Etiquette of maids in Tang dynasty
The harem of the Tang Dynasty is also divided into three or six or nine grades.
According to the different status, ladies-in-waiting in the Tang Dynasty can be roughly divided into two categories: one is female officials with grades; The other is an ordinary maid without rank, who accounts for the vast majority of maids. The female officials in the harem of the Tang Dynasty were also called? Palace official? They are the management class in the harem except the queen and concubines, and they belong to a higher rank among thousands of ladies in the harem. The four ladies-in-waiting with epitaphs in the Tang Tomb in Anzaoyuan, Xi 'an, belong to this category.
There are tens of thousands of ladies in the huge harem. In order to maintain its normal operation, the rulers formulated a strict management system. ? Tang dynasty? Back pavilion? Is it imitation? Former court? To build. ? Former court? There are nine grades of officials. Back pavilion? The same is true of female officials. ? The former dynasty refers to the imperial court; The later dynasty refers to the harem.
The harem is hierarchical, and the first to fifth products are basically the emperor's concubines. Some palace officials with high prestige and deep qualifications can also get the level of five products; Six grades to nine grades are the grades of female officials in ordinary palaces.
In the last Tang Dynasty, the hierarchy of the harem changed several times, but the basic content was basically the same. ? The maid-in-waiting has specific affairs in the harem, and the division of labor is very fine. For example, there are maids in charge of candles, keys, bedding and other affairs. ?
After all, the number of female officials with grades is small, and most of the maids are low-level maids without grades. They are engaged in low-level manual labor, and rarely have the opportunity to contact higher-level concubines, let alone meet the emperor. Really? I wonder when the king will die. .
Such ladies-in-waiting have no epitaph after their death, so their life experience is even less known. There is no epitaph in the Tang tomb in Zaoyuan, which is probably the unmarked tomb of maid-in-waiting.
How did the ladies-in-waiting in the Tang Dynasty enter the palace?
When it comes to the rank of ladies-in-waiting, we can't help but mention the source of ladies-in-waiting, because the way they enter the palace often determines their status in the palace.
Most of the ladies-in-waiting were recruited from folk auditions. They are well-born and have high moral quality, so they are often promoted to female officials in the palace. There are also some maids who have not been put into the palace because they or their families have committed crimes. They have the lowest status in the harem and bear the inferior labor in the harem. Some of them engaged in sewing and embroidery in the palace with their own skills.
In addition, a few ladies-in-waiting were presented to the palace by vassal countries, local officials or princesses. They often have special talents and are easily noticed by the emperor and promoted to concubines. However, they are often spies who are arranged beside the emperor. Princess Taiping once looked at Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty by offering sacrifices to ladies-in-waiting, and tried to murder Xuanzong, but ultimately failed.
The hard daily work of the servant girls in Tang Dynasty
The maid-in-waiting is responsible for serving the emperor and his concubines. In order to meet the needs of the owner's comfortable and luxurious life, the maid-in-waiting undertakes the complicated work of the harem. Their work scope includes all aspects of the palace, such as food, clothing, housing and transportation, and there are also maids who specialize in vaudeville and other performances.
Whether it is daily work or singing and dancing performances, it is very hard. From the Tang poems, we can vividly understand the hardships of ladies' lives. Poet Wang Jian's "Hundred Poems in Palace Style" goes:? When the dance was sweaty, people upstairs helped the jade ladder. The ladies-in-waiting who had just finished dancing were sweating and soaked through the clouds. The people watching the performance upstairs needed help to get down the jade ladder.
What is in the poem? Turn off the lights and iron the royal clothes every night? In a word, it can be seen that every night after the lights are turned off in the palace, the ladies-in-waiting who are in charge of the emperor's clothes have to iron the royal clothes, and their hard work can be seen.
Maids in the Tang Dynasty also had entertainment activities.
In addition to daily work, ladies-in-waiting also receive various kinds of education, including cultural knowledge, music art and various skills.
The emperor of the Tang dynasty attached great importance to the education of ladies-in-waiting, including harem schools that taught ladies-in-waiting to read and acrobatics that taught music and dance? Inner corner square? Therefore, the quality of palace ladies in the Tang Dynasty was generally high.
One of the most famous is Shangguan Waner, who is the granddaughter of Shangguan Yi, a famous minister of the Gaozong Dynasty. After Shangguan Yi was killed, he was given a harem with his mother Zheng and was educated in the palace since childhood. Because of Wan'er's outstanding talent and alertness, he was deeply loved and trusted by Wu Zetian, and he was once prominent in both Wu Zetian's reign and Zhongzong Dynasty.
However, excellent people like Shangguan Waner are rare after all, and most ladies-in-waiting spend their lives in trivial and boring labor and lonely environment. ? Food and clothing, spiritual emptiness? However, the lives of ladies-in-waiting are not all gloomy. In the palace, they can also adjust their boring life through various entertainment activities.
Another kind of entertainment for ladies-in-waiting is called. Join the army? The form is similar to the current cross talk, where one person talks and the other person interrupts and says something entertaining and funny? There are also games such as swinging, fighting flowers and throwing balls, as well as other popular entertainment projects. Maids-in-waiting can also play in the palace walls to relieve boredom.
Where is the lonely soul going?
Maid-in-waiting's life is confined to Chang 'an Miyagi? Yi ting? Unless you have a special task or stop being a maid of honor, you can't step out of the palace gate 3.
Most of the ladies-in-waiting grow old in the hard work day after day in the palace. Sixteen in fashion, sixty today? When their youth and charming appearance are gone, they can only spend the rest of their lives with the ancient scroll of lanterns of nuns, or be sent to the Mausoleum to serve the late king for the rest of their lives.
But it often happened in the Tang Dynasty? Out of the palace? In the event of natural disasters such as floods and droughts or when a new emperor ascended the throne, some ladies-in-waiting were often released.
? The release of ladies-in-waiting depends on the emperor's personal preference. If the emperor sympathizes with the maids, he will put more. For example, Tang Gaozu and Emperor Taizong put more, while Xuanzong put less.
? Some ladies-in-waiting released from the palace also got their own happiness. One autumn in the late Tang Dynasty, the young poet Lu Wo went to Chang 'an for a lift. One day, he came to Yugou for a walk and accidentally saw a red leaf floating on the water. After picking it up, he found a five-character quatrain on it. Why is the water running too fast and the palace is full of leisure? I bid farewell to the red leaves and left this beautiful place for the freedom house. ? He was curious and kept the red leaves in a box.
Many years later, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty ascended the throne and released some maids. Loire also married such a maid-in-waiting. One day, the maid-in-waiting inadvertently saw this piece of red leaves collected by Lu and couldn't help sighing. When I accidentally wrote a poem about Ye, who would have thought it was collected by Lu Lang? ? Everyone didn't believe it at first, so they took pen and ink to check their handwriting, which was no different from that on the red leaves. This is famous? Red leaves inscribed poems? This story.
However, these once-in-a-lifetime marriages must be rare. Some of the released maids are married, some go home to support their parents, and many are homeless and lead a wandering life among the people.
Many palace ladies who left the palace in the Tang Dynasty later became rich? Not staying at home? , is kept by people, in the law of the Tang dynasty is adultery, is illegal, caught will be sentenced. However, they are still free.
Once in the palace, most ladies-in-waiting never leave the palace door again, and spend their whole lives in the palace. When the fragrance disappears and the jade dies, they are buried in a place called. Wild foxes fall? 、? Gui Fei Xie? The graveyard of the waiting lady.