Papers by Pierre-Etienne Will
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The history of French Sinology - that is, of scholarly research on things Chinese by French-speak... more The history of French Sinology - that is, of scholarly research on things Chinese by French-speaking authors working from Chinese sources - goes back to the seventeenth century and can be divided into several periods determined in large part by sociopolitical factors, and marked by different approaches and emphases: I propose to describe them as the missionary age (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries); the first academic efflorescence (nineteenth century); the advent of field research and the impact of colonialism and the social sciences (first half of twentieth century); and the postwar era of specialization and internationalization (second half of twentieth century), which marked the end of a certain French domination of Chinese studies in the West.
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Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 1994
Ce texte reprend pour l'essentiel celui de la leçon inaugurale de la chaire d'Histoire de la Chin... more Ce texte reprend pour l'essentiel celui de la leçon inaugurale de la chaire d'Histoire de la Chine moderne du Collège de France, prononcée le 3 avril 1992.
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La lettre du Collège de France
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French and Chinese versions of an essay published in Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat et ses successeurs.... more French and Chinese versions of an essay published in Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat et ses successeurs. Deux cents ans de sinologie française en France et en Chine, ed. Pierre-Etienne Will and Michel Zink (Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2020)
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in Mireille Delmas-Marty et Robert Guillaumond (ed.), La constitutionnalisation du droit en Chine et en France (Paris, Pedone, 2017), p. 31-69
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Historian Pierre-Etienne Will decodes the current official reevaluation in China of some Qing dyn... more Historian Pierre-Etienne Will decodes the current official reevaluation in China of some Qing dynasty officials as great patriots and paragons of (...)
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Published in CAHIERS DU CENTRE DE RECHERCHES HISTORIQUES [École des Hautes Études en Sciences Soc... more Published in CAHIERS DU CENTRE DE RECHERCHES HISTORIQUES [École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales], 4 (1989), pp. 71-88
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Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 1983
The system of public grain-stocking developed at the beginning of the Qing dynasty is no doubt un... more The system of public grain-stocking developed at the beginning of the Qing dynasty is no doubt unique in the history of imperial China, because of the size of the stocks involved, the complexity of its operational rules, and the multiplicity of its objectives. Yet this institution was in a state of crisis by the late eighteenth century, and lost all importance after 1850. This study seeks to show why it was increasingly difficult for public granaries to maintain their stocks at a constant level while insuring a steady turnover. This difficulty was largely due to factors such as the rigidity of price regulations, scheduling procedures, and purchasing methods, as well as to the cumbersome nature of transactions. The complex system of controls was powerless to prevent local officials from neglecting the problems of granary management, depleting stocks, and keeping only the cash equivalent of the reserves they were supposed to maintain.
For more details on the same topic, see the relevant chapters in P.-E. Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People: the State Civilian Granary System in China 1650-1850 (Ann Arbor, 1991)
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This is the front matter of the two volumes published by Zhonghua shuju in 2015 reproducing the c... more This is the front matter of the two volumes published by Zhonghua shuju in 2015 reproducing the collection of Qing Palace examination essays held by the Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, Collège de France, Paris. It includes the table of contents, a preface by Mr Chai Jianhong 柴劍虹, Senior Editor at Zhonghua shuju, an essay by Pierre-Etienne Will 魏丕信 on the organization and significance of the Qing Palace Examinations , and an essay by Pierre-Henri Durand 戴廷杰 on the origins and value of the present collection.
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This article deals with the administration of justice at local level in Qing China. The focus is ... more This article deals with the administration of justice at local level in Qing China. The focus is on “minor” affairs, in other words, those that could be adjudicated by local officials without further review by the higher courts. More often than not this “civil” justice entailed arbitration rather than punishment. Magistrates were expected to take advantage of court hearings and judgment-writing to maintain social harmony and educate the populace in the proper behaviors. The sources of the magistrates’ decisions—whether legal, moral, customary, or anything else—are examined. The published anthologies of judgments by individual officials are a rich depository of such decisions and at the same time provide the social historian with a wealth of materials on the daily lives of ordinary people. All of this is illustrated through the careful analysis of a selection of cases culled from two nineteenth-century collections of judicial decisions.
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This essay is about two different types of anthologies of administrative documents intended as mo... more This essay is about two different types of anthologies of administrative documents intended as models for officials. The first type, which emerged in the late Ming, consists of (mostly) published collections of administrative papers (gongdu) by individual officials. They include administrative correspondence, reports, proclamations , judgments, and other genres. Questions such as actual authorship, why and how gongdu anthologies were compiled, and the connection between public and private archives are examined. A few collective gongdu anthologies were also published in the l 660s and l 670s.
The second type consists of anonymous compilations of judicial materials culled from government archives, both printed and manuscript. They are typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and mostly feature leading cases (cheng'an) and Board memoranda (shuotie). Whereas the first
type was meant to offer individual examples of administrative excellence, the second type provided administrators with convenient overviews of the legislation in force and with authoritative interpretations of the Penal Code. A large number of titles are cited and described along the way.
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An essay on the history and significance of Chinese local gazetteers, including descriptions of t... more An essay on the history and significance of Chinese local gazetteers, including descriptions of their organization and contents, etc., compiled in 1992. Although the bibliographical part is mostly outdated, the rest should still be found useful.
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An essay written for the catalogue of the exhibition "Kangxi, empereur de Chine 1662-1722. La Cit... more An essay written for the catalogue of the exhibition "Kangxi, empereur de Chine 1662-1722. La Cité Interdite à Versailles" (Musée national du château de Versailles , Jan.-May 2004), centering on Kangxi's 1684 visit to Suzhou and proposing an interpretation of his reign.
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Huang Xieqing (1805-1864) is considered as one of the best nineteenth-century writers of Kunqu pl... more Huang Xieqing (1805-1864) is considered as one of the best nineteenth-century writers of Kunqu plays. The Mirror of the Official, composed around 1855, describes the career of Wang Wenxi, a model official who confronted the Opium war, then
ensuing social tension, and the Taiping menace in Zhejiang, Huang's native province. This article offers an analysis of the play and attempts to relate it to the life and Iiterary career of its author. It establishes that the career of its main character
was modeled on that of Wang Youling, the Zhejiang governor who perished during the assault on Hangzhou by the Taiping in 1861. The scenes dealing with the Opium war are studied in more detail. The qualities demonstrated by Wang Wenxi as a magistrate and a prefect refer the reader to the recommendations of the official handbooks that were published in large numbers during the Qing. The title of the
play is an allusion to such a handbook, composed by Wang Wenxi's father and supposed to have guided him during his career as an official.
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Papers by Pierre-Etienne Will
For more details on the same topic, see the relevant chapters in P.-E. Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People: the State Civilian Granary System in China 1650-1850 (Ann Arbor, 1991)
The second type consists of anonymous compilations of judicial materials culled from government archives, both printed and manuscript. They are typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and mostly feature leading cases (cheng'an) and Board memoranda (shuotie). Whereas the first
type was meant to offer individual examples of administrative excellence, the second type provided administrators with convenient overviews of the legislation in force and with authoritative interpretations of the Penal Code. A large number of titles are cited and described along the way.
ensuing social tension, and the Taiping menace in Zhejiang, Huang's native province. This article offers an analysis of the play and attempts to relate it to the life and Iiterary career of its author. It establishes that the career of its main character
was modeled on that of Wang Youling, the Zhejiang governor who perished during the assault on Hangzhou by the Taiping in 1861. The scenes dealing with the Opium war are studied in more detail. The qualities demonstrated by Wang Wenxi as a magistrate and a prefect refer the reader to the recommendations of the official handbooks that were published in large numbers during the Qing. The title of the
play is an allusion to such a handbook, composed by Wang Wenxi's father and supposed to have guided him during his career as an official.
For more details on the same topic, see the relevant chapters in P.-E. Will and R. Bin Wong, Nourish the People: the State Civilian Granary System in China 1650-1850 (Ann Arbor, 1991)
The second type consists of anonymous compilations of judicial materials culled from government archives, both printed and manuscript. They are typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and mostly feature leading cases (cheng'an) and Board memoranda (shuotie). Whereas the first
type was meant to offer individual examples of administrative excellence, the second type provided administrators with convenient overviews of the legislation in force and with authoritative interpretations of the Penal Code. A large number of titles are cited and described along the way.
ensuing social tension, and the Taiping menace in Zhejiang, Huang's native province. This article offers an analysis of the play and attempts to relate it to the life and Iiterary career of its author. It establishes that the career of its main character
was modeled on that of Wang Youling, the Zhejiang governor who perished during the assault on Hangzhou by the Taiping in 1861. The scenes dealing with the Opium war are studied in more detail. The qualities demonstrated by Wang Wenxi as a magistrate and a prefect refer the reader to the recommendations of the official handbooks that were published in large numbers during the Qing. The title of the
play is an allusion to such a handbook, composed by Wang Wenxi's father and supposed to have guided him during his career as an official.