First Civil Service Examination

On the advice of Shuang Ji, a naturalized official from Later Zhou, Gwangjong held Goryeo’s first civil service examination to recruit Confucian-educated officials.

The examination had a literary composition section, a Confucian classics section and a miscellaneous section for technical officials, plus a separate examination for monks. A military examination was barely held until the end of the dynasty.

It aimed to give the king servants chosen by merit rather than lords’ sons. But the eumseo privilege, which let descendants of officials of the fifth rank and above take office without examination, remained, and Goryeo became a society of hereditary aristocratic lineages.