Communal Village under the Tran Dynasty

Abstract

The communal village, a basic social, economic and cultural unit under the Tran dynasty, has attracted a good number of researches, most notably: Communal Village in the Anti-Mongolian Wars by Phung Van Cuong; "The Village Fine Art during the Tran Dynasty" by Chu Quang Chu (in Vietnamese Rurality in History, 1997, Vol. 1); "Aristocratic Monarch under the Tran Dynasty" by Nguyen Hong Phong (Journal of Historical Studies, April, 1986); Land Regime in Vietnamese History by Truong Huy Quynh (Vol. 1, part on the communal village land); Royal Farms under the Tran Dynasty, Thirteenth-Fourteenth Centuries by Nguyen Thi Phuong Chi (2002)... Using various approaches and methodologies, the above-mentioned studies provided readers with a great deal of useful information on various aspects of the communal village under the Tran dynasty. Based on a recapitulation of the previous researches and new information collected recently, this paper aims at introducing the subordinated administrative structure (the structure and role of the village mandarinate), some state policies, and the role of Great Tutor Tran Thu Do in the communal village.