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A Study on the Queen’s “Gabongtaesil” of the Early Joseon Period

  • The Review of Korean History
  • 2015, (117), pp.265-298
  • Publisher : The Historical Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Hong Sungik 1

1강원대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article examines the queen’s Placenta Chamber (Taesil) in the early Choseon period. Jangtae convention that has been passed down since the Silla period started to establish Pacenta Chamber for the king and his crown prince in the later Goryeo period. In the Joseon period, a Placenta Chamber was established not only for the king, but for his children as well. In addition, another procedure called “Gabong” had to be underwent for the king who was on the throne and a baby Placenta Chamber was magnificently built with stone monuments. However, some exceptional examples that even the queen’s Placenta Chamber that had underwent the procedure of “Gabong” in the early Joseon period can be found. These examples include the Queen Soheon who was the wife of King Sejong, and the queen Yun, Seongjong's royal concubine who had been expelled from the palace. The Queen Soheon was born in Yangju, Gyeonggido. The baby placenta that was buried here was moved to Yeongjusi for the process of ‘Gabong’ and it was known as the Placenta Chamber of the King Choongryeol during the Japanese colonial era. However, it was demonstrated to be untrue based on bibliographic data. In the case of the Queen Jeonghee, it was demonstrated that the Queen Jeonghee was born when Yoongyeon was appointed as Hongcheonhyeongam, and that the baby placenta was buried in Gongjaksan. Also, it was seen that as Sejo himself did not let his baby placenta chamber to go under “Gabong” process and instead, he ordered only the tombstone to be built, he left the baby placenta chamber of the Queen Jeonghee as it is. As for the location of the Placenta Chamber, when the name of the place and the geographical features are taken into account, the small mountaintop on the west side of Deokjicheon across today's Sutasa was seen as Taebongsan. The Placenta Chamber of queen Yun who had been expelled seemed to have been moved to the present location for “Gabong” after she became the queen. This Placenta Chamber was moved to Seosamneungyeok by Lee Wangjik during the Japanese colonial era. Also, this Placenta Chamber was mistaken as the Placenta Chamber of the Queen Soheon in the late Joseon period and Yongmunsa has been receiving a favor of being exempted of miscellaneous services due to this Placenta Chamber. The queen's Placenta Chamber in the early Joseon period was examined as above. The present article attempted to investigate the facts concerning the Placenta Chamber based on bibliographic as well as relic data. Nevertheless, the study was unable to discover the ideological background for explaining why the Placenta Chamber of the queens of King Sejong and King Seongjong were the only ones that underwent the process of ‘Gabong’ and why it cannot be observed in other periods. Such questions remain for further investigation for future studies on the Placenta Chamber.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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