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Plate 25.1 First page of Book of the Five Relationships (Wulun shu Plate 25.2 Book of the Five Relationships (Wulun shu 五倫書),
五倫書), dated 1447. Woodblock printed, ink on paper, height 37cm. imperial edition with seal of the Kings of Lu, dated 1447.
Princeton University Library, East Asian Library, TC328/1212 Woodblock printed, ink on paper, height 35cm. The Bodleian
Libraries, The University of Oxford, Backhouse 421

Yet we may still ask whether Samgang had the kind of shaping a Neo-Confucian realm centred on filiality and
flawless beauty the Xuande emperor appreciated. An extant ritual for all, and governed by a powerful king wielding the
example of Wulun shu from the Xuande court is in the Great Ming Code (Da Ming lü 大明律). Other aristocrats or
Princeton University Library and the Bodleian Library, yangban, however, understood Neo-Confucianism as
University of Oxford (Pls 25.1–2). There is debate as to supporting hereditary status and upper-class privilege. In
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whether the 1434 edition of Samgang is extant, but the 1982 1428, the court learned that a commoner had killed his
reprint is believed to be the closest to the original (Pls father. A high minister deplored the patricide as a case of ‘a
25.3–4), so I rely on that here. The two books share the person of lower status killing one of higher status’, but for
formal features of the finest palace productions: double Sejong patricide was in a class of its own. Wives will go
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borders, on the centre fold thick black mouths inside around killing their husbands, he says, and servants their
elephant trunks, blackened fishtails with scalloped white masters; a patricide, by contrast, strikes at the very heart of
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strips and decorative circles above the central title lines. a kingly order built on filial piety. To transform all his
Both books were punctuated on the blocks. Wulun shu was subjects, down to ‘ordinary people living in the alleys and
larger: the court edition is about 40 x 23cm by my lanes’, Sejong initially ordered the ethnically Uighur
measurement, compared to Samgang’s reported not quite 27 x Joseon scholar Seol Sun 偰循 (?–1435) to revise an earlier
17cm. Wulun shu was carved in large, elegant standard script work on filial children. Ministers insisted on the addition
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(kaishu 楷書), and printed on high-quality tree-bark paper. of wifely exemplars to strengthen new patrilineal ideals in
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The imperial Qing catalogue notes its great purity. Samgang order to curb the property rights and independence that
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is, if anything, less elegant, although the pictures make it Goryeo elite women had formerly enjoyed. When Sejong
more appealing. More to the point, since many beautiful countered with a proposal to include officials who had
Ming palace printed books had reached Joseon by 1428, it is remained true to their lords in adversity, Seol Sun in turn
more likely, as Young Kyun Oh concludes, that they insisted on giving dignity to scholar-officials by adding
influenced the look of Samgang and not the other way around. exemplars who had loyally remonstrated with rulers about
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their behaviour.
The purpose of the Samgang haengsil-do Samgang focuses on ascriptive hierarchy and the duty of
Yet books from the Ming court shaped Samgang only so far. subordinates. Within each category, the Chinese exemplars
More significant were debates that were taking place at the come in chronological order, followed by the Korean
Joseon court. King Sejong and his team of officials were exemplar in chronological order, but royalty are moved to

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