Historical Documents held at Gwangju Jeong Clan Ga, Dongducheon

The Seongjegong branch of the Gwangju Jeong clan in Dongducheon is a classic yangban lineage that, from its establishment as a clan seat in the late Goryeo period through the late Joseon period, produced numerous civil officials and scholars and maintained its standing as a gyeonghwa sajok, a scholar-official family based in and around the capital. The tomb of Jeong Sa-ho (sobriquet Hwagok), a leading figure of the clan, is currently designated and managed as a Dongducheon-si Local Heritage (tangible) site. The historical documents held by the Gwangju Jeong clan in Dongducheon are clan papers from the line of Jeong Su-sang of the Seongjegong branch, comprising four categories — royal edicts and orders, memorials and petitions to the throne, official notices and communications, and deeds and contracts — with 61 items surviving in total. Among these, household-register-related petitions and deeds such as property-division records form the core of the collection. These documents reflect well the economic realities of their time and are valuable as rare sources for the past economy and daily life of the Dongducheon area, where historical records are relatively scarce. In recognition of their scholarly value, the Academy of Korean Studies (formerly the Hanguk Jeongsin Munhwa Yeonguwon) included this material in volume 71 of the Gomunseojipseong (Compendium of Old Documents) in September 2004, as part of its Korean Studies Promotion Project. This is a rare example of clan documents surviving from a lineage north of the Hangang River, which further underlines their scholarly importance. A related video, an episode of the YouTube series "In Search of Gyeonggi-do's Cultural Heritage," was broadcast on 5 June 2023.

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Where it is

Region

Dongducheon, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산