Corea the Hermit Nation

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ...The females are not usually sent away from the place of their parents or their own crime. In ancient times of Kokorai and Korai there were only two classes of people, the nobles and their free retainers, and the serfs or slaves. The nobles were lords of cities and castles, like the daimios of Japan, and were very numerous. The whole country was owned by them, or at least held in the king's name under tenure of military service--a lien which length of time only strengthened. In the long centuries of peace, many of these old families--weakly descendants of vigorous founders--have died out, and the land reverting to the sovereign, or possessed by the people, is now owned by a more numerous and complex class, while nearly all the cities and towns are governed by officers sent out by the central authority at Seoul. The ancient class of serfs has, by industry and intelligence and accumulation of rights vested in their special occupations, developed into the various middle classes. The nobles are now in a minority, though at present their power is on the increase, and their ancestral landholds comprise but a small portion of the soil. As in medireval Europe, so in Corea, where feudalism, which rests on personal loyalty to a reigning sovereign, or a particular royal line, prevails, a more or less complete revolution of titles and possessions takes place upon a change of dynasty. On the accession of the present royal house in 1392, the old Korai nobility were impoverished and the partisans of the founder of the Ni, and all who had aided him to the throne, became at once the nobility of the kingdom, and were rewarded by gifts of land. To the victors belonged the spoils. The honors, riches, and the exclusive right to fill many of the most desirable public...