When considering the historical development of institutions in the transition from the Wei, Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang and Sui Dynasties, the Northern Wei Dynasty represents an important period, in particular with respect to its bureaucracy and ranked status system. The nine tiered ranking of top bureaucrats instituted under the Tang Dynasty was without a doubt derived from the bureaucratic code implemented in 499 by Northern Wei Emperor Xiaowen 孝文; however, the origin and originality of Xiaowen's system still needs to be examined. The present article aims to clarify the indigenous character of the Northern Wei system by placing the 100 years between the accession of Emperor Daowu 道武as king of the Sixteen Dynasties Kingdom of Dai and Xiaowen's reforms of the peerage system during the early Northern Wei period. As a result of an investigation of the character of ranked status during that time from the perspective of the relationship between peerage and bureaucratic rank, the author comes to the following conclusions. First, the change that occurred in 404 during the reign of Daowu from a five level to a three level peerage system, adding a royal peerage system, was a response the question of how to incorporate the descendants of the powerful Xianbei 鮮卑clan into a direct state system of ranked status, accompanying the tribal dissolution which took place under the reorganization of politica1 rule at the inception of the Northern Wei regime. This reduction in Peerage levels both decreased the hierarchical distance between the emperor and his vassals and allowed commoners into the royal peerage. Secondly, aristocratic rank during the early Northern Wei period differed from that of the previous period and the Southern Dynasties in that peerage was vertically ranked and was made into the criterion of a status system unified with bureaucratic ranking. The expression of the status of bureaucrats that integrated peerage with official rank was unique to that early period. That being said, at the time bureaucratic status did not necessarily express aristocratic rank; rather the system, while centered upon aristocratic and bureaucratic status, was expressed through multi-dimensional criteria, including the titles of military commanders and other bureaucratic posts. Therefore, together with its contrast to the Southern Dynasties system of bureaucratic status, the institutional reform implemented under Xiaowen constituted an experiment in unifying official ranking.