Buddhist monasteries · Goryeo under King Sinjong and the Choe house · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Heungwangsa

Heungwangsa, in the capital district near Gaegyeong, was raised by King Munjong (r.

1046 to 1083) in the 1050s and 1060s [not yet checked against the source] as the largest temple of the realm; the campaign board and the Goryeosa, as we remember it, give its size as 2,800 bays, a building figure we could not check. English Wikipedia says King Seonjong invited his brother Uicheon (1055 to 1101) to be its head monk, and that Uicheon set up a repository of scriptures there and collected commentaries from China and Japan; the later Cheontae centre is Gukcheongsa (Gukcheongsa). The house held estates (sawon-jeon), slaves and lending funds of the usual kind [not yet checked against the source]; the campaign board calls it banker to half the capital's trade, which is the campaign board's phrase and not a figure.

Choe's Ten Articles of 1196 ask the king to close non-essential temples, regulate the monks and ban monastic usury (Choe Chung-heon, from the English and Chinese Wikipedia pages), so lending by the houses is real; its scale is not known. Its monks can fight: capital monks rose against the generals in 1174 [rec, not pinned], and monks of Heungwangsa plot to kill Choe in 1217 and are crushed [not yet checked against the source]. On 1 January 1200 nothing is recorded against it; Choe has not yet struck a temple.

Manjeok's slaves were to rise at Heungguksa, a different house (Manjeok).

Who holds it

Title
Abbot of Heungwangsa (name not known)
Confidence
low

No source we could read names the head of the house in 1200

Overlord

The king; in fact Choe Chung-heon's government

What it holds

  • The temple precinct and its halls
  • Estates and slaves of the house (not known)
  • Lending funds and storehouses [not yet checked against the source]

How it was acquired

Founded by Munjong in the 1050s and 1060s [not yet checked against the source].

Allies and rivals

The royal house is the patron. Choe Chung-heon watches the capital temples. Rival of Gukcheongsa only in rank.

How things stand that morning

Rich, watched and quiet.

Wealth

Estates, slaves, lending funds and the court's grants [not yet checked against the source].

Military

Monk dependants who can fight (Armed monks); no force named.

Threats

  • Choe's suspicion of a monk plot
  • A confiscation of estates

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1217Monks of Heungwangsa and other capital houses plot to kill Choe and are crushed [not yet checked against the source].Depends on: Choe's regime still ruling and the monks still armed Stopped by: Choe's fall or a reconciliation

Places of note

  • Heungwangsa: The house

Where the sources disagree

  • The campaign board entry heungwangsa (37.92, 126.62): its 'banker to half the capital's trade' is not a source we could check.

Evidence: One English Wikipedia sentence on Uicheon and Heungwangsa; the foundation date, size and 1217 plot are recollection.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Circle round the temple site.

Primary sources for Goryeo

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Essentials of the History of Goryeo, Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (1452). The chronological companion to the Goryeosa, finished a year after it and drawing on the same lost records, sometimes with entries the Goryeosa omits. Read online
  • Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
  • History of Goryeo, Jeong Inji (鄭麟趾), Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (completed 1451, from the Goryeo veritable records and earlier drafts). The official history of Goryeo, compiled by the Joseon state from the lost Goryeo veritable records. Read online
  • History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
  • History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
  • Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
  • Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
  • Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country (Yi Gyu-bo), Yi Gyu-bo (李奎報) (poems and prose from the 1190s to 1241; collected and printed by his son in 1241, with a supplement in 1242). The collected poems, letters, memorials and essays of a Goryeo scholar who was thirty-two and still seeking office in 1200. Read online

2 more in the sources library for Korea and Japan.

Sources and studies

  1. Uicheon (English Wikipedia)
  2. Goryeosa, Goryeosa jeoryo, Samguk yusa, Lee Ki-baik, Shultz: not opened in this run (Wikisource could not be reached); facts marked recollection come from these as remembered
  3. Sheet brief KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board notes (leads, not sources)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.