The practice of ‘circulating scrolls’ developed during the mid-Tang as a means for civil service examination candidates to acquire the patronage they required in order to pass. The ‘cover letters’ that accompanied these circulated portfolios of written work offer a unique glimpse into candidates’ attempts to translate the cultural capital accumulated through years of classical learning into social and political relationships.
- Home
- Project
- People
- Events
- Conferences
- Research Meetings
- Dimitris Krallis: The Impersonal Logic of Governance
- Ruth Mostern: Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern: The Dili Yan’ge Tradition and its Uses in Tang and Song China
- Elizabeth M. Jeffreys: Aristocratic Book Patronage in the Twelfth Century
- Anna Shields and Patricia Ebrey, Research meeting on Song China
- Francisco Lopez-Santos Kornberger: History (and the frontier) as literature in eleventh-century Byzantine historical accounts
- John F. Haldon: Comparative Early Empire Projects – The Byzantine Perspective
- Alexei Ditter: Precedence and Persuasion
- Seminars
- Publications & Resources
- Contact
- Help