ABSTRACT
This chapter asks which dynamic societal factors produced a conscious need for legal change in early China and why the introduction of written law was considered to be an integral part of that legal change. In answering these questions, three new facets of early Chinese views on the value and role of written law are brought to light. First, that the early Chinese use of written laws arose in direct response to a growing need for an alternative method of social control, precipitated by the deteriorating socio-political conditions of the late “Spring and Autumn” and “Warring States” Periods. Second, unlike previous scholarship, it is argued that the reliance on written law was not envisioned as merely having vertical legal effect on the socio-legal relations between the traditional aristocracy and the general populace, but was also thought to be capable of mediating the escalating inter-clan conflict among the aristocracy which threatened the internal stability of individual kingdoms. Third, this chapter demonstrates a growing consciousness within several early Chinese kingdoms of the ability of written media to increase the efficacy of law.
