新羅王京에서 高麗의 地方都市로, 慶州

Abstract

This study seeks to describe the transformation of the historical city of Gyeongju that was the royal capital city of the Silla dynasty and then reduced to a local town of the subsequent Goryeo dynasty, with focus on its demotion. After unification of the Three Kingdoms, the Silla capital reached its zenith. As the 178,936 households in the ninth century suggest, the capital was a huge international city in which people and goods were concentrated. It is said that in the late ninth century, during the reign of King Heongang, in the capital there was not a single thatched-roof house but, instead, unbroken lines of tiled-roof and tiled-wall houses, and the sounds of music and song filled the streets day and night. People cooked rice with charcoal instead of wood. Also, there were long lines of houses and walls without a break from the capital to the coast, with no thatched house. These historical records illustrate how much the capital prospered. But they only show its superficial prosperity, and indeed the real fact is that the capital was transformed from a production city into a luxurious consuming city. In a desperate attempt to overcome its financial crisis, the central government in the capital used force to collect taxes from the peasant population, which caused the first peasant rebellion to erupt in the present-day Sangju in 891. As Korean history entered the period of the Later Three Kingdoms, Silla began to decline rapidly. In 927, Later Baekje’s Gyeonhweon pillaged the Silla capital, forced King Gyeongae to commit suicide, and seized large quantities of treasure and arms. Amidst a fierce three-way contest for mastery of the Korean Peninsula, King Gyeongsun, the last Silla king, voluntarily surrendered to Wang Geon, King Taejo of Goryeo, in 935. As a result, a significant number of ruling elites and a large quantity of goods moved to the Goryeo capital of Gaegyeong. Now the Silla capital was reduced to a local town of Goryeo and was renamed Gyeongju. During the reign of King Hyeonjong of Goryeo, the fortress of Gyeongju-bu was constructed. Thereafter, the center of the town moved from the vicinity of the royal palace to the newly built fortress in the northwest. Regarding the south high mound that was built in the Goryeo period, two views have conflicted with each other: first, the embankment intended to safeguard against inundation of the Bucheon River; second, the newly constructed citadel intended to defend the town. This study judges that it might fulfill the second function. In the Goryeo period, as almost all the key figures who had ruled Silla left for Gaegyeong and a small number of the aristocracy and common people remained, Gyeongju was transformed into a quiet local town. Its population decreased and the city itself fell into decay. The former royal palace was left uncared for, and Buddhist monasteries were ruined or faced bad management. In the meantime, some new temples were built. But the nine-story wooden pagoda of the Hwangryong-sa temple, which represented Silla’s Buddhist temple of state protection, underwent several rebuilding works and finally was degenerated into an amusement facility.