Honamjeoluirok is widely used as one of primary historical materials for Honam as Righteous Region. in Korean. For example, the book is used to academically examine the historical progresses of righteous activities of Honam people in national crises, ...
Honamjeoluirok is widely used as one of primary historical materials for Honam as Righteous Region. in Korean. For example, the book is used to academically examine the historical progresses of righteous activities of Honam people in national crises, and their tendencies. However, it is suspected that the book carries within itself factual errors. There could be various ways of evaluating the book in terms of historical material. Granting this, I focus this research upon the recording of the figures involved in so-call Five National Crises. With this focus in mind, this research compares Honamjeoluirok with other materials in their recording of the people related in Five National Crises. Also, this research critically examines the issues such as the authorship, the publication date, and the bibliographies. The comparison of the recorded peoples shows the followings. First, Honamjeoluirok recorded some 30 percentage of people contained in Nammunchang`uirok(南門倡義錄) in their accounts of the righteous activities at Nammun of Jangseong(長城) region in Japan`s 1592 Invasion of Korea. Second, Honamjeoluirok contained the almost same number of the righteous people as Honammouirok(湖南募義錄) did in their accounts of the righteous activities in the time of Yi Kwal`s(李适) Revolt. In addition, while taking into account the fact that the people commonly recorded in the two books numbered 100, we can say that the former recorded 68 percentage of the righteous people while the latter recorded 61 percentage of the righteous people in the same Revolt. Third, more people were left off Honamjeoluirok than Jeongmyogeouirok(丁卯節義錄) in their accounts of Manchus`s 1627 Invasion of Korea in that the former contained 36 percentage of all the people who had the merits in the Invasion while the latter contained 76 percentage of the total number. Forth, Honamjeoluirok recorded only some 30 percentage of all the people who had the merits in Chinese Qing`s(淸) 1636 Invasion of Korea when it is compared, in terms of the number of the people included, with the two sources which recorded the history of righteous activities in the Invasion: the one, Byeongjachanguirok(丙子倡義錄) which centered on the activities of the Righteous Camp(義陣) of Yi Heung-bal(李興?) and other leaders, recording 62 percentage of all the related people; the other, Eunbongchanguirok (隱峰倡義錄) which centered on the activities of An Bang-jun`s Righteous Camp, recording 28 percentage of them. Additionally, this research raises the question: why Honamjeoluirok left out many people, almost all of whom seem to have taken commanding posts according to the other two books. Admitting that just the numerical comparison carries within itself some methodological limitations, what is briefed above confirms the fact that Honamjeoluirok omitted not a few people worthy of notice in their activities. This implys that Honamjeoluirok was lacking in its collection and compilation of related materials, and at the same time that it does not have a great value in terms of historical material. Therefore, we need to take this implication into full account when we use Honamjeoluirok in the jobe of writing the history of the righteous activities in Honam.