COMMUNITY COMPACT SYSTEM 709China at this point, leaving out any consideration of the pao-chia system estab-
lished by Emperor Shen-tsung in the Sung dynasty in I070.n
Nonetheless, the key element in Yu's plan for the construction of a systeJll of
local control was to be his version of the community compact (hyangyak), based
primarily on two of Chu Hsi's works. The first was Chu's emendation in the
twelfth century of a text presumably written by Lti Ta-chtin in 1076 called the
Lii-Family Community Compact, which he designed to be used for the self-cul-
tivation of individuals. The second was his prescription oflocal government reg-
ulations for the district of Chang-chou.7
COMMUNITY COMPACTS IN KOREA
The Yuhyangso of the Early Choson Dynasty
Yu did not discuss the institutional history of community compacts in Korea,
only references to the institution in the writings of T'oegye, Yulgok, and Cho
Hon. Tabana Tameo in his recent study of Korean community compacts pur-
sued the same strategy even though he did mention on occasion that in certain
cases Korean founders of community compacts modeled them more on exist-
ing rules and regulations of existing local self-government organizations than
on the Lii-Family Community Compact of Sung China.
Tagawa Kazo, however, has shown that local self-government bodies called
Yuhyangso were organized primarily by the local elite (sometimes referred to
as p 'umgwan, or men holding office rank, even though Song June-ho would not
classify them as members of the elite) listed in the local yangban register
(hyang'an) in the countryside. The district was also represented in the capital
hy Kyongjaeso, or the capital headquarters, headed by a government official who
came from the district. He found that Jllany of the regulations of the Yuhyangso,
called the hyanggyu, contained the same moral aspirations and penalties for mis-
conduct as the community compact (hyangyak) regulations, Choson dynasty
codes, and the Ming code adopted for criminal matters in the Choson period.^8
At the beginning of the Choson dynasty the Yuhyangso were carried over from
the Koryo dynasty, associations formed spontaneously by local leaders, men with
official rank or local scholars (yuhyang p 'umgwan, hyangjungji saryu), who
were either members of the local elite called hyangni or retired officials
(ehonham). The hyangni werc families who provided district clerks to local gov-
ernment, some of whom had also received official sinecures (eh omsolchik). They
were also appointed to district magistrate's posts, but in the Choson period King
T'aejo tried to weaken this local gentry in 1397 by assigning them to duty in
the capital guards, but he was afraid to take their sinecures away from them and
many of them continued to stay in their home villages where they interfered
with the magistrate's control of the population. King T'aejong decided to abol-
ish the Yuhyangso in 1406 to curtail their local influence.