exploration of pre-mortem shrine theory and practice illuminates Ming thought and politics, including the Donglin Party’s battle with eunuch dictator Wei Zhongxian and Gu Yanwu’s theories.
Date: 05/29/2019
Primary URL: http://https://www.chinafile.com/library/books/shrines-living-men-ming-political-cosmos
Format: Web

Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos (Radio/Audio Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos
Director: Sarah Bramao-Ramos of New Books in East Asian Studies
Abstract: What recourse did you have in Ming China if your very excellent local official was leaving your area and moving on to a new jurisdiction? You could try to block his path, you could wail and tear your hair out – or you could house an image of him in a temple, make offerings before it, and create a ‘living shrine.’ In Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018), Sarah Schneewind explores every angle of this practice, covering everything from what living shrines looked like and how many there were, to how they functioned as both expressions of gratitude and (more importantly) ways through which Ming subjects could speak out publicly. Beautifully written and elegantly built, this book not only tells you everything you never knew you wanted to know about living shrines, it makes reading about them a joy.
Date: 05/15/2020
Primary URL: http://https://newbooksnetwork.com/sarah-schneewind-shrines-to-living-men-in-the-ming-political-cosmos-harvard-asia-center-2018
Format: Web

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