Remembering Kaiyuan and Tianbao: The Construction of Mosaic Memory in Medieval Historical Miscellanies

AbstractMedieval historical miscellanies have traditionally been seen as repositories of random historical information. This essay examines how the miscellany form makes possible a distinct mode of cultural memory construction, the piecing together of anecdotes gathered from oral and written sources to create a composite, multifaceted picture of the past, or "mosaic memory." Using as examples four monothematic post-An Lushan rebellion collections devoted to the memory of the Kaiyuan-Tianbao era (713-756), we may see how compilers created idiosyncratic versions of mosaic memory as a result of their personal motives and cultural positions. These individual versions also overlay and constitute a cumulative representation that reveals important features of mosaic memory as a communal discourse. The layered formation of mosaic memory helps to shed light on how the cultural memory of the Kaiyuan-Tianbao era took shape in the mid- and late-Tang periods and how medieval historical miscellanies functioned as an important site of cultural production.