한국의 의례 문화; 조선시대 사신연(使臣宴) 의례의 변천-중국 사신에게 베푼 연향을 중심으로- = Changes in Joseon`s Chinese Envoy Banquet Rites-Court banquets for Chinese envoys

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Joseon dynasty embraced a diplomatic policy of serving China as a great state and making peaceful exchanges with the neighboring Japan and the Jurchens. However, Japanese scholars did not see serving a great state as a diplomatic policy, but as toadyism which maliciously meant that a state, without subjectivity, depended on and obeyed a great, powerful state, thus trying to survive. With this logics, they attempted to rationalize Japan`s forced occupation of Joseon. Joseon`s diplomacy with China was classified into sending envoys to present tributes to China (赴京使行) and welcoming and treating Chinese envoys (使臣接待), and this paper examined the envoy banquet rite, part of welcoming and treating envoys, to identify changes in serving the great state (事大) and in performing such rites. A rite symbolically expresses human relations and the times` values. According to king-hosted envoy banquets in Gukjooryeui or Book on Five Major State Rites (國朝五禮儀) (1474), the king and the envoy stood, exchanged teas; when the king, the prince, and the royal family, and the envoy, when offering the first, and second and third glass of liquor (爵禮), stood and exchanged liquor; the king and the envoy, with the help of the special-affair official, offered meat dishes and thus paid tribute to each other. When the special-affair official (差備官員) offered fruits, flowers and stews, he knelt down in front of the king and the prince while standing before the envoy as he received an empty cup or cut meat. Also in the ritual, the prince and royal family knelt in front of the king and offered liquor to the king, while they stood and offered liquor to the envoy. Joseon so differentiated the rite between the king and the envoy, thus serving China while trying to keep its sovereign dignity. In the prince-hosted envoy banquets as well, the special-affair official and the ritual official knelt before the prince while standing before the envoy, thus giving preferential treatment to the prince as the heir apparent to the king over the Chinese envoy. Joseon, through rites, so expressed the relationships between the king and the Chinese envoy and the relationships between the prince and the Chinese envoy. In other words, Josen regarded itself as a feudal state to China, while trying to keep its dignity as an independent state. Gukjooryeui`s way of performing envoy banquets in which the king (or the prince) and the envoy stood and offered teas or liquor, in which, with the help of the special-affairs official, they each offered meat dishes, distinctively changed in 1648 (the 26th year of King Injo`s reign). Also, previously, from a time before 1645 (the 23rd year of King Injo`s reign), the way of performing Gukjooryeui envoy banquets in which the treatment of the king (or the prince) and the envoy was differentiated also changed. The former change was instructed by Shizu of the Qing dynasty, and the latter change was made as the Chinese envoy regarded such treatment as offending and Joseon regarded the differentiating treatment between the lord and the guest as uncourteous. Such changes in envoy banquets were described in Tongmungwanji (Diplomatic Records)(1720). In the envoy banquet hosted in Seoul, described in Tongmungwanji, the special-affairs official offered not only flowers, stews and fruits but also teas, liquor, and meat dishes to the king and the envoy, helping them through the rite. Also, the special-affair official knelt before both the king and the envoy, eliminating the differentiation between the king and the envoy. Such envoy banquet rite continued until 1897 when the Korean Empire was declared. Joseon`s envoy banquet rites, performed according to either Gukjooryeui or Tongmungwanji, sought to properly serve Chinese guests, but did not lose the state dignity to the extent that Joseon was criticized as serving the great state China.