SOCIETY, FUNCTIONING OF GAELICideas of royal authority. Like their contemporaries
elsewhere in Europe, they claimed paramount rights
over the land and its inhabitants, including the right
to transfer these rights to monasteries and, probably,
individuals. Again, the later Gaelic world which came
into existence after the second, and even greater,
shock of the Anglo-Norman invasion and the partial
conquest which followed it had been followed in turn
by the Gaelic Revival, which involved the passing
into the Gaelic cultural sphere in a greater or lesser
degree of most of the lordships of Anglo-Norman
origin and was very different from the earlier one.
The title of king (rí) gradually passed into desuetude.
In the legal sphere native Irish law absorbed elements
of English law and, in its last two centuries, like that
of every other European country except England, was
moving towards an acceptance of the “common law”
(Jus Commune) of Europe, the system composed of
the Roman and Canon Laws and favored by the
church. An example of this was the replacement of
the earlier marriage system based on the coibhche or
bride price by one that required the woman to bring
a dowry to her husband. Nevertheless, by a manipu-
lation of the Canon Law rules governing marriage,
the Irish upper classes were able to continue their
practice of serial marriage.
Nevertheless, certain predominant features of
Gaelic Irish society persist throughout the medieval
period and down to its final destruction in the early
seventeenth century. The most notable is the constant
proliferation of the dynastic and other dominant lin-
eages, so that there is a recurrent process of replace-
ment from the top downwards as the offshoots of the
ruling lineage take the place of former locally domi-
nant groups and are in their turn supplanted by the
most recent offshoots of the lineage, the immediate
offspring of ruling lords. The displaced elements in
turn replace their former inferiors, who descend - if
they survive – into the propertyless bottom layer of
the population. This proliferation, found also in the
other Celtic countries, Scotland and Wales, contrasts
starkly with the usual Western European situation
where ruling lineages tend to die out and be replaced
by others ascending from below. In a lineage-based
society, where power, property, and status are con-
ferred by membership of a high-ranking descent group,
a woman maximizes the opportunities for her children
by having them fathered by a man belonging to such
a group, so that in such societies there is in fact a
competition for women that favors the dominant lin-
eages. In Gaelic Ireland, an inclusive rule of legitimacy
and an easy process of affiliation produced the same
effects as, for example, chiefly polygyny in Bantu
Africa. This proliferation from the top characterizes
Gaelic Irish society throughout its history, being as
true of dynastic lineages such as the Uí Dúnlainge and
Uí Chennselaig in Leinster in the early medieval period
as of Mac Murchada (MacMurrogh), Mág Uidir
(Maguire) and Ua Néill (O’Neill), as well as those of
Anglo-Norman descent, such as Burkes, Butlers, and
FitzGeralds, in the later. The process ensured that the
structures of power and landholding in Gaelic society
were dynamic rather than static, and coupled with the
mechanisms of succession to power (theoretically by
seniority but in practice, as was recognized from the
earliest period, to “the person who possesses most
clients and power” within the ruling lineage), ensured
continuing political instability and frequent bloody
struggles for succession (see Tánaiste). Out of these
uncertain mechanisms of succession grew the principle
of “segmentary opposition,” by which those sections
of the ruling lineage that were out of power would
automatically oppose the ruling chief (drawn from a
rival section) and ally themselves with his enemies,
that is to say, the external enemies of their own people.
This was as true of sixteenth-century Ireland as it was
of the eighth.
Another feature of Gaelic society in all periods was
the importance of the corporate lineage-group (in
anthropological terminology, the “clan,” a term derived
through Scotland from the Gaelic clann). The Gaelic
term in the earlier period was fine, a term which
(although it continued in use in Gaelic Scotland) was
in Ireland replaced in the later Middle Ages by sliocht
(literally “section,” rendered in English as “sept”).
Although the law-tracts lay down precise definitions
of the extent of the fine, it has been plausibly suggested
that these were in fact paradigms, and certainly in the
latest period, the boundaries of the sliocht were deter-
mined by individual practice. The corporate lineage-
group was the landowning unit, its land being divided
between its members on a shifting basis, either every
year or on the death of an individual member. When
it became too extended over generations, it could or
would break up into separate groups, each operating
on the same basis. Bloodshed within the clan arising
out of landholding was almost a norm. Because the clan
itself was the unit for prosecuting the homicide of a
member, killing within the clan presented legal diffi-
culties and could in practice lead to retaliation in kind.
In theory, crimes such as homicide and theft were
matters for private suit and, following an award by a
brehon (breitheamh), to the payment of compensation.
The blood price (éraic) for homicide was determined
by the status of the victim: the compensation for theft
was twice the value of the stolen object. In the later
period, however, local rulers were imposing fines and
penalties far in excess of the compensation awarded
to the victim and taking the larger part of the éraic for
themselves, while certain crimes that outraged public