TÚATHthe earlier practice whereby the over king’s leading
vassals might expect to be in his service for two or
three weeks in any given year. To compensate the
vassals for their extended service, the king rewarded
them with tuarastal.
Over kings also bestowed vassals with tuarastal at
the time of their submission. Later still in the Anglo-
Norman period tuarastalcame to mean a purely mon-
etary transaction, with Anglo-Norman armies hiring
themselves to Irish kings without any sense of subor-
dination or political vassalage.
MICHAEL BYRNES
References and Further Reading
Dillon, Myles, ed. and transl. Lebor na Cert: The Book of
Rights, vol.46. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1962.
Doherty, Charles. “Exchange and Trade in Early Medieval
Ireland.” Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of
Ireland110 (1980): 67–89.
Ó Corráin, Donncha. Ireland Before the Normans. Dublin: Gill
and Macmillan, 1972.
Simms, Katharine. From Kings to Warlords: The Changing
Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle
Ages. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1987.
See alsoArmies; Feudalism; Kings and Kingship;
Military Service, Gaelic; Military Service,
Anglo-Norman
TÚATH
In Early Irish society the túath(pluraltúatha; people,
tribe; country, territory; the state, as opposed to the
church) was the basic territorial unit to which every
individual belonged. It could also refer to the laity
residing there. It is usually translated as “petty king-
dom” or “tribe,” although neither is a completely accu-
rate translation. The túathwas a small political unit—
much smaller than the contemporary kingdoms of
Mercia or Kent in England. It has been variously esti-
mated that there were as many as one hundred túatha
in Ireland between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Prov-
inces were made up of several such túatha, each with
its own king. With an estimated population in Ireland
of roughly 500,000, an average túathwould have had
around five thousand members. Despite the fact that
thetúathwas a rather small unit, it was the center of
almost all social, political, and religious interaction for
its members.
The boundaries of a túathwere often defined by
bog, woodland, or mountains, but it would usually also
have had an area of well-cultivated land, that is a mag
(plain), contained within it. Some túathawere named
after the mag, for example, Mag Cerai from the terri-
tory of the Fir Cherai. Each túathhad its own sacred
site where its kings were inaugurated. Such sites were
often signified by a sacred flagstone (lecc) or some-
times by a sacred tree (bile). To remove or destroy
these was one of the most grave violations that could
befall a túath.
According to the law tracts a túathmust have a
church, an ecclesiastical scholar, a poet, and a king.
Of these, the king was perhaps the most important to
thetúath. All free men of the túathowed him loyalty,
and he in turn acted as their appointed representative
in all matters concerning the túathand its neighbors.
It was through the king that the túathmadecairde
(pacts) with other túatha. The king was also responsi-
ble for summoning a slógad(hosting) to defend the
túathor to launch an attack as required. The king might
also become a client to another, more powerful king,
thus placing the túathin a network of túathaled by a
regional or even a provincial ruler.
Althoughtúathis often translated as “petty king-
dom” it also refers to the people of that kingdom; thus
túath has the additional meaning of “people” or “tribe.”
This sense is particularly important with regard to the
functioning of the Early Irish law codes. An individual
had very limited rights outside his or her own túath,
and in fact to leave one’s túathpermanently was con-
sidered dishonorable. The exceptions to this were mem-
bers of the church (priests, monks, abbots, and bishops
who fell under the ecclesiastical laws), poets (members
of the learned class), and kings, as well as a woman
marrying into a family outside her own túath. For ordi-
nary people, leaving the boundary of the túath could be
very dangerous, unless a treaty had been agreed guar-
anteeing the protection of the individual while in
anothertúath. Without such a treaty a stranger could
legally be killed, because once outside his own túath
he no longer had any éraic(honor price), thus leaving
his kin-group with no means of legal redress. Thus, the
Early Irish legal system, which was essentially a system
of civil law, was tied to the túath, although the laws
themselves were uniform across all túatha.
It is partly due to this system of law, as well as to
the segmentation of ruling dynasties, that the túath
continued to have a place in Irish society. The túatha
enabled the great dynasties to maintain a degree of
cohesion, and to stem competition for the over-
kingship by allowing the heads of subordinate
branches to be kings of their own túatha. This practice
helped to preserve the system of petty kingdoms into
the post-Viking period.
However, the king never had executive command
over the túath. Rather, the Law worked through a sys-
tem of pledges and bindings using the individual’s
honor price. These pledges were administered by law-
yers. In addition the túathdid not provide the king
with any real tax base, nor did he have control of a