李藝 관련 왕조실록의 誤記 －국사편찬위원회 교감(校勘)의 우선순위－

Abstract

This paper purports, firstly, to overview the 1396(Taejo5) abduction of Lee Eun by Japanese pirates and document the Joseon Court’s handling of this incident; secondly, to have rectified Lee Ye’s name misspelled in the 1398 JDA(Joseon Dynasty Annals) article recording the remuneratory sanction awarded to Lee Ye; and lastly, to propose a checklist for the NIKH(National Institute of Korean History) rectification protocols. Lee Ye(1373~1445) served as a prominent diplomat during Kings Taejong and Sejong in the early Joseon Dynasty. His dedication, during diplomatic missions, as the messenger of cultural exchange between Korea and Japan was officially acknowledged when in 2005 the Ministry of Culture and Tourism designated him as the ‘February Figure of Culture’. The said year witnessed the starting point of series of vigorous academic researches on Lee Ye. The Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also honored him by conferring the title ‘Our Distinguished Diplomat of 2010’, and later set up his statue in Seoul. The Ulsan Metropolitan City has recently named its newly-built freeway as ‘Lee Ye Ro’ to honor one of its most distinguished products. A total of 75 JDA articles refer to Lee Ye. One such article is his Jolgi, or obituary record. Posthumously illuminating the diplomat’s life and accomplishments in detail, this 1445 JDA article shows that the Court conferred him an accolade by releasing him from the caste of petty local officials and offering him a Court-managed public office. This accolade has also been recorded in a 1398 JDA article, but with his name misspelled. As the accolade is indispensable in understanding Lee Ye as the diplomat as we now know, it is recommended for the NIKH to have the misspelling rectified. Responsible is the NIKH to footnote, in the Chinese-letter version JDA, such misspellings found in the original JDA articles. This paper proposes a sample checklist for NIKH rectification. The checklist comprises two conditions: existence of common good and of factual integrity. The former embodies two sub-conditions, significance of the incident and of the person in question. The latter’s dual sub-conditions ask whether the asserted ‘misspelling’ can pass cross-examinations with other JDA articles and with other officially-compiled literature or old books of high esteem. When applied to the present case, this checklist provides enough evidence to call for NIKH rectification of the 1398 article.