Institutions of the conferment under the Later Le dynasty and the role of the Ministry of Personnel

Abstract

    In the monarchical era, the title is a criterion to distinguish the rank of mandarins andmembers of royalty. During the Later Le dynasty, the royal court established stringentinstitutions in conferring the title based on two basic criteria: the kinship and the merit forthe dynasty. One of the functions of the Ministry of Personnel is to examine theconferment, which was affirmed by Phan Huy Chu with his famous work "CategorizedRecords of the Institutions of Successive Dynasties". This can be considered as one of themain sources for successive historians to inquire the role of the Ministry. However, basingon the activities of the Ministry during this period, we found that this was just really theagency implementing the Emperors' decision to grant the title. Especially from 1470onwards, the institution of conferring noble titles became one of the contents of the"internal law" of the imperial court.