SOCIETY, GRADES OF GAELICown land. The principle distinction between these two
classes was that the common freemen served as the
base clients of the noble freemen. A base client owed
his flaith (lord) payments of labor and food. By the
later medieval period, the regular name for such a
client in nonlegal Gaelic sources was biatach, “food
provider.” (The Anglo-Irish lawyers, however, natu-
rally associated the providers of such services with the
feudal serf. The Anglicized term “betagh” was there-
fore applied to dependent tenants and farm-laborers
working the land of their masters.)
The lowest grade of common freeman was that of
the fer midboth (a man between huts). This grade’s
name indicated that he was in transition between
living as a dependent in the house of his father (or
foster father) and establishing a house of his own. All
young freemen between the ages of fourteen and
twenty belonged to this grade. Furthermore, those over
twenty years of age continued to belong to this grade
until they had inherited sufficient land to advance to a
higher one.
Once a young man had inherited sufficient land to
support a small herd of about seven cows, he rose to the
grade of ócaire (young freeman). The minimum land-
holdings of the more prosperous commoner grade, the
bóaire (cow freemen), were twice those of the ócaire.
Above these common grades were the noble grades
of lordship. The lowest ranking noble was the aire désa.
His name (freeman of lordship) indicated that he had
received the submission of clients. The aire désa may
well have had an entire kin-group serving him as clients.
The next highest grade of lord, the aire tuíse (free-
man of leadership), appears to have had authority over
a number of related kin-groups, for he is described as
the leader of a cenél (“extended family” or “people”).
He may have attained this position by obtaining several
lords of the aire désa grade as “noble clients.” (Noble
clients were quite different from base clients; in partic-
ular the noble client was not paid his honor price by
his lord because he did not subordinate himself to him.)
Next came the aire ard (high freeman), whose
authority in the whole kingdom was such that he
appears to have been called upon to act on its behalf
as an ambassador in interkingdom relations. Above
him was the aire forgaill (commanding freeman), a
man of such political power that he was considered a
likely candidate for the kingship itself. Finally came
the rí (king) of the túath (petty kingdom).
Elaboration of Grades in the Legal Texts
This basic structure was considerably elaborated in those
early Irish law texts that dealt specifically with status.
These elaborations vary from text to text. For example,
in the text called Críth Gablach (“the Bifurcated
Purchase”), most of the grades are split into two sub-
divisions. These early status texts also differentiated
between the king of a single petty kingdom and various
types of over king.
Out of these early elaborations there later developed
a new hierarchy of grades. By the twelfth century, the
legal commentaries were using a grade structure based
on seven sets of three, as follows: (1) the king of
Ireland (without opposition), the king of Ireland with
opposition, and the king of a province; (2) the king of
several kingdoms, the king of a great kingdom, and
the king of a petty kingdom; (3) three subdivisions of
the aire forgaill grade; (4) the aire ard, the aire tuíse,
and the aire désa; (5) three subdivisions of bóaire; (6)
three subdivisions of ócaire; and (7) three subdivisions
of fer midboth.
Beneath the grades of independent freemen, the
status tract Uraicecht Becc (the Small Primer) lists
three subdivisions of young boys not yet of sufficient
age for independent legal status. (These match the
three subdivisions of apprentice poets and novice
ecclesiastics mentioned in the subsequent paragraphs.)Women and Children
Children under the age of fourteen were dependent on
their fathers. Most women also remained dependent
on a man (usually either their father or their husband).
Such dependents had an honor price equal to half of
that of the person on whom they were dependent.
However, a woman could inherit land if she had no
brothers. In such cases, she was entitled to the inde-
pendent honor price appropriate to her property.The Semi-Free and Unfree Classes
Beneath the class of freemen came a class of semi-free
men. These men lacked the normal qualifications of
property or the support of a kin-group from whom they
might expect to inherit such property and so placed
themselves in a position of dependency upon a landed
freeman. As a result, their status, and their honor price,
was diminished. Beneath them came the slaves, who
had no status at all.The Poets
The grade structure of the poets was somewhat different
from the normal secular grade structure. Most texts rec-
ognize seven grades of poets as follows: ollam (the
master poet, whose honor price was equal to that of the
king), ánruth, clí, cano, dos (who had the same honor
price as the common bóaire), macfhuirmid, and fochloc.
These grades set out the career path of the profes-
sional poet. Each grade marked his mastery of increas-
ingly advanced poetical meters. (Beneath the lowest