法部 <起案>의 자료적 성격과 특징

Abstract

This article attempts to historically evaluate the group of materials, so-called drafting from the criminal division among the official documents related with the Judicature(法部). The drafting written by the criminal division of the Judicature includes 6,202 official documents which were sent from the high court to the Hanseong and local courts. They contain in the microscopic pattern the whole process of the criminal trial including the arrest, questioning, and trial of criminals, the examination and mediation of criminals, and judgment and sentence execution as well as the aspects of crimes that occurred nationwide. With regard to the contents, the drafting from the Judicature is mainly about criminal cases. Therefore, the contents do not deal with lawsuit-related documents or the appeals or disputes of people but treat the statement of decision for the criminal under trial, Hyeongmyeongbu(刑名簿), the mediation and settlement of all criminals, and the release and treatment of imprisoned criminals. As seen above, the qualitative and quantitative abundance of the reproduced drafting from the Judicature lets us understand the transition of criminal aspects as well as criminal policies that they can be utilized as foundational historical materials to figure out social aspects in that period. It can also be said that drafting has a bibliographical characteristic that it suggested crucial examples to be used for the national social control of the time and the treatment or correction of criminals through understanding the context of documents produced in the process of executing criminal cases.