Choe Yun-ui
Encyclopedia
Choe Yun-ui was a Korean civil minister during the Goryeo Dynasty. Choe Yun-ui compiled the Sangjeong yemun (Hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...

 : 상정예문, hanja
Hanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...

 : 詳定禮文) with another 16 scholars. They collected all courtesies from ancient to present and published 50 copies.

Sangjeong yemun was published with movable metal type between 1234 and 1241. Yi Gyu-bo wrote postscript on behalf of Choi Yi which show how this book was published with movable metal type. According to this postscript, Choe Yi's father, Choe Chung-heon
Choe Chung-heon
Choe Chung-heon was a military ruler of Korea during the Goryeo period.Choe's father was a Grand General in the Goryeo military, hence precipitating his own entry into the military...

 edited this book again because an older book lost some pages and the letters were unreadable. After he edited it, he copied two books and kept one copy in his home. Another book was kept in Yegwan, a unique research facility of Goryeo dynasty. By the time of the invasion of Mongol, he moved to Ganghwado and brought one copy of this book with him. Later, Cho Yi published 28 copies of this book with movable metal type and sent them to be kept in several local governments' offices.

Also, owing to a long history of woodblock
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

 printing, Koreans of the period were accustomed to books, and literacy was high.
The Chinese visitor Xü Jing, visiting Korea in 1123,
observed in his travelogue that Koreans considered it shameful not to be
able to read.

Goryeo kingdom records indicate that a major printing effort, the 50 volume Sangjeong Gogeum Yemun (Prescribed Ritual Text of the Past and Present) was printed with cast metal around the 21st year of reign of King Gojong
Gojong of Goryeo
Gojong of Goryeo was the twenty-third ruler of Goryeo in present-day Korea. Gojong's reign was marked by prolonged conflict with the Mongol Empire, which sought to conquer Goryeo, ending only when the kingdom was finally vassalized in 1259...

 of the Goryeo
Goryeo
The Goryeo Dynasty or Koryŏ was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by Emperor Taejo. Korea gets its name from this kingdom which came to be pronounced Korea. It united the Later Three Kingdoms in 936 and ruled most of the Korean peninsula until it was removed by the Joseon dynasty in 1392...

 dynasty
(around 1234 AD). It is conjectured that some familiarity with movable type must have been available prior to this large effort.

Another major publication, Nammyongcheonhwasang - Songjungdoga (Sermons of Song period
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

Buddhist Priest Nammyongvhon) was printed with cast metal type in the 26th year of the reign of king Gojong (1239 AD). However, whether Choe Yun-Ui was involved in this effort or not is not known.
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