Chinese Medieval Chronicles in Song 宋 (960–1279) Booklists: A Survey

By the Song period (960–1279), very few chronicles compiled before the tenth century were preserved in the imperial and private book collections. Early chronicles served as sources for the compilation of dynastic histories and comprehensive accounts; later, as their transmission was no longer valued, they were largely forgotten. As it is widely known, a great deal of these texts was neither transmitted nor fully lost, as fragments survived in Song institutional and literary compendia. Thanks to these compendia, we can glance at their content and form, and make hypotheses concerning their value, readership, and early transmission. Descriptive booklists of the Song -eleventh to the thirteenth century- imperial and private collections are another valuable source of information on the content, cataloging criteria, and later reception of medieval works of a historical nature. Through a reading of the synoptic descriptions of the items listed in the biannian, “accounts arranged chronologically,” sections of book catalogs from the Song period, this article aims to cast some light on the features of these early chronicles.