高麗時代 技術官의 사회적 지위

Abstract

Technocrats of Goryeo age include medical officer, interpretation officer, astronomy officer, accounting officer, legal officer, painting artist and recording officer in general, and they were the government officers who were in charge of administrative works of technical departments concerned. Accordingly, the activities of the technocrats carried very significant meaning in leading the society of Goryeo Dynasty. Among those technocrats, medical officers could be promoted the most smoothly as the position structure was well organized. In the case of astronomy officer, they were assigned to the astronomical position system for very long period of time, during which they were given the opportunities for transfer and promotion to higher positions within the system. At the later part of Goryeo age, some medical officers and interpretation officers were given opportunities to advance to civil officials, some of whom were promoted as high as up to minister level. Based on the fact that some technocrats were promoted up to minister level at the later part of Goryeo age even if the number of persons promoted to minister level were not many, we can see that the political and social positions of technocrats at that time were gradually upgrading. As the compensation for their services, technocrats were also given free land and salary, which means that their positions were guaranteed in terms of economic status to some extent. However, as their positions were classified as lower class officers who were employed through the government examination but in miscellaneous fields, they were discriminated in general as their compensation level was lower compared to civil officials and military officers. Moreover, there were a lot of constraints in their social and political activities. On the other hand, social status of technocrats in Goryeo age was comparatively higher as compared to that in Joseon age. Since military officials' grasping political power and the invasion of Mongolia, society was in disorder situation and thus technocrats especially interpretation officers got promotion to high positions playing significant role in the social change including position system, which resulted in influencing to the enhancement of the social and economic status of technocrats in Goryeo age.