Fathoming Consort Xian: Negotiated Power in the Liang, Chen, and Sui Dynasties

Abstract

Women’s biographies constitute a long tradition in China, tracing back to the first century BCE, when the Confucian historian Liu Xiang (77–76 BCE) compiled the first collection of women’s biographies.¹ This practice soon entered the official histories.² The History of the Later Han Dynasty (Hou Hanshu)—the third of the official histories, which was compiled in the fifth century CE—presents the first special chapter of the biographies of ordinary women, one distinct from the standard chapter on the lives of imperial consorts.³ Thus, a tradition was established, such that, in all, thirteen of the twenty-five official histories include chapters on the lives of ordinary women. In turn, these life-writings often became the proto-texts for vernacular literature in various forms, as the genres of poetry, drama, legend, and fiction evolved to feature characters from them.