N

NATIONAL IDENTITY
It is problematical to work with the concept of “nation”
in the Middle Ages. What will be investigated here are
basic features of the social system prevalent in Ireland,
which can be studied in unusual depth as compared to
other contemporary European societies.
The investigation of this topic depends on the avail-
ability of written sources, and these are the products
of only a small segment of the population as a whole.
It is not clear how representative they were. On the
other hand, from these sources one can deduce certain
results that transcend the individual author.
From the earliest written sources from within Ireland
there emerges the concept of the society as a whole
expressed in the terminology used for the island and
its population. The Romans called the Irish
Scotti
,
the
island
Scotia.
In his
Confessio
written in the fifth cen-
tury, St. Patrick calls the Irish
Hiveriones,
most likely
the Latinization of a native term. The earliest attested
Irish term for the island as a whole is
Ériu
, and we
have thus from within Irish society the expression of
territorial and social unity, no doubt helped by the fact
of Ireland being an island.
The social knowledge and its value systems were
from the earliest attested times the domain of a class
of learned specialists, later known generally as
aes
dána
(people of skill). They surface in the early Irish
native law texts of ca. 700 in various manifestations,
as highly respected and highly valued professionals.
They occur in passing in earlier sources written in
Latin. There is no unanimity among modern scholars
as to the age of these professions, yet there are striking
parallels to professionals among the continental Celts
as described by Greek and Roman authors. Profession-
als of native learning did survive prominently in Chris-
tian Ireland, and indeed into the modern period,
although their status would not have been unchanged
throughout.

The fields of their expertise were primarily language

(poetry in a variety of genres) and, also expressed in

language, history (genealogies), law, healing skills,

and so forth. According to the law tract

Uraicecht

na ríar

(supported elsewhere in written material),

the specialists had to undergo a rigorous training,

and there were various levels of learning to be mas-

tered until one reached the top. This law tract contains

a generic term for these professionals—

filid—

which

later became restricted to the poets in a more narrow

sense.

In sources from Ireland, legal experts are the first

to be referred to, namely in St. Patrick’s

Confessio

(ref) written more than two centuries before the com-

pilation of the Irish law tracts. In the highly fragmented

political landscape of early and later medieval Ireland

the professionals of knowledge enjoyed special status

and protection throughout the island (as well as later

in Scotland).

In view of their status it is not surprising, but

remarkable nevertheless, that the language of the writ-

ten sources in Irish from the Old Irish period (before

ca. 900) appears as a standardized language with no

regional variants. This would be contributory toward

the sociocultural homogeneity of Irish society insofar

as it is reflected in the written sources. It is likely that

this language was accessible to the population in gen-

eral, and thus expressed joint culture.

Law was one of the important domains of the

professionals of learning. The surviving voluminous

Irish law tracts (no comprehensive codification) are

incomplete (‘ein Trümmerhaufen’, so Thurneysen in

1935): Two great collections, Senchas Mar and Bretha

Nemed are associated by modern scholars with differ-

ent regions (northern and southern). Nevertheless, the

law was known genetically as

fénechas

(law of the

feni

, or law of the Irish free men). Irish law knew of

no boundaries of the

túatha

.