*This English abstract is un-official web version. Don't quote this summary without author's permission. Please refer to official version.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Vietnam, the eunuchs played important roles in many fields: military affairs, foreign trade, and so forth. In 1739, the eunuchs officially obtained equal position with literati and military officers, although their success did not last long. But researches of the early modern Vietnamese history has given little attention to the eunuchs themselves. This article starts from the investigation of sources on an eunuch, Văn Lý hậu, then discusses the political role and status of Vietnamese eunuchs as a whole.
Văn Lý hậu was a very unique person since his name appears in historical sources of many countries; Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. According to Japanese and Korean sources, he was a key figure who took charge in foreign trade in Nghệ An province. In Vietnamese sources, however, his commercial activity was not mentioned but it is recorded that he was a powerful eunuch serving Trịnh family.
From an investigation of letters of appointment, as well as bureaucrats and military officers, the eunuchs acted in competition for the throne which is a feature of Vietnamese political situation in the seventeenth century. Meanwhile they did not monopolized foreign trades because royal family and high-rank military officers also had interests in it. The eunuchs were not henchmen depending on the king's favor but regular member of the political history of the Lê dynasty Vietnam.