Historical Methodology Worksheet

Due Friday, November 9 (submit it at the beginning of your discussion section)

Grading: Except where indicated, each question is worth 2 points. The worksheet has a total of 57 points. We will divide
by 5 in order to get a score out of 10, which allows for a potential grade of 11.4/10 (1.4 extra-credit points).

Definitions:
Concubine: like a second (or third or fourth, etc.) wife with lower status than the wife but higher status than a maid.
Could bear legitimate children for the family.
Footbinding: A practice that became widespread in the Song dynasty in which a young girl's feet were broken and bound
with wrappings to make them much smaller than natural feet (about 6 inches).
Gazetteers: These are NOT newspapers! They are books written by local officials describing the history, geography,
economy, and society of their area (usually their county).
Narrative: A term historians often use, basically equivalent to what we have been calling "story" in this class.
Hangchow = Hangzhou; Sung Dynasty / Sung Period = Song Dynasty; T'ang Dynasty = Tang Dynasty

Questions on Gernet's "Introduction" to Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion

1. What does Gernet mean by "our civilization is just as strange and just as arbitrary in its choices as that of
China"? (2 points)
A) Western civilization has made irrational choices
B) Western civilization should not be taken as the norm against which other civilizations are judged
C) The West and China both represent very strange civilizations

2. What view of Chinese history is Gernet attempting to overturn when he says "our civilization is not unique
in having gone through stages of development"? (2 points)
A) The idea that Chinese history is progressive
B) The idea that Chinese history is static
C) The idea that Chinese history is ever-changing

3. Where in this class have we seen the idea of historical "stages of development" before, and what might that
suggest to you about the specific perspective on history that Gernet embraces? (2 points)
A) The idea of "stages of development" is characteristic of a Marxist perspective on history; Gernet
appears to embrace the Marxist perspective.
B) The idea of "stages of development" is characteristic of a Han-dynasty scholar's perspective on
history; Gernet appears to embrace the Han-dynasty scholars' perspective.
C) The idea of "stages of development" is prominent in the book The Emergence of China; Gernet
appears to share the Brooks’ emphasis on correctly dating historical texts.

4. Why does Gernet say he chose not to give the book a "general title"? How does this relate to an issue in
historical methodology discussed in class? (2 points)
A) A general title would be prescriptive; it is an issue of prescriptive vs. descriptive sources
B) A general title would fail to account for differences across time and space; it is an issue of what the
proper units of measurement are
C) A general title would be elitist; it is an issue of who is represented in history books
D) A general title would be boring; a book on material culture should excite the reader
Your Name: Your Section #:

5. How does Gernet characterize the northern nomadic people (i.e., what specific word does he use to refer to
them)? Whose (other than Gernet's) viewpoint do you think this characterization reflects? (2 points)
A) He refers to them as "uncivilized"; this slur reflects the southern Chinese perspective that northern
culture is insufficiently literary.
B) He refers to them as "tribal"; this term reflects the perspective of anthropologists who categorized
people according to different stages of development.
C) He refers to them as "barbarian"; this slur reflects the dominant Han Chinese perspective that people
need to be settled and engaged in agriculture to be civilized.

6. According to Gernet, what are the effects of "great historical events" on the everyday lives of people? (2
points)
A) They have a tremendously disruptive effect on the everyday lives of people: political upheavals in the
Song dynasty threw communities into chaos .
B) They have a positive effect on the everyday lives of people: the great events are what made the Song
dynasty so culturally vibrant.
C) They affect people's everyday lives only when people become directly involved in them; people's
lives were filled with many other interests and concerns that were rarely shaken by political tensions.

7. What is the traditional Chinese explanation for the defeat of the Song dynasty? What does Gernet suggest is
more likely? (2 points)
A) The traditional explanation is that the Song failed to pay close enough attention to their northern
borders while the nomadic peoples grew increasingly strong; Gernet suggests that the real reasons were
a growing dissatisfaction among Confucian bureaucrats who pitted different factions of the ruling class
against one other.
B) The traditional explanation is that the Song rulers were morally weak and spent their time enjoying
art instead of paying attention to ritual and proper governance; Gernet suggests that the real reasons
were the lack of state resources, poverty among the rural population, and divisions among the elites.
C) The traditional explanation is that the foreign trade in the south distracted the rulers from their
Confucian responsibilities to promote agriculture; Gernet suggests that the real reason was that the Song
population had grown too large for the network of canals and other infrastructure to support, leading to
grain shortages and popular uprisings.

8. What evidence do you see that Gernet subscribes to a view of history as progressive, in which societies are
judged on a scale of development? (Please quote him.) Where does he think the Song dynasty was on that scale?
(4 points)

9. What specific kinds of sources were available to Gernet for his account of daily life in Song China (list
them)? What explains the great number of these sources? (4 points)
Your Name: Your Section #:

Questions on the "Introduction" to Ebrey's The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of
Chinese Women in the Sung Period

1. How does Ebrey contrast the ways in which modern western and modern Chinese people view the "Sung
period" (Song dynasty)? What does she suggest instead is the most important characteristic of the period (p. 1)?
(2 points)

A) Ebrey says that Ebrey says that modern western people see the Song as economically and culturally
backward, while modern Chinese people see it as advanced. Ebrey suggests that we focus instead on the
way women were treated during the Song dynasty.

B) Ebrey says that modern western people see the Song as highly civilized and artistically refined, while
modern Chinese people see the Song as weak and lacking in virility as compared with the Tang. Ebrey
suggests that we focus instead on the dramatic historical transformations that characterized the Song
period.

C) Ebrey says that modern western people have a biased view of the Song dynasty, while modern
Chinese people recognize the tremendous contributions that the Song dynasty made in the areas of
literature, art, and political culture. Ebrey suggests that we focus instead on the ways in which marriage
law reflected key Confucian values.

2. According to Ebrey, what kinds of change run deepest and typically take longest to occur? (2 points)
A) Structural transformations in social relations, economic policy, etc.
B) Patterns of commercial activity
C) Dynastic change, especially in the case of foreign invasion

3. List three important changes in the late Tang and Song: (3 points)
A) The late tang overhauled their tax policies and allowed land to be freely bought and sold

B) The government issued paper money and increased money supply

C) Population doubled and large migrations to the south

4. According to Ebrey, what useful point about Chinese culture are feminist historians able to make by studying
women in the Tang dynasty (p. 5)? (2 points)
A) Chinese culture is not inherently hostile to women’s autonomy
B) Chinese culture is inherently hostile to women’s autonomy
C) the Tang dynasty is so unusual that it cannot be used as evidence about Chinese culture at all

5. What useful point(s) can other feminist historians make by studying women in the Song dynasty? (2 points)
A) the Song dynasty was a turning point after which things started to get better for Chinese women

B) patriarchy in Chinese history is specific to Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism and does not reflect
Chinese culture more generally

C) both A and B
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6. What two contradictory kinds of change that occurred in the Song dynasty make it a particularly interesting
period for a study of women's history? (2 points)
A) rise of footbinding and strict Confucian attitudes toward women and marriage; strongest property
rights for women in Chinese history

B) decrease in women’s power within the family; increase in opportunities for women to participate in
the public sphere

C) women spent more time in wet-field rice cultivation; women also had more opportunities to buy
commercial goods

7. In the paragraph that stretches from p. 9 to p. 10, what kinds of sources does Ebrey say she uses, and for what
purposes does she use them? (Give four examples.) (4 points)
A) Source: Paintings Use: Gender distinctions

B) Source: Vocab of family relations Use: Precepts for family life

C) Source: Marriage Proposals and Poems Use: Images that shaped people’s thinking

D) Source: Government collections and Sung code Use: Understanding the legal system

8. In the next paragraph, Ebrey says that these "prescriptive" sources, while useful, are nonetheless limited in
that they "tended to deny multiplicity and change." She means: (2 points)
A) men have a different intellectual framework from women and don’t understand the biological
changes that women go through in their lives

B) they present an idealized view of how things are and always will be instead of showing the diversity
of experience and the way practices have changed across history

C) men denied that large numbers of women were in fact capable of making change in society; they saw
women as isolated and passive

9. In addition to “prescriptive sources,” Ebrey thus focuses especially on what she calls "narratives" (or what we
may think of as "stories") -- including fiction, gossip, and biographies written for funerals. What does Ebrey say
we can learn about women's experiences in the Song dynasty from reading the story on pp. 10-11? (2 points)
A) women were safe because the law prevented husbands from divorcing them without grounds
B) sometimes the law could be bent in favor of women
C) women could inherit property
D) Confucian values supported overcoming conflicts between husbands and wives
E) all of the above
F) B, C, and D
F) A, B, and D
Your Name: Your Section #:

10. According to Ebrey, what do we learn by reading all the positive statements about women in funerary
biographies? (p. 16) (2 points)
A) the values of the people who wrote the biographies
B) specific details about the lives of the women they describe
C) both A and B
D) none of the above

11. What does Ebrey mean when she says there is a "class bias" in her sources (p. 17)? (2 points)
A) there are no stories about people outside the educated class
B) people in the Song Dynasty were highly prejudiced against the laboring classes
C) the texts tell positive stories about the upper class and negative stories about ordinary people; this did
not match reality

12. What is the other and "even more serious" limitation of the sources? Why is this a problem for
understanding women's history? (p. 18) (2 points)
A) they were mainly written by men, who are inherently unable to understand a woman’s viewpoint
B) they were mainly written by women, who had limited education and could not fully express their
perspectives
C) they were mainly written by men, who had limited opportunities to hear women talk about many
aspects of their lives

13. Read the story on the next page (it comes from a different part of the Ebrey book). How would Ebrey use
the story as evidence to draw conclusions related to her study? Identify four distinct points, and make clear for
each whether it is prescriptive or descriptive. (8 points)
A)

B)

C)

D)
Story to analyze for the final question.

[Miss Wu's husband died, leaving her a childless widow.]

Miss Wu served her mother-in-law very filially. Her mother-in-law had an eye ailment and felt sorry for
her daughter-in-law's solitary and poverty-stricken situation, so suggested that they call in a son-in-law for her
and thereby get an adoptive heir. Miss Wu announced in tears, "A woman does not serve two husbands. I will
support you. Don't talk this way." Her mother-in-law, seeing that she was determined, did not press her. Miss
Wu did spinning, washing, sewing, cooking, and cleaning for her neighbors, earning perhaps a hundred cash a
day, all of which she gave to her mother-in-law to cover the cost of firewood and food. If she was given any
meat, she would wrap it up to take home.
Miss Wu was honest by nature. She did not talk idly,and even if other people's things were right in front
of her, she did not look at them, wanting only what was her own. Thus neighbors often engaged her, and they
helped out her and her mother-in-law, so they managed to avoid dying of hunger or cold.
Once when her mother-in-law was cooking rice, a neighbor called to her, and to avoid overcooking the
rice she dumped it into a pan. Owing to her bad eyes, however, she mistakenly put it in the dirty chamber pot.
When Miss Wu returned and saw it, she did not say a word. She went to a neighbor to borrow some cooked rice
for her mother-in-law and took the dirty rice and washed it to eat herself.
[One day] when Mis Wu woke up... she said [to her mother-in-law], "I just dreamed of two young boys
in blue clothes holding documents and riding on the clouds. They grabbed my clothes and said the Emperor of
Heaven had summoned me... He said, 'Although you are just a lowly ignorant village woman, you are able to
serve your mother-in-law sincerely and work hard. You really deserve respect." He gave me a cup of aromatic
wine and a string of cash, saying, 'I will supply you. From now on you will not need to work for others.' I
bowed to thank him and came back, accompanied by the two boys. Then I woke up."
There was in fact a thousand cash on the bed, and the room was filled with a fragrance... From this point
on even more people asked her to work for them, and she never refused. But the money that had been given to
her she kept for her mother-in-law's use. Whatever they used promptly reappeared so the thousand cash was
never exhausted...