Pierre-Emmanuel Roux

10.18399/acta.2012.15.1.004

Great Ming Code Catholicism late Chosŏn dynasty repression death penalty apostasy martyrdom

Many works have been written on the early Korean Catholic Church, but little has been said concerning the legal angle of the repression conducted by the Chosŏn state. Each anti-Christian campaign had a legal basis and was officially implemented in the frame of the legal system supported by the Great Ming Code, which was the penal code in use during the Chosŏn dynasty. The present study thus suggests that legal history may provide a suitable framework for the analysis of the anti-Christian campaigns of the nineteenth century and complement existing literature. I begin with investigating which laws were referred to during Catholic-related judicial cases and, then, I propose a few elements in order to explain why the government put such an emphasis on immediate decapitation, which was the gravest legal punishment. I also analyze how government officials enforced and misused the penal code to reach their objectives, and I conclude that laws, in the end, constituted an ideal means to justify the repression of Catholicism.