Sokdaejeon (續大典) is a law code of the late Joseon period. It was published in 1746 (the 22nd year of King Yeongjo) by compilers including Seo Jong-ok, Kim Yak-no, Yi Jong-seong, Yi Il-je, Kim Sang-seong, and Gu Taek-gyu. Its structure, like that of the Gyeongguk Daejeon, consists of six codes (yukjeon, 6 volumes) on personnel (i), revenue (ho), rites (ye), military (byeong), punishments (hyeong), and public works (gong-jeon), together with 4 volumes. It is held in the collection of Kyujanggak, which is also its administrator.
Compilation and Publication Background
In 1746 (the 22nd year of King Yeongjo), this unified law code was compiled by selecting only those statutes promulgated after the implementation of the Gyeongguk Daejeon that were to remain in force.
After the Gyeongguk Daejeon took effect, the Daejeon Sokrok (大典續錄) and the Daejeon Husok-rok (大典後續錄) appeared, and statutes continued to increase. However, many of these codes and statutes contradicted one another, which caused confusion for officials applying the law. In response, compilation of the Sugyo Jillok (受敎輯錄) began in 1682 (the 8th year of King Sukjong).
In 1688, Minister of Personnel Park Se-chae (朴世采), in a letter of resignation, proposed establishing an Economic Office (經濟司) to revise or supplement those statutes issued after the Gyeongguk Daejeon that could not be enforced, and to compile a law code called the Sokdaejeon in order to renew the institutions. The term "Sokdaejeon" was first raised in this proposal.
However, this proposal was not accepted. Instead, works such as the Jeollok Tonggo (典錄通考) and the Jeungbo Jeollok Tonggo (增補典錄通考) were compiled by consolidating the articles of the Gyeongguk Daejeon and the various supplementary codes into a single text, serving only as handbooks of statutes.
After King Yeongjo ascended the throne, he finally resolved to compile a second great code. Compilation of this code began in 1740 (the 16th year of King Yeongjo). In 1744, a separate Compilation Office (纂輯廳) was established, and senior officials (堂上) and secretaries (郞廳) were appointed to accelerate the work.
Minister of Justice Seo Jong-ok (徐宗玉), Minister of Revenue Kim Yak-no (金若魯), Minister of Rites Yi Jong-seong (李宗城), and Assistant Secretary (副司直) Yi Il-je (李日躋), Kim Sang-seong (金尙星), and Gu Taek-gyu (具宅奎), six persons in all, were placed in charge.
In addition, Vice Commandant of the Guards (副護軍) Sin Sa-gwan (申思觀), Assistant Lecturer (副校理) Seo Ji-su (徐志修) and Eo Seok-yun (魚石胤), and Assistant Section Chief (副司果) Kim Sang-bok (金相福), Yi Gyu-chae (李奎采), Yun Gwang-chan (尹光纘), Nam Tae-gi (南泰耆), Yi Ge (李垍), and Jeong Ha-eon (鄭夏彦) were appointed as practical staff to collect, classify, and review all statutes and prepare a draft.
Chief State Councillor Kim Jae-ro (金在魯), Left State Councillor Song In-myeong (宋寅明), and Right State Councillor Jo Hyeon-myeong (趙顯命) supervised the work. The selection of statutes required King Yeongjo's approval for each item, and the king himself was actively involved. In August of that year the code was nearly complete, and King Yeongjo personally wrote the preface. In late November, it was finally completed.
Gu Taek-gyu and Jeong Ha-eon were appointed as proofreading officers, and after a comprehensive revision, in May of the following year King Yeongjo ordered the Gyoseogwan (校書館) to print the Gyeongguk Daejeon and the Sokdaejeon.
However, out of concern that minor provisions might have been omitted or mistaken, the Three Offices (三司) were to convene together with the proofreading officers to review the text, and printing was completed in 1746.
Roughly 260 years after the promulgation and implementation of the Gyeongguk Daejeon, the compilation of the Sokdaejeon was completed in about eight years from the start of work. With this, there were two great codes.
This code revised and supplemented 137 of the 213 articles of the Gyeongguk Daejeon, excluding 76 articles, and 18 new articles were added, mainly to the revenue and punishment codes. The first edition is held in the Kyujanggak collection.
Background of Compilation
Like the Gyeongguk Daejeon, the Sokdaejeon was compiled against the background of a process in which King Yeongjo sought to strengthen royal power. From the latter half of the 17th century, when factional strife intensified, methods for ending factional conflict (the Tangpyeong theory) began to be sought. The Tangpyeong theory divided into two approaches: one that accepted the existence of factions while preventing the intensification of their conflicts, and one that denied the existence of factions and refused to recognize factional strife. If Yu Hyeong-won, who advocated reform based on institutional change, was the representative of the latter, then Park Se-chae, who sought to mediate conflicts between factions, belonged to the former.1
The Tangpyeong policy began to take firm shape in the reign of King Yeongjo, after the Mushin Rebellion (戊申亂, also known as the Rebellion of Yi In-jwa) was suppressed. King Yeongjo sought to reduce conflicts of opinion by eliminating, regardless of side, any group that sought to rigidly enforce the interests of a faction, and by employing moderates. On this basis, his goal was to build a system in which the king led government.2 The forces that supported King Yeongjo's efforts were mainly the Soron-affiliated Tangpyeong officials, who were influenced by Park Se-chae. The efforts of the Tangpyeong faction were first focused on adjusting and resolving the issue of the principle of trust (信任義理). Policies that sought to calm factional disputes and achieve a balance among the Noron and Soron in personnel affairs were emphasized. Moreover, the systems that were identified as institutional foundations driving factional strife, namely the practice by which the Personnel Secretaries (吏曹銓郞) and the Hallim offices recommended their own successors, were abolished, and the Sanlim (山林), which had presided over the public opinion of each faction, was denied recognition as arbiters of public opinion.
Originally, according to Neo-Confucian political theory, the ruler was a being whose conduct and aims were guided by the moral principles of Heavenly reason and human desire, and to ensure this, government based on the public opinion of the scholar-official class had to be guaranteed. However, from King Yeongjo's standpoint, government by public opinion was in fact the cause of weakened royal power and factional strife. For this reason, King Yeongjo sought to strengthen a legalistic approach as the concrete method of governing. Law was an objective and external compulsory norm defined by the state, represented by the monarch, and in itself embodied the authority and power of the monarch. The Sokdaejeon was thus born in the process by which King Yeongjo sought to overcome factional strife and pursue government led by the monarch.3
Compilation Process
From immediately after his accession, King Yeongjo recognized the limits of the Gyeongguk Daejeon in sustaining late Joseon society, and he keenly felt the need to compile a new code.4 He intended to compile the new code on the basis of the Gyeongguk Daejeon, the fundamental code of the founding dynasty, while making use of works such as the Jeollok Tonggo. In December 1736 (the 12th year), King Yeongjo ordered the royal secretaries (承旨) to carefully examine matters concerning the prison and punishment provisions of the Gyeongguk Daejeon.5 He then said, "If punishment law is not clear, the people will have no place to put their hands and feet," and ordered Minister of Justice Song Jin-myeong and Biyeonsa senior official Kim Yak-no to deliberate together and compile the Sokdaejeon, and he especially instructed that the administration of punishments be lenient. This shows that abolishing the excessive and extreme torture then in widespread abuse was one of the purposes of compiling the Sokdaejeon. In June 1744 (the 20th year of King Yeongjo), he ordered the establishment of the Compilation Office for the Revised Supplement to the Great Code (增修大典續錄纂輯廳), and in August, King Yeongjo himself determined the title of the code as Sokdaejeon. In November of the same year, the completion of the code was reported, and it was proposed that it be printed after proofreading. The proofreading work took six months, and in the following year, 1745 (the 21st year of King Yeongjo), it was possible to begin carving the woodblocks. However, the final publication was postponed by a memorial from Nam Tae-on, then Grand Director of the Office of Remonstrance (大司諫). Nam Tae-on argued that no one could guarantee that there were no errors in minor provisions, and proposed, following the old practice when statutes had been revised in the past, in which the Three Offices reviewed the documents, that the senior officials and secretaries in charge of proofreading present their final revisions to the Three Offices' officials for joint review. King Yeongjo approved this and followed it. Thus, after ten months, in April 1746 (the 22nd year of King Yeongjo), the printing of the Sokdaejeon was completed, and those in charge were rewarded.6
Significance
The significance of the compilation of the Sokdaejeon can be noted in several respects.
First, the Sokdaejeon is the fundamental law code of late Joseon. The earlier Samrok, the Jeollok Tonggo, the Sinbo Sugyo Jillok, and others were all "records" (錄) that formalized royal instructions issued for temporary needs, and were not "codes" (典) to be permanently observed. However, the Sokdaejeon is not a code that comprehensively consolidated all the earlier codes. In fact, it did not restate the contents of the Gyeongguk Daejeon, but recorded only those that came after it. Regarding the history of institutional organization and the establishment of offices, newly established items were marked as "增置" (added), while for those that existed previously, only the official titles were recorded for offices whose posts had been increased or decreased, and their contents were mainly omitted.7
Second, the Sokdaejeon is a code that comprehensively summarizes the social conditions of late Joseon. The compilation of the Sokdaejeon reflects the will of the ruling class to reorganize a society in turmoil. Faced with the upheaval of medieval society, King Yeongjo sought to strengthen the ruling system by establishing a strong royal authority. To this end, the establishment of a firm power structure centered on the king and the uniform operation of a legal order were urgently required. This demand was reflected in provisions that increased royal interference in the judicial administrative system and regulated arbitrary execution of punishment. Examples include the provision requiring the judicial offices to report their judgments to the king every ten days; the provision that, for those eligible for amnesty, Seoul's cases were to be reviewed by the Board of Punishments and the Office of Military Discipline, while provincial cases were reviewed by the provincial governor and reported to the king, with the governor's reports then reviewed by the Board of Punishments; the provision that for crimes punishable by death, even where there were circumstances warranting forgiveness, the case must be reported to the king and handled according to his instructions; and the provision that restrained imprisonment and prohibited the establishment of prisons outside the regulations.8
Third, the compilation of the Sokdaejeon abolished various cruel and severe punishments, such as the pressing of the knee (壓膝刑), branding (烙刑), tattooing of characters on the face (刺字刑), and the law of exile of the entire family to the frontier (全家徙邊律), and prohibited excessive punishment by officials (南刑), which became an occasion for improving the personal and legal status of the common people.9 In fact, the sections on the judgment of punishments (推斷條) and detention (囚禁條) in the punishment code contain measures that abolish various cruel punishments and prohibit excessive punishment by officials.10
Fourth, through the reorganization of the punishment code, a foundation was laid for independence from the Chinese legal code system of the Great Ming Code and for the establishment of our own distinctive penal system. Since long before, there had been criticism that the Chinese Great Ming Code system did not suit our circumstances and that its terminology was inappropriate, and the need to enact a new penal law that could solve these problems was keenly felt.11 The fact that instructions concerning punishment account for an overwhelming share of the Sinbo Sugyo Jillok also shows the urgency of reorganizing the penal system. Meanwhile, the Sokdaejeon established a new principle for applying law, stating that "the Great Ming Code shall be used in accordance with the Gyeongguk Daejeon, but if the Gyeongguk Daejeon and the Sokdaejeon have a relevant law, the earlier one shall be followed."12
Footnotes