This thesis examines the existence and activities of bunjuin through analysis of the content of tribute merchant documents and the various rights documents. Bunjuin is a term referring to a person who has paid a certain rent and has acted as a substit...
This thesis examines the existence and activities of bunjuin through analysis of the content of tribute merchant documents and the various rights documents. Bunjuin is a term referring to a person who has paid a certain rent and has acted as a substitute for the rights of tribute merchant(貢人權) and the rights of master of commercial rights(主人權). This is understood as an indicator of the phenomenon that in the late Joseon Dynasty, it was differentiated into the rights owners and agents of the business. However, as a result of analyzing the core concept `分` of bunjuin, it was used as the meaning of the management of the commercial rights or the value of tribute goods which was paid by the state. The fact that the country paid the value of tribute goods(貢價) to bunjuin at that time is considered to be an important clue that bunjuin can be conceptualized as a tribute merchant without ownership.
Bunjuin in the archives showed a wide variety of features. bunjuin is often found in the case when a tribute merchant or master of the commercial rights has sold his ownership, but continues to work with that tribute merchant as bunjuin. This can be regarded as a phenomenon in which the existing tribute merchant or master of commercial rights is collapsing due to economic difficulties, but in the concrete case bunjuin, it was analyzed as a active management aspect. In particular, when analyzing the actual transaction contents of refundable sales documents (還退賣買文書), there are cases in which tribute merchant of the original owners or masters of commercial rights are bunjuin, lending the ownership and borrowing money from the buyer. There were also many cases in which the owner of tribute merchant rights and bunjuin were family members or relatives. This can be seen as a difficulty in separating ownership and management, as well as examples of rights-backed loans through repurchase transactions.
On the other hand, the double transaction of bunjuin can be found in case of dispute. The reason for this phenomenon is that, first, transactions that did not go through the notarization of the government in ownership transactions of each owner were common. Secondly, it was related to the fraudulent transaction of bunjuin, which was described in the name of the agent or in the passive position to transfer ownership. In the case of document forgery of bunjuin, fraudulent transactions of bunjuin was done under the acquiescence of the subordinates.
Despite the risk of fraudulent transactions, rights buyers frequently registered or changed the name of the agent on the list of government officials. This was due to the expertise of tribute merchant business, the complexity of the payment of tribute goods value, the undifferentiated form of ownership and management, the incomplete rights of new owners, and the ownership of bunjuin.