page_title: Society of the Song dynasty
section_title: Examinations and elite families
hierarchical_section_title: Society of the Song dynasty / Education and civil service / Examinations and elite families
caption_attribution_description: Chinese painting of A Literary Garden, handscroll, ink and colors on silk, 30.4 x 58.5 cm.
context_page_description: Chinese society during the Song dynasty was marked by political and legal reforms, a philosophical revival of Confucianism, and the development of cities beyond administrative purposes into centers of trade, industry, and maritime commerce. The inhabitants of rural areas were mostly farmers, although some were also hunters, fishers, or government employees working in mines or the salt marshes. Conversely, shopkeepers, artisans, city guards, entertainers, laborers, and wealthy merchants lived in the county and provincial centers along with the Chinese gentry—a small, elite community of educated scholars and scholar-officials.
  As landholders and drafted government officials, the gentry considered themselves the leading members of society; gaining their cooperation and employment was essential for the county or provincial bureaucrat overburdened with official duties. In many ways, scholar-officials of the Song period differed from the more aristocratic scholar-officials of the Tang dynasty. Civil service examinations became the primary means of appointment to an official post as competitors vying for official degrees dramatically increased.
context_section_description: The number of applicants for the Imperial examinations far outmatched the actual number of jinshi, or "presented scholars" who were given official appointments in the Song dynasty. Five times more jinshi were accepted in the Song period than during the Tang, yet the larger number of degree holders did not lower the prestige of the degree. Rather, it encouraged more to enter and compete in the exams, which were held every three years.  Roughly 30,000 men took the prefectural exams in the early 11th century, increasing to nearly 80,000 around 1100, and finally to an astonishing 400,000 exam takers by the 13th century.  With these odds, the chances of an applicant passing the examination and becoming a graduate was 1 in 333. Once a degree was obtained, however, this did not ensure an immediate path to office. The total number of scholar-officials in the Tang was about 18,000, while the total number in the Song had only increased to about 20,000. With China's growing population and an almost stagnant number of officials accepted into government, the degree holders who were not appointed to office fulfilled an important role on the grassroots level of society. They became the local elite of their communities, while scholar-officials relied upon them for maintaining order and fulfilling various duties under their jurisdiction.
  An atmosphere of intellectual competition existed between aspiring Confucian scholars. Wealthy families were eager to gather stacks of published books for their personal libraries, collecting books that covered the Confucian classics as well as philosophical works, mathematical treatises, pharmaceutical documents, Buddhist sutras, and other literature aimed at the gentry class.  The advancement of widespread book manufacturing through woodblock printing and then movable type printing by the 11th century aided in the expansion of the number of educated candidates for the civil service exams. These developments also reduced the overall cost of books so that they became more accessible to those of lesser means.
  Song scholar-officials were granted ranks, honors, and career appointments on the basis of merit, the standards of which were codified and more objective than those in the Tang dynasty. The anonymity of exam candidates guarded against fraud and favoritism by those who could judge papers based upon handwriting and/or signature calligraphy; a bureau of copyists was tasked with the job of recopying all the candidates' papers before grading. After passing the prefectural, provincial, and then palace exam (the most prestigious), scholarly degrees did not immediately ensure an appointment to office, but the more prestigious the degree, the more certain one's career in higher administrative posts would be. The central government held the exclusive right to appoint or remove officials. The case for removal was always carefully examined, since the central government kept a recorded dossier of reports on each official, stored in the capital for later review.
  Ebrey states that meritocracy and a greater sense of social mobility were also prevalent in the civil service examination system, as the government held a list of all examination graduates, showing that only roughly half of those who passed had a father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather who served as a government official. However, Robert Hartwell and Robert P. Hymes state that this fact, first presented by Edward A. Kracke in 1947 and supported by Sudō Yoshiyuki and Ho Ping-ti, emphasizes the role of the nuclear family and only demonstrates three paternal ascendants of the candidates while ignoring the demographic reality of Song China, the significant proportion of males in each generation that had no surviving sons, and the role of the extended family. Male children with fathers who were incumbents in office had the advantage of early education and experience, as they were often appointed by their father to low-level staff positions. Yet with the so-called 'protection' (yin or yin-bu 荫补/蔭補) privilege this arrangement was extended to close relatives,
caption: A Literary Garden, by Zhou Wenju, 10th century.
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