Early Irish law

North American journal of Celtic studies Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 2019) Copyright © 2019 by The Ohio State University REVIEW ESSAY PATRICK WADDEN Donnchadh Ó Corráin. 2017. Clavis litterarum Hibernensium. Medieval Irish books and texts (c. 400—c. 1600). ISBN 978–2–54857–9. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. clxiv + 1932 pages. €875. In compiling Clavis litterarum Hibernensium (henceforth CLH), Donnchadh Ó Corráin sought to provide an overview of the literary output of Irish authors and scribes at home and abroad during the medieval period so that its extent and quality might be assessed (vii).1 His estimation that this undertaking was ‘difficult’ hardly does justice the vast ambition of the project (vii). Even a brief perusal of this work demonstrates the quantity and quality of the medieval Irish literary achievement in both Latin and the vernacular and across a variety of genres. That he has largely achieved his goal is testament to the breadth and depth of Ó Corráin’s knowledge, built over the course of a career spanning nearly half a century. The result of his labor of love is a landmark accomplishment that speaks in important ways about the current status of the discipline and will be valued by future generations of students and scholars alike. The three hefty volumes in which it has been published have something for everybody, including critics. After a preface whose brevity masks its substance, and a lengthy bibliography, the catalogue lists more than 1365 individual items divided into 32 sections, usually according to genre, but occasionally according to the author or location with which they are associated. Other groupings are a little less obvious or more specific, one such being Section 9 ‘Irish scholars and Greek in the West’. These sections are listed in roughly chronological—though of necessity overlapping and imprecise—order, beginning with the earliest surviving examples of Irish literacy in the form of epigraphy and progressing 1. Roman numerals refer to page numbers in the preface. Arabic numerals in bold font refer to items listed in CLH. Arabic numerals in plain font refer to page numbers. Patrick Wadden [patrickwadden@​ bac​ .edu] is Associate Professor of History at Belmont Abbey College, North Carolina. His interests focus on the political and cultural links that existed between the different part of the Gaelic world and on the place of the Gaels in the broader Insular and European worlds of the Middle Ages. 86 North American journal of Celtic Studies through a catalogue of medieval texts and manuscripts dating from the fifth to the sixteenth century. The majority of the individual items listed are texts. Most entries include an incipit, an overview of the manuscript tradition, a list of editions and facsimiles, and a bibliography of pertinent secondary literature arranged chronologically. Other items given their own entries include inscriptions and manuscripts, whose entries differ somewhat in content. Those on manuscripts include convenient lists of contents for cross-reference, for example (816–822). Additionally, there are general bibliographies for certain specific topics, including ‘Irish biblical commentaries’ (102), ‘Irish apocrypha and eschatologica’ (184), ‘Luxeuil, Bobbio and Columbanus’ (338), ‘Collectio canonum Hibernensis’ (615) and ‘Medieval vernacular narrative prose’ (1511). Some items are introduced with brief, though often very valuable, notes. It is a pity that these are somewhat sporadic and do not accompany every item. According to the preface, the rationale for this is that some works ‘especially in Old and Middle Irish, . . . may be less familiar to readers’ (xvii). That, of course, depends on the reader. While it is true that every text listed in Section 27 ‘Medieval vernacular narrative prose’, has its own note (955–1127), and one goal of the work is clearly to make this material more accessible to the non-specialist, a more even dispersal of these notes would have been of great benefit, as would some more consistency in the notes’ contents. For while some of those on vernacular narratives date the texts, others do not. One might question certain decisions regarding categorizations and organization. It is a little peculiar, for example, that Lebor Bretnach (1251), the Middle Irish translation of Historia Brittonum, appears in Section 28 ‘Historicist and historical vernacular texts. Verse, prose and prosimetrum’, while the roughly contemporary translation...

Contrary to the opinion of the late Maurice Sheehy and other specialists in early medieval canon law, this article demonstrates that the Collectio canonum hibernensis, despite its ‘Irishness’ or ‘Celticity’, had a substantial influence on canon law collections down to the time of Gratian, especially in central and southern Italy. Manuscripts from these regions—both excerpta and the entire Hibernensis—are examined first, and then twenty independent collections borrowing heavily or in part from the Hibernensis are studies.

The Collectio Canonum Hibernensis is an eighth-century Hiberno-Latin compilation of patristic florilegia that was brought to England by Breton ecclesiastics and employed by Anglo-Saxon reformers as a canonical resource. This article addresses the Hibernensis as an Irish product that was subsumed into the corpus of continental regulatory materials which then circulated throughout the Anglo-Saxon centers and assisted in the articulation of the ideological framework for the English Benedictine Reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries. This discussion delineates the ways in which the Hibernensis was transmitted throughout the English centers, in company with Anglo-Saxon and continental regulatory materials alike (including the Amalarian liber officialis, the Regularis Concordia and Wulfstan’s Canon Law Collection), and shows that the Hiberno-Latin text was employed in the regulatory scholarship of Oda of Canterbury (the Constitutiones), Ælfric of Eynsham (the Letter to Brother Edward), and Wulfstan of York (the Institutes of Polity).

This chapter examines the immediate background of the emergence of the highly influential insular canonical collections and investigates the way they relate to the earliest canonical texts compiled in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England. It discusses the Irish collection of canons Collectio Canonum Hibernensis and the Canons of Theodore, and explores how the compilers of canonical literature approached an age-old problem inherent to medieval canon law. The chapter also outlines the governing principles which characterised insular canonical thinking and shows that the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis was firmly grounded in an insular canonical tradition.

INTRODUCTION The historical roots of early Irish law stretch back into antiquity and were passed on in the rich oral history, poetry, sagas, law and wisdom-texts, that have come down to us. The body of law is frequently referred to as Brehon Law, so-called as it was applied by judges named breitheamhuin or brehons, in the Irish language. The more appropriate term is fenechas defined as ‘law of the Feni [freemen], customary or traditional law, [or] native law’. Promulgated or written law, much of it developed by the church, was known as Cain law. The primary old Irish law-text is the Senchas Mar (great tradition). This grounding document constitutes a third of all surviving law-texts. Reputedly originally assembled at the insistence of St. Patrick in the fifth century of the common era (CE), the Senchas Mar as we now know it was compiled in the seventh century CE and brings together a number of distinct texts, addressing a range of civil and political as well as economic and social matters. An understanding of old Irish law also requires recourse to a wide range of other law-texts, as well as oral tradition captured in the sagas, poems and wisdom-texts. Law-texts on issues as diverse as the law of bee-keeping, the status of poets (who were key to the learning and transmission of the law), the principal remedies for civil and criminal harm, and canon law demonstrate the breadth and depth of old Irish law. Although law in Ireland was not primarily legislative or king-made there was long tradition of national and local assemblies, such as the Feis of Tara, which may have served to ‘preserve [customary] laws and rules’. While kings could issue ordinances in times of emergency, law was primarily derived from custom and was found and interpreted by the legal class (poets and brehons) with strong clerical influences — an influence probably exercised by druids in earlier times. Though justice was primarily adjudicated by brehons, kings were linked to the process and may have adjudicated certain cases and/or played a role in approving the decision of a brehon. The Senchas Mar shows the significant influence of the church in revision of the law and may be seen as the end result of a collaborative process to reconcile ‘native oral custom with written Christian doctrine’.

Research on Old Irish law was from the very beginning related to specific epistemological and political contexts in which Celtic and Indo-European Studies emerged as scientific disciplines at the end of the 19th century. The premise of historical linguistics that the Indo-European languages derived from a common ‘origin’ had far reaching implications for studies on medieval Celtic law tracts. Since linguists had discovered significant parallels between Old Irish and Sanskrit, the legal traditions of Ireland and India were believed to preserve archaic Indo-European continuities as well. Against this background, and in a particular political context, Irish scholars of the 20th century argued for the autonomy and isolation of Old Irish law which was supposed to be unaffected by the Latin and Christian literature of continental Europe. However, later researches departed radically from this national perspective and emphasized the impact of Canon law, hagiography and the Bible on Irish written culture. This article takes up a different perspective by focusing on the persistence of a legal imagery that was by no means essentially Indo-European but still provided conceptual tools for the interpretation and ‘translation’ of texts, as they occur in vernacular adaptations of Latin literature.

The article centers on the study of new concepts in the legislation of the Russian Federation on physical training and sports. The authors analyze the concept of «fitness center», whichhas appeared in the legislation quite recently. There have arisen doubts about the rationale for its use among the variety of many similar terms that are actuallyemployed, which creates difficulties in determining their correlation. It has been noted that the term «fitness» has no conventional meaning and is not traditional for Russian reality. Another option is proposed to regulate the operation of physical training and sports organizations, the purpose of which is to provide citizens with services of physical training and physical development. In the approach proposed by the authors, the text of the law should contain a general term to unify names of such organizations. Under this approach, the term «fitness center» is unnecessary. The authors have not found any reasons for introducing the term «fitness» into the text of the Russian law, although they do not exclude their appearance in the future. Many practical problems have been noted that arise due to the lack of high-quality legal regulation of the activities of organizations that provide citizens with physical training and physical developmentservices. The authors come to the conclusion that the main problem is not the name of such organizations, but the contents of the regulation of their activities. The necessity of legislative clarification of such terms as «crossfit», «aqua fitness», «fitness aerobics», «body fitness», «fitbox» and some others is analyzed. The authors note that their indtoduction intothe text of a normative legal act is possible in order to set the rules for a particular sport or instructions for coaches, orin other similar documents. Simple placing of terms and their definitions in the text of the law is perceived as inappropriate.

The sources drawn upon for this paper are legal manuals. These come from the seventh and eighth centuries in the case of Ireland and, for Wales, from the thirteenth. Alongside some similarities in the way the two legal traditions handled concepts of property, there were also huge differences. The Irish texts are, on the whole, richer and more detailed. Where they are most rewarding is in the accounts they give of relationships and procedures presupposing distinctions between forms of property and possession: clientship, claims to land, pledging, and distraint. In Welsh law there are some clear parallels, most evidently in the case of claims to land, but the main interest lies in a more elaborate and explicit set of concepts. In Irish law, on the other hand, the main interest lies not in explicit conceptual distinctions but rather in distinctions implied by different areas of law, particularly by legal rituals.

Early Irish law texts appear frequently to draw upon a particular numerical series. The numbers in this series are 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 30. In status texts this series is supplemented by the numbers 2, 20, 42. A method for generating these numbes is suggested. This method also provides a solution to anomalies in the ordering of grades in some texts.

Old Irish law tracts provide valuable insights into the practice of medicine in Ireland during the early medieval period. While the focus of the law texts relating to medicine was predominantly medico-legal, with an emphasis on computing compensation for injury, an understanding of contemporary medical practice can also be inferred from such texts. Male and female practitioners used herbs and surgery to treat their patients and supervised nursing care with a particular emphasis on diet. Physicians also provided an all-important public prognosis for the patient. The nature of the injury, the probable outcome and the status of the victim determined the level of compensation to be paid by the guilty party. Practitioners were also sometimes called upon to adjudicate in intimate and marital affairs. Synthesising information gleaned from the Old Irish law tracts, this article provides a unique insight into medicine in early medieval Ireland in terms of the status of physicians, known medical knowledge and contemporary practice.

The Early Middle Irish Adam and Eve story in the tenth- or eleventh-century biblical poem Saltair na Rann includes an exchange between the devil and the snake in paradise. The devil seeks to persuade the snake to corporeal cohabitation in order to further his desire to bring about the fall of Eve and Adam. Lucifer's argument to the snake stresses the snake's hierarchical superiority to Adam, an idea that, as Brian Murdoch points out in his commentary on the poem, 'is a simple reprise of Lucifer's' earlier argument against subservience to God.1 But Lucifer's encouragement of the snake is capped by the singular plea, 'denamm cotach is carddess' ('let us make a bargain and treaty') (lines 1150).2 To this, the pragmatic serpent responds, 'Cia luag nom tha, fiad each thur / ... ar failti duit im churp chain, / cen nach locht dom chomaittreib?' ('What reward have I, before every host ... for welcoming you into my fair body, to live together with me without any fault?') (lines 1165-8). The reply: fame. The devil cunningly promises that his union with the snake will 'be continuously mentioned' in ages to come ('bid do gres ar n-anmnigud', line 1176).3 The devil offers an assurance partly based on form. The language he uses, in referring to making a treaty or a proper arrangement, or an alliance - however one translates 'cotach' - elevates the discussion to a formal level, as he offers the snake a verbal contract: if you will do this for me, I will assure you of this result, or, you give me that, and I will give you this.4 The legalistic language of the encounter marks a convention in perception of the Fall, one visible in another early medieval Insular poem on the Fall, the perhaps tenth-century Old English Genesis B, and in legal texts themselves.5The Fall has a long history of reference in law, the Irish aspects of which Damian Bracken explores in his study of 'The Fall and the law in early Ireland'. Bracken demonstrates that 'clerics with an interest in the explanations of the opening of Genesis were involved in writing the laws of early Ireland' and that lawyers subsequently maintained a 'very practical use of the theology of the Fall', using it as a prime example:The Fall and its consequences are the basis for discussion of matters like free will and perhaps that most Christian of ideals - the attempt to go beyond law and its technicalities to a psychological consideration of motive and intent. The early lawyers use the theology of the Fall in just this context: whether the accused was incited to commit the crime, whether he committed the crime with malice aforethought, whether he was fully aware of all circumstances before entering into an agreement.6Texts concerning the rules of contracts demonstrate especially well this practical applicability in a central area of the law. Fergus Kelly in his study of early Irish law asserts that 'The commonest legal act in early Irish society was no doubt the verbal contract or cor bel (lit. putting of lips) often referred to simply as cor. This term covers all commercial undertakings, as well as agreements to marry, to foster, to engage in co-operative farming, to enter clientship,' and so on.7 One collection of early Irish texts on contracts, what Neil McLeod identifies as 'perhaps the central text on the subject', is Di Astud Chor, On the securing of Contracts', which McLeod dates to the eighth century, at least in the compilation as it now exists.8 Perhaps the best known and the largest of surviving Old Irish legal texts is, however, the Senchas Mar, or 'Great Tradition', which has a substantial introduction that has also been dated to 'probably' the eighth century, though at least part of it pre-dates Di Astud Chor? Both Di Astud Chor and the introduction to the Senchas Mar utilize references to Lucifer's and to Adam and Eve's fall to confirm a legal point, while both poetic treatments of the Fall, the Early Middle Irish Saltair na Rann and the Old English Genesis B, employ contractual language similar to that in the law texts. …

The fragmentary nature of evidence for the Early Christian period makes an interdisciplinary approach essential for the reconstruction of past landscapes and settlement patterns.1 Despite the efforts of the Group for the Study of Irish Historical Settlement to foster interdisciplinary links, much modern research remains unconcerned with the need to present an integrated understanding of the past.2 Would-be practitioners of a multidisciplinary approach may have been discouraged by the hostile reception which greeted Smyth’s innovative contributions to Early Christian studies.3 Although one such critic professed ‘unqualified admiration’ for his multidisciplinary approach,4 Smyth was attacked for his dependence on secondary sources, especially his reliance on Ancient Laws of Ireland, the flawed Victorian English-language translation of early Irish law. More importantly, Smyth was justifiably admonished for minimising the importance of early Irish law as a source for settlement history.5Would these attacks have been less virulent, and shorter, if the academic in question had not strayed beyond the boundaries of his core discipline? In another instance illustrating the pitfalls of interdisciplinary research, considerable space has been given by an archaeologist to changes in the social hierarchy of the period based on an outdated theory from the field of Early Irish Law.6Thus, multidisciplinarians become uneasy consumers of a published product beyond their individual expertise, of works whose limitations are often known only to those at the core of individual disciplines. Despite these inherent dangers, this chapter reviews recent developments in a wide range of specialisms which have improved our understanding of Early Christian settlement.

This volume contains a critical edition of the Old Irish law tract Corus Besgnai(The Arrangement of Discipline), one of the constituent tracts of the late seventh-century compilation Senchas Mar(The Great Tradition). It has taken the editor a very long time to bring this work to completion, but the result is a highly accurate and informative edition representing the highest standard of scholarship in early Irish language and law.

Liam Breatnach observed in an important article (Breatnach 1984, with references) that ‘Old Irish texts appear in three forms: prose, rhyming syllabic verse, and rose.The simplest definition of roseis that it is neither of the other two.’ There were several stylistic varieties of prose in Early Irish, associated with such genres as law texts, saints’ lives, and sagas.

This paper deals with the relationships between the legal traditions of Ireland and Wales in the middle ages and identifies two groups of borrowings from the early eighth-century Collectio canonum Hibernensis in the lawbooks of medieval Wales. The borrowings all come from Books xxx and xxxiv (in Wasserschleben’s edition) and deal with deposits and sureties; however, the compilers of the Welsh lawbooks, whose earliest extant redactions date from the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were plainly ignorant of the relevant passages’ ultimate Irish source. After close textual analysis of the passages in medieval Welsh law derived from the Hibernensis, the paper discusses how the Irish canons may have become known in Wales, and how they could have been transmitted into the surviving texts of Welsh law. Attention is drawn to the importance of the borrowings as a unique witness to the presence of the Hibernensis in medieval Wales, as well as to their significance for an understanding of the sources, ecclesiastical connections, and Irish affinities of medieval Welsh law.