"Printing for Prestige? Publishing and Publications by Ming Princes (Part 1)", East Asian Publishing and Society, vol. 1(2011), pp. 39-73

EAST ASIAN PUBLISHING AND SOCIETY East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 brill.nl/eaps Printing for Prestige? Publishing and Publications by Ming Princes1 Jérôme Kerlouégan École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France jkerlouegan@yahoo.com Abstract Scattered throughout the realm in a great number of provincial courts, Ming imperial clansmen did not wield political or military power. Some among them therefore used their energies to publish books; indeed, the publishing activities of the Ming princes constitute one of many elements of what can be termed “princely culture.” Even though princely imprints formed an insigniicant proportion of Ming publications, a large number of them have survived to our day. Based on the examination of approximately 240 such editions, this essay explores the relationships between the princes and the literati who assisted them. It raises questions central to princely publishing: How learned were the princes? What books did they publish? For which audiences and with what objectives? What are the main characteristics of princely publications? Did princes have well-deined publishing strategies? he last section of the essay addresses the heritage of Ming princely publications in the Qing dynasty. his essay will be published in several installments in East Asian Publishing and Society. he bibliography for the whole essay will be published with the last installment. Keywords Ming imperial clan, Ming publishing, rare books, Ming princely publishing, book collections 1 his essay is a synthesis of investigations I have undertaken and data I have accumulated on Ming princely publications. I wish to thank the organizers of the conference “Imprimer sans proit? Le livre commercial dans la Chine impériale” (Paris, June 13-15, 2009), and in particular Professor Michela Bussotti, for ofering me the opportunity to present this work to the public. Professor Bussotti’s subsequent proofreading and critical feedback also substantially improved this essay. I likewise wish to express my gratitude to all those who, in many diferent ways, facilitated my research: Pierre-Henri Durand, Marianne Bujard, Olivier Venture, Wang Huayan, Xie Xinzhe, Alice Bianchi, John Finlay, Michela Bussotti, Pierre-Étienne Will, Han Qi, Mau Chuan-hui, Xu Quansheng, Osamu Takamizawa, Mi Chü Wiens, Shen Jin, and Martin Heijdra. I also want to thank Pauline Sebillaud, who not only provided me with copies of primary sources but also skillfully helped me elaborate the appendices. Finally, I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her useful comments. NB: Frequently the given names of imperial clansmen include invented characters or, at best, very rare and diicult to reproduce characters. I have thus chosen not to provide characters for any of the imperial princes. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/221062811X577503 40 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 Introduction During the Ming period, members of the imperial clan constituted a plurality of the nobility. In the sixteenth century, they numbered in the tens of thousands. 2 In Western sinology, however, they have received scant attention. his article focuses on one among many of their cultural activities: publishing. To make a distinction between Ming princely3 interest in publishing (and collecting) books and their wider engagement with music, calligraphy, painting, poetry, theater, or even Buddhism or Daoism is certainly artiicial. Isolating those cultural activities from their political and economic contexts is equally misleading. What cultural studies terminology now designates “imperial clan (zongfan 宗藩) culture”4 is constituted by the ensemble of these different ields. If the revival of the history of the Chinese book in the last ifteen years invites us to reexamine the question of princely publications using new approaches (the social history of the book, quantitative methods, the materiality of the book, and so forth), there exists another avenue by which the issues can be addressed—that is, the social history of the imperial clan. While scholars have focused considerable attention on the history of imperial houses in recent years, their work has centered chiely on the Song and Qing periods. Although the Ming literati were thoroughly familiar with the princely courts, the social, political, economic, and cultural history of the Zhu 朱 clan is yet to be written. As a non-specialist in the history of the book, I have approached the reassessment of princely publishing by situating it within the political, 2 he other segment of the nobility was the merit nobility, composed of descendants of men who had been ennobled for services rendered to the dynasty. For a treatment of the imperial clan’s size see Wu Jihua, “Lun Mingdai zongfan renkou,” and Gu Cheng, “Mingdai de zongshi,” 97-98. By way of example, the house of Shen in the Jiajing era had ten (and by the Wanli era twenty) times more members than during the Hongzhi era. See Lu’an fuzhi (1612), 2/18b-19a, which notes that “today, [members of the princely household] go on foot, in considerable numbers, illing the markets and streets somewhat like commoners.” As early as 1501, the growth of the imperial clan was a topic for the provincial examination in Nanjing (cf. Lu Shen, “Yuanfengtang manshu,” in Yanshan waiji, in Siku quanshu, 885:51); see also notes 306 and 307 below. 3 I consider princes to be members of the imperial clan who possessed one of the eight ranks of dignity ixed by Zhu Yuanzhang, from the qinwang 親王 (prince of the irst degree) to the fengguo xiaowei 奉國校尉 (prince of the eighth degree). Some readers might ind my inclusion of these inferior ranks gratuitous. Technically speaking, however, they were indeed princes. In certain rare instances I even take the liberty of using the term “prince” to designate members of the imperial clan who had no princely title at all (on which, see note 5). 4 I am pleased to employ Craig Clunas’s expression “zongfan culture” (electronic correspondence, July 8, 2008). J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 41 social and cultural history of these multiple “local courts.” I have supplemented this approach with a thorough consideration of the princely editions I was able to examine in the libraries of mainland China, Taiwan, Japan and the United States which contain the richest collections of Ming books. Prior to the Ming period, imperial clansmen (zongshi 宗室)5 of reinement could live surrounded by court literati, or could themselves be literati of some renown. hese illustrious forerunners served as explicit models for the Ming princes, who republished some of their writings. Some examples include Liu Xiang’s Shuoyuan 說苑 and Xinxu 新序, Xiao Tong’s Wenxuan 文選 and Liang Zhaoming taizi wenji 梁昭明太子文集, Zhao Shanliao’s Zijing bian 自警編, Zhao Rumou’s Zhouyi jiwen 周易輯聞, and Zhao Lingzhi’s Houqinglu 侯鯖錄, the only notebook (biji 筆記) ever published by the Ming princes.6 But the fact that imperial clansmen published so many books over such a long period of time is unique to the Ming. his, undoubtedly, has to do with the fact that under this dynasty, princes, as we will shortly discover, had no political role whatsoever.7 5 Technically, zongfan designated members of the imperial clan who had been invested with any princely title, whereas zongshi 宗室 denoted any member of the imperial clan, including the poorest and most obscure. 6 he princes of Hejian 河間 and Dongping 東平, the sons of the Han emperors Jing and Guangwu respectively, were the most recurrent references as model scholar princes (the former had helped reconstitute the texts that had disappeared in the Qin book burning). his locus classicus was used by the princes of the Ming whenever they lauded their princely counterparts as well as by the literati when they wished to latter the princes. Although known for his taste in literature, the prince of Huainan, Liu An, was rarely invoked because of the rebellion he instigated. Other exemplary igures included Liu De (Liu Xiang’s father), Liu Xin (his son), Cao Zhi, and, to a lesser extent, the Tang poets Li Bai and Li He, or the literati of whom the Song imperial clan boasted (on these invidividuals, see Chafee, Branches of Heaven, 267-69). 7 he situation under the early Qing was diferent because the Manchu nobility was not only the family of the ruling clan but also the highest caste of a multiethnic society. However closely held in check (they lived in Beijing, and not in the provinces like their Ming counterparts), the Manchu princes remained the regime’s irst servants. he most meritorious held high political and military assignments, which left them little time for literary ventures. hey were expected to be valorous warriors rather than well-read men. hat being said, Manchu princes who did publish books were generally closer to the emperor than Ming publisher-princes, and they also published new books (as opposed to reprinting old books). he most famous cases are to be found among Kangxi’s sons: next to Yinzhi 胤祉, publisher of the well-known Gujin tushu jicheng and Lüli yuanyuan, is the under-valued Yinli 胤禮, an adept of Tibetan Buddhism and the publisher of many books in that domain (see Uspensky, Prince Yunli, 33-36). His case reminds us of the fact that Manchu scholar princes distinguished themselves by their achievements not only in Chinese culture but also in the Manchu, Mongol, and Tibetan cultures. 42 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 1. General Overview of Princely Publishing 1.1. State of the ield; a few igures and famous names Books published by the Ming princes8 are called wangfu ben 王府本 or fanfu (ke)ben 藩府(刻)本. Zhou Hongzu 周弘祖 ( js. 1559) was the irst to list them, in his Gujin shuke 古今書刻. More recently, book historians such as Ye Dehui, at the end of the imperial era, as well as Chang Bide, in the 1950s, and Zhang Xiumin, in his Zhongguo yinshua shi 中國印刷史 (History of Chinese printing, 1989), followed his example.9 Zhang was the irst to surpass a purely bibliographical approach, posing and answering more fundamental and profound questions about Ming princely publications. To this day, his relections remain the most developed in the Chinese language.10 In the West, scholarly 8 As is customary, I translate wang 王 as “prince.” It should be noted, however, that this translation is far from self-evident. Craig Clunas prefers to render wang as “king” (Clunas, “he Other Ming Tombs,” 1 and passim) which bears a striking resemblance to the amusing “roitelet” (i.e. “small king”) chosen by Nicolas Trigault, Matteo Ricci’s translator. While I ultimately ind “king” an unsuitable translation, I do not hesitate to employ the terms “court,” (as in a princely court) “throne,” (as in the throne of a principality) or even “reign” even if these wang were kings or princes without crowns. 9 Ye Dehui, Shulin qinghua; Chang Bide, “Mingfan keshu kao”; Zhang Xiumin, Zhongguo yinshua shi. In their compilations of princely publications, Ye, Chang and Zhang (although not explicitly saying so) rely on the Gujin shuke—which Ye, to my knowledge, was the irst to put in print, in the early years of the 20th century. he Gujin shuke is useful as a point of departure, but provides no information concerning editions or sources utilized. It is a “dry” list, of which half of the titles are no longer extant. Other titles look like egregious mistakes, which raises the question of how Zhou obtained his information. Some major princely houses, such as those of Jin, Shen or Heng, are moreover not included in the list. he distribution of texts among the diferent princely houses and the lists of titles published by each house as they appear in the Gujin shuke bear little resemblance to what we are able to reconstruct today. Zhou Hongzu’s list poses other problems. It lists, for example, ifty-seven titles for the house of Yiyang alone, while only one survives to this day. he titles counted as Yiyang publications by Zhou are actually listed today under the house of Ning (the main house; Yiyang is a collateral house), for which Zhou does not list any titles. Finally, Zhou’s list, compiled at a date that I was not able to determine with precision, does not cover the whole dynasty. For a convenient tabulation of princely publications listed in the Gujin shuke, see Li Zhizhong, Lidai keshu kaoshu, 242-43. 10 Secondary literature produced since Zhang Xiumin falls short on many fronts. It remains supericial, repetitive, and repeatedly rehearses the same general points, problems attributable to a failure to engage with the books themselves and lack of suicient attention paid to princely publishing. Despite their deiciences, the following retain their usefullness: Wei Yinru, Zhongguo guji yinshua shi, 95-99; Li Zhizhong, Lidai keshu kaoshu, 229-39 and Gudai banyin tonglun, 23744; Zhou Xinhui, Banke banhua shi, 246-48 ; Zhou Xinhui, ed., Mingdai banke tushi, introd., 8-9; Miao Yonghe, Mingdai chuban shigao, 58-60; Zhao Qian and Zhang Zhiqing, “Book Publishing”; Guo Mengliang, “Mingdai zongfan de tushu shiye”; Yu Shuchun, “Mingdai fanwang”; Zhao Qian, Mingben, 23-29 and Mingdai banke tudian, 16-21. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 43 interest on the topic began recently with Lucille Chia, who has detailed the main characteristics of princely publishing, contrasting it with commercial publishing.11 As Appendix 1 shows, Ming princely publishing activity extended throughout the dynasty, but peaked in the sixteenth-century, from the Jiajing12 era (1522-66) to the early Wanli era (1573-1620), reaching a zenith between 1520 and 1580. In the early Ming, several great igures among literati princes published and (above all) wrote a great deal. First generation authors include Zhu Quan 朱權 (prince of Ning), Zhu Su 朱橚 (prince of Zhou), Zhu Zhan 朱栴 (prince of Qing), and Zhu Youdun 朱有燉, a well-known playwright of the second generation.13 I consider their cases to merit separate research for the following reasons: the high quantity of books that some of them wrote (which deserves attention in and of itself ), the imprecise dates and circumstances 11 Chia, “Publications of the Ming Principalities,” and “he Uses of Print of Ming Dynasty China.” To my knowledge, prior to Lucille Chia, Ming princely publishing had only been mentioned in passing (e.g., K.T. Wu, “Ming Printing and Printers,” 238-39, and Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Paper and Printing, 178). 12 For reasons that have yet to be elucidated, but which may be connected to his personal destiny (he was born and grew up in a princely ief ), Jiajing signiicantly strengthened the relationships with members of the imperial clan in the provinces, in particular by sending them books and “christening” their studios. Imperial clansmen did not want to be outdone by him: throughout his reign, they bombarded him with congratulatory essays and other panegyrics, as well as declarations informing him of extraordinary phenomena or good omens, and so forth. 13 On Zhu Su, Zhu Quan, and Zhu Youdun, see DMB, 350-54, 305-07, and 380-81. Zhu Zhan, alias Ningzhenzi, left a collection, Ningzhen gao 凝真稿 (now lost). A good many of his compositions are to be found, scattered, in the gazetteer he compiled (or in the compilation of which he was involved?), Ningxia zhi 寧夏志. Zhu Zhan is also remembered as the compiler of an anthology, Wenzhang leixuan 文章類選 (see Section 5). Zhu Chun too left a collection, the Xianyuan ji 獻 集, and is known for several publications. In Fengyang, he was in contact with Su Boheng 蘇伯衡, one of the great Jinhua men of letters who were advisors to Zhu Yuanzhang. Once in his Sichuan ief, he invited Fang Xiaoru 方孝孺 to tutor his heir. Zhu Youdun, Zhu Su’s son, came to be the second prince of Zhou (r. 1436-39), but most of his output dates back to the time he was only the crown prince. Various works by W. Idema have shed light on his literary and dramatic œuvre (see for example he Dramatic Oeuvre of Chu Yu-tun). To these princes, one can add Zhu Zhi, Zhu Yuanzhang’s ifteenth son and the irst prince of Liao, who likewise seems to have been a literatus prince engaged in publishing: he surrounded himself with literati and reprinted a medical collection (Dongyuan shishu 東垣十書, see Section 2.1). His writings were published or republished by his great-grandson Zhu Enji, ifth prince of Liao (see Appendix 7.2). Around the same time, king Sejong’s (r. 1418-50) third son, prince of Anp’yŏng 安平 (14181453), Yi Yong 李瑢, was the Korean counterpart of Ming literati princes. A calligrapher, admirer of Zhao Mengfu, collector of paintings and calligraphy, poet, and bibliophile who opened his library to fellow literati, he published an anthology of Tang and Song poetry. He also published a collection of rubbings of calligraphy models, the Pihaedang Chipkoch’ŏp 匪懈堂集古帖, copied directly from Zhu Youdun’s Dongshutang jigu fatie 東書堂集古法帖 (on which see Part 4). See Yi Wanwoo, “Anp’yŏng Tae’gun Yi Yong.” 44 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 in which they composed or compiled these books, and the fact that most of the original editions are no longer extant. I have nonetheless chosen to include them because these princes established the template for the role of Ming prince as writer, compiler, collector, and publisher. After them, around the second third of the ifteenth-century, princely publishing, like all publishing activity (except perhaps imperial publishing) comes almost to a halt,14 starting up again in the last third of the century. After a sixteenth-century climax, it declined noticeably in the seventeenth-century— and in this respect did not follow the general trend of the publishing industry. he causes of this decline are to be found, I believe, in the history of the imperial clan: as early as the 1550s and 1560s, its prestige began an irreversible decline, in large part simply because of the mechanical expansion of the clan and the inancial strains this expansion imposed on the state; it is just at this time that the problem of the costs of maintaining the princes came to be hotly debated. hus began a slow “secularization” of the imperial clan and an increasing emphasis on the need for accountability, both trends that reached fruition in the seventeenth-century. he number of pensioned zongshi was limited and the amount of their pensions reduced; the zongshi were subject to stricter discipline and education; and eforts were made to integrate them into civil society (for example, they were authorized to earn their own living, to sit for the civil service examination, to engage in business, and so forth). As a result of these developments, the clan became less visible in society—and the princes ceased to play an important role in Ming publishing. Generally speaking, then, princely publishing rose and lourished well before the commercial publishing boom of the late Ming. In this regard, it approximated the trajectory of imperial publishing: princely publishers were active at the very beginning of the Ming and, indeed, throughout most of the dynasty formed an important component of Ming publishing.15 Only in the seventeenth century—the time when commercial publishing took of—did princely publishing taper of. he approximately 240 extant princely editions I have identiied—and the majority of such publications that I have seen (see Appendix 2)—were produced by thirty-two diferent princely households, yielding an average of seven 14 Specialists have thus far failed to explain this phenomenon; see Inoue, Chūgoku shuppan bunka shi, 210-14; McDermott, “he Ascendance of the Imprint in China” (2005), 68-72, and “he Ascendance of the Imprint in China” (2006), 58-62. 15 At the end of the Zhengde era, only princely households, administration oices, and Jianyang printing houses printed woodblocks. See Gu Yanwu, “Chaoshu zixu 鈔書自序,” in Gu Yanwu, Gu Tinglin wenji, 117 (. . . 當正德之末. 其時天下惟王府官司及建寧書坊乃有刻板). J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 45 editions for each principality.16 his does not mean that the remaining principalities did not publish books (as a matter of fact, every single principality that lasted at least two generations did) but only that these books are not extant. Ming and Qing book collection catalogues, biographies of princes (the corpus of which is immense) and gazetteers alike list a host of titles published by princes but now lost. Losses seem to have been particularly prevalent among princely collected writings.17 We can infer that some of these collected writings, although listed in bibliographies surviving from before the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,18 were probably never printed, existing only in manuscript form (and if these manuscripts were stored in the princes’ palaces, the odds are that they disappeared as early as the seventeenth century, during the late Ming civil war). One manuscript to survive, however, is a particularly interesting one: a 1574 manuscript from the hand of Zhu Zaixi titled, on its irst page, Xinle wang jiaxu gao 新樂王甲戌稿. If this is truly an autograph ( gaoben 稿本), it is all the more precious since Zhu Zaixi was one of the great literati princes of the Ming, famed for his calligraphy.19 Princely houses used to make (and publish?) lists of books they had published—or at least had planned on publishing. hese lists are no longer extant, but we know of their existence because some of them are mentioned in collection catalogues.20 For example, according to the Siku quanshu zongmu 四庫全 書總目, Ningfan shumu 寧藩書目, published in 1541 by a prince of the 16 According to Chia, only about one hundred princely editions have survived to our day (“Only about one-ifth of the ive hundred known editions have survived”; “Publications of the Ming Principalities,” 27). his estimate, which she is not alone in advancing (see, for example, Zhou Xinhui, Mingdai banke tushi, introduction, p. 9), is far below the actual igure. I have enumerated princely editions using various existing lists, in particular Ye Dehui, Shulin qinghua, Chang Bide, “Mingfan keshu kao,” Du Xinfu, Mingdai banke zonglu, Du Xinfu and Du Tongshu, Quan Ming fensheng fenxian keshu kao, Zhang Xiumin, Zhongguo yinshua shi, and Qu Mianliang, ed., Zhongguo guji banke cidian. hese lists, however, do not distinguish between lost and extant editions. I have located the latter by consulting paper and online library catalogues. Weng Lianxi, Zhongguo guji shanben zongmu, and the search engine elaborated by the National Library of China from which it draws, have been very helpful in locating books held in collections in the People’s Republic of China. 17 For instance, only 25 out of the 119 princely collections listed in the unavoidable Qianqingtang shumu 千 堂書目 have been preserved. 18 See, for example, Huang Yuji, Qianqingtang shumu, 41-47; Xu Qianxue, Chuanshilou shumu, 18:484-85; Yuxuan Sichao shi 御選四朝詩, in Siku quanshu, 1442:2-4; Jiangnan tongzhi 1736, in Siku quanshu, 512:662-63; Wang Xian, Zhenqitang shumu, 22:85-86, 132. 19 his author’s manuscript is kept in the National Library of China. It is preceded by a handwritten preface, dated the year gengxu, probably 1610. hat preface was probably intended to be the preface of a collection of Zhu Zaixi’s poems. he eight pages of the manuscript consist mainly of poems written in the seventh month of 1574. 20 For instance, prince Zhu Mujie’s Wanjuantang shumu or Huang Yuji’s Qianqingtang shumu. 46 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 house of Yiyang/Ning, was a simple list of 137 titles compiled and/or published by the irst prince of Ning, Zhu Quan. We can reasonably infer that the Hengfu 衡府 shumu, Huifu 徽府 shumu, Zhoufu 周府 shumu, and so on, were lists of the same kind: not lists of books owned, but lists of books written, compiled, or published by the principalities.21 I located a handwritten copy of another of these texts, which, likewise, is simply a list of 106 titles compiled and/or published by Zhu Mouwei, a prince from the same house of Ning.22 hese catalogues give us some idea of the quantity of books compiled and/or published by the princes. Another indication of the quantity of books published by the princes is the number of prefaces they signed; these survive, as they were included in the princes’ collected writings. To be sure, some of these prefaces may not correspond to books that were actually published by the princes themselves. Others may have been written in anticipation of an edition that never came into being. But we have solid grounds to infer that a high proportion of these prefaces were written by the princes for books that they themselves (re)published, for in certain cases these editions have survived and are indeed editions produced by the princes. hus, in the Yifan ruizhi wenji 益藩睿製文集—the collected writings of prince of Yi Zhu Houhua, published posthumously in 1557 by his younger brother and successor, Zhu Houxuan, and by the two administrators (zhangshi) of the house of Yi—one inds Zhu Houhua’s prefaces to the Lixue leibian 理學類編 and the Chongbian Guangyun 重編廣韻. Both of these texts survive in editions of the house of Yi (see Appendix 2). But there are also his prefaces to a great number of other books, such as Qin Han wen 秦漢文, Tangshi zhengsheng 唐詩正聲, Xueye xuzhi 學業須知, Zhao Weiqian’s 趙偽謙 Xuefan 學範, Daoxue zhuan 道學傳, Duilei 對類, that we may assume he published or planned to publish. Zhu Houhua’s necrology corroborates this evidence of his wide-ranging publishing activities: “He himself collated, enumerated the main ideas, and printed and circulated books from 21 Chang Bide was the irst to suspect that these lists recorded the production, not ownership, of books. Cf. Chang Bide, “Mingfan keshu kao (yi),” 146. In addition, he supposed that the Hengfu shumu corresponded to a text the Mingshi describes as follows: “Zhu Zaixi collected writings compiled by the princes, found dozens of them, and had them printed.” his supposition is erroneous, however: what Mingshi describes here is not a catalogue but rather a collection of princely writings titled Qihe xiuyang ji 綺合繡揚集, which Zhu Zaixi compiled to “publicize talented princes” (see FXJ 3/13b). 22 he igure of 106 titles squares with the 112 that are generally ascribed to Zhu Mouwei by his biographers. he list of titles, Tianbao cangshu mulu 天寶藏書目錄, is a manuscript in the Fu Sinian Library; it seems to have been rearranged (bianci 編次) by the noteworthy bibliophile Zhou Lianggong 周亮工 (1612-72). Zhou possibly even printed the list (see Wang Shizhen, Huanghua jiwen, 2/8b, in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu, shibu, 245:201). J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 47 the past and the present that were related to governance and had to do directly with the lives of the people.”23 We could analyze in the same manner the prefaces contained in the Huiyuan ruizhi ji 惠 睿製集, the collected writings of the seventh prince of Shu, Zhu Shenzao (r. 1472-93). hree among them turn out to be prefaces to books, still extant, that this prince did publish. But the six other prefaces are to works that are no longer extant: a collection of poems that the prince composed on the model of Shao Yong’s 邵雍 (1012-77) Shouwei yin 首尾吟 (Poems with repeated verse) and diverse collections of the writings of literati who served the house of Shu or whose career brought them for some time to Sichuan. hese two examples alone are suicient to give us a sense of how signiicant the proportion of lost princely editions is. Certain titles mentioned in the aforementioned sources (i.e., collection catalogues, gazetteers, biographies of princes) may never have been printed. Others may have been printed together (as in the case of one-juan titles listed in a series). Be that as it may, my conviction is that all the princely houses printed books, even if some of them (Shu, Lu 魯, Jin, Shen, Zhou, and Ning) unquestionably had the reputation of being “literati” houses and produced more books than the others. I suspect that even princely houses for which we are unable today to trace any single publication (or only one) actually did publish several books.24 A personal conjecture, based on a rough estimate of the number of lost titles I have come across (to which we should theoretically add the unknown volume of books lost and nowhere mentioned), leads me to speculate that lost princely publications are at least as numerous as extant ones. It would not even be surprising if the former outnumbered the latter. If we assume that only one half of all titles are extant, we would reach the (putative) igure of 480. 25 However, regardless of how many books the princes published, it goes without saying that the number represents only a tiny proportion of the total number of books published in the Ming.26 23 Zhang Shiche, “Yi Zhuang wang shendao beiming,” in Zhang Shiche, Zhiyuan dingji, 40/2a (Library of Congress) or GCXZL 2/58b. 24 Publishing activity also depended of course on the wealth of princely houses, which varied signiicantly. According to late-ifteenth century Lu Yi, the most aluent house was that of Shu, followed by the houses of Chu and Qin (cf. Bingyi manji, in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu, zibu, 240:177). hese houses were indeed very active in publishing. Conversely, the house of Han, in Pingliang (Shaanxi), was among those possessing the most meagre resources. I found only one publication for this house (a reprint album of rubbings, see Appendix 2). 25 Zhang Xiumin gives the igure of 430. Lucille Chia’s estimate is 500, but she speciies that it could be much larger. 26 One estimate has the proportion of princely publications at 1.4% of the total of Ming imprints (see Zhao Qian, Mingben, 23). Whether we take into account only extant imprints or make a projection of the total number of imprints produced, this igure seems high. One sign of 48 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 Even in houses with a “literati tradition,” no durable continuity can be observed in publishing endeavors: books were published when a prince showed interest in the publishing activity, but his successors did not necessarily follow the same path. he most noteworthy literati princes who engaged in publishing activities were: Dates active Prince House 1520s Late 1520s-1530s 1540s 1540s 1540s 1540s-1550s 1560s-early 1570s Early Wanli era 1630s Zhu Zhiyang Zhu Chongxiang Zhu Yinyi Zhu Houjue Zhu Rangxu Zhu Houyu Zhu Guanyou Zhu Yiyin Zhu Changfang Jin Guangze/Liao Shen Hui Shu Zhao Juye/Lu 魯 Yi 益 Lu 潞 Particular houses exhibit little thematic specialization, with the possible exception of the house of Heng, whose princes seem to have been very fond of calligraphy (see Section 2.2 concerning the reedition of Hongwu zhengyun 洪武 正韻 in seal script). A prince would publish according to his personal tastes, but he might also base his choices on what texts were available for publication or republication (distinguishing between personal motivation and chance is no easy task). Except for one single case, princely publication lists exhibit little editorial coherence. his is most likely due not to a deliberate eclecticism, but rather to the paucity of books available to publish or republish.27 Finally, let us the marginality of Ming princely publishing is that it is not touched upon in Inoue Susumu’s classic Chūgoku shuppan bunka shi. 27 he exception is Zhu Junzha, prince of Shanyin/Dai, who published exclusively Buddhist works. On the one hand, Zhu Junzha reprinted texts of famous Chan masters: Zongmi, from the Tang (Dafang guangyuan juexiu duoluo liaoyi jing lüeshu zhu 大方廣 覺修多羅了義經略疏注, 1571, probably from a 1532 edition by the Suzhou Oice of Buddhist Clergy, and Huayan yuanren lun 華嚴原人論, 1577), and his successor Yanshou, from the Five Dynasties period (Chanzong Yongming ji 禪宗永明集, 1568). Junzha also published a guidebook for laymen, the Foshi yaolüe 佛事要略 (1573), which includes, amusingly enough, model texts for prayers speciically intended for use by imperial clansmen; and Zhenjian’s 真鑑 Dafo dingshou Lengyanjing zhengmai shu 大佛 首楞嚴經正脈疏. Zhenjian was a monk and contemporary of the prince. his latter text was revised by famous monk Miaofeng 妙峯, also known as Fudeng 福登, who was a protégé of the prince, and published in 1600. (Miaofeng was also patronized at some point by Zhu Xiaoyong, prince of Shen, and Zhu Minchun, prince of Jin.) he original edition is lost: J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 49 note that we cannot detect diferences between the publication choices of the oldest houses (i.e., those dating back to the beginning of the dynasty) and the choices of houses dating from more recent generations. he antiquity of the houses may have aforded some prestige, but had nothing to do with what was published. Imprints I have been able to examine (or of which I have seen microilms) are for the most part originals. here are some later facsimiles, which, given the skill of the engravers, are always diicult to detect. Moreover, in ten or so cases, the original princely edition was lost, but served as a model for a nonprincely reedition. Such reeditions may be more numerous than the quantity I was able to identify; they are diicult to detect, however, because they are not labeled “princely editions”: one comes across them incidentally, especially when the title is not a famous one. 1.2. What, basically, is a princely edition? Despite its popularity, the term wangfu ben, is of questionable utility. To begin, a princely edition is an edition produced/published by an imperial clansman, whatever his rank. his said, what does “produce”/ “publish” mean exactly? he one thing we can say with near certainty is that princes inanced the printing of the titles they are credited with publishing or republishing.28 his remains true even if we lack data concerning the cost of engraving and printing. he princes were not necessarily the ones who had the idea of republishing these titles, nor the ones who composed new prefaces or postscripts, nor the ones who revised the texts. As a matter of fact, princely reeditions in which the prince himself “worked” on the text are rather rare.29 we possess only a 1896 reprint by the famous Nanjing Sutra Printing Bureau ( Jinling kejing chu 金陵刻經處). For reasons that have yet to be made clear, Buddhism was widespread among princely houses in Shanxi (Jin, Dai, and Shen). On the sponsoring of the Buddhist church by the princes of that province, see for instance Weidner, “Imperial Engagements,” 130-34. 28 his is said or implied quite frequently in the prefaces. In the Jishizhu 記事珠 (1536), a small encyclopedia published by a prince of the house of Ruyang/Zhou, it is speciied in the middle of the book: 皇明周藩定祖汝陽恭禧三世 . . . 自捐己祿刊集墨寶. . . . 29 Zhu Yiyin, prince of Yi, is noted as “compiler and annotator” (xuanji pidian 選輯批點) of the poetic anthology Sheng Ming shi’er jia shixuan 盛明十二家詩選 (1585) and thus most likely is the author of the interlinear commentaries or notes (pi 批) and the one who underscored important verses by adding circles alongside them (dian 點). Zhu Chongxiang provided commentary to the Eryan 邇言 that he republished (these comments are introduced by “Zhi’an yue 止庵曰,” Zhi’an being the prince’s sobriquet). Zhu Zaixi, prince of Xinle/Heng, is noted as “reviser” ( jiao 校) of the Hongwu zhengyun 洪武正韻 , for which his uncle Zhu Houying wrote the calligraphy; Houying also published the work. More generally, the “literati princes” would revise texts much more often than the “lettered princes.” 50 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 he question can be formulated in another way: how can we identify a princely edition? What criteria are suicient? A princely edition bears several distinctive hallmarks, including prefaces and postscripts (either from the hand of the prince himself or from that of a literatus associated with his house), princely seals printed at the end of the preface, an inscription in the central space of the blocks (banxin 版心) (usually the name of the prince’s studio), and a colophon ( paiji 牌記, a short text printed within a frame) at the end of the text. All these elements are seldom present simultaneously. Sometimes, only the inscription in the central space makes it possible to identify a princely edition. his is the case for all the editions produced by the Weijingtang 味經堂/ Jujingtang 居敬堂, from the house of Zhao in the 1550s; the inclusion of “Zhaofu 趙府 Weijingtang” or “Zhaofu Jujingtang” which can be seen at the top of the center space is the sole (textual) means of identifying these publications.30 A similar example would be the Yuanji huofa 機活法, an encyclopedia (leishu 類書) reprinted by the house of Hui at an unknown date: only the mention of “Huifu kan 徽府刊” in the upper part of the central space permits one to identify it. Some princes “signed” their publications by invariant Here I make a distinction between “scholar” or “literati” princes and simply “lettered” princes (in French, princes lettrés). All the princes involved in book publication and collection were “lettered”—that is, highly literate and well-educated. But among them were some princes with unusually deep scholarly knowledge and interests; these were the “scholar” or “literati” princes (lettrés princes) who were most active in editing and revising texts. Both Zhu Mouwei and Zhu Mujie were literati princes; the former revised ( jiao 校) one of the chapters of another prince’s collection, the Guangyantang ji 廣宴堂集 (house of Jing); and the latter almost always referred to himself as reviser of the books he published. I prefer to leave aside the recurrent issue of the oicial (guan 官) or private (si 私) nature of princely publications. Chinese scholars have not reached any consensus regarding this issue: it is as common for some of them to say that princely publishing belongs to oicial publishing as it is for others to say the opposite (and neither the former nor the latter justify their opinion). In my view, this argument irst requires that we more accurately deine the question itself. What we said above about the “secularization” of the imperial clan would suggest that princely publishing was in some way progressively “privatized.” Now, if we consider princely publishing from the point of view of its inancing, it would fall within guan (since it was the Court which provided the princes with their allowances). But, in terms of the organization of publishing and the choices of texts to be published, I would say that it falls about half way between imperial/oicial publishing and private publishing, and is furthest from commercial publishing (on which, see Chia, “Publications of the Ming Principalities,” 41-44, taking Jiangxi as an example). he questions of the ownership of the blocks and the place they were printed—which both remain imprecise—should also be considered in this context. 30 he Weijingtang/Jujingtang is the princely studio (that of prince of Zhao Zhu Houyu) from which the greatest number of publications (a dozen) has survived: see Appendix 2 for a detailed list. Most of them are only identiiable by a reference made in the central space on the block. As we shall see, the absence of any other distinctive sign—in particular of prefaces or postscripts by the prince or by scholars of the princely house—is not exceptional in princely publications. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 51 formal characteristics that appear in each of their texts (e.g., the book size, the style of the printed characters, the number of columns and of characters per column on each half-folio page, and so forth). hus, editions produced by Zhu Changfang, prince of Lu 潞, in the 1630s, are recognizable by their large format.31 As for the house of Chu, “minimalist” reprinting, which added only the inal mention of the prince’s studio to the reprinted edition, was its trademark (see Section 3.2). Of course as one grows familiar with many diferent princely editions, it becomes easier to identify and categorize them with greater precision. But in certain cases, we are not in a position to identify the prince (in such cases, for instance, where we only have a pseudonym), or even to determine whether or not an edition is a princely edition. As previously stated, there exist editions that librarians do not hesitate to catalogue as princely (because the woodblocks are the same as those of princely 31 Zhu Changfang emerges from the sources as a literatus and eccentric Buddhist antiquarian prince who was surrounded by eunuchs. He was the one prince who the Donglin sympathizers recommended to rule in Nanjing after the fall of Beijing in 1644; he was in the end not selected. He did, however, become one of the Southern Ming puppet emperors, only to sufer execution by the Manchus. His biographies (Li Qing , Sanyuan biji, 243; Weihui fuzhi 1788 [1968 reprint], 521; Qian Haiyue, Nan Ming shi, 1503-06; Lin Huiru, Mingdai yiwen, 440-41, “Lu wangfu zhenwu” 潞王府珍物 entry) do not say a word about his publications, despite the fact he was the most proliic princely publisher of the late Ming period. His publications include the Caoyun bianti 草韵辨體 (1634), a dictionary of cursive script (already republished by the Palace in 1584); the same year, a treatise on chess (weiqi 圍棋) that drew on various similar treatises, the Wanhui xianji qipu 萬彙仙機碁譜, and a music treatise, the (Lufan zuanji) Guyin zhengzong (潞藩纂集)古音正宗 (Zhu Changfang had these two books, together with a qin and a weiqi set, brought to a local man of letters, who wrote a preface); the Gujin zongfan yixing kao 古今宗 藩懿行考 (1635), which I will discuss below; and inally, a ten chapter-calligraphy treatise, the (Lufan xinke) Shugu shufa zuan (潞藩新刻)述古書法纂 (1636), which he compiled himself (“this book is made up of excerpts I have copied myself to control my body and my mind. I would not dare say I have written it”). It seems likely that a whole team of courtesans helped him compile these voluminous tomes. It is not clear why he published them one after the other within such a short period of time. Was it a feeling that the end of a world was imminent, a world which, as a prince of royal blood, he embodied more than anybody else? (he Lu 潞 principality was located in Weihui, Henan, where the civil war, in the years 1634 to 1636, had already dramatically unfolded.) Fu Zengxiang has listed another Zhu Changfang publication: the Liji jishuo 禮記集說, in a thirty-chapter version, that is probably the Liji jishuo daquan 大全 (extracted from the canonical Wujing daquan). According to Fu, this edition, which has the seals of the Lu house and of Zhu Changfang, was printed in a Chongben shuyuan 崇本書院 (this studio is nowhere mentioned in the extant Zhu Changfang publications). See Fu Zengxiang, Shuangjianlou, 479. I have not been able to ind this princely edition anywhere. It may well be that the seals are only collectors seals and that Zhu Changfang merely owned this book. Zhu Changfang was a keen amateur painter, musician, and calligrapher. Many stone inscriptions bearing his calligraphy have been preserved as rubbings (cf. Su Derong, “Mingdai zongshi wenhua,” 22-23). he books he published faithfully relect his passions. 52 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 editions), despite the fact that any other princely trace (prefaces, postscripts, seals, central-space or inal identiications, and so forth) is absent. hose editions, like reprints of imperial publications, are likely to be later undatable facsimiles. Commercial publishers, indeed, “pirated” imperial or princely editions by hastily engraving blocks that copied the original carving, after meticulously removing every trace of the emperor or the prince (e.g., the prefaces and postscripts). his phenomenon of piracy raises other issues. It would be useful to know, for instance, whether princely editions were printed in the princes’ palaces or in private printing houses (on which, see below) and above all where the blocks were stored. In instances when these editions were printed outside of the princes’ palaces (likely the most frequent occurrence), could the blocks have been sold? (he trade of entire sets of engraved blocks was already developed by the second half of the sixteenth century.)32 Be that as it may, if, as we might assume, imperial or princely editions were not printed in high numbers, their more numerous and cheaper (or simply more marketable) pirated versions must have contributed to their wider circulation. As previously mentioned, beginning in the second half of the sixteenth century, the imperial clan underwent what I have chosen to call “secularization.” his was not without consequences for princely publications. At the risk of over-simplifying, in this period literati princes gradually became literati who happened to be imperial clansmen—that is, there status as literati was far more important than their membership in the imperial clan.33 Two princes, Zhu Mujie and Zhu Mouwei, were wholeheartedly, albeit tacitly, welcomed by their literati peers as fully belonging to their elite world (the former, according to certain biographies, even became a ghost writer for other Henan literati).34 Accordingly, princely editions, except in a few instances, were assimilated to private, independent, “literati” editions, diicult to link to a princely house. In terms of prestige, one might ask what a book published by a prince of the irst degree during the sixteenth-century heyday of princely publishing had in common with one published by an obscure scion of the imperial clan a few years before the fall of the Ming. Two such cases are the Rushui jinpu 汝水巾譜, an album of headdresses compiled and published (presumably at his own expense), by a zongshi of the house of Liao, Zhu Li Ruiliang, Tushu liutong shi, 367-68. See for instance Huang Ruheng, the magistrate of Jinxian who, around 1600, declared himself the pupil of Zhu Mouwei, prince of the sixth degree of the house of Ning, based in Nanchang, not far from Jinxian (Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji xiaozhuan, 778; MS 117/3597; Nanchang xianzhi 1935 [reprint Taipei, Chengwen chubanshe, 1970], 882). Even if such a declaration sounds purely conventional, it was possible only because Zhu Mouwei was one of those “princely literati” who could be put on a par with—and hence be revered by—any literatus. 34 FXJ 1/10b; Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji xiaozhuan, 775. 32 33 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 53 Shuxun (hao Rushui jushi 居士), in 1633;35 and the reedition of Tao Zongyi’s Shushi huiyao 書史會要 by Zhu Mouyin (Jian’an/Ning) in the early Chongzhen reign (1628-1644), in which one inds the following colophon: “engraved and printed at the Hanyuguan of the Zhus of Yuzhang [i.e. Nanchang] in the year jisi of the Chongzhen era” (Chongzhen jisi Yuzhang Zhushi Hanyuguan qianzi 崇禎己巳豫章朱氏寒玉館鋟梓; the Hanyuguan was Zhu Mouyin’s studio). hat imperial clansmen are identiied, without princely titles, just as a literatus might be identiied, clearly demonstrates the high degree of secularization the imperial clan had attained by the late Ming. (It is also in this case true that the house of Ning had been abolished in the wake of the prince of Ning’s rebellion, and after that time could no longer be explicitly referenced.) he many books published or republished by individual zongshi who had, at best, low princely titles (Zhu Mujie, Zhu Mouwei, Zhu Mouyin, and so forth) are held by some scholars, including Zhang Xiumin, to be de facto princely editions, solely because of the identity of their publishers. Is the identiication of “princely edition” warranted in these cases? Of course, these zongshi most probably were able to subsidize their publications thanks to the resources of their houses. But they were less likely to link the house to their editorial projects (and thus to me appear more individual in character) than princes of the irst degree. Let us consider another example, that of Wangguo dianli 王國典禮, compiled by Zhu Qinmi, Zhu Mujie’s son. his book was published in Kaifeng in 1615. A prince of a relatively low rank, Zhu Qinmi was nonetheless the intellectual authority of the house of Zhou, as well as its liaison with the administration; he was “head of the house of Zhou, in charge of the clan school” (and so identiied in chapter headings). But should we consider his Wangguo dianli, which dates from a period when the prestige of princely houses had considerably declined, to be a princely edition? It lacks any princely mark, a preface by the prince, the seal of the Zhou house, as well as any princely mention whatsoever. From the moment we hold Zhu Qinmi (or Zhu Mujie, or Zhu Mouyin) to be a literatus “like the others,” and no longer an imperial clansman, his editorial activity might as well be classiied as that of a literatus, and no longer princely. 36 In fact, to answer this question, we 35 Zhu Shuxun was one of the rare zongshi to hold oice at the end of the Ming; he was appointed second assistant to the prefect of Zhenjiang. To exercise public responsibilities had become possible for imperial clansmen through the huanshou 換授 system, which exempted them from taking the examinations (although they could elect to take them). he irst cases date from the 1620s. his was the inal outcome of a debate about the roles of imperial clansmen that had been underway for decades. 36 Books published by these members of the clan are sometimes classiied under individual or familial publishing (respectively zike ben 自刻本 and jiake ben 家刻本). See, for example, in Pan Chengbi and Gu Tinglong, Mingdai banben tulu chubian, 3:112-15, the listing for the Chunqiu 54 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 would need to go beyond simple criteria of physical identiication: we would need to know whether, in their own times, these “princely literati” conceived of their “literati” publications as princely per se. here is no uncertainty on this score regarding publications in which the prince is only one of several editors/revisers. In 1615, Zhu Mouwei, from the house of Ning, and administrative commissioner of Jiangxi Li Changgeng 李長庚 ( j.s. 1595), and one Li Kejia 李克家37 collaborated in the publication of two books: a commentary on the Shuijing zhu 水經注, that was to appear under the title Shuijing zhu jian 箋, and the collected writings of Cai Xiang 蔡襄 (1012-1067). Zhu Mouwei, who had been studying the Shuijing zhu for years, put his considerable book collection at the project’s disposal. he mention of “Zhu Mouwei jian 箋” (“annotated by Zhu Mouwei”) at the beginning of each chapter is there to indicate that the prince is the author of the interlinear glosses. Zhu also signed one of the prefaces in his customary fashion, “Zhu Mouwei, from Nanzhou [i.e. Nanchang].” his Shuijing zhu jian was not printed under the prince’s auspices but in an oicial bureau (presumably that of the administrative commission).38 In the second book, the collection of Cai Xiang’s writings, Zhu Mouwei is mentioned at the end of each chapter, together with Li Kejia, as reviser (chongjiao 重校),39 again without the least reference to his princely status.40 Li Changgeng’s name is inscribed at the head of the chapters, along with the provincial judiciary commissioner, as proofreader (ding 訂); the initiator of this edition was neither Zhu Mouwei, nor Li Kejia, nor Li Changeng, but the provincial censor Chen Yiyuan. Here we thus have two examples of publications that were not produced by a princely house, but to which a literatus prince, of modest rank, contributed. jizhu 春秋集注 and the Zhouyi jijie 周易集解 republished by Zhu Mujie, who is nonetheless introduced as an imperial clansman. his is not the place to deine the terms zike ben and jiake ben: I simply wish to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that publications of “literati princes” are occasionally classiied as such by specialists. 37 Li Kejia must have been the scion of a well-of family since he had purchased the title of student of the Imperial University. He seems to have been engaged in publishing activity (he revised and republished an edition of the Guoyu, on which see Wang Zhongmin, Tiyao bubian, 3). Zhu Mouwei had known him for a long time, having written a preface to one of his books as early as 1597. What is interesting here is the encounter between Zhu Mouwei, a “princely scholar,” and Li, a literatus publisher. It is another example of collaboration between princes and local men of letters, which I discuss in Section 2.4. 38 See Li Changgeng’s and Zhu Mouwei’s prefaces. 39 Fu Zengxiang (1872-1949) once praised the quality of the revision work done by Zhu Mouwei for this edition. Fu Zengxiang, Shuangjianlou, 421. 40 As previously mentioned, the case of the princes of the house of Ning was exceptional, given the fact that no explicit reference to the name Ning could be made after the house had been abolished in the aftermath of Zhu Chenhao’s 1519 rebellion. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 55 Before I move on to a presentation of the imperial clan, I should like to point out that the “princely literati” who emerged in the last century of the Ming, such as Zhu Mujie and his son Zhu Qinmi, or the princes of the house of Ning (Zhu Duokui 多煃, Zhu Duokui 多[火貴], Zhu Mouwei, Zhu Mouyin, and so on) signed numerous prefaces to books other than those they wrote/compiled and published themselves.41 he vast majority are books that were published in their hometowns (Kaifeng and Nanchang) by local literati or oicials. his shows that these princes were above all considered renowned literati, and were solicited as such to compose prefaces. Apart from these few “princely literati,” we ind practically no prince who authored prefaces or postscripts for books he did not himself publish.42 1.3. he Ming imperial clan: a few key points regarding princely publishing For a better understanding of princely publishing, it is necessary to have some basic knowledge of the history of the Ming imperial clan. he following points, in particular, are relevant to the present study: 1. Despite what Zhu Yuanzhang envisaged, during the irst half of the ifteenth-century Ming princes gradually lost all political and military oice. hey were deprived even of the right to leave their iefs—a forced coninement that certainly appeared striking to the few Europeans present in late Ming China. his policy was enacted to prevent princes from taking up arms and advancing on the capital and from submitting any kind of request to the throne (e.g., for inancial assistance, the granting of a title to their relatives, and so forth). his prohibition also aimed to preempt contact between the princes. hus, no matter how close their iefs were to one another, princes never met. hese drastic measures—which amounted to princely infantalization (it should be added that princely houses were administered by oicials)—encouraged princes to indulge in a life of pleasure and leisure, if not debauchery and violence, as the advocates of their social integration came to observe. A late Ming witness noted: “Starting 41 An inventory of books I have tracked down would be too long to enumerate here and would be beside the point anyway. I quote some of these cases at diferent points of the present essay. 42 I found only one exception. Zhu Zaixi, prince of Xinle/Heng, was asked by a descendant of Xu Heng 許衡 (1209-81), magistrate of Anqiu, in his own Qingzhou ief, to write a preface to for collection of writings authored by his renowned forebear. Zhu Zaixi’s preface is dated 1560 (he had been appointed prince in 1557). Xu Heng’s descendant can only be Xu Shidao, magistrate of Anqiu from 1559 to 1562. See Xuba jilu, jibu, 2, 50-51; [Wanli] Anqiu xianzhi, 14/25b, in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu, zibu, 200: 275. 56 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 with Wenhuang [i.e. Yongle], prohibitions were draconian, and the slightest compromise was no longer tolerated. Some imperial clansmen therefore died from starvation and lived in poverty. Some of them, who were talented, asked to make themselves useful: their requests were categorically denied. he violent and bad subjects [among them] . . . went as far as plotting rebellions. he learned and weak among them were content to amuse themselves through literary composition and poetry and alcohol” (italics mine).43 Later scholars frequently assert that Zhu Yuanzhang tried to ensure that the princes did not meddle in politics by ofering them “1700 theatre fascicles” upon their enfeofment, an anecdote of doubtful accuracy.44 Dominican missionary Gaspar da Cruz has given an amusing yet naïve depiction of the princes which is typical of this later scholarship: “Since they have little opportunity for exercise and are given to good living, they are commonly very fat, and they are in consequence very good natured, afable, and sociable, and of very good understanding, very courteous and very well educated.”45 2. Ming princes were not allowed to sit for the civil service examination. For budgetary reasons, in the second half of the sixteenth century this prohibition began to be questioned, sometimes at the insistence of some princes. But ensuing debates did not result in any major breakthrough. 3. Princely houses were divided into one main house and several collateral houses. he main house was formed by the line of the irst degree princes, qinwang 親王 (the irst qinwang of a house being a son of the emperor) while lines descending from second degree princes ( junwang 郡王, i.e., all the irst degree prince’s sons but his eldest) constituted the collateral houses. To give just one example, the house of Zhou, the most populous house, had throughout its history up to seventy collateral houses (which, of course, did not exist all at the same time). he overwhelming majority of imperial clansmen, thus, were not princes of the irst degree but of lower ranks (there were eight ranks in the principate). Not all of our publishing princes, 43 Zhu Guozhen, Yongchuang xiaopin, 3233-34. For an equally bitter statement, see Xie Zhaozhe, Wuzazu, 197-98. 44 Zhang Xiumin sensibly speciies that these must have been works of Yuan drama. But this story should be treated with skepticism. It is cited only in two later sources: a postscript by Li Kaixian and a Kangxi-era biji (see respectively Li Kaixian, Xianju ji, in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu, jibu, 92:626, and Liang Qingyuan, Diaoqiu zalu, in ibid., zibu, 113:772). It would, above all, be naïve to think that Zhu Yuanzhang planned to obtain his sons’ obedience by ofering them theatre booklets! More signiicant is the fact that he ordered the compilation of edifying opuscules for them. 45 Boxer, ed., South China in the Sixteenth Century, 110. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 57 to be sure, were of the irst, or even the second, degree.46 In fact, they might well be princes who are not even listed in the genealogical tables of the Mingshi 明史 (Ming history).47 Publishing in the house of Liao, for instance, is primarily represented by Zhu Chongxiang, who was not prince of Liao but only prince of Guangze. A good number of the lower-ranked princely publishers would most likely never have been honored with biographies had they not published books. 4. Princely courts, scattered across the whole empire (except, notably, its eastern fringe),48 were miniature replicas of the imperial court. In addition to the palace of the main house (which was divided into a public and a private compound), one could ind a temple to the ancestors, where sacriices to the irst prince of the house and to his descendants were conducted, and altars dedicated to the gods of soil and grain and to natural powers. A staf of eunuchs (located within the palace) fulilled various oices of stewardship; a staf of oicials (living outside the palace) was also appointed to serve the princely house. Palaces of the collateral houses were mostly located in the very same town, sometimes even around the palace of the prince of 46 his fact merits attention, since it is often misunderstood. A book that bears the printed seal of, for example, the house of Heng, was not necessarily published by a prince of Heng: it may well have been published by princes of Yutian, Xinle, Gaotang, and so forth., or by princes of even lower ranks. he diference can be seen in the inscriptions on the seals: Hengguo tushu 衡國圖書 would be inscribed on any seal of the house of Heng, while Hengwang tushu 衡王圖 書 would appear only on the prince of Heng’s seal. 47 It should be noted that these tables are far from exhaustive. hey include only imperial clansmen who owned a princely title and ruled a ief, whether a primary or a secondary one (defeng zhe 得封者). Apart from princes from the third to the eighth degree, who were too numerous to be recorded in the tables, “regents” were also excluded. Regents were those clansmen appointed, upon recommendation by the local authorities, to rule a princely house when the main line was interrupted, when the heir to the principality was too young to be enfeofed, or when, as a political sanction, the house was abolished. 48 No principality was located in Beizhili, Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces. One should note that some collateral houses were not established in the same place as the main house. hat explains why the number of cities where princes lived was higher than the number of primary principalities. hus, in the area known as Hedong, formed by southern Shanxi and northern Henan, princely houses proliferated: in addition to those of Jin (Taiyuan), Shen (Lu’an), Zhao (Zhangde), Zheng (Huaiqing), Yi (Luoyang), Zhou (Kaifeng) and Lu (Weihui), the collateral houses of Xihe/Jin (Pingyang), Shanyin/Dai (Puzhou), Xiangyuan/Dai (Puzhou), Xuanning/Dai (Zezhou), and Xichuan/Dai (Zezhou) were also located there. his detail is important insofar as it accounts for the permanent contacts between those houses and above all between Hedong literati and the princes belonging to them. hose contacts could not be explained if we believed that the princes of the house of Jin all lived in Taiyuan or the princes of the house of Dai all in Datong, in the northernmost part of Shanxi. As a matter of fact, all the literati princes of the house of Dai came from collateral houses from the south of the province, and not from Datong. 58 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 the main house.49 he collateral houses were named after localities of the region (where they owned land and where more distant relatives, those who did not have any title, lived). Our publishing princes were located in Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Huguang, Jiangxi, Sichuan, and Guangxi (see the map in Appendix 3). We can say they lived in an urban milieu but, except for a couple of instances (Kaifeng, Xi’an, Chengdu), not in very big cities, and far from the major commercial and imperial publishing centers. Princes of the irst degree—some of whom ruled their iefs for ive or six decades—were truly “local emperors,” with all the ritual responsibilities which this position entailed. But the terms used to refer to them and their writings distinguished them from emperors: they were conventionally called not bixia 陛下, but dianxia 殿下, and described not as sheng 聖, but as xian 賢 (sagehood was one level below sainthood); and their publications were preceded not by the preix yuzhi 御製, but by ruizhi 睿製. heir irst names50 were never to be written; and whenever mentioned in a text, their name and title was to begin a new line, just as for the emperor. When he spoke of his prince, an oicial serving in a princely house would say “wo xianwang” 我賢王; when designating a deceased prince, the oicial would likewise use this individual’s posthumous name. 5. he Ming princes were supposed to obey speciic and (at least on the paper) very strict laws. hese laws were written down in successive legal texts which underwent modiication during the dynasty.51 he legislation for princes mostly concerned political, economical, ritual, and familial matters. 49 Princes of even lower degrees each had their own palace (or rather, residence), in diferent parts of town. Members of a princely house thus formed an important community in the cities in which they were based. Matteo Ricci estimates that they formed a quarter or a ifth of the population of Nanchang (Tacchi Venturi, Le lettere dalla Cina, 150). Kaifeng had several dozen princely residences, scattered throughout the city (see Rumeng lu, passim). he zongshi community was all the more conspicuous in remote regions: in Lanzhou, home of the princes of Su, Yang Yiqing says there were only three categories of inhabitants: the military, imperial clansmen, and merchants. See Yang Yiqing, Yang Yiqing ji, 131. 50 he irst character had been ixed by Zhu Yuanzhang for each princely house for twenty generations. hese could be memorized easily, for the twenty characters formed an edifying poem. hese lists were recorded in the Huang Ming zuxun 皇明祖訓 (1395) and were copied in the irst chapter of the Da Ming huidian 大明會典 one century later. 51 he cornerstone of legislation for princes was the Ming founder’s Huang Ming zuxun 皇明祖訓. Another important reference was the Huang Ming dianli 皇明典禮 (1400), although it was not as widely distributed among the princes as the Zuxun. Legislation on the clan was updated when the irst edition of the Da Ming huidian was compiled. From the late Jiajing era forward, other regulatory corpora were elaborated, such as the Zongfan tiaoli 宗藩條例 (1565), which was incorporated into the 1587 edition of the Huidian. Chapters 78-80 of the Libu zhigao 禮部志稿 (Tianqi period, 1621-1627) contain numerous precedents concerning princes. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 59 As far as “culture” is concerned, there seem to have been very few rules. hese rules were not created before the early sixteenth century and dealt with book requests and the imperial naming of princely studios.52 1.4. Publisher-princes and the Court: tenuous relations No legal regulation, however, seems ever to have been applied to the publishing of books by princes. I have not come across anything that would resemble an imperial (or ministerial) imprimatur or a legal obligation to send the throne (or the Ministry of Rites) copies of the books to be published. In attempting to ind out whether there existed a link between the publishing of a book by a prince in his principality and the Beijing court, I was able to track down only a few clues,53 listed here in chronological order: (1) Baoxiantang jigu fatie 寶賢堂集古法帖, produced in the late ifteenth century by Zhu Chongxuan and his heir Zhu Qiyuan from the house of Jin, was sent to the Hongzhi emperor (an imperial letter and Zhu Qiyuan’s response conirm this).54 (2) Xiaoming gao 小鳴稿, a collection of poetry by Zhu Chengyong, ifth prince of Qin, published in 1498, was sent to the Jiajing emperor by the seventh prince, Chengyong’s great-nephew. A copy was deposited at the Bureau of History.55 (3) Prince of Jin Zhu Zhiyang republished various literary anthologies in the 1520s (one anthology for each period). Once completed, he sent the irst three to the Jiajing emperor, who in turn wrote back to him. his prompted the prince to then order a reprint of the series that opened with the imperial response.56 52 Huang Ming fanfu zhengling, j. 5 (“Qing shulou ming” 請書樓名); Zongfan tiaoli, 400 (“Shuyuan qingming” 書院請名), later quoted in DMHD Wanli, 358 and WGDL, 7/46ab. 53 I exclude dramatist Zhu Youdun, who would send his plays and yuefu to the emperor (they might have been performed at Court). 54 he full texts are transcribed in Baoxiantang jigu fatie, 363-64. 55 he entry in the Siku quanshu zongmu provides an imprecise yet (if I am not mistaken) remarkable detail. After it was sent to Jiajing and deposited at the Bureau of History, e.g. at least twenty-three years after its publication, the Xiaoming gao seems to have been reprinted with the title Jingjin 經進 Xiaoming gao, meaning that it had been presented (and approved) by the emperor. he entry adds that it was the irst time that such a preix was added to a book title, but that the text that was copied into the Siku quanshu did not bear it, as it had been printed before the book was sent to Jiajing. See SKQSZM, 2308. 56 Jiajing’s response and the new preface authored by the prince, both dated 1529, can be found at the beginning of certain copies of the Wenxuan 文選 and Songwen jian 宋文鑑, but of none of the Tangwen cui 唐文粹. From the prefaces and postscripts of each one of the anthologies, 60 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 (4) In 1530, Zhu Junbo, prince of Xichuan/Dai (r. 1522-55), had his Taiwen lu 太文錄 handed over to the throne. he book received only polite approbation from the Ministry of Rites. Jiajing ordered the ministry to “keep it for the time being” and sent the prince an edict to express his satisfaction.57 (5) Zhu Chengyao, prince of Shen, sent (or at least planned to send) the Wanli emperor copies of the irst edition (1591) of the Shenguo Mianxue shuyuan ji 瀋國勉學書院集, a collection of writings by several princes of Shen.58 (6) Zhu Zaiyu, famed prince and scientist from the house of Zheng, sent his books twice to the Court. In 1595, he sent three books on the calendar, collectively entitled Lishu 曆書, most likely in manuscript form. hese three books were to be utilized to write a section on the calendar in the Mingshi project that had been launched the previous year. Eleven years later, in 1606, the prince sent his zhangshi Li De to Court with several copies of three more books, this time on music and dance, with the collective title Lüshu 律書. he response from the Ministry of Rites, dated 1607, contains an imperial order to submit one copy of this collection to the Hanlin Academy, one to the Wenyuange, one to the Imperial College, I reconstruct the history of this huge publishing achievement as follows: Zhu Zhiyang began working on the Wenxuan in 1525. he project was brought to completion in 1527. Meanwhile, in 1526, he launched the Tangwen cui and Songwen jian projects, which were both completed in 1528. He then sent the three books to Jiajing, who, as we saw, wrote back to him in 1529. he prince subsequently ordered a new impression which included the text of Jiajing’s letter and his own new preface. It seems to me that, for each of the three books, Zhu Zhiyang wrote a preface at the beginning of the project, and a postscript once the books were printed (we indeed have, as far as the Wenxuan is concerned, a preface dated 1525 and a postscript dated 1527, and, for the Tangwen cui and Songwen jian, a preface dated 1526 and a postscript dated 1528). Since several copies of the Wenxuan, Tangwen cui, and Songwen jian contain only the preface or only the postscript (but not both), some scholars have asserted that there have been several diferent editions (not counting the editions made after Jiajing’s response). I do not think that was the case. his important publishing undertaking, the most important ever carried out by a Ming prince, was uninished at the death of Zhu Zhiyang. he Yuan anthology was published by his successor, and the Ming version, which was to have been Cheng Minzheng’s Mingwen heng 明文衡, was never published. Zhu Zhiyang initiated the whole project, and he found editions on the market (these anthologies were in the imperial library, but Zhu Zhiyang did not request copies from the Court). Many copies of each one of the four anthologies eventually published by the house of Jin are extant to this day, a fact that suggests they were frequently reprinted. 57 MSL (Shizong) 115/2724; Shen Defu, Wanli yehuobian, 634. 58 See his forward (tici 題辭) of 1590, in which, besides the usual self-deprecating formulae (“this collection does not deserve to be stored in the imperial library”), he mentions sending a book to the emperor and wishes that a duplicate be deposited at the Hanlin Academy or the Bureau of History (行將上塵乙覽, 副 太史, 雖不足與天祿之書頡頏後先, 然亦庶幾昭 我明文治之隆, 以備國風之一什云). J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 61 and one to the Ministry of Rites. Zhu had originally planned for his music books to be used as references for the Ming History project, but it took him ten years to collate and engrave them (they included many illustrations which he wanted to be inely printed). By the time he sent them to Beijing, the project had long been abandoned. I can only assume, at this point, that the books sent in 1606 were printed by the house of Zheng, for I did not ind any evidence to the contrary. According to Zhu Zaiyu himself, he sent the following publications, which were most likely printed by the princely house, to Court: the Lülü jingyi 律呂精義, the Lüxue xinshuo 律學新說 (followed by the Yuexue 樂學 xinshuo and Suanxue 算學 xinshuo?), and the Yuewu xuanpu 樂舞全譜 (the latter being a general title that in all likelihood referred to a series of illustrated opuscules on music and dance). In or after 1607 a complete collection, known by the title Yuelü quanshu 樂律全書, was printed at the Imperial Palace. his work included facsimiles of the works submitted by Zhu Zaiyu and printed the three manuscript books on the calendar received in 1595. Other elements were added, such as the illustration of the arch honoring Zhu Zaiyu that had been erected in 1606 (together with the text of the imperial decree issued on this occasion)59 and three memorials on calendrical reform, dating from 1596 and 1597 (these were included in the works dealing with calendar science). A more reined edition than the princely edition,60 this Palace edition, many times reprinted, is still widely known today. he Yuelü quanshu is one of the very rare books written or published by a prince to have been subsequently republished by the Palace. Similar cases include Zhu Quan’s Tongjian bolun 通鑑博論61 and all of Zhu Youyuan’s writings, which were republished by his son Jiajing once he came to the throne (see Section 3.5). 59 his honoriic arch had no connection whatsoever with Zhu Zaiyu’s works. It had been built to praise his abdictation of the throne of Zheng, an afair that had stirred much controversy. 60 Chia, “Publications of the Ming Principalities,” 39-40, 68, and “he Uses of Print of Ming Dynasty China,” 183, 185. 61 Tongjian bolun was written by Zhu Quan at the command of Zhu Yuanzhang and submitted to the throne in 1396. It is not possible to determine whether there existed a princely or an imperial edition at that date (Zhu Quan was then prince of Ning, but lived in Daning and had not taken up residence in Nanchang yet). It was printed by the Palace in 1407 with an unsigned postcript that has been attributed by some to the Yongle emperor and by others, more sensibly, to Zhu Quan. It was printed again in 1586 with a preface and a postcript by the Wanli emperor. Wanli appreciated Zhu Quan’s book for its richness in content and brevity in form. Copies of the early Ming edition had likely remained in the Palace Library down to Wanli’s time. 62 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 (7) In 1636, Zhu Changfang, prince of Lu 潞, sent to the Chongzhen emperor his Gujin zongfan yixing kao 古今宗藩懿行考, a vast compilation detailing the lives of princes throughout the ages, asking the emperor if he thought it might be useful to distribute the book among the principalities. he Ministry of Rites gave its approval, provided that Zhu Changfang printed the book at his own expense.62 It might appear reasonable to assume that princes routinely sent the emperor copies of the books they published or notices of their intention to publish. his does not, however, seem to have been the case; the above-quoted examples are too few to sustain this supposition. It appears that these cases all deal with books that the princes had written/compiled themselves and sent the emperor not to obtain authorization, but simply for the sake of presentation— and possibly in hopes of gaining recognition and rewards. Moreover, we do not ind any princely publications in the various catalogues of the imperial library that were compiled under the Ming (I exclude, of course, books sent as gifts to the princes which were republished by them), a fact that suggests that princes did not send their publications to the Court. Since titles published by the princes and those stored in the imperial library do not overlap, it is justiiable to infer that princes did not publish the same books as the Court. Material or intellectual connections between princely and imperial publishing thus seem to have been rare. Princes enjoyed relative freedom in their publishing activities at least under the Ming emperors, who never implemented stringent censorship. he lack of convergence between the works published by the princes and those stored in the imperial library also demonstrates that the titles edited and 62 he copy reprinted in Siku quanshu cunmu congshu, shibu, vol. 117, reproduces Zhu Changfang’s presentation memorial and the oicial correspondence that ensued (covering the year 1636). he prince eventually sent ifty copies of his book to Chongzhen, asking him to suggest that the Ministry of Rites give one copy to every princely house oicial on assignment in Beijing, so that he might bring it back to his prince. hese are interesting indications not only of the approximate number of copies printed in the case of princely publications, but also of the type of readers for whom the prince intended his book and the channels he had envisaged for its difusion. he edition in the Siku quanshu cunmu congshu has a postscript signed by one of the few imperial clansmen to have attained the jinshi degree. He signed it with his title as doctor, which he obtained at the 1637 session (this means his postscript cannot be prior to that date and there must have been a second printing). As for the copy held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, it has only Zhu Changfang’s shuyi 疏義, preceding the table of contents and dated the irst month of 1636. In this document, the prince introduces his book and then begs the emperor to circulate it among his fellow princes (this shuyi, though, is not the presentation memorial). his copy might represent a copy of the very irst edition of the book or a pirated edition, from which all documents issued by the Court were cautiously removed. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 63 re-edited by the princes were not identical to those stored in the imperial library (whether printed by the Palace or not). he princes did not edit the same books as the Court. 1.5. Where did the reprinted books come from? Ming princes not only published books, but also collected them.63 Princes from the irst generation (i.e. Zhu Yuanzhang’s sons) may have been given books by their father. hese books would have come either from the former Yuan imperial library or from private collections (even before he ascended the throne, the Ming founder had issued instructions for book collecting). Yet, we have no solid evidence that Zhu Yuanzhang gave books to his sons. Wherever the truth lies, Ming princes, as we shall see (in Section 3.3), were given books by emperors. Books given by the emperor and those that the prince himself published were held in high regard in any princely library. hey were duly stamped with the seal of the princely house.64 hese two kinds of books by no means constituted the largest share of princely collections, however. he princes, for whom book prices were not an obstacle, for the most part acquired books on the market, probably through middlemen (since they had no right to travel) as well as book dealers who visited them regularly at their palaces. he relationship between princely book collecting and princely book publishing has been thoroughly addressed in secondary scholarship. he collections themselves, however, merit further attention. Qian Qianyi 錢謙益 (1582-1664), a lifelong bibliophile who himself came to own many books that had belonged to princes, once observed that “in the whole realm, there are no book collections more valuable than those of the princes.”65 Princely collections, which some princes happily shared with literati, contained printed and manuscript books. We do have evidence that princes owned manuscripts, but the ways in which they acquired them is not clear. Presumably the princes 63 Song imperial clansmen had also been book collectors. See Fan Fengshu, Zhongguo sijia cangshu shi, 117-20. For a collection estimated at 70,000 juan, see Hu Yinglin, Shaoshi shanfang bicong, 18. SS 244/8672 and 245/8701 mention respectively a 10,000 and a 20,000-juan collection. See also SS 245/8706, 246/8721. 64 he Fu Sinian Library in Taipei houses a copy of the 1548 edition of the Hongwu zhengyun, produced by the house of Heng. On the cover lap of each of the ive boxes was stamped the prince of Xinle/Heng’s big red square seal. he four characters read: 新樂王印. (he prince of Xinle is probably Zhu Zaixi here). In the same way, copies of the Tangwen cui and Songwen jian (published by the house of Jin) that had found their way to the imperial library in the eighteenth century bore the seal of the Yangde shuyuan 養德書院, the studio of the Jin house. See TLLL, 787, 789-90. 65 “Huang shi Qianqingzhai cangshu ji,” in Qian Qianyi, Muzhai youxue ji, 995. 64 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 had inancial resources suicient to hire a large number of copyists to reproduce books that their owners refused to sell, even for a high price. (Recall that the presence of a high proportion of manuscripts in libraries was not unique to China, as this was also the case in pre-modern Europe, where manuscripts were as valuable as in China for many of the same reasons.) In their prefaces princes very rarely acknowledge that they have republished a book from their own collection, but this absence should not suggest that they did not do so. Often princes simply do not mention the reference edition (diben 底本), let alone where they found it. In addition, conventional formulae such as “I incidentally came across such a book” are good indications that they picked a book from their own bookshelves. For example, Zhu Chongxiang, prince of Guangze/Liao and an extremely active publisher,66 claims to have “incidentally found in a bamboo trunk an old edition” of Yang Zai’s (1271-1323) poems. He restored the missing characters himself and ordered a new impression.67 In all likelihood, princes, like any other self-respecting bibliophiles, catalogued their book holdings.68 Unfortunately, only one such catalogue has survived, that of Zhu Mujie (1517-86), a member of the house of Zhenping/ Zhou (Kaifeng). Mujie is a remarkable character; he was at once a collector, proliic author, and publisher, a man highly regarded by the literati. We are 66 Seven of his editions have been preserved. hey are characterized by the mention of his studio, the Meinan shuwu 梅南書屋, in the central space of the block. He is credited with at least three other works, now lost: a gazetteer, Jingzhi 荆志, a Yayin conghe 雅音叢和 in one juan (mentioned in Zhu Mujie’s catalogue), as well as his own collected writings. On assignment to Jiangling while he was in the Ministry of Justice, Cai Runan 蔡汝楠 ( j.s. 1532) visited Zhu Chongxiang’s rich library. He described the prince as “loving to engrave books” and prompted him to publish a collection of poems of the “three Xies,”—that is, Xie Lingyun and Xie Huilian from the Liu-Song dynasty and Xie Tiao from the Southern Qi. See Cai’s undated preface to the San Xie shiji 三謝詩集. 67 暇日偶檢笥中獲舊本一帙, 讀之, 惜其 多磨滅, 因手自校訂, 爰命梓行, 與天下詩 人共 (Hanlin Yang Zhonghong shi, Guangze/Liao, 1536). So, too, Zhu Yiyin explains that he found the poems for his Sheng Ming shi’er jia shixuan 盛明十二家詩選, an anthology of Ming poetry modeled on texts collecting the “twelve poets of the Tang,” “in [his?] bamboo trunks” (zi siqiezhong suoyou 自笥篋中所有). Zhu Chaoke, prince of Shangluo/Zhou, found, “incidentally, in a bamboo trunk,” a copy of the Yayin huibian 雅音會編, a thesaurus of Tang rhymes, which he ended up republishing in 1631. It would not be unreasonable to assume that in all these cases, si or siqie (bamboo trunks used to store books) is a metaphor for the princes’ own libraries. 68 Reading through the catalogue of the collection of his princely house, Zhu Shenzao, seventh prince of Shu, learned that it contained the Caoshu jiyun 草書集韻; he reprinted the book, which had been damaged by worms and become diicult to read. See his preface, which is also reproduced in his Huiyuan ruizhi ji, 9/1b-2a. Zhu Shenzao references his library catalogue with the word shumu 書目. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 65 fortunate to have relatively abundant materials related to him.69 he catalogue of his collection, Wanjuantang shumu 萬卷堂書目, long circulated only in the form of (numerous) manuscripts; Qian Qianyi had in his possession a handwritten copy of the catalogue.70 It irst came into print only in the early twentieth century, in Luo Zhenyu’s 1910 Yujianzhai congshu 玉簡齋叢書 and then in Ye Dehui’s 1919 Guangutang shumu congke 觀古堂書目叢刻 (Ye’s preface to the Wanjuantang shumu is dated 1903). In these two editions, which served as models for all later editions, more than 4,000 titles are listed; Zhu himself, in a short note he wrote in 1570 on the occasion of an inventory, mentions 4,310 titles.71 69 I am currently undertaking research on Zhu Mujie and hope to publish the results in the near future. I will hence not develop his case beyond the following remarks. Zhu Mujie perfectly embodied the “literatus prince” character. He was closely connected with the highest intellectual circles of his time: he met or had contacts with Li Mengyang (1473-1529), Lu Shen (14771544), Lü Nan (1479-1542), Li Kaixian (1502-68), Lu Nan (?-1560), Zhang Shiche (1500-77), Li Panlong (1514-70), Xu Zhongxing (1517-78), Wu Guolun (1524-93), Wang Shizhen (152690), Jiao Hong (1541-1620), and Hu Yinglin (1551-1602). In him, the scholar prevailed over the imperial clansman. Zhu Mujie specialized in commentaries on the Classics, a ield in which he made himself known through reeditions, compilations, and personal contributions. In 1580, he even sent Zhang Juzheng, then at the height of his power, his Chunqiu bianyi 春秋辨疑. An expert in the Classics, Zhang thanked him, saying the book was in harmony with his own views. he following year, Zhu Mujie sent the grand secretary his Gaomiao shengdian 高廟聖典 (i.e., the Shengdian, discussed in Section 3.4), along with his reedition of the Zhouyi jijie 周易集解. See Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Juzheng ji, 909 and 1003. It is worth noting that there was a domain in which imperial clansmen—whether in the Song, Ming or Qing—distinguished themselves by their writings: the study of Classics, jingxue 經學. his is not a coincidence: the Classics were the cornerstone of the imperial regime, and imperial clansmen its incarnation. In this respect, imperial clansmen were as committed to the state as oicials were. Apart from this theme, Zhu Mujie compiled three works dealing with his region (see note 328), wrote genealogies both of the imperial clan and of his own house of Zhou, a history of the Jianwen reign, a treatise on posthumous names, and so forth. Based on the number of books he compiled, wrote, published or republished, Zhu Mujie merits treatment alongside polymath prince Zhu Quan (who probably did not write all the works attributed to him). He undoubtedly was one of Kaifeng’s most renowned literati between 1550 and 1586, the year he died. For biographies of Zhu Mujie, see GCXZL 1/26a-31a (epitaph by Zhang Yigui, Zhu Mujie’s compatriot); FXJ 1/10ab; Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji xiaozhuan, 775-76; Zhu Yizun, Mingshi zong, 85/5ab; Sun Qifeng, Zhongzhou renwu kao, 242-43; Kaifeng fuzhi 1660, 25/14b; MS 116/3569-70; Gujin tushu jicheng, jingjidian j. 48. See also DMB, 353. 70 Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji xiaozhuan, 776. Zhu Yizun, for his part, owned a handwritten copy that he considered to be from Zhu Mujie’s own hand, unlike others in circulation at his time. See Zhu Yizun, Jingzhiju shihua, 16. According to Zhu Yizun, the original title of the catalogue was Juletang yiwenzhi 聚樂堂藝文志 (a title that can be found today on some of the extant manuscripts instead of Wanjuantang shumu). 71 Inoue Susumu is surprised that a prince with such a diminutive title collected so many books. See Inoue, “Zōsho to dokusho,” 420, and Chūgoku shuppan bunka shi, 247. his fact is not necessarily surprising, although at this point more research is needed on the particular issue 66 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 Zhu Mujie obtained most of his collection by acquiring part of two other collections: that of the Ge 葛 family of Yangzhou72 and that of his close friend Li Kaixian 李開先 (1502-68), famed Shandong author and book collector.73 After his death, the state of the collection seems to have sufered: one account, dated 1610, describes the library as dirty and apparently abandoned.74 Yet there is evidence that Mujie’s son, Zhu Qinmi, did take an interest in the collection, even expanding it somewhat. Around 1618, he was able to supply two missing chapters of the Song zaifu biannian lu 宋宰輔編年錄 to local oicials who had undertaken a republication of the text; he explained that he had found the chapters while airing out his library—that is, taking the books out to dry, a customary means of preservation.75 We know, too, that Sun Chengze 孫承澤, who served as magistrate of Xiangfu (i.e. Kaifeng) around 1636-37, consulted the collection.76 We know of the existence of one other catalogue of a princely collection, that of the bibliophile Zhu Mouwei; it was titled Yizhai shumu 一齋書目. According to Qian Qianyi, Zhu Mouwei once wrote a letter to Qian ofering to share his book collection so that Qian could write a history of the Ming. Unfortunately, the local magistrate who was to transmit all the manuscripts to of how imperial funds were distributed among the princes once allocated to a given house. he irst to have studied the history of Zhu Mujie’s catalogue was Yu Jiaxi, in an erudite postscript he added to one of the manuscript versions of the catalogue. Bearing the title Juletang yiwen mulu 聚樂堂藝文目錄, this manuscript is now held in the National Library of China. Juletang was Zhu Mujie’s studio: it is the name which appears in his publications. he name Wanjuantang was also used, for it appears in sources from Zhu Mujie’s lifetime. See also Wang Zhongmin, “Zhongguo muluxue shiliao (yi),” 64-66, where Wang explains the diferences between all the manuscript versions of the catalogue by the fact that Zhu Mujie’s collection was constantly growing. I have found one manuscript, held by Qinghua University, Beijing, that includes more than 5,000 book titles. 72 Ge Qin 葛欽 and his sons Ge Jian 葛澗 and Ge Run 葛潤. See Fan Fengshu, Zhongguo sijia cangshu shi, 197-98. 73 Unfortunately, Li’s collection catalogue, which once circulated under the title Li Zhonglu shumu 李中麓書目, is lost, rendering any comparison with Zhu Mujie’s impossible. 74 Xie Zhaozhe, Wuzazu, 265. A friend whom Xie had sent to the prince’s library to copy down a couple of books reported to him that the library was located in the most remote hall of the palace and that entrance was forbidden. He goes on to say there were no clerks in charge of keeping an eye on the collection and that the place was dirty and almost abandoned. 75 See the diferent prefaces to Song zaifu biannian lu (manuscript held in the Taiwan National Library) in Xuba jilu, shibu, 4, 214-19. Zhu Qinmi is called by his sobriquet, Borong 伯榮. 76 Zhu Yizun, Mingshi zong, 85/5a, or Jingzhiju shihua, 17, repeated by Ye Changchi, Cangshu jishi shi, 69-70; preface of the Wanjuantang shumu attributed to Cao Rong (see Wanjuantang shumu, 1066). Certain sources have it that Zhu Mujie’s collection catalogue was compiled by his son. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 67 Qian was careless and they were lost in a ire.77 In both Zhu Mujie and Zhu Mouwei’s cases, the link between a large princely book collection and the production of scholarly writings is evident. Well before the end of the Ming, it seems, some princely collections began to be dispersed into private collections, for reasons that have yet to be determined, but probably do not difer much from the usual reasons bibliophiles parted with their collections (inancial distress, waning enthusiasm, desire to leave one’s books to amateurs rather than to uninterested ofspring). In contrast to some European aristocrats, Ming princes never donated parts of their book collections to the imperial library. In any case, those princely collections that were not destroyed during the late Ming civil war were sold on the market. here is evidence to suggest that men like Wang Shizhen 王世貞 (15261590) and three bibliophiles of the Ming-Qing transition, Wang Shizhen 王士禎 (1634-1711), Xu Qianxue 徐乾學 (1631-1694), and Ji Zhenyi 季振宜 (b. 1630), owned books that had belonged to princely collections.78 Ming sources yield only rather sketchy and clicheed information about the contents of princely collections; they state simply that such a prince “loved ancient books,” while another “collected books” or “liked to copy rare books,” and so on. he Qing imperial library catalogue is more helpful. he Tianlu linlang shumu 天祿琳琅書目 and its supplement, in which collectors’ seals have been carefully recorded, reveal that the houses of Jin, Chu, Zhou, Heng and Lujiang/Zheng owned important book collections, including Song and Yuan, as well as Ming, editions.79 Certainly many princely collections were 77 Qian Qianyi, Liechao shiji xiaozhuan, pp. 778-79; DMB, 346. Xie Zhaozhe, Wuzazu, 265, identiies Zhu Mouwei’s collection as being, with Zhu Mujie’s, the only princely collection of his day, but he remarks that it “is not very complete” ( juanzhi bushenbei 卷帙不甚備) (he may mean that the books are not complete). My feeling is that Zhu Mouwei’s collection was not entirely destroyed and that part of it later fell in the hands of the Xu brothers (Xu Qianxue, Xu Bingyi, and Xu Yuanwen), eminent bibliophiles of the Kangxi reign. he Chuanshilou shumu 傳是樓書目 and Peilintang shumu 培林堂書目, catalogues of Xu Qianxue’s and Xu Bingyi’s collections, include many books written or compiled by Zhu Mouwei. his is indeed an insubstantial clue, but it must be understood with reference to another one: the only list of Zhu Mouwei’s books now extant (introduced in Section 1.1) is an appendix to the manuscript copy of the catalogue of Xu Qianxue’s collection. 78 In 1665, in Qingzhou, former place of residence of the princes of Heng, Wang Shizhen 王士禎 came upon books once owned by princes of Gaotang/Heng. See Ye Changchi, Cangshu jishi shi, 69-70. he Lufu mifang 魯府祕方, a collection of medical prescriptions published by the house of Lu (see Section 2.1), is mentioned in Ji Zhenyi’s catalogue (see Ji Zhenyi, Ji Cangwei cang shumu, 65). Wang Shizhen’s 王世貞, Xu Qianxue’s, and Ji Zhenyi’s seals can be seen, among many others, on books which Ming princes had stamped as theirs before (see TLLL). 79 Ye Changchi, Cangshu jishi shi, 69-73, compiles valuable information on princely collections. See also Yuan Tongli, “Mingdai sijia cangshu gailüe,” 1; Fan Fengshu, Zhongguo sijia cangshu shi, 176, 233-34, 640-41; Fu Xuancong and Xie Zhuohua, eds., Zhongguo cangshu tongshi, 68 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 large enough that their owners could use them to compile huge anthologies— for instance, the Wenzhang leixuan 文章類選, compiled by one of Zhu Yuangzhang’s sons in his ief of Qing (Shaanxi), or the Wenhan leixuan dacheng 文翰 類選大成, compiled by order of the prince of Huai in 1472, and consisting of 163 chapters classiied according to literary genres and dynasties80—or even voluminous collectanea (congshu 叢書) such as the Guochao diangu 國朝典故 (sixty-three titles), published by a prince of the house of Juye/Lu, Zhu Dangmian, in 1542. Zhu was fond of handcopying rare books he came across, and was a noteworthy bibliophile.81 637-57. Certain princes, such as Zhu Jiannan, prince of Lujiang/Zheng, whose seals are on many books, were important bibliophiles but do not seem to have engaged in publishing. For books from the Qing imperial library that had in the past belonged to Ming princely collections, see TLLL, pp. 11-12, 34-35, 186-87, 202-03, 254, 357-58, 370-71, 427-28, 434-35, 435-36, 436-37, 455, 457-58, 552, 594-95, 598. A study of the collectors seals recorded in the entries of the Tianlu linlang shumu and its supplement has been made by Lai Fushun (see his Qingdai Tianlu linlang), but in the case of princely seals, it does not provide more information than the entries themselves. he reading of the Tianlu linlang shumu and its supplement proves instructive. It enables us to know which houses owned what books, and where the books from the princely collections later ended up. With regard to princely publishing, it suggests there was only very little, if any, overlap between the books collected by the princes and those they published: titles collected by a house are not among the titles it published, and vice versa. One single exception, however, leads us to imagine that the house of Chu republished the Wenxuan (in 1578) from Yuan Jiong’s 1549 edition of the Liujia Wenxuan 六家文選, because the seal of the house of Chu (楚府圖書) was stamped on that edition. Similarly, one of the copies of the Tangwen cui 唐文粹 bears seals both of the house of Jin (which printed this title) and of the late Yuan and early Ming scholar Zhang Mengjian 張孟兼. We are justiied in supposing that this edition (not to say this copy itself ), dating from the Song-Yuan period, was the one used by the house of Jin, perhaps along with other editions, to republish the book. 80 Under the heading of anthologies, we can also mention the Huang Ming wenfan 皇明文範, which had been compiled by a certain Zhang Rong 張容 and was printed by the prince of Yi 益 Zhu Houhua (r. 1541-56). See GCXZL 2/58b. No edition of this book is extant. he compilation of an anthology, however, did not necessarily require an immense library at one’s disposal; several existing anthologies might be compiled into a new one, with the section sequencing alone being new. 81 Zhu Dangmian published another congshu, which, like the Guochao diangu, contained Ming titles: the Guochao molie jiyi 國朝謨烈輯遺 (the Siku quanshu zongmu redactors listed it under the title Diangu jiyi). He also published Yang Wanli’s 楊萬里 (1124-1206) commentary on the Yijing, revised by Zhang Jingzhi (Zhang xiansheng jiaozheng Yang Baoxue Yizhuan 張先生 校正楊寶學易傳). Zhu Dangmian authored the Gaiyuan kao 改元考, a work on era names for which he wrote a preface in 1522 (the Siku quanshu cunmu congshu series reprinted a Ming manuscript copy). he house of Juye was very active in publishing, more so than the house of Lu 魯, to which it was attached. Both were based in Yanzhou, close to Qufu, hometown of Confucius. he other outstanding publisher in the house of Juye was Zhu Guanyou, who, alone or in collaboration with his father Zhu Jiangen, published at least four titles between 1559 and 1573. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 69 As previously mentioned, books from their own collection (by this, I mean the family collection each prince inherited from his predecessor) and books given by the emperor were far from being the only books princes had at their disposal. Contrary to what is commonly held, I think most of the books princes reprinted did not indeed belong to these two categories. Where, then, did these books come from? Ming princes maintained a plethora of courtiers. Many literati without oice hovered around them—and brought them books. In 1630 for instance, Zhu Mouyin was introduced to the Lidai zhongding yiqi kuanzhi fatie 歷代鐘鼎彝器款識法帖 by one of his courtiers or “guests” (ke 客); the prince reprinted the book three years later.82 After he had published an augmented version of Tao Zongyi’s 陶宗儀 Shushi huiyao 書史會要, it was on the suggestion of another ke that Mouyin undertook to compile the Huashi 畫史 huiyao.83 In the same manner, it has been assumed that courtiers showed Zhu Changfang materials on music that the prince later reprinted (or compiled?) under the title (Lufan zuanji) Guyin zhengzong (潞藩纂集)古音正宗 (1634).84 A prince from the house of Zhou reprinted a collection of writings on inner alchemy of which he had become fond—and which had likely been brought to him by one of his courtiers (Jindan zhengli daquan 金丹正理大全, Zhou, 1538).85 he ke thus played an important role in directing the princes’ attention to particular books. In addition, there is some evidence that princes found books on the market. Zhu Zhiyang, prince of Jin, “sought to purchase every book he had not read.”86 In 1589, a eunuch from the house of Shu bought a copy of the Tongjian gangmu quanshu 通鑑綱目全書 on behalf of his prince; the house reissued it in 1593. In certain cases, an oicial appointed to the princely house brought with him an ongoing publishing project, which the prince helped bring to completion. Such was the pattern with Xie Rushao 謝汝韶 and the Ershijia zi shu 82 In the princely context, the term ke 客 is an ambiguous one. I take it in the sense of “courtier” but it may well mean “dependant.” Both senses imply a more or less strong subordination to the prince. 83 See his preface (dated 1631). 84 For a very critical presentation of this book, see Qinqu jicheng, 26. 85 See the preface: “I was at this point in my spiritual quest when someone brought me a book in twenty-four fascicles entitled Jindan zhengli daquan” (渴念間, 有人進予書一部, 計二十四本, 名曰金丹正理大全). his prince signs the preface with his Songyue zhuren 嵩嶽主人 sobriquet. He is often identiied as the prince of Zhou himself (i.e. Zhu Mushen), who died the year this preface was written. his identiication is a possibility, but by no means certain. At the end of the preface, in addition to the seal of Songyue zhuren, there are those of the Leshantang 樂善堂 and the Cunxindian 心殿. Cunxindian is a generic term: the Cunxindian was the hall where the prince lived, the most private hall of the princely palatial complex. 86 See zhangshi Ma Peng’s preface to the Yuanwen lei ( Jin, 1537). 70 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 二十家子書, in the Ji principality.87 A juren of 1558, Xie had been vice-prefect of Chengtian, Jiajing’s native country. he emperor had recommended him to the then prince of Ji. Appointed zhangshi to this prince’s successor in 1575, and then not long after made his teacher at the Chongde shuyuan (the princely studio, “christened” by the emperor in 1566), Xie presented the prince with several works that he had painstakingly collated and copied, over the space of several years, from a copy of the Daozang held in the Yuanyou gong 元祐宮, Chengtian’s most famous Daoist institution (and one that had been patronized by Jiajing himself ). he prince recognized the value of the texts and ordered their impression in 1578. Xie requested a preface from Chen Xing 陳省, who had taken the provincial examination the same year he had and, as it happened, was a provincial censor in Huguang. A second story further illustrates this pattern. Liu Guohan 劉國翰 had compiled his Jishizhu 記事珠 when serving as teacher in the house of Qin, but the printing had been interrupted. Zhu Tongguan, the prince of Ruyang/Zhou, to whose service Liu was later transferred, agreed to complete the project; full completion, in 1536, was eventually due to yet another member of that house, Tongguan having died. In some other cases, the literati in oice at a princely house ofered a book to the prince who subsequently republished it. For example, Yuan Zhi’s 袁袠 (1502-47) great-nephew, who held the oice of judge in the house of Heng, ofered the prince the works of his deceased great-uncle, originally published in the 1550s by Yuan Zhi’s brothers and his son. he prince republished the work, with very minor modiications (Hengfan chongke Xutai xiansheng ji 衡藩重刻胥臺先生集, 1584). Local oicials also might approach the prince and ask him to print a book. For example, two oicials from Taizhou, Zhejiang, when appointed to an oice in Sichuan, brought with them a 1520 edition of Fang Xiaoru’s collected works, Xunzhizhai ji 遜志齋集, that had been printed in Taizhou. he prince of Shu, Zhu Rangxu, reprinted it in 1541. So, too, a provincial oicial brought to Zhu Chongxiang, prince of Guangze/Liao, a manuscript of Liu Yan’s 劉炎 Eryan 邇言 (Song). he prince had the text revised, even inserting a few personal comments, and printed the revised version in 1529. It was not a local oicial but a local bibliophile who in 1529 asked this same prince of Guangze to republish the Jishan xiansheng wenji 霽山先生文集, the 1463 edition of which he had annotated (the Jishan xiansheng wenji contained Song-Yuan transition scholar Lin Jingxi’s 林景熙 prose and poetry). Zhu 87 Eshijia zi shu comprises Laozi, Guiguzi, Liezi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and so on. Some of the twenty titles were later reprinted separately, from the Ji house edition, a fact that suggests the collection circulated widely. J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 71 Chongxiang was eager to agree, since he had neither read Jingxi’s work nor possessed any of his books in his impressive library. Finally, when in the late Ming prohibitions were relaxed and zongshi allowed to wander more freely, they had the opportunity to acquire more books. hus, on a trip to Chu, Zhu Mouyin was introduced to a dictionary of Tang rhymes compiled by a certain Mao Maozong 毛懋宗 and his son. It bore the marks of being poorly proofread and hastily printed. Zhu’s host asked him to correct it. he prince, in turn, entrusted his son and one of his nephews with the task of revising the book, which he published three years later (Tangya tongsheng 唐雅 同聲, 1625). We are confronted here with another case of publishing: a literatus prince who is solicited to personally revise, and subsequently print, a book which is not his. All these examples indicate that princes obtained books through a considerable variety of ways. Only by closely examining the prefaces can we make sense of this diversity. 1.6. A family business Princely publishing often turned out to be a family business. he two most frequently recurring patterns involved a prince collecting and publishing the writings of his deceased father, or a prince publishing a book but delegating the actual work to his son or grandson. hese patterns, of course, are not unique to princes: literati families behaved similarly. In the case of some princely collections, a dozen members of the family could be involved in the publishing process, although they might not all be working at the same time (see for instance Shenguo Mianxue shuyuan ji 瀋國勉學書院集, Shen). As was often the case with Ming publications, the printed list of revisers did not necessarily correspond to the actual editing contributions of the diferent family members.88 Princes could also solicit their kin to provide the calligraphy for texts: Zhu Tonghuang, Zhu Mouwei’s son, produced the brushwork for one of the prefaces of the Shujingzhu jian 水經注箋 (1615), as the inclusion at the end of the preface of “Nanzhou houxue Zhu Tonghuang shu” 南州後學朱統 鍠書 indicates. Some princes, it should be noted, started their publishing activities even before they ascended the throne of their house, when they were 88 hat is the case with the Huafa dacheng 畫法大成, the collective project of a group of secondary princes from the house of Lu 魯, and with all books published or republished by Zhu Mouyin, from the house of Ning, during the Chongzhen era: Shushi huiyao 書史會要, Huashi huiyao 畫史會要, Tangya tongsheng 唐雅同聲, and Lidai zhongding yiqi kuanzhi fatie 歷代鐘 鼎彝器款識法帖. In these ive publications, the chief editor wanted to associate his sons and/ or nephews with his enterprise. 72 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 still only heirs (see for example Zhu Yiyin, in the house of Yi 益). his is further evidence of the strength of the princely publishing tradition: a prince might not be interested in publishing, but his son might exhibit an interest beginning in childhood. It also proves that environment was a key factor: because of their status and all it implied (wealth, contacts), princes partook from birth of a privileged cultural background which aforded them many advantages. When a prince died before he could complete a publishing project, his heirs would complete the job. Prince of Yi 益 Zhu Youbin did not live to reprint the Daguang yihui yupian 大廣益會玉篇. he book was thus published only in 1573, thirty-four years after his death, by his second son Zhu Houxuan and his grandson Zhu Yiyin. Meanwhile, his elder son and successor Zhu Houhua published the Chongbian Guangyun 重編廣韻 (1549), which Youbin had also been unable to publish in his lifetime. Princes’ widows (whether their former spouses or concubines) could play this role as well. hey sometimes were the ones who undertook the publication of books that their late husband did not have time to publish (Qinfan shide lu 秦藩世德錄, Qin, 1503, the prince having died in 1498; Chuxueji 初學記, Jin, 1534, the prince having died in 1533). Did women of the princely households ever write texts? It is very likely, especially if we assume that writing practices in the princely milieu did not difer signiicantly from those in any other elite family (and I see no reason to doubt that this was the case). And, there is some evidence—sparse, to be sure—to support this point. Lady Jiang, prince of Xing’s spouse—and the mother of the future Jiajing emperor—compiled and wrote a preface to Nüxun 女訓 in 1508 (see Section 3.5 for more details). One princess of Anfu 安福, daughter of prince of Ning Zhu Dianpei (r. 1449-91), authored a four chapter-collection, Guihuaxuan ji 桂華軒集, comprising 170 penta- and heptasyllabic poems.89 Moreover, as was the fashion at the Palace and in gentry families, the princes’ concubines often wrote either Buddhist or Daoist religious texts.90 his is hardly surprising: See Jiangcheng mingji, in Siku quanshu, 588:292. In 1521, the prince of Xiang’s 襄 concubine, Lady Wang, published a collection of ive Buddhist works, among which is the Foshuo Gaowang Guanshiyin jing 佛說高王觀世音經, “one of the favorite texts chosen by the faithful to be printed and distributed for free down the ages until today” (Yü, Kuan-yin, 110). Zhang Xiumin, Zhongguo yinshua shi, 290, gives two other examples from the houses of Ru 汝 and Su 肅, but without quoting his sources. He also credits, incorrectly, one concubine Zhang from the house of De, as the author of a baojuan. his mistake made its way through other secondary works. A Lady Zhang did write this baojuan, but she was an imperial concubine; “Virtuous Concubine Zhang” 德妃 was hastily rendered by Zhang Xiumin as “concubine from the house of De.” 89 90 J. Kerlouégan / East Asian Publishing and Society 1 (2011) 39-73 73 imperial clanswomen are depicted in the sources in just the same manner as women of the gentry (their biographies ill up gazetteers), and there seems to be have been little diference between them when it came to reading, writing, or publishing practices.