18~19世紀 農民層 分化와 ‘鄕村中人’

Abstract

The tendency in component ratio of status in late Chosun Dynasty was the gradual upward movement of some lower classes before the 19th, and sudden rise of that tendency after the 19th century. The greater part of them were peasants, but they have received some or little favors from individually upward status. Such phenomena were the results of differentiation aspects in peasant class. The purpose of this paper is to research and follow up the such peasants’ social status and their changing class position in relation to the upward tendency after the 18th century. They are different from the existing middle class, such as lower official servant, craft man, etc. Additionally, they resided at ‘鄕村’, that is, villages in country side. So, I defined them as ‘鄕村中人’, the middle class resided at villages in country. They received favors from upward class by ‘Nabsok’(納粟), that is, by offering publically admitted bribes. Uh ha-yung, the late 18th century intelligentsia, said that such kinds of group threw class system into confusion, but general agreement was give to such wrong actions. An easier method among them was shifting or changing residence. Because new residence was free from one’s past career. The new appearance of the three grades ‘kye’ association(上中下契) in the late 18th century is related to such differentiation phenomena. That is, in addition to the existing two grades ‘kye’ association(上下契), the middle ‘kye’ association(中契) or the secondary ‘kye’ association(副契) came into being, and the main constituents of that association were the new middle class peasants. I found the typical case in the ‘Yi-ri’ village rules(二里洞約) at Kyunggi province.