《新唐书·宰相表》编撰问题考论

A Study on the Compilation of Table of Prime Minister of the New Book of Tang Dynasty

《新唐书·宰相表》以年表形式记载唐代宰辅的拜罢迁转,是考察相关问题的重要史料。但我们对读《宰相表》与《新唐书·本纪》,可以发现前者缺乏严格的编纂体例,其在人物姓名、入相后官职迁转及年代的书写体例方面均存在相当的淆乱之处。我们以为,造成这一现象的原因,与《宰相表》的作者究竟是谁有关。在《新唐书》四部史表中,唯独《宰相表》的著作权归属存在争议,而通过辨析《宰相表》自身记载及《春明退朝录》'方镇百官表'五字的所指,可以确知《宰相表》为梅尧臣所撰。且由于梅氏晚年方入局修书,书成不久即离世,迫于时限,因而仅完成了相关史料的排比,未及后续的修饰与检核,故导致《宰相表》在编纂体例上存在诸多缺陷。因此,前贤考订所得《宰相表》诸多'讹误',实为其先天之缺陷,非《新唐书》流传过程中产生的讹脱衍倒——这是本文研究主要实践意义之所在。

Table of Prime Minister of the New Book of the Tang Dynasty,which records the appointment,promotion and unmaking of prime ministers in the Tang dynasty,is an important historical material in investigating related issues.However,we can find,in this table,tremendous confusions in the record of years,historical personages’name and official transfer,in the basis of the absence of a rigorous stylistic rule,after the comparison between this table and the biographic sketches of emperors of the New Book of the Tang Dynasty.The reason lead to this phenomenon is concerned with the actual writer of this table,the only one among four tables of the New Book of the Tang Dynasty that confuses the academic circle for centuries.Yet we can affirm that it is Mei-yaochen who compiled this table,via analyzing the table and the signified of the record'方镇百官表'in Notes after withdrawing through Chun-ming Gate after having an audience with the emperor.And as time for the compiling work is insufficient,Mei only completed the preparatory work,except for the subsequent perfection procedure,so the table has a lot of stylistic-rule defects.Therefore,most of the achievements of worthies’textual research are not corruptions that generated during the spread of the New Book of the Tang Dynasty.This is the main practical significance of this paper.