조선시대 관사(官斜) 문기의 이중 발급 사례와 그 원인: 1682년 무안현 결송입안을 중심으로

Abstract

In the Joseon Dynasty, documents issued by government offices, known as “Ib`an” (立案), were recognized as highly authoritative and carried significant legal weight, unlike regular documents (Baegmun, 白文). Consequently, people generally did not dispute the status of the Ib`an itself. However, there were occasional suspicions of forgery concerning the process of issuing such documents, depending on the circumstances. This study aims to explore the process in which the Sageub Ib`an(斜給立案), issued by the government after the purchase of slaves, was suspected of being forged, the causes behind this suspicion, and the administrative actions taken by the authorities, using a lawsuit from 1682 in Muan-hyeon as a case study. In this lawsuit, both the plaintiff and the defendant possessed not only the bill of sale for the slave “Geutmun” purchased from the seller Son Heung-rip, but also a Sageub Ib`anissued by the government. Interestingly, two separate Sageub Ib`an documents had been issued for the same slave in the same region. The defendant argued that the Sageub Ib`an submitted by the plaintiff was forged, citing the absence of a corresponding entry in the government’s registration records as evidence. Ultimately, the court in Muan-hyeon rendered its final judgment based on the 1649 Ip-ji(立旨) submitted by the plaintiff. Upon examining the government’s records, the court found that the imprint (印跡) of individuals in the upper and lower sections of the document were different, thus confirming the plaintiff’s claim that the record of Geutmun had been tampered with. Thus, in the Joseon Dynasty, when slaves were bought and sold through government offices and a Sageub Ib`an was issued, the issuing government office would record and preserve the relevant details in its official registers. This system allowed for the verification of the authenticity of the Sageub Ib`an in case of disputes. While no physical records of these registrations currently exist, there is evidence from the Jung-gi(重記) that such records were indeed kept by government offices.