北魏における人身売買と身分制支配 : 延昌三年(五一四)人身売買論議を中心として

抄録

"The Debate about the Human Traffic" recorded in the "Treatise of Punishment" (hsing fa chih 刑罰志) of the Wei Shu (魏書) is one of the most important historical sources concerning the status control, especially the nu liang (奴良) system in ancient China, but only a part of it has been used of and no overall papers have been published by now. In this paper, I intended to examine two arguments on the contents of the Debate, analyze the historical characteristics of the Northern Wei Code (北魏律) quoted in the Debate and finally clarify the problem of the status control which the Northern Wei Dynasty tried to solve through this Debate. The past comment to be most criticized is that liang jen (良人) could maintain the same status as they had even after they were sold. On the contrary, I concluded that no matter how liang jen had been sold, they were turned socially into nu pei (奴婢) -though not legally, and that they were not regarded as liang jen any longer. By analysing the Northern Wei Code, particularly the "Articles of abduction" (lueh jen t'iao 掠人条) and the "Articles of selling children" (mai tzu t'iao 売子条) quoted in the Debate the following points were made clear ; (1)lueh jen t'iao and mai tzu t'iao had much the same structure as the T'ang Code (唐律). (2)The provisions of commutation of selling children probably originated from the Northern Wei Code. In this sense the Northern Wei Code qualitatively had a different structure from the Han Code (漢律) and the Chin Code (晋律). (3)The reason why the lueh jen t'iao and mai tzu t'iao did not prescribe the punishment of buyers is that the Northern Wei Code followed the tradition since the Han Code in which the crime of buyers were inseparable from the commitment of sellers. In this view we can say that the Northern Wei Code was on its way to the T'ang Code, and so was this Debate. The Northern Wei government tried to discourage the tendency of liang jen becoming nu pei as the result of the human traffic since the second half of the 5th century, but could not prevent it. Nu liang system in 513 was enforced by the State to reconstruct a new system against this status transition. But the State could not fundamentally change the situation by this policy, and fully realized that it had to take a more effective legal step. Eventually, this Debate in 514 was concerned mainly to prescribe the punishment in the case that a third person bought liang jen sold by the relatives ; such a provision was not included in the Northern Wei Code. But this point was not reflected in the decision given by the emperor based on this Debate, and then the State failed to establish the new legal system. Therefore the Northern Wei government could not reconstruct the new status system responding the situation. This task remained till the second half of the 6th century ; that was the establishment of pu ch'u (部曲) and k'o nu (客女) status by the Northern Chou (北周) Dynasty in 577.