情与理的交锋

【作者】 陈志坚；

【导师】 刘新成；

【作者基本信息】 首都师范大学 ， 世界史， 2007， 博士

【摘要】 继承是前工业时代人们获得财产的主要方式，它不仅决定着社会中个人的命运，还与家庭、婚姻、妇女地位和政治权力有着不可分割的联系，在社会史研究领域中占有重要的地位。本文旨在对13-18世纪英国的财产继承模式进行尝试性研究。本文并非逐一介绍这一时期存在的各种财产继承习惯，而是以“家产分配方案”这个概念为中心，体系性地阐述封建主的家产分配理念，分析封建主在设计“家产分配方案”时的矛盾心态。同时本文还试图在“家产分配方案”和“家庭内部关系”之间建立联系，通过分析“家产分配方案”对各家庭成员继承份额的影响来揭示这一时期英国家庭内部关系的特征。本文由导言和正文两部分组成，导言部分主要介绍了选题的意义和国内外研究动态，限制了本文论述的起止时间、地域和客体，同时交待了本文采用的论述方法和资料来源。正文分为5章。第1章讨论了封建主设计“家产分配方案”的背景，说明封建主对以“封建土地保有制”和“普通法继承规则”为代表的继承模式并不完全满意。第2、3、4章则是分别考察了封建主设计的“限嗣继承”、“托管”和“家产析分契约”三种家产分配方案。这三章的讨论说明，封建主设计“家产分配方案”的过程正是他们探索改良英国固有继承模式方法的过程，也是封建主冲破各种封建束缚追求自由处置财产权的过程。但封建主在这一过程中也面临着困境，他们总是在“保持家产完整性”与“为弱势家庭成员考虑”这一对矛盾的目的之间摇摆不定，他们时而侧重于前者，时而倾向于后者，但封建主最终还是在二者之间找到了一个平衡点。这一复杂而又痛苦的抉择过程不但将封建主在“理智”与“情感”之间的斗争展现得淋漓尽致，还推动着英国财产继承制度在曲折中逐渐完善。第5章论述了上述三种“家产分配方案”对封建主家庭内部关系的影响。结果表明，13-18世纪英国家庭内部关系呈现出延续性特征。这一时期，封建主最重视的一直是家产的完整性，以及与之相联系的头衔和名号的传承，其家庭内部关系并未在17、18世纪空前密切起来。同时还应看到，封建主对弱势家庭成员的关心和爱护也是贯穿于本文所考察的整个时期，13-16世纪的家庭中也不缺乏爱。总的说来，本文试图展现封建主利用“家产分配方案”重构英国财产继承模式的过程。而这一过程中所体现出的“曲折性”和“延续性”特征表明，英国财产继承模式的发展过程正契合了英国“妥协”、“融合”、“渐进”、“改革”的整体发展模式。更多还原

【Abstract】 As the main means of acquiring wealth in pre-industrial period, inheritance not only determined individual’s fortune, but has a close relationship with family, marriage, women’s position, and political power. And it played an important role in social history. The aim of this thesis is attempting to explore the property inheritance patterns of late medieval and early modern England.This thesis is not a comprehensive survey of all kinds of inheritance rules and customs of this period, but a systematic introduction to landowners’ wealth distributing notion, and an analysis of the contradictory aims of the landowners when they designed family settlements. At the same time this thesis also attempted to establish relationships between ’family settlements’ and ’intra-family relationship’, uncover the characteristics of the English intra-family relationship during our period through analyzing the influence by family settlements.This thesis falls two parts, with an introduction at the beginning, following five chapters. Firstly, the introduction discusses the importance of the theme; then it presents the historiography and clarifies the time, place and object of the theme; finally it explains the methods, and enumerated the resources used in this dissertation.Chapter One discusses briefly the background of family settlements, and argues that landowners are not satisfied with the inheritance pattern, which is characterized by feudal tenure and common law rules. Respectively, the following three charters elaborate on the three family settlements designed by landowners, i.e., entail, uses and strict settlement. These chapters demonstrate that during the course of designing family settlements landowners were able to explore the appropriate way to amend the existing inheritance patterns, break through the feudal bondage, and obtain the freedom of controlling their wealth. However, the landowners also faced a difficult dilemma. They were always oscillating between two contradictory aims, i.e., keeping the integrity of family property and considering the welfare of weak family members. Sometimes they emphasized particularly on the former, sometimes the latter, all depending upon their needs. They finally found a balance point between the two aims. This complicated and painful process not only exhibited the conflicts between reason and emotion in landowners’ heart incisively and vividly, but made the English inheritance system better and better.Chapter 5 argues that family settlements exerted great influence on landowners’ intra-family relationship, which took on a characteristic of continuity from 13^th to 18^th century. During this period, the landowner never forgot stressing the integrity of family property and transfer of title and surnames. And the intra-family relationship did not become intimate overwhelmingly during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. At the same time we should also realize that landowners cared and cherished weak family members at all time through our period, love also existed in the families from 13^th to 16^th century.In conclusion, this thesis attempts to unfold a process in which landowners reconstructed the English inheritance patterns. And the characters （i.e., fluctuation and continuity） showed themselves during the process indicated that this process was corresponding to the overall development mode of England which was characterized by compromise, fusion, gradualism and reformation更多还原