DISINTEGRATION OF THE EARLY CHaSON 67appearance of the kwajon prebendal system, but this view requires some mod-
ification. Private ownership was already the foundation of land tenure under
the kwaj6n system of 1389-9 I, as well as the ch6nsiklm system of the tenth
through twelfth centuries in the early Koryo dynasty. Hereditary succession to
kwajol1 and other types of prebends was superimposed on only about two-thirds
of the privately owned land in Kyonggi Province, and the legal prohibition against
the sale of land was lifted in 1424. Not much is known about the origin of the
prohibition of land sales, but there is no evidence that it was associated with
either nationalization of landed property and redistribution or the denial of pri-
vate ownership. Possibly it was designed to keep peasant smallholders in place
to guarantee the prebend recipients a constant income. Land must have been
sold despite the prohibition, and after 1424 there was no legal restraint against
alienation of landed property. What was more significant than maturation of
ownership, since most of the land was held by private owners anyway, was the
state's abandonment of any attempt to provide extra hereditary income for an
elite that ceased to perform any function for the state. It was "extra" hecause
such individuals already collected rents from tenants and slaves on their own
private landholdings.
Furthermore, it is doubtful that landownership became more "mature" because
the main deficiency in ownership was the imperfect system of protection for
private ownership rights, Although kings were obliged to compensate owners
for takeovers under the right of eminent domain, and aggrieved property own-
ers could sue in the magistrates' courts to defend their property, using written
deeds and official land registration documents to prove ownership, the courts
and the legal system did not operate independently of government officials or
the de facto influence of local magnates. If a smallholder were in a position to
launch a civil suit against an illegal seizure of his property by a powerful pri-
vate individual or corrupt official, he would usually avoid doing so hecause
involvement with the magistrate, his clerks, and runners usually meant nothing
but trouble, and the magistrate was vulnerable to influence from the other party
in the suit. This description of the weaknesses in the legal system of the defense
of property rights probably existed unchanged since the early Koryo dynasty, if
not before that. '4
What became noticeable by the late fifteenth century was increasing mention
in the historical records of the estates (nongjang) accumulated by a small num-
ber of large landlords, tenancy and landlord/tenant relations, the disparity of
wealth between the rich and the poor, and the failure of the state to keep up with
the registration and taxation of newly reclaimed land. The assumption that all
these phenomena were growing in size and amount has not been proven because
of the paucity of statistical evidence, but the qualitative evidence does imply
that the concentration of landownership, the increase in tenancy, and the immis-
eration of the peasantry were occurring in the sixteenth century.
These negative trends were matched by positive developments, such as
increased production through the reclamation of land and the spread of irriga-