Eunuchs of the Tang Dynasty
Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:52 pm
There were thousands of eunuchs in the palace complex during the Tang Dynasty in China (618907). There were two basic categories of eunuchs during the period (and through most of Chinese history). There were the generally uneducated and illiterate menial eunuchs: the groundskeepers, cooks, attendants on the women, etc. There were the literate and educated eunuchs who served in governmental agencies managing the country.
The menial class of eunuchs were offered up to the palace by peasant families or were gifted by landowners from among their serfs. Some were also taken from border regions that were not yet fully incorporated into the Chinese state or were boys captured in border warfare and castrated before being sent to the palace. The educated eunuchs came from elite families who needed inside connections and inside information about political and economic affairs.
An elite family would select a younger son to castrate and send to the palace. If he rose to a high enough position, a younger relative would be castrated and sent for him to adopt. It was permitted for court eunuchs to adopt castrated boys from their own male lineage, so long as the boy was ten years of age or younger. Their adopted son could inherit from them.
Unlike the Yi Dynasty in Korea (13921910), the Tang Dynasty eunuch families did not manage to keep detailed family histories for us to inspect. Instead, family relationships can mostly be determined only from tombstones and commemorative steles, most of which have been broken or repurposed over the centuries. They are still coming to light and being entered into the historical record. Tombstones and commemorative steles generally center on the eunuch but include the names of his father and grandfather as well as the names of adopted sons and grandsons. This has allowed the piecing together of eunuch family trees, some of which begin with government officials or military leaders who castrated a son.
Michael Hoeckelmann, a young German historian, has put together some of the scattered information and has published an article exploring three such eunuch family trees, one of which he can document for six generations of eunuchs adopting castrated younger relatives. He documents the others for four generations each. (They may have extended for more generations, but records are lacking.)
Court eunuchs were not restricted as to the number of young castrated family members they could adopt and the records show court eunuchs adopting as many as six castrated boys.
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Hoeckelmann, Michael (2020). Power Emasculated: Eunuchs, Great Clans and Political Reproduction under the Tang. Tang Studies, vol. 38, pp. 127.
The menial class of eunuchs were offered up to the palace by peasant families or were gifted by landowners from among their serfs. Some were also taken from border regions that were not yet fully incorporated into the Chinese state or were boys captured in border warfare and castrated before being sent to the palace. The educated eunuchs came from elite families who needed inside connections and inside information about political and economic affairs.
An elite family would select a younger son to castrate and send to the palace. If he rose to a high enough position, a younger relative would be castrated and sent for him to adopt. It was permitted for court eunuchs to adopt castrated boys from their own male lineage, so long as the boy was ten years of age or younger. Their adopted son could inherit from them.
Unlike the Yi Dynasty in Korea (13921910), the Tang Dynasty eunuch families did not manage to keep detailed family histories for us to inspect. Instead, family relationships can mostly be determined only from tombstones and commemorative steles, most of which have been broken or repurposed over the centuries. They are still coming to light and being entered into the historical record. Tombstones and commemorative steles generally center on the eunuch but include the names of his father and grandfather as well as the names of adopted sons and grandsons. This has allowed the piecing together of eunuch family trees, some of which begin with government officials or military leaders who castrated a son.
Michael Hoeckelmann, a young German historian, has put together some of the scattered information and has published an article exploring three such eunuch family trees, one of which he can document for six generations of eunuchs adopting castrated younger relatives. He documents the others for four generations each. (They may have extended for more generations, but records are lacking.)
Court eunuchs were not restricted as to the number of young castrated family members they could adopt and the records show court eunuchs adopting as many as six castrated boys.
_______
Hoeckelmann, Michael (2020). Power Emasculated: Eunuchs, Great Clans and Political Reproduction under the Tang. Tang Studies, vol. 38, pp. 127.