ry there were slaves, different classes of serfs or
"commoners", and free burghers. Craftsmen remained under work
obligation. Merchants were second-class people. Each class had to wear
dresses of special colour and material, so that the social status of a
person, even if he was not an official and thus recognizable by his
insignia, was immediately clear when one saw him. The houses of
different classes differed from one another by the type of tiles, the
decorations of the doors and gates; the size of the main reception room
of the house was prescribed and was kept small for all non-officials;
and even size and form of the tombs was prescribed in detail for each
class. Once a person had a certain privilege, he and his descendants
even if they had lost their position in the bureaucracy, retained these
privileges over generations. All burghers were admitted to the
examinations and, thus, there was a certain social mobility allowed
within the leading class of the society, and a new "small gentry"
developed by this system.

Yet, the wars of the transition period had created a feeling of
insecurity within the gentry. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were
periods of extensive social legislation in order to give the lower
classes some degree of security and thus prevent them from attempting to
upset the status quo. In addition to the "ever-normal granaries" of the
state, "social granaries" were revived, into which all farmers of a
village had to deliver grain for periods of need. In 1098 a bureau for
housing and care was created which created homes for the old and
destitute; 1102 a bureau for medical care sent state doctors to homes
and hospitals as well as to private homes to care for poor patients;
from 1104 a bureau of burials took charge of the costs of burials of
poor persons. Doctors as craftsmen were under corvee obligation and
could easily be ordered by the state. Often, however, Buddhist priests
took charge of medical care, burial costs and hospitalization. The state
gave them premiums if they did good work. The Ministry of Civil Affairs
made the surveys of cases and costs, while the Ministry of Finances paid
the costs. We hear of state orphanages in 1247, a free pharmacy in 1248,
state hospitals were reorganized in 1143. In 1167 the government gave
low-interest loans to poor persons and (from 1159 on) sold cheap grain
from state granaries. Fire protection services in large cities were
organized. Finally, from 1141 o