「朋友」被傳統中國視為五種基本的人際關係(「五倫」)之一，對於理解傳統中國基層社會的聯結有其意義。本文試經由墓誌銘的記述內容與理路應論宋人的朋友之倫。墓誌銘文中的確可以見到朋友的身影，甚至邀請寫與應承書墓誌的本身就是基於朋友的交往。其間大致可別為契好、同僚、學友、賓朋等數種相識結交的情境。分析墓誌中「朋友」一詞與其他人際關係名詞的並置與分析，可以推知非血緣的人際關係在宋人生活中可能較以往更加密切。但宋對待朋友這樣非血緣的平行人際關係，其基本理念仍本之於儒家的經典解釋。於是，他們固然強調「交之固宜相切之義」的交友原則，卻也會提出「若無大故，則不必峻絕之」的說法。這些經由墓誌所透露出的情境和議論，雖仍為墓誌書寫活動的特質所侷限，亦可見其多樣性以及與社會脈動的扣合。

Friendship was one of the five basic interpersonal relationships in traditional Chinese society. This article examines the depiction of friendship in funerary inscriptions written in the Song Dynasty. In many funerary inscriptions of the time period, relationships with friends were simply mentioned, although in some cases, the processes of soliciting and composing an epitaph for a in some cases, the processes of soliciting and composing an epitaph for a deceased person were themselves based in friends’ compassion and respect for one another. As a non-kin relationship, “friendship” could be divided into the categories of close friend (qi-hao); colleague (tong-liao); classmate (xue-you), and guest (bin-peng). Analyzing concepts of friendship in Song inscriptions reveals that non-kin relationships with friends played a more important role in Song people’s lives than in earlier eras. Song people’s ideas of friendship were fundamentally influenced by classical Confucian ethics, but in social life they did not follow Confucius word for word. (The situations and ideas about friendship revealed in funerary inscriptions, although circumscribed by the conventions of inscription writing, are shown to be diverse and closely connected with the pulse of society.)-Song ideas about friendships as seen in funerary inscriptions reveal the diversity and movement of song society.