Unionlist of Handicraft Regulations (jiangzuo zeli )
in Chinese and International Collections (Version 2002, PDF-Format 700 KB)

Introduction

Recently the Qing dynasty source type of zeli, „regulations and precedents“, has again attracted the interest of Chinese historians and Western historians of China. Handicraft regulations, jiangzuo zeli, form a special segment of „regulations and precedents“. This term does not originate from the Qing, but has been coined by culture historian Wang Shixiang in the 1960s. Wang first defined jiangzuo zeli as “established rules for artisans in all sectors of the building trade“. But handicraft regulations do not only encompass the classical building trades as carpentry, stonemasonry, bricklaying, tile glazing, and scaffolding, but also other areas of civil engineering, such as river conservancy, canal construction, and shipbuilding as well as the metalworking, textile, and graphical trades. Therefore, in a broader definition, handicraft precedents and regulations can be understood as rules and data concerning techniques, materials, and funds for construction and the production of utility goods. The following catalogue has been devised in the framework of the DFG Project on „State and Handicrafts in Peking, 1700-1900“ and in cooperation with the Qinghua University Institute for the History of Science and Technology and Ancient Documents. It is based on Wang Shixiang’s list first published in Yanjing xuebao in 1995, which has been reprinted and expanded in the first two volumes of Qingdai jiangzuo zeli. From Wang’s list, we can see that in his conception, „handicraft regulations“ not only include works which are by their title designated as zeli, but also other types of writings relevant to the handicrafts. Since those lists were published, further bibliographical research has brought more texts to light, so that our knowledge about handicraft regulations is constantly increasing. This tendency requires a critical new evaluation of the term jiangzuo zeli. Wang Shixiang’s list was in chronological sequence. In order to assist the discussion on the genre, we offer here for the first time a classified bibliography of handicraft regulations which clarifies the fact that less than half of the texts included in the category are zeli by title. Our main criterion for classification is the text type as designated in the book titles. Below that level, the list is arranged topically and chronologically. An alphabetic pinyin title index is appended.

Not all of the works in the list were accessible to us. Therefore, some translations are still tentative at this moment. We render the term zuofa as „technical instructions“ in a general sense, or „manufacturing“ or „construction“ methods if specific handicrafts are concerned. The term neiting is not consistently used in the sources. We have rendered it in literal translation as „Inner Courts“, i.e. living quarters of emperor and empress, according to the dictionary definitions which give it as synonym with neiting . In the texts we have seen, however, seems to be used also for court buildings and administrative institutions outside the innermost palace precincts. For the localisation of the works in Chinese collections we have mainly followed Wang Shixiang’s list. There still exists no Chinese national union catalogue, therefore for Chinese holdings, mainly one institution is given. For European and U.S. collections, we have used the printed and online catalogues listed in appendix 2. Moreover, in 2001, we have done library and card catalogue research at the sinological institutes of Tuebingen, Bochum, Heidelberg, Leiden and Collège de France in Paris, at the national libraries Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Muenchen, and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2002, we visited the British Library and the London School of Oriental and African Studies, added about 30 items from library catalogues of Taiwan and Japan, and 2 included further holdings of North American libraries. With old Chinese prints and manuscripts, it is often difficult to decide if editions are identical or not; book titles for identical editions may vary, and publication dates can most often only been given approximately according to the dates of the prefatory memoranda in the official compilations. We include the numbers of folio for items that consist of only one chapter or volume and numbers of folio of works in the Qinghua University Library. We have also taken care to list any reprints, especially those in newer collectanea series and have added the names of libraries where copies of these congshu may be found. Our final objective is to establish a world-wide union list including the Chinese holdings. Due to restrictions of time and funds, we first present here the holdings of major European, U.S., Taiwan, and Japanese collections. More complete covering of Chinese as well as Korean collections are in preparation.

Our thanks go to the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD and the German Research Council DFG which funded Song Jianze’s stay at Tuebingen and the library visits, as well as the Max Planck Gesellschaft for financial support of Christine Moll-Murata’s research visits to Peking. We were gratiously supported by librarians Nathalie Monnet at Bibliothèque nationale, Nicole Resche and Fang Ling at Collège de France, H.W. Chan and Max van der Wijk at Leiden, Renate Stephan and Diane Strobl at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Hanno Lecher at Heidelberg, Michael Schuette at Bochum, Thomas Gaiser at Tuebingen, Meliza Ng and Ann Chiu at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hedley Sutton at the British Library, and Sue Swee Chin Small at London School of Oriental and African Studies. Moreover, we wish to thank Tanii Yôko for her help concerning Japanese holdings and Licia Di Giacinto for checking the Vatican Library. Last, not least, Juliane Kiefner has greatly assisted us with the title research in printed and online catalogues at Tuebingen.