僧人號牌考

Certificates of Monkhood

A law put into effect in 1459 required all subjects regardless of status or rank to carry a government-issued tag for identification (號牌). The law did not apply to Buddhist monks. Instead they were given a certificate under an earlier law identifying status and exempting the bearer from military service. The certificate (度牒) was available upon payment of a fee m kmd, and many bona-fide monks were unable to benefit by the privilege. To remedy the situation, King Sejo decreed that service on public works projects would be used in lieu of the tax payment. What was intended for a remedy opened the way for private and public slaves to evade military service. It soon became necessary to separate bona·fides from dodgers, and a new system was adopted to issue special certificates(僧人號牌) to bona-fides and those of known reputation, but it soon broke down under an indiscriminate issue of the certificates that went on at the same time. The certificate system was revived later in 1536 and again in 1547 but poor management failed to screen out fake monks. Certifi- cate-carrying monks were organized into a permanent labor force assigned to build and repair the Han embankment. In 1610 the government renewed its efforts to make the system work in place of the earlier certificate system which was by now defunct. A new issue of monks certificates took place in 1625, this time to provide labor for the construction of the royal sanctuary at Namhan.