Maintaining Boundaries: The Military and Civil Branches in the Koryŏ and Early Chosŏn

Title

Maintaining Boundaries: The Military and Civil Branches in the Koryŏ and Early Chosŏn

Author

John DUNCAN

Page

21-50

DOI

Abstract

This article examines the tradition of civil supremacy and the tensions that existed between the civil and military branches of the government in the Koryŏ and Chosŏn periods. It notes that the distinctions between the civil and military branches were not just political, but also social, except during tenth century Koryŏ and an extended period of time in the late Koryŏ and early Chosŏn when there was relative equality between the two branches and when the social barriers between the two branches broke down. It examines the processes by which the superiority of the civil branch was established and suggests that practical considerations of dynastic security were equally as important as Confucian ideology in the elevation of the civil branch.

Keyword

pre-modern Korea, civil branch, military branch, Confucianism

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1949

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