秦漢無官印之吏與印的關係——兼論用印在文書行政中的深入化

Official Seals and the Officials Who Did Not Possess Them: Developments in the Use of Seals within Document Administration in the Qin and Han Dynasties

秦漢時期，官印制度發達，但並非所有官吏都能行用官印，因而官吏群體可相應地分為有官印與無官印之吏。有官印者與印相關的工作比較簡明，主要是抑印與佩印，前人研究已豐。簡牘文書的出土使得無官印之吏與印的關係得以呈現。無官印之吏在公務中可以行用私印，此外還需負責和印相關的各項事務，與印的關係較有官印者更為多樣，其中不少現象值得關注，對以往關於印的認識多有補益。
本文主要圍繞里耶秦簡、西北漢簡、五一廣場東漢簡展開分析。首先梳理無官印之吏的私印使用情境，指出秦文書中可見，無官印之吏尚不能用私印參與公務，到漢代則愈趨普遍，東漢簡牘中還出現了專門適用於私印的形制窄小的封泥槽。除了行用私印，無官印之吏尚有多項與印相涉的工作，其中尤以令史等史職吏員承負為多。本文繼而擇取縣廷與候官中的史職吏員為無官印之吏的代表，縷析他們在以印封書、封緘與啟封官府文書、書寫用印記錄等方面的負責情況，揭示不同時期各機構中的諸種差異。
相比於有官印者用印制度的一貫性，無官印之吏與印的關係更為複雜多變，體現了秦漢時期印應用於官府事務尤其文書行政的程度與用意實則存在演變過程。藉由考察無官印之吏行用私印以及其他涉印工作在不同時期的狀況，可以觀知秦代文書行政中用印範圍有限、用印習慣未深，漢代用印愈發普遍，用印規範細緻，用印在文書行政中的必要性加深。另一方面，西漢中期到東漢早期的文書用印記錄主要形成於傳遞與收文啟封場合，而東漢中期文書上的用印情況卻多由發文方書寫。這意味著印在文書行政中的用意從側重於以印封緘從而確保外部封裝牢固，逐漸深入文書正文，具有了申明文書責任及保證文書內容的意涵。

The official seal system developed during the Qin and Han dynasties, but not every official enjoyed the privilege to use official seals conferred by the court. Bureaucracy could thus be divided into officials with and without these seals. Owing to the thorough studies of previous scholarship, the work undertaken by the former has been clearly elucidated, namely tasks that required“using”and“wearing”official seals. But unearthed administrative records on wooden slips have enabled us to observe the relationship between the seals themselves and the latter group. Officials who did not possess official seals were still allowed to use their personal counterparts, simply inscribed with the functionary’s family and personal names, to suffice a range of routine affairs. In addition, they were responsible for various regular tasks that required the use of seals, making their relationship with seals even more diverse than that of officials who had access to official seals and thereby furthering our previous understanding of the topic in question.
The present paper primarily analyzes documents excavated from three locations: the Qin slips discovered at the Liye archaeological site in Hunan, the Han slips from the frontier regions in Northwest China, and the Eastern Han slips from Wuyi Square in Hunan. First, by examining how officials without official seals used personal ones in their duties, this paper indicates that said practice had been becoming increasingly acceptable and ubiquitous from the Qin to Eastern Han dynasties, which is demonstrated by the frequency of personal seals used in related documents and the appearance of clay seals’sockets designed explicitly for their use. Second, besides employing their personal seals, officials without official seal privileges also engaged in work tied to seals. Scribes史, as representatives of officials without official seals within county-level administration, for example, were in charge of multiple such duties. By probing into their responsibilities of impressing seals, sealing and unsealing documents, as well as registering the seal status of documents, this paper reveals the differences among various institutions across different periods.
Compared with the level of consistency noted in the institution of officials using and wearing official seals, the relationship between those without the privilege and seals is markedly complicated, reflecting that the extent and connotations of using seals in document administration evolved and expanded from the Qin to Han. To begin, the scope of how seals were used in the Qin was limited, with documents and how they were exercised not being dependent on the impressing of seals. But during the Han, the usage of seals gradually became universal and meticulous, and the necessity of using seals in routine administration deepened. Furthermore, the registering of document seals mainly took form out of the practice of delivering and receiving documents in the mid-Western Han and early Eastern Han period, and by the mid-Eastern Han, the status of seals was written down before the document had been sent out, all of which indicates that the main purpose of using seals within document administration shifted from reinforcing confidentiality to testifying to authority and authenticity during this period.