조선시대 유배제도 연구의 성과와 과제

Abstract

In this article, recent achievements in historical studies dealing with the Joseon dynasty’s “Exile system” are examined. The punishment of placing one in exile(Yu’hyeong, 流刑) was one of the five punishments that were used in China. The Joseon dynasty decided to employ the Chinese Ming dynasty’s Dae-Myeong’ryul as its primary penal law, so the practice of punishing a person with a forced exile was observed in Joseon too, albeit in a fashion modified to fit the Joseon society’s reality. In the wake of frequent clashes between political parties, and not to mention political purges that ensued, many Yangban officials experienced the punishment of exile, and the dire condition such punishment inflicted. Politicians were expelled from the central political arena and went through hardship and pain. In that regard, studies of this particular punishment should prove useful in advancing our understanding of the Joseon people’s lives. In this article, studies are examined categorically, according to each of their focuses. First, there have been studies on certain types of exile. Second, there have been studies which examined how the place for exile was selected, and what routes were taken by the exiled individuals in reaching those places. Third, there have been analyses of sample cases which depict the life in exile and the lives of exiled individuals. Fourth, some studies have focused on how people were released from exile(Haebae, 解配), and how lives were different between exiled commoners and exiled low-borns. In this article studies from each category are surveyed and analyzed, and the result strongly shows that more studies are required in order for us to gain proper understanding of the punishment itself as well as the nature of the institution. Future tasks can be summarized as follows. First, there should be more studies dedicated to revealing the nature of the exile institution. Second, sample surveys focusing on the lives of exiled individuals should be further accumulated. Third, lives of the commoners and lowborns, who happened to be exiled yet left literally minimal to zero records of their exiled lives, should be given more attention so that their lives could be historically reconstructed. In short, our understanding of the exile punishment would be significantly bettered if these issues are properly addressed in future studies.