唐代明经科与进士科的位相:制度上和社会认识之间的乖离

The Social Position of Mingjing Degree and Jinshi Degree in Tang China:Distance Between Instition and Social Reputation

唐代的明经科是国家为加强中央集权化而形成的科举制度中比进士科更占优势的科目,但处于当时以士人为中心的社会认识中反而不如进士科重要。这种制度和社会评价之间的拮抗过程使明经科的实质重要性渐渐下降,直至北宋中期科举制度变成进士科这一单一科目。通过对比进士科和明经科反映出的这些现象表明,在国家权力和士人在社会、文化上的力学关系中,士人所起的主体能动性作用令人瞩目。因此,有必要重新思考科举,它不仅是以国家选拔官员为主的政治制度,其中还包含着士人所主导的社会、文化性因素和影响。

Imperial Examination System was established in Tang Dynasty, China, a unified empire, aiming for the centralization of civil service recruitment. Mingjing Degree mainly examined the Confucius Canons considered as basic knowledge for running the empire. It was institutionally more important than Jinshi Degree focused on belles - lettres. But the literati did not lay so much stress on Mingjing Degree, and preferred Jinshi Degree as their way of entering government office. Owing to this rivalry between institution and social reputation, Mingjing Degree was getting less and less important to the end that Jinshi became the only substantial Degree in Song Examination System. The contrastive fortune of these two Degrees distinctly revealed the independent and influential power of the literati, because they differed in the preference of Degrees with the royal court and led the change of Imperial Examination System. Therefore, it seems necessary to reconsider the characteristics of Imperial Examination System as an arena for the dominance in socio - cultural values rather than just an institution of civil service recruitment.