- 著者
-
高橋 公明
- 出版者
- 公益財団法人史学会
- 雑誌
- 史學雜誌 (ISSN:00182478)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.91, no.8, pp.1303-1323, 1370-1372, 1982-08-20
The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the political relations between Korea and diplomats from the western region of Japan from 1390 to 1470, when Japanese-Korean international relations were most extensively developed. By this analysis two points can be clarified as follows. 1)The diplomatic relations between two countries during the time in question possessed both sufficient substance and formality, which can be difined as the "Korean diplomatic order." 2)While diplomats from western Japan regarded Korea as a great world power, the Koreans did regard Japan as a country of less importance. The process of proving these two points can be described as follows. First, the famous Chronicles of Countries to the East of the sea (海東諸国紀), a document describing working relations between diplomats of two countries, is a work which expresses an ideal of alienage of Japan from the viewpoint of Korea and extracts the actual foundation of this ideal from diplomatic relations. The characteristics of diplomatic relations during this period can be expressed as the ceremonial position of Japanese diplomats as seen by the Korean side and mediated through an order of status within the Korean bureaucratic system. We can explain further as following : 1)messengers dispatched to Korea by Japanese diplomats were treated according to the Korean bureaucratic code in Korean Court decorum ; and 2)Japanese diplomats themselves were also given status ranked by Korean bureaucrats who could directly send and receive diplomatic documents. We may conclude that ceremonial position of Japanese Imperial Messengers was relatively low and that, since all diplomats to Korea formed relations on personal basis, they could be on an equality with Korean side. Rather, they found themselves in various kinds of subordinate relations to the Korean Court. All diplomats from outside had to observe the Korean state order in termes of obligation. Instead diplomats were given guarantees from Korea concerning their economic interests and activities. As a result of the widespread formation of such subordinate relations, there may have developed the idea of Korea as a great world power of the times. Certainly such an idea have been arisen among those who depended upon East Asian sea commerce. And when favorable conditions came about in Korea between 1466 and 1471, many diplomatic messengers were sent to Korea basing on such an idea. The above research indicates that the "Korean-centrism" expressed in the Chronicles of Countries to the East of the sea was supported by the actual diplomatic contacts. It is in this sense that the present paper is able to criticize, in part, the conventional view of an East Asian world which over-emphasizes international relations centered around China and underestimates the political importance of relations between other countries within this sphere. It may be expected that this paper expresses the necessity of survey from many points of view in terms of foreign contacts in the medieval East Asia.