Assembly hall

Author: Wang Xi, Yang Fan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: There are differing opinions in academia about the origins of guild halls. Some researchers trace the origins of guild halls back to the guest houses () of the Han Dynasty. Mr. Ho Ping-ti refuted this argument, concluding that since there were already guest houses for fellow provincials staying in the capital during the Han Dynasty, these guest houses were not the private,-oriented guild organizations of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but rather more appropriately seen as offices for provinces stationed in the capital. The Ming historian Zhu Guozheng wrote in Yongchuang Xiaopin: "During the Han Dynasty, provincial governors and commanders established guest houses in Chang'an. The Tang Dynasty had the 'Imperial Messengers' (), the Song Dynasty had the 'Court Assembly Halls' (), and our dynasty had none. Only private guild halls existed, but they were only for use by local gentry. Those who needed to attend court were unsuitable for residing there." Based on historical records and scholarly opinions, it is clear that the guild halls that emerged after the Ming Dynasty did not have a direct, lineage from the guest houses, 'Imperial Messengers,' or 'Court Assembly Halls' of the past. The guest houses of the Han Dynasty were official institutions, while the guild halls that appeared after the Ming Dynasty were purely private, commercial and fraternal gathering places.
The American Baptist missionary Martin Martini wrote in his book Chinese Guilds: "Guild halls were known as early as the Tang Dynasty." This statement is somewhat exaggerated, as it equates certain trade organizations that emerged during the Tang Dynasty with guild halls. In fact, this view was not held only by Martini. The Japanese scholar Kato Kazuo, in his article On the Commercial Organizations "Hang" of the Tang and Song Dynasties and Guild Halls of the Qing Dynasty, stated that he had once held similar views. He wrote: "In China, there were merchant organizations centered around buildings such as guild halls or guild offices, somewhat similar to medieval European guilds, which flourished immensely during the Qing Dynasty. Although they have declined somewhat since the late Qing Dynasty, they still exist today, as is well-known." The buildings where members of these organizations gathered were called guild halls or guild offices, so Europeans referred to these organizations as "guild halls and offices." Additionally, because these organizations were similar to European guilds, they were also called "Chinese guilds."
In 1927 (Showa 2), I published a paper titled Commercial Organizations of the Tang and Song Dynasties—Hang, arguing that the merchant organizations that should be considered the precursors of guild halls and offices already existed during the Tang and Song Dynasties. Through further research, I arrived at some new insights and discovered errors in some of my previous. In the following discussion, I provided a new interpretation of the concept of "hang": During the Tang and Song Dynasties, organizations of merchants in the same trade were called "hang." The term "hang" also referred to the districts where these same-trade shops were located.
From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, commercial districts were designated in China's urban centers. At least in principle, shops were supposed to be located in these areas, which were called "markets" (). Therefore, the gold and silver market () and the fish market () could both be interpreted as districts where gold and silver merchants and fish shops were located, respectively.
From the above, it can be inferred that during the Tang Dynasty, shops of the same type were gathered together to form clusters, which were called "hang." Thus, the markets in the central and local cities at that time were composed of many hang. The same-trade shops that opened within these hang also formed their own organizations, which were also called "hang." Merchants who belonged to this organization were called "hang people" (), "hang merchants" (), "hang households" (), etc.