조선시대 연좌제의 실상 : 『연좌안』 분석을 중심으로

Abstract

The principle of ‘Guilt by association’ refers to a doctrine of punishment,which holds innocent people accountable only for the reason that they are involved in a certain level of relationship with a criminal offender. During the Joseon dynasty period, there were several cases of political incidents such as treasonous conspiracies or general insurrections in which this principle of 'guilt by association’ was applied. Such cases will be examined in this article, in order to determine how such principle was actually realized through the punishments of those political offenders, and also to define (or redefine) the nature of the political culture of Joseon, based upon such determination. In this article, individual cases are analyzed in details, in order to find out how they were actually applied to Joseon-specific situations, rather than merely attempting to understand the contents of relevant institution, by dryly examining all the legal clauses and regulations related to the ‘guilt by association’ principle. Also, other than the well known sources such as the “Annals of the Joseon dynasty” or Legal codes such as Dae’Myeong-ryul and Gyeong’guk Daejeon, the List of Souls Guilty by Association("Yeonjwa-an/緣坐案"), a document which was not previously fully examined and recently newly brought to my attention, was analyzed as a new source of information,to facilitate this study. This document contains detailed information of how the ‘guilt by association’ principle was applied to the Joseon cases, since the days of King Yeongjo through the days of King Gojong. The result of the examination shows that today’s perception of the ‘guilt by association’ principle was not that very well founded upon empirical data. The negative view upon the Joseon political culture, which was formed upon such unfounded perception and also a general misconception that believed the ‘guilt by association’ principle was ‘abused and overused’ at the time, should be reconsidered in the future.