This chapter first looks at domination of wild beasts through the hunt, a public symbol of monarchical power in the Koryŏ–Mongol era, as it shifted from the responsibility of the king to the responsibility of the bureaucracy. I argue that along with restraining the actions of kings, the state attempted to transform human–animal relations. Animals grew more plentiful in the expanded domain in the north and were increasingly sacrificed on the altars of both the state and private homes, examined in the second half of this chapter. Ritual sacrifice is an important yet often neglected historical analysis. While based on earlier principles of Confucian rites, these rituals took on added meaning in early Chosŏn. Animals, wild and domestic, helped define Chosŏn identity, becoming the blood and bones of the dynasty's political legitimacy. What may seem like dry descriptions of arcane court ritual were, in fact, inseparably tied to highly contentious issues of political power, economic life, and the fate of the dynasty. This chapter explores the consequences of these newly regulated royal hunts on human and animal interactions within state, political and cultural developments of the fifteenth century.

In 1402, the Ministry of Rites (Yejo; 禮曹) submitted the Rules of Hunting to the king. Based on the Book of Rites, officials outlined the Confucian structure of royal state hunting for the Chosŏn Dynasty.