Journal of Song-Yuan Studies

I write with the sad news of the passing of Brian E. McKnight, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona, whose pioneering work in Chinese legal history profoundly shaped our understanding of the complex world of Song laws, procedures and practitioners.

Brian was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Syracuse and subsequently in various locales around the world following his father, an Army officer. He attended the University of Chicago, where he received his B.A. in 1960. Despite an initial interest in Geology and Geography, he turned to Chinese history for his graduate studies, still at Chicago, receiving his M.A. in 1964 and Ph.D. in 1968, mentored by the late Edward Kracke, Jr. After an initial job in Nebraska he went to the University of Hawai'i, where he taught for many years. In 1990 he moved to the University of Arizona to chair the new East Asian Studies Department, where he taught until his retirement in 2005. He is survived by his wife, Joan Sandin, five children and stepchildren, and fourteen grandchildren and step-grandchildren.

I first met Brian in the early 1970s, when on a visit back to the University of Chicago he met with a group of us graduate students in Chinese history. Although I don't recall specifics from the meeting, I remember being impressed by his accomplishments—his book, Village and Bureaucracy in Sung China, had just appeared—his friendliness and his encouragement. It was also in the 1970s that Brian spent two years as a fellow at Harvard Law School's Center for East Asian Legal Studies, immersing himself in Chinese legal history, a development that would shape his subsequent scholarly career. While he continued to publish on Song local administration, his 1973 article, "Sung Justice: Death by Slicing," was his first venture into this new territory.

In contrast to the focus on legal codes that dominated much of the previous academic study of Chinese legal history, Brian's scholarship centered on the workings of the Song judicial system. This included his articles on mechanisms for the scheduling of trials (1975), the prison facilities on Sramana Island (1980), urban crime and urban security (1988), the military and the law (1990), and his [End Page xvii] two pathbreaking books published in 1981. The Quality of Mercy: Amnesties and Traditional Chinese Justice, which covered the span of Chinese imperial history, addressed the role of imperial amnesties, often conferred en masse during such ceremonies as the suburban sacrifices. In a very different vein, The Washing Away of Wrongs: Forensic Medicine in Thirteenth Century China, which is a translation with a lengthy introduction of the Xiyuan jilu 洗冤集錄 by Song Ci 宋慈 (1186–1249), contains a wide-ranging treatment of autopsies in criminal investigations and is full of information relating to the underside of Song society. Individual legal cases also spurred his interest, as seen in his articles on the case of Chen Zhizhong (1989), a boat race riot (1995), and especially his book-length co-translation (together with the late James T.C. Liu) of major portions of the Qingming ji, a Southern Song compendium of legal judgments (1999).

Special mention should be made of two comprehensive pieces of Brian's. "Sung Law and Legal System," written for Volume 5 Part 2 of The Cambridge History of China, provides an authoritative overview of the legal system during the Five Dynasties and Song, though it should be noted that it was written long before the publication date of 2015. But most important was his magisterial Law and Order in Sung China (1992), which over the course of five hundred pages covers the institutions, procedures and ideological foundations of Song law, and how they functioned in the context of Song political, social and economic conditions. To quote one of his reviewers, "… this book will serve as a fitting template for future law-and-order studies of other Chinese dynasties for generations to come."

Over the years I frequently caught up with Brian at AAS meetings and research conferences; I remember one occasion when he described his attempts to recreate food recipes that...