关于唐代江南士族兴衰问题的考察

研究者多认为:江南士族“于梁末被全部消灭”或“入唐时已经全面没落”。然而,通过对江南士族的代表王、谢、袁、萧和朱、张、顾、陆八大姓进行个案考察,笔者发现:事实上,江南八大士族只有少数在梁末彻底衰亡,大多数则由南北朝入隋唐,冠冕蝉联,且家学礼法传承不衰。江南士族在唐政权中的地位和作用虽不及山东士族和关陇士族,但仍有一定的政治势力,尤其在高祖、武后、德宗三朝,江南士族出身的宰相受到信重,发挥了较大的政治作用。与六朝时相比,江南士族在唐代虽然整体政治、经济势力衰落,但仍有崇高的社会地位,保持着文化世家的传统优势,从而保证其子弟在晚唐时期失去门荫世袭做官特权的情况下,复能通过进士科考试,维持家族世代官宦的地位与唐相终。

A Tentative Investigation on the Rise and Decline of the Scholar-Official South of the Yangtze in the Tang Dynasty

Scholars usually consider that the scholars south of th e Yangtze had been completely destroyed in the late Liang Dynasty, or had compl etely declined by the Tang Dynasty. However, through the case investigation on the deputy to the scholars south of the Yangtze, the eight great surnames Wang, Xie, Yuan, Xiao, Zhu, Zhang, Gu and Lu. In fact, we discover that a small number of them had been completely destroyed, mostly came from a long line of officia ls and family education from the South and North Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty. Though the scholar-officials south of the Yangtze didn’t compary with the sc holar-officials of Shandong and Guanzhong in position and function in Tang’s r egime, they also had regular political force. Though their forces in politics a nd economics had declined in the Tang Dynasty than in the Six Dynasties, they a lso had very high social position and traditional superiority of cultural arist ocratic families, thus their children could adapte themselves to the change from the hereditary to the highest imperial examination system,and kept the positio n of the scholar-officials to the late Tang Dynasty.