The Rituals of Yeoje(厲祭) and the Placeness of Yeodan(厲壇) in Eupchi(邑治) during the Joseon Dynasty

Yeodan(厲壇) was one of the four rite-places, i.e. Samdan-Ilmyo(三壇一廟), arranged around the central government district in all counties across the country during the Joseon Dynasty. Yeodan was a sacred place where sacrificial rituals were held for ‘unjust ghosts who died in a shriek,’ and the rituals performed here were called Yeoje(厲祭). The condensation of such all practices, meanings, and interpretations as the perceptions of various subjects like the king, royal ministers, local elites, and the people, their goals and expectations to be achieved through this place, their social practices unfolding in this place, and their various meanings given to this place, can be said to be the placeness of Yeodan. For all the subjects of the Joseon Dynasty, Yeodan was ‘a place to soothe the spirits of those who died unfairly’. But, for the king especially, Yeodan was ‘a place to proclaim virtue and pursue the highest dignity’. For local officials, it was ‘a place to take care of the people’. For the local elite, it was ‘a place that embodies an ideal rural society based on Confucianism’. In short, Yeodan was a place where various subjects communicated through the ‘comfort for being’ and was a place with many symbolic meanings. During the Joseon Dynasty, Yeodan in each county seat had been a place where the living and the dead came across, where kings, ministers, local officials, local elites, and local people met, and where central, institutionalized rituals intersected with folk beliefs.