Minggong shupan qingming ji 名公書判清明集

Minggong shupan qingming ji 名公書判清明集 "Pure and bright collection of verdicts by eminent masters", short Qingmingji 清明集 "Pure and bright collection", is a collection of office documents and correspondence on law cases, lawsuits, and verdicts compiled by an unknown person during the Song period 宋 (960-1279). A fragmentary version from the Song consists of a chapter on households and marriage (Huhun 戶婚) and includes judgments by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200), Zhen Dexiu 真德秀 (1178-1235), Wu Qian 吳潛 (1195-1262), Chen Zihua 陳子華, Xu Qingsou 徐清叟 (1182-1262), Wang Boda 王伯大 (d. 1253), Cai Kang 蔡抗 (1193-1259) and other officials serving in positions requiring them to dispense justice. A Ming-period (1178-1235) edition includes some more documents from the Yuan era 元 (1279-1368). In 1987 the Zhonghua Book Company 中華書局 published a modern edition of this Ming version, with the Song fragment as an appendix. This edition has a length of 14 juan.

The first two fascicles (chapter Guanli 官吏 "Officials and sub-officials") includes 64 paragraphs on the organisation and administration of district courts, including the important instrument of exonerating documents (zhaoxue wenshu 昭雪文書). Juan 3 and 4 include the chapters Fuyi 賦役門 "Tax and corvée" and Wenshi 文事 "Cultural matters", the latter describing public schools, private academies, shrines and the examination system. The chapter on households and matrimony (Huhun) with 187 paragraphs mainly deals with questions of property, mortgage, heritage, adoption, tombs, marriage and divorce, and servants in private households. 43 questions of family and township relations (renlun 人倫) are the topic of the tenth fascicle, while the next is concerned with 44 matters of higher social status as a member of the imperial house, academic, monk, member of a guild, state official soldier or bailiff. The last part (Cheng'e 懲惡 "Punishment of evils") is an overview of 101 morally unacceptable activities like exposing dark secrets, unjustified accusal, refusal to support the authorities, forgery, beating, gambling, illegal slaughtering, spreading heresies, the abuse of shrines, deception, sorcery, human trafficking, or illegal horse racings.

The collection is a very important documents on the history of jurisdiction in traditional China. The text can be found in the series Xu guyi congshu 續古逸叢書.

Parts of the book are translated by Brian E. McKnight (1999), The Enlightened Judgments: Ch‘ing- ming Chi, The Sung Dynasty Collection (New York: State University of New York Press).