「提調」 制度 硏究

A Study of the System of Coordinators in the Yi Bureaucracy

Under the Yi government system, certain service agencies involving special skills and professional knowledge (the designation may perhaps be misleading in its modern sense for their functions included not only catering and medication, construction and maintenance for the royal household but also safekeeping of diplomatic documents and providing interpreter service, and upkeep of the garrison and activites supporting this) were placed under the supervision of high officers of ministerial rank of the Court, some of whom were responsible for more than one such agency. Officers assuming these concurrent duties were known as three grades of chejo (提調) or coordmators. A look at the system of coordinators is relevant because of the sidelight it will throw on how Yi centralism worked. This paper shows that though the system itself was instituted in the latter part of the preceding dynasty, in terms of functions, the Yi coordinators are rather more closely related to the system of p’ansa (判事) or adjudicators of earlier Koryo. Other points of interest in studying the Yi system are the process of differentiation from its earlier prototype and the fact that royal secretaries were given the position of coordinator of intermediate rank. Taken as a whole, the system did have certain advatages in ensuring centralized control over the activities of these service agencies. In actuality, however, ministers already burdened with their regular functions often failed to exercise effective supervision. And here again we see another structural weakness in the centralized machinery of government.