The Evidence of the Dead Body. On Moral Consciousness and Legal Practice in the Qing China

Abstract

The article is a case history study. Basing on a well-documented criminal case of 1809, the author explores such issues as corruption in the ranks of Chinese officials; effectiveness of severe punishments for crime prevention; the methods criminal offences were committed and investigated in the Qing empire, and the level of public awareness of these methods; principles of sentencing; and the issue of crime and punishment in the mass consciousness of the Chinese in the late 17th and early 19th centuries. Special attention is paid to a remarkable phenomenon of fictionalizing of a real incident in witness reports, i.e. the introduction of popular moral, didactic and religious motifs widely known in the folklore and literature of that time.

Keywords

• late imperial china
• qing dynasty
• case history
• crime and punishment
• dead body
• forensic body examination
• criminal investigation
• legal practice
• law and fiction