In Gosin(告身)- an appointment letter used in Joseon Dynasty, there are only simple personnel history of the person who got appointments. Still, you can get lots of information about life as an official-holder in Joseon if you use related materials....
In Gosin(告身)- an appointment letter used in Joseon Dynasty, there are only simple personnel history of the person who got appointments. Still, you can get lots of information about life as an official-holder in Joseon if you use related materials. In this paper, we will actively use Gosin at this perspective, and look closely about life as an Official of Yun-bok(尹復), who lived in 16th Century.
Starting his life career by Civil Service Examination, Yun-bok worked at Seong’gyun-gwan for about 10 years. While working as Chamsanggwan(參上官), he showed his spirit by serving a number of positions such as county magistrate of districts in Jeolla Province and provincial governor of Jeolla(Jeollado-sa), where it was close to his hometown. After being Andong-daedohobusa(安東大都護府使), he repaired old public school buildings(Hyanggyo), and boosted up Confucianism by interacting with Toegye Yi-hwang nearby. However, promotion to Dangsanggwan(堂上官) was so demanding that it took Yun-bok 22 years to become Tonghundaebu(通訓大夫), and another 13 years waiting to become Tongjeongdaebu(通政大夫), which career was categorized as Dangsanggwan. At that time he was already 62 years old. Even so, when Yun-bok became Seungjeogwon(承政院) Seungji(承旨) and served the King by his side, a year later he was promoted to Jong-eepum(從二品) provincial governor, which was labeled as a senior officer.
When we use Gosin in research of Yun-bok’s career life, we can find examples of Gyocheop(敎牒) and Gyoji(敎旨)’s usage in personnel appointment, specific implementation status of Haeng-su method(行守法) and concurrent office, and realistic system operation such as volunteering local government post in order to support parents. In addition, it shows how difficult it was for a common officer to get promoted as Dangsanggwan, by the example of long time spent by a local officer to become Tonghundaebu and an additional 13 years of waiting before finally getting promoted to Dangsanggwan. Moreover, by Gosin we can have a look to one of the benefits senior officers got-promoting 3 dead elder generations(father, grandfather, and great-grandfather). There are also clues that even if a person got a promotion higher than Jong-eepum but didn’t proceed to new post, it was still an honor to one’s family and descendants.
Sillok(朝鮮王朝實錄)’s personnel history was selectively recorded by compilers, so it only shows partially of top class officers’ personnel records, while most of the middle-low class officers’ ones are missing. Furthermore, it lacks in objectivity since compiler’s judgements are easily involved in personal chronology, biography epitaph, etc. These reasons ask for active use of Gosin in need for objective material for research in Bureaucratic operation.