In both China and Iran a complex legal system evolved and developed incorporating the existing body of laws already in practice. This was especially true in China, which had a centuries-old tradition of legal codes and a complex legal system. Paul Heng-chao Ch'en has written an excellent assessment of this subject in his book Chinese Legal Tradition under
The Mongols: The Code of 1291 as Reconstructed and explains how those traditional codes and practices were adapted and incorporated into Mongol jurisprudence. In this slim tome he includes a reconstruction and translation into English of one of the key codes, the Chih-yiian hsin-ko, compiled in 1291. '
After centuries of war the Liao, the Chin, and the Song were united under the Yuan dynasty, and Chinese legal institutions had to be adapted to reflect this fact as well as the reality of new nomadic rulers. Traditional historians, when recounting Chinese legal history, often jump straight from the Song to the Ming dynasties, omitting the Yuan period as a kind of black hole best ignored. However, this is an unjustified omission, and the evidence supports the view that the Yiian rulers adopted a new and substantial legal system that retained elements of Chinese legal tradition while incorporating laws to reflect the new realities. In 1291 a new legal code was promulgated, Chih-yiinn Neio Code, and this code became the foundation for the later compilations of the Ta Yuan t'ung-chih (Comprehensive Institutions of the Great Yiian), and the Yuan tien-chang (Institutions of the Yiian Dynasty).
The yasa had been the principle source of legal rulings in the first years of Mongol dominafion but as this haphazard source of customary law increasingly proved deficient to meet the needs of Chinese society, the need for a unified Yiian code became obvious. The T'ang code had been standard in many parts of China since its drafting under the T'ang dynasty in 653. The articles of the T'ang code were grouped under 12 sections and covered most legal instances. The T'ai-ho Hi (T’ai-ho Statutes) of the Chin dynasty, essentially a copy of the T'ang code, was used extensively, but when Qubilai Khan officially proclaimed the establishment of the Yiian dynasty in 1271 to formalize and legitimize Mongol rule in China, the T'ai-ho was officially annulled. The name Yiian was taken from the ancient book of Chinese divinity, the / Ching (Book of Changes), and suggested the "primal force of the Creative" or the "origin of the Universe," but its significance was its Chinese rather than Mongolian roots.
World History
