검안을 통해 본 한말 산송의 일단

Abstract

Examined in this article are Geom’an(檢案) materials(autopsy reports) which are currently in custody of Seoul National University’s Kyujanggak Archives and contain cases that were involved in the so-called “Mountain Lawsuits[山訟]” cases. All these cases, in which human lives were put at stake, are carefully analyzed and evaluated. Prior studies of Mountain lawsuits mostly utilized Soji(所志) petitions or the Minjang Chibu-chaek(民狀置簿冊) documents, so this study tried to expand the range of materials that could be consulted, and as a result a rather new type of record was employed. First, Yul’rye Yoram(律例要覽), which was a law enforcement guidebook for the 19th century local prefects, was examined to determine that Mountain lawsuits were frequently filed and processed during the latter half period of Joseon, and that they were becoming quite a social problem as these lawsuits were usually escalating into physical conflicts and penal confrontations. There are total of 228 clauses inside Yul’rye Yoram, and 17 of them are related to Mountain lawsuits. Secondly, 16 types of Geom’an materials that were directly related to Mountain lawsuits were examined, and the results show that there were five conflicts over the ownership of the mountain, and eleven conflicts over the graves themselves. In most cases, the usage of the mountain was rather not the issue, and establishing a grave or burial site there was the primary cause of conflict that led to extreme clashes of interests and culminated in either murders or suicides. Cases were instigated by a variety of reasons: unauthorized burial(Tujang, 偸葬) or banning of a burial(Geumjang, 禁葬), private digging(of a grave, Sagul, 私掘) and lynching people for unauthorized burials(Beolsang, 伐喪), etc. And finally, the Geom’an material of a case that took place in Chungcheong-do province’s Cheong’an-gun Seo-myeon area, which was actually the only suicide case, was more meticulously evaluated. In this case, a private digging led to a lawsuit, and when a son was implicated and imprisoned, his frustrated father threw himself to a lawn. Through this case, we can see that all kinds of Mountain lawsuit-related problems, including insufficient and incorrect legal guidelines, of the Joseon period’s latter half were never properly addressed even during the ending days of Joseon.