The establishment and prospect of the theory of aristocracy in the Koryo period

The viewpoint of Koryo rulers as nobles was a widespread idea since the Japanese occupation. However, under the influence of criticism of colonial history and the internal development theory in the 1960s, it became common view after arguing over aristocracy and bureaucracy in the 1970s. The representative books of Korean history from liberation to the 1950 understood that the Koryo rulers were nobles and ancient and Joseon were nobles too, and could not explain the development of Korean history and the change of the ruling class because it could not escape from the influence of colonial history. They understood all the rulers of Korean history as nobles and could not explain the characteristics of the Koryo noble. As the internal development theory of the 1960s was formed, the theory of the aristocracy became an important viewpoint to explain the Koryo society. The understanding of the elements of the theory of the aristocracy has been broadened, and the study of the privileged merit land and the protected appointment has been done. In order to explain the historical status of the Koryo aristocracy, the ruling classes of the Korean history were distinguished, and the ancient and Koryo were called nobles and the Joseon was gentry. In the 1970s, arguing for the aristocracy and the bureaucracy were discussed. The bureaucratic theory emphasized the civil service examination and said that Koryo was not an aristocracy, and that the privileged merit land was not the economic basis of the aristocracy. The theory of the aristocracy said that the civil service examination and the protected appointment are complementary to each other but the protected appointment plays a basic role and the civil service examination is not a system that selects only by skill. The bureaucratic theory, however, refuted that civil service examination is done in the class system, but acceptance is by proficiency, and that the protected appointment is not guaranteed for future promotion because it gives the first office. In this process, the theory of the aristocracy was established, but the controversy was not over, and the theory of the pedigree society was claimed. The theory of aristocracy has many problems. In Koryo, it is hard to see that there were nobles with autonomous status in the bureaucratic order. The standard of the protected appointment is not noble or pedigree but status in bureaucracy. The privileged merit land was accepted the step theory, the civil service examination was not a particularly advantageous system for noble or pedigree. The ruling class in Koryo is not the aristocracy but the bureaucracy, the pedigree was the family that had discharged the high-ranking officials through several generations.