earticle

영어

In the late Joseon period, not only children of the nobility but children of the middle class or commoners went to village school and library and learned letters and read Confucian scripts. Unlike children of the nobility who became officials through state examination, however, they finished studying basic Confucian scripts at village school and library and became government employees such as local officials and chiefs of town. So when they studied at village school and library, they tried to learn how to write petition and while doing so, they used collection of forms or books of examples which were collections of petition forms. While reading such petitions, they had to be able to distinguish what was exaggerated and what was false in order to handle their work well later. Generally, ways of reading petition included (1) understanding the whole context, (2) understanding litigation strategies, (3) distinguishing truth or false of the contents of the document, (4) reading the petitions of plaintiff and defendant together. On the other hand, strategies to write petition under false accusation were (1) suggesting advantageous grounds or developing different logic, (2) emphasizing helpful behaviors and reducing unlawful behaviors, (3) suggesting opposite fact or pointing out logical loophole, (4) strategy of pretending to be the weaker,　(5) revealing the corruption of the other person or relevant person. Reading and writing strategies of petition were like spear and shield so they were even contradictory to each other but children who were not from noble families in the late Joseon period focused on learning them.