18·19세기 진주 재령 이씨가의 우도기(牛賭記)와 우도경영(牛賭經營)

Abstract

The Jaeryeong Yi family in Jinju County had a special meaning in that it showed the rural yangban’s property management and proliferation far from serving as a government official. This material was written from 1804 to 1811 in a slanted font that was difficult to read, and from 1812 to 1814 in a straight font that was easy to read. This data includes residence area, name of guarantor, name of lessee, type of cow, number of cattles, year of birth of livestock, appearance of farming cow, rent and unpaid amount, pregnancy status, (name of lessee of mother cow in case of calf), past tenant, and subsequent changes, and other matters were recorded. The appearance of the cow is interesting. Unlike most of today's Korean cattle, the coat color is yellow, the coat color of the recorded cows varied. In this study, cattle rental records were found for the first time. From 1804 to 1815, a total of 201 cows were rent and 49 calves were born. Instead of raising all the cattle they have in their own ranch, the house leased 20~40 cattle to renter each year. Every year in lunar November, all lease was renewed, and the leaser check leased cattle in every lunar June. The reason of such kind of rent system was due to the fact that in traditional time of Joseon, butchery of cattle had been firmly forbidden and the people who slaughtered cow without permission of government could punished. So raising cattle was just for farming, not for steak. The relatively stable rent for cattle was an element to accumulate the family’s wealth. It was a unique pastoral method of the Joseon Dynasty to rent cattle to a farmer for one year instead of raising them directly on the ranch. This was a combination of farming and ranching in Joseon, different from three field system in Western Europe. Management of livestock in the late Joseon Dynasty coexisted with small farmers, so it was taking a different historical path from the British enclosure movement.