TY - JOUR SN - 1991-1572 T1 - Rediscussion on the comment that “Tang Code was the most balanced one in the history” AU - Ma, Hai-Feng Y1 - 2014/06/01 PY - 2014 DA - 2014/06/01 T2 - Journal for Legal History Studies JF - Journal for Legal History Studies JO - Journal for Legal History Studies JA - Journal for Legal History Studies VL - 25 SP - 205 EP - 233 KW - Tang Code、Abstracts of Imperial Collection of Four、Liu Yun、Magnanimity、The ancient and modern Y2 - 2014/06/01 N2 - It has long been remarked that the remark that “scholars argued that Tang Code defined crime thoroughly according to proprieties, and it was the most balanced code in the history” has been accredited to the Abstracts of Imperial Collection of Four. As a matter of fact, the former part of this comment originates from the Treatise on penal law of The History of the Ming Dynasty; and the latter from Liu Yun. Furthermore, the “modern” means the Yuan dynasty. Through a comparative study, it can be inferred that the “ancient” may trace back to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, while the “modern” to the Qing dynasty. The “balance” of the Tang Code is mainly about its qualities of conciseness of criminal charges and magnanimity of penalty. In terms of the causes accounting for this phenomenon, they go hand in hand with its rulers’ foreign blood, open and tolerant policy and lenient spirit. ER -