ABSTRACT
Although records of the first settlements in what is now Seoul stretch back to prehistoric times, the history of Seoul as a capital city goes back to 1394 when Yi Seung Gye, the first king of the Chosun Dynasty, decided to make this city the capital of his new kingdom. According to Chosonwangjo-sillok (The Annals of the Chosun Dynasty), Yi asked Muhak, a Buddhist monk who later became an advisor to the king, to search for an auspicious site for the new capital. Following feng shui beliefs, many philosophers and leaders deemed the act of selecting a capital pivotal in determining the fate of a dynasty. Muhak thought that Seoul’s landscape, surrounded with mountains and relatively flat in the middle, was auspicious in this regard (figure 1.1) (Joseon Wangjo Sillok, 1394).1 The official name of the city at the time was Hansong, or Hanyang. Soon after the designation of Hansong as the capital, palace complexes and administrative units were built. Confucianism became the central political ideology of the Chosun dynasty, which distinguished the new regime from that of Koryo, the previous dynasty, which adhered to the Buddhist religion. Confucian ideology was fundamentally different from Buddhism since it is a secular ideology that emphasizes virtues such as filial piety, a value that was extended to the relationship between the king and his subjects. The ruler had to possess moral rectitude in order to guide his people and to reciprocate the loyalty of his subjects. Reflecting Confucian ideology, the city gates were named after the principle virtues of Confucius’s philosophy.2 Soon after the construction of the palaces, existing marketplaces and residential districts were expanded, making Hansong the centre of political and economic activity.
