learn these skills. Weapons and martial arts were widely available at all
levels of society. At the same time, however, an elite of civil service degree
holders dominated the imperial government at every level. Even the mili-
tary side of the government was controlled by these highly educated civil
servants. This new bureaucratic elite did not practice martial arts as
previous national elites had, going so far as to separate themselves from
the time-honored Confucian practice of archery.
The bureaucratic elite actively defined itself against the martial ideals,
insisting that generals and the military be subordinate to civil control. With
the exception of the founding emperor and his immediate successor, Song
emperors were educated in the civil and literary arts and did not practice
martial arts. These rulers and their closest officials ran a bureaucratic
institution without any personal experience of combat or war. Even so,
they did watch martial arts performances as part of military reviews, and
probably as entertainment as well. They were also concerned with the
preparedness of the military, and the problems of social order, both issues
that directly related to training in martial arts. The constant goal was to
develop martial artists who would use their abilities in the service of state
policy. Unfortunately, it was often difficult to convince men versed in the
means of violence to wait humbly for the government to provide for their
needs.
The social organization of martial arts in local Song society would
persist until well into the Ming Dynasty. This was a reflection of the
persistence of the particular pattern of local power that developed in the
eleventh century and continued into the sixteenth century. The particular
ups and downs of imperial houses were less pertinent at these lower levels
than the economic system and land tenure. While an imperial government
could always send its army to enforce its authority in any one place, it
could not, or at least did not, try to do so everywhere. Local society was left
to mostly local strongmen or elites to police, and these men used trained
martial artists to carry out their will.
Purely with respect to martial arts history, the rise of the entertainment
quarters, the performance spaces for martial arts, was the most important
change in the Song. The requirements of performing for entertainment led
to elaboration and differentiation that were tied to lineages of practice.
This coincided with the rise of theater and intertwined with oral storytell-
ing traditions. While most martial arts was still used as a means of violence
by the imperial army, or by local strongmen, it now expanded permanently
into the world of entertainment. Martial artists would therefore come to be
romanticized for their ability to defy authority in an unjust world. Martial
Conclusion 137