presided over their royal courts. But the king most
likely pronounced the judgment recommended to him
by his brehon. Kings were also empowered to pass
emergency regulations in times of war and pestilence.
These edicts were probably as narrowly focused as
they were temporary, and no fragment of any of them
survives.
On the other hand, a vast treasury of judge’s law
survives. The principal monument is the Senchas Már,
“The Great Collection of Traditional Learning.” This
consisted of about fifty separate texts. Twenty-one of
these survive more or less intact, and fragments of
most of the others remain. Most of the texts deal with
a discrete topic of law. For example, the first text in
theSenchas Már is a tract “On the Four Divisions of
Distraint” (Di Chetharshlicht Athgabála). Distraint
was a process by which parties could force their oppo-
nents to court by impounding their cattle.
Specific Topics of Law
Relatively little is known about Irish court procedure.
Notable features are the use of trained advocates, the
prominence given to the evidence of eyewitnesses,
and the right to appeal if a judge had made an error
of law. There was no jury. Formal oaths setting out
an allegation or denial had to be supported by a fixed
number of “oath-helpers” of good reputation. If a
party could not prove their case by bringing eye-
witnesses, they could resort to an ordeal, such as
casting lots, “trial by battle,” or the ordeal of the
cauldron. (The latter involved plunging one’s hand
into boiling water. The hands of the truthful were
assumed to heal promptly.)
A person’s legal status was dependent on his or
her degree of wealth or professional training, and each
grade in society had its own “honor-price.” It is some-
times claimed that the status of women in early Irish
law was considerably more advanced than that in com-
parable medieval cultures. But that claim finds little,
if any, factual support in the laws. Most legal rights
were dependent on the ownership of property, and
most property was owned by men. Land was passed
down through kin-groups which were agnatic, that is,
reckoned through the male line. A man’s land was
inherited in equal shares by his sons. Only when a
man had no sons would his land pass to his daughters,
and then only for their lifetimes. Upon their deaths,
the land was redistributed among their father’s male
relations.
Acts of violence were generally settled by a pay-
ment of compensation known as an éricfine. If a free
person was murdered, the éricwas equal to 21 cows,
regardless of the victim’s rank in society. In addition,
each member of the victim’s agnatic kin received a
payment based on their own honor-price. There were
separate payments for the kin-group of the victim’s
mother, and for the victim’s foster-kin. (Many Irish
children were brought up by foster-parents.) If this
compensation was not paid, the members of any of
these three separate kin-groupings could take ven-
geance against the offender’s kin.
In cases of injury, a number of different fines were
paid to the victim. The first component was again
theéricfine, which varied with the nature of the
injury. Injuries involving scarring or permanent dam-
age incurred additional payments. On top of this, the
injured person was entitled to a set fraction of their
honor-price. Fines were halved if the injury was the
result of mere negligence. The fact that Brehon law
recognized a distinction between accident, negli-
gence, and deliberate harm is a notable aspect of its
sophistication.
Persons seriously injured through negligence were
entitled to “sick-maintenance.” In the early texts, the
key feature of sick-maintenance was the dingabáil
(removal) of the injured person from their home. They
were taken away to be nursed and cared for in a suit-
able residence. They were entitled to be accompanied
by a retinue appropriate to their status in society, and
food of a defined standard had to be provided for the
whole party. In addition, the offender had to pay for
the fees charged by the physician. (Those fees are set
out in the text Bretha Déin Chécht, The Judgments of
Dian Cécht.) The offender also had to provide a sub-
stitute to perform the injured person’s duties during
their period of convalescence. In the case of intentional
injuries (and in the case of some high-status persons),
removal on sick-maintenance was replaced by a pay-
ment which varied with the status of the victim. In
time this payment became the norm in cases of negli-
gence as well, and the older institution of physical
removal faded away.
After kinship, the most important legal institution
appears to have been clientship. Members of the free
farming classes would become the clients of noble-
men, in return for grants of cattle. (These farmers
generally farmed their own land.) In return, they
owed their lords annual payments of food and fixed
amounts of labor. Clientship agreements lasted for
the life of the lord. When the client died, his heirs
carried on the clientship agreement until the lord’s
death. Between nobles, too, there was a form of cli-
entship which established hierarchies of homage and
political support.
Contracts were supported by witnesses, whose job
it was to remember the terms of the contracts, and by
sureties who undertook to ensure those terms were
fulfilled. Irish contract law required anyone sellingBREHON LAW