高麗時代 算官에 관한 일고찰

Abstract

Accounting officers were important persons for the administration of Goryeo society who were in charge of accounting and calculation works for national treasury as professional manpower. Accounting officers were assigned to 32 agencies in central government as well as to Seogyeong, and the public posts for accounting officers were classified into the first level officer of Accounting Master(“Sanhagbaksa”) and the second level officers of Superintendent(“Junggam”), Accounting Administrator(“Gyesa”), Test Accounting Administrator(“Sigyesa”) and Calculation Administrator(“Sansa”). Although Accounting officers were assigned to necessary agencies from the early age of Goryeo dynasty and carried out their duties there, it seemed that there had not been any separate organization which was in charge of managing Accounting officers and they were administered by the agencies to which they belonged. As to the selection and career advancement of Accounting officers, they were appointed through miscellaneous civil service examination in most cases. Some of them were could be from civil functionary families but majority of them would be the children of lower level officials who succeeded their family business or from general civilians in their hometowns. Detailed data about the career advancement of Accounting officers are not available but they would be appointed as the case of Technical officers who were appointed through miscellaneous civil service examination with the possibility of being appointed also to the posts other than Accounting officers. As the scope of their official activities was limited to that of specialized technical officer, their promotion to high level officers was judged to be very difficult. As to official activities and responsibilities of Accounting officers, they were essential people for the administration and management of government as they were specialized technocrats who acquired difficult accounting and calculation skills, and especially we could confirm that Accounting officers were essential for those agencies which required accounting and calculation capability for their functions. We reviewed the status of Accounting officers particularly on financial compensation in comparison with other technocrats at that time focusing the on their position levels. Based on the records on the payments made to Accounting officers in the form of land and feudal allowances, financial compensation level for Accounting officers were lower as compared to Law officers or other technocrats including Book administration officers.