This thesis contemplates the bibliographic data related to the memorial rituals handed down in ‘Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies’ for UNESCO World Heritage. Seowon in the mid-16C was emerged as an alternative venue for government and academi...
This thesis contemplates the bibliographic data related to the memorial rituals handed down in ‘Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies’ for UNESCO World Heritage. Seowon in the mid-16C was emerged as an alternative venue for government and academics. However, the noble classes that led the Seowon operation under the political and social changes during the Joseon Era had the main focal points in the ritual ceremonies for ‘johyeon (尊賢)’ rather than the academic studies. Through the Seowon ritual ceremonies, the noble classes were able to pronounce that they are the political and academic successors of the religious service personnel in the rural village communities, and through this process, they sustained and maintained their social status thereof. In the meantime, it is feasible to build up the solidarity between the noble classes that shared the political factions and academic factions and confirm the order with the ritual ceremonies in Seowon. In this aspect, Seowon has handed down with a number of records related to ritual ceremonies, but the studies on Seowon have not attracted a great attention as such studies were focused on politics, social and economic affairs, education and so forth. Therefore, the records related to the ritual ceremonies for primarily 9 Seowons designated as the ‘Seowon, Korean Neo-Confucian Academies’ for UNESCO World Heritage are classified for each type as in literature collections, Seowon journals, ancient documents, and publications. These data have the record on Seowon ceremony related rules and styles, purpose, name list of attendees in the ritual, and operation status. Looking for each contents again with respect to the ritual ceremony related data, those can be largely classified into the holgiryu(笏記類) that contained the rules, styles and rituals of the regular ritual ceremony, such as, shrine or the like, data related to special ritual ceremonies, such as, saeak-rye(賜額禮), chije-rye (致祭禮), chuhyang-rye(追享禮), hwanan-rye(還安禮) and others, written ritual writings and ritual writings listed mainly on literature collections, and the name lists of ceremony officers, such as, dedication officer and administrator, general almyoja and attendees to the ritual ceremonies. The Seowon ritual data is the most impeccable foundation to show that the Seowon culture originated from China has naturally ascended to the culture of Korea through the Joseon Dynasty era. In addition, it may be facilitated as an important turning point for restructuring the ancient transformation of the Seowon memorial ceremony that has been transforming to turning into contemporary period.