This paper examines the adoption process of Chinese legal codes from the Koryŏ to the Chosŏn periods and the subsequent changes of Korea’s legal system. Although Koryŏ organized its legal system based on the Tang code 唐律, it also adopted various other Chinese laws as needed. The Yuan 元 (1271-1368) demanded legal reforms from Koryŏ, but Koryŏ opposed, citing differences in social foundation. Eventually, the Yuan succeeded in prohibiting consanguineous marriage but failed in reforming the slave system. As a kingdom ruled by royal law, Koryŏ had weak legal stability, and so its society was in disorder. At the end of the 14th century, Koryŏ adopted the Great Ming Code 大明律to revise the legal disorder, and the legal code was carried over to the Chosŏn dynasty. The sixfold division of the Rites of Zhou 周禮 became the foundation of the Koryŏ government organization, and during the Chosŏn period, it became not only the basis for government organization but also a model for compiling legal codes. In the late 14th century, the adoption of Neo-Confucianism and Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130-1120) Family Rituals transformed the gender-equal family structure into a patriarchal one. This transformation began with a shift from uxorilocal marriage to virilocal marriage and proceeded toward excluding women from ancestral rites and strengthening the inheritance rights of men and eldest sons. By the late 19th century, patriarchy was de facto established and was further reinforced during the colonial period. Furthermore, as time passed, many unique Chosŏn provisions that differed from the Great Ming Code emerged in criminal law, leading to its Chosŏn localization. However, Chosŏn emphasized ethical norms such as social status relationships more than China.
The characteristic of adopting Chinese law in the traditional period was the proactive and autonomous adoption of those that fitted our needs. This approach remains meaningful even in the 21st century, when the world continues to integrate.

This article reconsiders premodern Chinese statehood through a legal-philological analysis of the term guo 國 in the Tang Code. Existing scholarship has largely centered on another term, tianxia 天下 (“All under Heaven”), a cosmological expression of universalist rule that has led scholars to portray premodern Chinese notions of state authority as non-territorial. By contrast, this study shows that Tang legal conceptions of guo articulated state authority in jurisdictional and territorial terms. The Tang Code defined the polity as a bounded legal domain governed by codified regulations, guarded borders, and restricted mobility. This jurisdictional and territorial conception of rulership was embedded in the dual identities of Tang monarchs, who held the titles huangdi 皇帝 and tianzi 天子 to assert, respectively, domestic rule over a territorial realm and an outward claim to universalist authority. Through this layered conception of rulership, Tang law reveals how territoriality and universality coexisted within a single political order. Using the Tang as a case study, the article argues that premodern Chinese statehood cannot be reduced to cosmological universalism and that legal texts offer a critical yet underexplored window into the intellectual foundations of imperial governance across East Asia.

This paper examines Xu Shen’s 許慎 Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 and its “Postface” in order to illuminate how Han intellectuals conceptualized the origins and functions of Chinese writing. By analyzing Xu Shen’s narrative of script development—from Cang Jie’s 倉頡 legendary invention of the “ancient script,” through Shi Zhou’s large seal script, to the Qin dynasty’s small seal and clerical scripts—this study argues that Xu Shen framed the history of writing not as a neutral record but as a moralized genealogy. The central claim is that Xu Shen associated the legitimacy of each script with the character and moral standing of its attributed creator. Cang Jie, with his superhuman vision, epitomized the earliest and most authoritative script, whose purpose was to order society and enable moral education. By contrast, Qin figures such as Li Si 李斯, Hu Wu Jing 胡毋敬, and Zhao Gao 趙高 embodied opportunism, low bureaucratic standing, or outright immorality, thereby rendering the small seal script a compromised though still usable medium. The clerical script, attributed to the judicial official Cheng Miao, was rejected altogether because it originated in administrative expediency rather than ethical cultivation, and thus signified hegemonic rather than kingly governance.
Through cross-textual analysis of transmitted sources and Han commentaries, this paper shows that Xu Shen’s philosophy of writing reflects broader Han concerns over the relationship between language, morality, and political order. Ultimately, Shuowen jiezi is not merely a philological enterprise but a moral-political project: it positions writing as the foundation of Confucian governance and as a vehicle for sustaining the kingly way.

Chinsan Sego 晉山世稿 is a collection of literary works compiled by Kang Hŭimaeng 姜希孟, containing the poems and writings of his grandfather, father, and elder brother. The collection includes the works of Tongjŏng 通亭 Kang Hoebaek 姜淮伯, Wanyŏkchae 玩易齊 Kang Sŏktŏk 姜碩德, and Injae 仁齋 Kang Hŭian姜希顔.
Chinsan sego is particularly significant as it is one of the earliest sego (a type of family literary collection) publications from the Chosŏn Dynasty. It served as a model for later sego compilations, profoundly influencing the genre. Its importance was officially recognized on December 18, 1998, when it was designated as Treasure No. 1290 (privately owned) by the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea.
The collection, which Kang Hŭimaeng first began compiling, continued to be supplemented with the literary works of other key figures from the Chinju Kang clan throughout the Chosŏn Dynasty, adding to its historical value and legacy. A thorough examination of Chinsan sego is necessary, as numerous copies (including incomplete ones) have been identified in institutions both in Korea and abroad.
Accordingly, this study aims to organize and systematize the lineage of Chinsan sego editions to identify their publication characteristics and examine the editorial intent involved. Consequently, the research ultimately classifies the collection into five distinct editions—the First Edition (1474), the 1491 Edition, the 1658 Edition, the 1845 Edition, and the 1959 Edition—and summarizes the unique characteristics of each.
In addition, this study observed that while the early Chinsan sego compiled by Kang Hŭimaeng was primarily based on the consciousness of “the succession of a clan’s moral works and literary legacy,” the versions published after the 1658 edition under the title Chinsan sego sokjip 晉山世稿續集reflected a shift in consciousness toward “the commemoration of a neglected talent 懷才不遇 and the succession of the will of forebears 遺旨.”
In particular, a distinction from the earlier compilation was found in the fact that most figures added to the Chinsan segosokchip, including Kang Kŭksŏng 姜克誠, were those who possessed great literary talent but passed away early without reaching high government positions.

In 1596, Chosŏn ambassadors Hwang Shin 黃愼 (1560-1617) and Pak Hongjang 朴弘長 (1558-1598) joined the ill-fated mission to Japan to invest Hideyoshi as King of Japan and restore peace to the region. Hwang Shin’s diary is an important historical source for the breakdown of the peace negotiations, which resulted in the devastating invasion of 1597. The ambassadors’ diaries also give detailed accounts of the alien country and the people who had visited such destruction on their homeland and yet were so little understood by people in Korea. Hwang’s diary particularly compares cultural norms and values in China, Korea, and Japan, revealing in the process what he thought about these countries and their places in the world.

The development of scholarship and material culture on the Korean Peninsula was deeply shaped by successive Chinese dynasties. During the Chosŏn period, frequent tributary missions to the Ming 明 (1368-1644) and Qing 淸 (1636-1912) courts introduced new forms of learning, technologies, and artifacts, but these exchanges did not conform to Nishijima Sadao’s 西嶋定生 (1919-1998) model of a tributary order centered on the Chinese emperor. Chosŏn actively sought books on Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130-1200) thought through private trade, despite continuing bans imposed by the Ming and Qing governments. In material culture, demand shifted from heavy reliance on Ming goods, to brief resistance during the Ming – Qing transition, and then to renewed admiration for Qing artifacts in the late eighteenth century. Yet the Qing court’s extremely limited bestowals – such as falangci “enameled porcelain”, reserved for official banquets, display, or burials – had only marginal influence on Chosŏn society. This scarcity invites reconsideration of the actual scope of imperial power in East Asia.

The early 20th century was a time of rapid change in Confucianism. As East Asian intellectuals actively learned from the West in the process of modernization, Confucian classical education lost its dominant position. Western learning changed the education system in East Asia, and textbooks on self-cultivation replaced traditional Confucian literature such as the Four Books and Five Classics, the children’s textbooks and the family rules, and became the textbooks for the moral education curriculum in the new academic system. Although these textbooks are still referred to as books for self-cultivation, the knowledge has been reconstructed in the Western educational framework, and their contents are not limited to moral education. This article analyzes the transformation of Confucian knowledge in Korea under the influence of Western learning based on the theoretical explanations and the school textbooks in the Korean Enlightenment Textbook Series. It reveals that Korean intellectuals established a curriculum for moral, intellectual, and physical education, as well as a curriculum for health education, which brought the Chinese and Western cultures together from conflict to coexistence at the beginning of the twentieth century.